Grey: The Encounter (Spectrum Series Book 1)

by Allison White

  He gives me one last reluctant nod before letting Jaimie pull him out of the house. I watch them leave with growing worry. The liquor that was once pumping through my body has almost vanished completely. The fight was more than enough to sober me up.

  I turn on my feet and push through the crowds still buzzing with excitement. It disgusts me that something as violent and terrible as that could be entertainment for them. But it does not confuse me as to why Grey would think fighting Mason was okay—he fights for a living. And I have never felt so much disgust toward it until now.

  I push through crowds and ignore the whistles from drunk frat boys. I finally make it up to the second floor and find my way to the bathroom door. I knock and call out, “I just need to get a few items then I’ll be out!” I get back a disgruntled reply and wrench the door open anyway. I won’t even take long. I stumble when opening the bathroom door. I guess the liquor is still in me. Especially when my eyes land on the very last person I wanted to see.

  Grey.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he spits at me. His words shake and are entwined with inky toxins. The hostility slices across my heart.

  I open my mouth to reply, but I can’t because my words are stuck in my throat. And no matter how much I try to get them out, they can’t leave my tongue. Because when my eyes connect with his that mirrors a black hole, and the further down I look into them, the more I really want to let any words dissipate and make sure he is okay.

  “Are you suddenly deaf? Get out!” he snaps, storming toward me.

  “Are you okay?” I don’t budge when he towers above me. I look into his shady eyes.

  “What is wrong with you? I said to get out!”

  “What happened to you?” I shout, cutting his words off. My chest rises and falls in a rhythm. I can feel my blood rushing to my head and my cheeks swell.

  He looks taken aback. “What are you talking about?” He reaches forward and throws the door open behind me. “Just get out, Olivia!”

  “Like hell I will.” I jam my foot in the door and hear it slam shut after I enter. “You weren’t acting like an asshole yesterday. You were actually affectionate and helpful. Now all of a sudden, you’re a huge dick and for no reason. I don’t get it. What went wrong? And don’t lie to me and tell me it’s just how you are, because a big part of me thinks that’s just bullshit,” I rant, cursing more than I would have liked, but God dang it! His inconsistent mood swings have given me whiplash, and I can’t help but lash out.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” He chuckles menacingly. He brings his hands up, and I think he’s going to actually hurt me by the way he’s turning red and grinding his teeth, but he just gently pushes me against the door and slaps his hands on either side of my head, trapping me with his body.

  The air between us sizzles with heat. His body feels like a thousand degrees against mine, and I can smell the marijuana and liquor on him and the distinct smell of blood. I am suddenly very aware of the fact that his shirt is splattered with blood, and so is his hard stomach.

  “What’s obvious?”

  “We can’t be friends. We never could. I only agreed to entertain your ridiculous idea that we could actually get along.”

  “But we did—!”

  “Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” he snaps. He smacks his hands against the wood, and I gasp as the door vibrates. I suck in a deep breath and gulp when he lowers his head and says in a low, vile tone, “You’re too fucking stuck up your own ass, and you wear khakis, for Christ’s sake. Didn’t my appearance tip off that I’m not the cardigan-wearing guy someone like you could actually have a relationship—hell, anything—with? I’m too different. Bad, even, and your little pure soul would never be able to catch up with me. There’s no use, Liv.”

  “Don’t call me that!” I snap, pushing against him as tears form in my eyes. I want to wipe them away and suck up the little pride that remains after he shattered me, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. “You mean you’re too mean—no, mean is too standard—I mean cruel. Vile, even! Because that’s what you are. A cruel, vile person who only thinks about himself. What you did downstairs was totally uncalled for! I was having fun, but that big head of yours just had to get in the way and mess everything up, as usual!”

  “Which part? Huh?” He steps forward with a wicked snarl on his lips as he snorts. “Me beating up that little prick, or the fact that I was with Diana, who I fucked madly just before you arrived…?”

  The gasp that leaves me is unintentional. I feel my heart sink. “Screw you, Grey.” The tears falling down my cheeks contradict my words. I turn and, with shaky hands, open the door.

  I look over my shoulder and choke on a sob before telling him, “I really thought you were a good person. That we could actually be friends. To think I actually saw more than a manwhore who is so obsessed with getting laid every five minutes. From now on, leave me alone. And I mean it.”

  He opens his mouth, and for once, he looks genuinely hurt and regretful. He even holds out his hand. Reaches for me. But I glare at it like it’s the head of a snake and shake my head.

  I rush out of the bathroom and stumble my way around the corner. These damned heels!

  I lean against a wall and frustratingly peel them off one by one, tucking them under my arms. I’m just starting down the stairs when my pocket buzzes. Muttering curses under my breath, I grab my phone and slide my finger across the screen. I nearly buckle to the ground.

