“Yes,” I insist, furious that he’s so far fucking lost he can’t even carry a conversation. “You did. You said to come with you—”
“No,” he interrupts, his raspy voice a little sharper, a little louder now. “Tell the truth, Leigh. Why’d you get in the car? Why did I just watch you throw everything good in your life away?”
Fire swallows me whole.
I fall, and there’s nothing to hold onto.
There’s nothing but the darkness of knowing he’s right.
I scream.
And scream.
And strain to keep screaming until my throat’s scratched raw.
Opening my eyes, I see red.
My fate stands tall across from me in shades of blood and black. He hasn’t advanced, but I realize as I look that I’ve lifted my hands at some point. I’m holding them up, palms out, telling this person without a word to keep the fuck away.
“What am I supposed to do?” Tears pour from me. I sound failure-filled. “Am I supposed to stay here and watch you do this? Be soft and sweet to you while you snort your life away?”
I can’t breathe. I’ve opened an inferno inside myself.
“Am I supposed to take you back again? Be your girl? Am I supposed to ask my dad to walk me down the aisle so you can put a ring on my finger between lines? You want me to hold your hand while you kill us both? What the fuck am I supposed to do, Thomas?”
Fire spreads into an ocean and love—
Love never taught me how to swim.
He taught me how to cling to him, and all I want in this moment is to pull him under with me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I cry, hatefully alone. “You’re never going to change. No matter what I do or where we go, if we’re together or not … you’re a loser, and you’re never going to stop hurting me.”
What’s real falls on a boy that doesn’t budge. Tears spill from my eyes while his don’t even blink, and this is it.
Love is sinking, and it’s taking us both.
Love is knowing this is just as much my fault as his, because I allowed it. I invited it when I pushed his patience at every turn. I made love lie. I made love a secret when he begged me not to. I betrayed love.
Pins that used to be butterflies stick through my heart and lungs, and I choke.
“You left me.” I point my finger between cries. “I’ve loved you my whole life, and all you do is leave me.”
My chest caves in.
Thomas’ black eyes glass over as I catch my breath. His breathing is unsteady too. He swallows, and I see his Adam’s apple and all the muscles around it work. I swear I see his pulse writhe for every beat. He looks like unstable, impending devastation, and when he steps, he moves with a grace only hunting can bestow.
“I fucked some girl,” he says, emotionless. “Last October, the night before I came home.”
My entire frame shakes, out of control, but I’m stuck, frozen in flames. Stepping closer, Thomas bears down with wild black and drops the pitch and volume of his voice.
“I couldn’t pick her face out of a lineup.”
Red, heart-shaped sunglasses and a veil of pale and putrid gentleness burn the backs of my eyes. I’ll never forget her static-screened face, and the one who chose her wouldn’t know her if he saw her again.
I swallow everything but bitter hate. “I heard.”
Pure volatility’s temper spikes. He steps closer, and I step back, and as we circle, I can feel his anger in the air like a living, enmity-breathing being right here in the room with us.
Pushing with his words like he’s pushed me with his silence, he says, “I don’t even know her name, Leigh.”
I don’t move, but I’m aware suddenly that I can. Standing taller and glaring up, I close my hands to keep from striking out.
“I do,” I say, and it’s more than just a trigger for this person.
It breaks his back.
In a matter of seconds, Dusty flips the desk and speakers go flying. Drawers fall and crack open and the legs break loudly. I stagger back as he stalks forward in the chaos, black eyes lost and darting around the room before locking on mine.
Keeping my hands up as I move, I protect the only thing that’s protecting me: distance.
He sniffs, and all I see is Her all over him.
Filled with his nearness, my pulse pounds a storm from my chest to my ears. I tremble from the inside out in dangerous proximity, because even though I keep stepping back, he remains constantly close enough to reach out and grab me.
But he doesn’t.
He maintains my space and searches my eyes high and low, pushing me with incurable black, and when I don’t back down, he pushes harder.
“I fucked Valarie for years,” he says, gutted and tormenting. “I fucked her, and I got into bed with you.”
Disloyalty pulls like a millstone around my neck.
“I lied to you,” he pushes. “Over and over.”
Instincts cut up my spine, telling me to leave and never look back. That’s what this boy wants, but I’m cleaved to this fight with all that I am.
Self-centered and life-taking pushes harder.
“I use you,” he says. “Just like I used her.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I spit.
Turning away from me, Dusty pulls breaths like fumes through his nose. He clenches and unclenches impatient fingers, stepping from our fight and turning. He’s shifty-unsteady and I know he wants to break something. This is killing him, and the distance I’m making him keep is hell.
I breathe shallow and quickly. It’s nothing like how I’ve taught myself to, but steady between fear and ire as my broken heart paces and turns. Showing me his profile as he faces the only exit, he drags a hand down his face, thinking.
He sniffs.
He blinks.
He sniffs again.
Dusty breathes, and I can see him deciding and rethinking, and his look makes me nervous. His black softens with hopeless warmth as he turns straight to me. Hands in his pockets, all endless eyes and mournful shoulders, he makes the bottom of the ocean burn.
Love seeks, but it’s too late.
He speaks words he can’t ever take back the same second I realize saving us means saving myself.
“I had sex with her for the first time after that day on the porch swing with you.”
My soul unravels.
I don’t want this truth.
Memories choke me as I try to speak.
“You … That day—”
I close my eyes, and my own dirty feet and Dusty's brand new shoes, side by side on his mother’s front porch swing four years ago, crumble to a thousand pieces in my mind.
“Rule number one is that you have to always smile when I’m around.”
“Fine, but I have a rule, too.”
“What is it?”
“You have to always tell me where you’re going.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not even the same, Leigh.”
“It’s still a rule, and rule number three is that you have to follow rule number two, always.”
“I told you where I was going,” Thomas says, opening my eyes.
But I look at him, standing still, and all I feel is gone.
Love is what nightmares are made of, and when my bad dream speaks, his voice is so hushed and hollow it barely enters my ears.
“You’re not smiling,” he pushes, two tears rolling fast down each of his cheeks.
I can’t do this.
I can’t live this moment.
Shifting my feet to run, to leave this state of being, I step back, and it all happens fast. I don’t know if the give is in my footing or the floor, but my heels stumble and I lose balance. Thomas reaches to catch me, but I’d rather fall.
The second his hands close around my arms, I strike. I hit his chest, his shoulders, his jaw, everywhere I can.
“I hate you!” I cry out, hysterical and beyond. “I fucking hate y
ou.”
Past unyielding, gathering fistfuls of my hair and my dress, his hold swallows me whole while he digs his nose into the bend of my neck. He opens his mouth and I close my eyes, begging God for strength because I feel everything I can’t deny. My heart, my hurt, every sense of self-preservation and all my hostility and distrust, want this person.
Dusty’s the source of everything in me that aches and hates, and all I want in the whole world is for him to hold me closer.
Our feet stumble as we struggle, and I clutch onto him for life.
“Why are we like this?” I cry. “I don’t want to be like this.”
Broken breaths burn my skin as love clings every bit as violently tight to me.
“Tell me to leave you alone,” my boy begs, drained and dying. “Tell me to let you go. Tell me you don’t love me.”
I lie well, but I can’t say those words, and this time when I hit Thomas, I grip onto his layers and he chokes out a sob as I gather him recklessly and completely to myself. I fight to get him closer and I can feel him, breathing and fighting and holding on too, and all I can think is here he is.
This is my soul.
Right here.
This is a life that exists just for me, and I closed my hands in hatred and raised them against him in anger.
Drowning, I strain and struggle to stay with Thomas. He shifts and I panic, but love covers my hands with his own.
His touch is heavy and slow and all I want in the world.
It started a minute ago, or a few, or some seconds. It’s hard to say. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, but the scent of clean linen and stolen smoke surrounds us, and Thomas holds me close, brushing his thumb along the bottom of my stomach.
Exhausted under the weight of waking, I stretch for comfort.
With my back against his chest, he brings me firmly to himself. Swift between my shoulders, his heart beats as he drags his nose along my neck, breathing me in. He presses where his fingers were just brushing, and my chest tightens. My eyelids burn from crying and breathing takes effort. Everything aches, dull and awful and raw.
Sliding his hand between my legs, love doesn’t let me hesitate. He slips under my dress and covers me with his palm, and everything that aches warms under his touch. My pulse fully wakes, thrilling my veins as I open for him, knees bending and wedges I still wear sliding along hotel sheets. Burying my face into pillows that aren’t his but smell so much like him, I lift my hips and love that split my spirit rubs my softest place with quick, capable fingers.
Persistent through cotton, he’s much wider awake than I am. From the pattern of his breathing to the measure of his touch, he’s concentrating and purposeful. I reach down, chasing the fires he’s lighting with every circle, and he curves our fingers together, making me touch at his pace, and it’s so good I sing for him.
Shifting quickly, Thomas kneels between my legs. Dizzy and disoriented, I blink my eyes and make them adjust. Early sunset paints the room dark gold. It falls across my boy in long slanted lines from blinds that were closed and are now parted by something thrown or broken.
Unstill, Dusty’s a shifting blur of bronze-sunlit blond hair and a stretched out, torn up gray tee. He buries his face in my neck as he sinks against me, hips to heart, and gives me all of his weight. Unsparingly hard between my legs, he moves with intentional and unapologetic rhythm that makes my dress ride up and sparks open behind my eyes. He brings my hand to his neck, and under my touch, the heart of love beats heedlessly, making my own pick up.
My blood trembles and hums as I lift, close, so close.
“Come on,” he whispers, rough and deep, thick with insistence under my ear.
Gripping with both hands, I arch so hard up and into him that my body leaves the bed. My cries come undone and I cling to the person taking me apart.
When my shoulders and back touch blankets again, I feel lighter, lifted. Breathing comes easier with Thomas like this, surrounding and in between, above and beyond, all over me, but heavy love moves quickly in my haze.
I clench my fingers into my dress as he reaches under it, pulling cotton out of his way and sliding me open with his fingers like he’s searching. Biting my lip through his ungentleness, I take him in.
Sundown-glowing and caught up, Dusty’s beautiful this way.
He touches me without shame or uncertainty, pressing and sliding inside and all over. It’s indelicate but so wanted, and when he shifts his other hand under my back, making me arch higher and open wider, I bend like I was born to. Trouble holds me in place like the natural, unavoidable phenomenon that gives weight to all things and presses so deeply my hold on everything shakes.
Low and coarse, his whisper covers me.
“It’s going to hurt more if you’re not ready.”
Flutters dip and tingles tighten while heartbeats crowd my throat. I tense up and push at him while panic and need fight inside me.
I can’t—
Sliding deeper, Thomas strokes fingers that know where I’m most nervous and desperate, and I strain against him, pleading with my whole body.
“Come on,” he whispers again, so low it sinks into me with his touch. “Come, baby.”
I can’t help it.
Breathtaken and lost, I’m still spinning when Thomas leans up abruptly. Pulling cotton away, he takes my hands and presses them between my legs, pushing my fingers where his just were, inside.
“Keep your hands right here. Just like this,” he says, sliding his fingers along mine, showing me how he wants me to open and touch.
Following his heavy pressure and quick rhythm, I open my eyes as Dusty leans onto his knees. He reaches for my left foot but watches me, and lust flickers under my skin while shame swims through my bloodstream.
I blush so hard I burn, but I don’t stop.
While I circle and slide and profane for this boy, he unclasps my shoe with nimble fingers and tosses it aside. Yearning, I bend my leg around him and rub my bare foot along his denim-covered calf while he reaches for my other ankle. Black eyes shift between my own, my hands and back to my eyes, making intimacy I’ve only ever felt with love bloom sweetly through me as I push deeper, giving in to need with curved fingers and obscene fervor.
Broken beyond repair doesn’t look it as he works the other little white buckle open. Assertive confidence hardens the contours of his face while light and dark fall across him in stark lines. Dusty looks sure of himself and stronger than just nineteen and two days, and reality claws at me. I don’t stop touching, but my chest tightens painfully, and I close my eyes.
In the same second my shoe leaves my foot, Thomas throws it, and the thump against the wall pulls my eyes open just as quickly as if he’d told me to.
Fated and filled with dark, his look enfolds a wave of panic over all my passion.
Grabbing the bottom of his shirt, he pulls it up and off. It leaves his dirty hair sticking out in every direction while sunset and shadows slant across his bare chest, and between tightly pouted lips and tighter drawn brows, it’s all too much. I reach up as my disaster reaches for his belt and he smiles, sad and daring.
“You think you’re going to stop me, L?” he asks, unbuckling right under my hands.
Bearing down on me with loaded irises, he gives me an insubstantial fragment of a moment to reply. When I don’t, when I tighten my grip on his wrists, he reaches under my dress again. Only this time, he doesn’t touch where I’m slick and aching.
Gripping my hips, Thomas lines me up directly beneath him.
“I can’t even stop myself,” he whispers, pressing his hands into my thighs until I’m more open and bare to him than I’ve ever been.
With my hands still around his wrists, my heart pounds against my chest, shaking my whole body with the force of each beat, but not in fear. The weight of love is tremendous, but I’m not afraid of this person. I want all of him. I’ve always wanted him.
Eyes locked on Dusty’s, I lift my hips to feel where I need him most, but
his hands are in the way. Rough knuckles slide where I’m most tender as he undoes the first button of his jeans.
“Do it,” he says softly, undoing another button while my eyes close and I arch higher.
“Come on, girl,” he half bids, half begs, his voice a solemn shade of the sound I fell in love with.
Undoing another button, he moves his hand. Mostly undone and irresistibly hard, he rocks against me.
“Tell me to stop.”
But he feels so good my head falls back and I revel in the contact.
The bed shifts and embittered love snatches me up, tugging and tearing my dress away. Still in his undone black jeans with his belt hanging open, he tries to lay me down in my never-more-nakedness, but I wrap around him and hold fiercely tight because in the split second he flipped from broken to resentful, so did I.
After years of no, baby, and we won't be like that, this is it how it happens?
Digging my knees into his sides and my nails into his neck, I fight this liar until I draw blood and he groans.
Like my difficulty is nothing, Dusty presses me down into the bed, and he’s the one that says it.
“Stop.”
The harshness of his tone and the force of my pulse throttle all my nerves. I push and pull harder for control of what I want most, lifting my hips eagerly for it, and the boy who sets my heart free is no gentleman. He lets me fight him as he pushes his clothes down, but then he’s there—not within, but between and heavily against—and pinning my hands under his.
My inhale shatters in my throat, and I close my eyes, curving completely up and into this person as he slides slowly, soaking himself. He drops his face to my neck, covering my skin with warm breaths and a sound that comes from lower than his chest. As he moves, my entire body opens. Every push-slide makes my whole world part to accommodate him from between my lungs all the way out to my legs, so wide it hurts.
But it’s home-welcoming.
My fingers and toes curl, and my pulse drops deep into the heart of my aching. Every inch of my skin tingles for every inch of his, and I feel like I’m going to burn into pure light, but Thomas stops mid-slide and moans into my neck as he presses the head of himself against me.
Delinquents (Dusty #2) Page 19