  Jaime: Car is busted. Getting it fixed early in the morning. We gotta stay the night. Putting Mason in an empty room on the first floor. Third door on the right.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I mumble. I just wanted to leave this damned party and sleep off every horrible event that took place so far. But I can’t even do that. The idea of asking Grey to drop us off crosses my mind, and I almost turn around and suck up every word I said and tear I dropped, but then I hear those painful words he lashed out with, and I suck up a breath and lean off the wall. I guess I can just sleep it off here.

  “Liv, wait!” a shout booms close behind.

  Grey.

  I turn around, ready to curse him out and beg him to leave me alone. But I don’t even get the chance to utter a word. He runs up to me, pushes me against the wall, and does the very last thing I ever expected.

  He smashes his lips against mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I am frozen, shock filling my very core. My mind is running wild with a million different thoughts running from one end to the other. The only thing I can think of is how his mouth is extremely soft and tastes like metal and how I imagine a cigarette would taste. Intoxicating and poisonous, but deliciously addicting.

  I let my eyes close and sink into his arms. My body relaxes into his chest. His breath is warm and ignites a fire within my chest. His hands move to my butt. I gasp at the abruptness and make an unknown sound. I’ve never been touched…there before, by a guy. Or kissed. And the fact that both are being done by the same guy I swore off minutes before makes my brain hurt.

  But I don’t want to listen to my brain. I want to listen to my raging hormones and the powerful liquor starting up inside my veins.

  His mouth falls open. Mine does the same. That same unidentifiable sound I made before slips out of my mouth and reverberates into his. My skin quivers and brittles with goosebumps. The feeling is exhilarating and hard to identify. I slide my tongue against his and feel my entire body heat up when he groans—nearly growls—into my mouth. His hands squeeze me tighter until I glide my bare foot against his leg.

  Next thing I know, I am hoisted up against the wall, his massive body weight pressing me closer until all the breath knocks out of me and into him. I feel his long eyelashes flutter against mine before he takes a hold of my hair and removes his mouth from my lips.

  I nearly whimper at the loss of contact, but he quickly makes up for it by pressing his lips against my neck. The feeling of his tongue and teeth sucking and grazing
my flushed skin feels out of this world. I grip his shoulders and buck my hips against the hem of his jeans. He groans and hums as he sucks on my neck. I let out a shuddered breath and whisper something incoherent in his ear.

  This feels too intimate to be showcased in front of drunk bystanders and horny frat guys.

  I must have asked him to take me somewhere more private, because the next thing I know, we’re moving, and soon enough, my back bounces against a soft bedspread. He comes down after me and glides against my body before attaching his lips to mine. I tangle my fingers in his short, black hair and focus on how amazing his muscular, hot body feels against mine.

  I make a strange sound as I arch my back when he glides his hand down my lower back, pressing me up into his bare chest. The front of his jeans is hard, and the thought of it touching me makes me strangely…excited.

  Before I know it, my shirt is on the ground, and my bare chest—pushed up by this god-forsaken bra—is against his, and I swear when his eyes glance down at it, I nearly melt in his hands. His eyes grow darker, if possible, and he pulls his bottom lip inside his mouth. He leans forward again and crashes his metallic bittersweet lips onto mine. I suck on his tangy bottom lip and collide my tongue against his. Wet, warm, and dominating. Stars explode behind my eyes as I find every inch of his mouth and claim it as mine, as he does with mine.

  “Oh, Grey,” I let out a moan into his mouth, trailing my hands down his back and up again with my nails scraping his golden skin. I don’t know how hard I am scraping him or if I’m even inflicting pain, but what I do know is that I have never felt so alive. I want to be so much closer. Skin to skin. Warmth against warmth. I want his flames to consume me whole.

  “Fucking Christ, Liv,” he groans, grinding his body against mine. He reaches behind him, grabs my wrists, and pins them by my head. But I need to touch him. Removing my hands from his grip, I hold his face and take my time exploring his warm and slightly bloody mouth.

  Wait.

  Liv…

  Only Mason calls me that.

  Mason.

  “Get off of me!” I tilt my head back and kick and flail my arms. I press my hands against his mouth and use all of my energy to push him back. He falls onto his butt and sharply curses at me. Everything hits me at once, and it hurts like a bitch. Ten minutes ago, he almost beat the crap out of Mason, I cursed him out and swore him off, and then he kissed me, basically against my will. But I’m not going to lie—I kissed him back. A lot. Only because I was, and still am, intoxicated out of my mind. I didn’t know what I was doing.

  “What the fuck, Liv?” He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. Me. Me! If anything, I’m the sane one here. Who listens to a person tell them they never want to see them again and then goes up to them and kisses them? A person who has lost their mind, of course. Who probably didn’t have their mind to begin with.

  “What the hell was that?” I question him, my head suddenly feeling very heavy.

  “I know you’re still used to praying every night, but that, my dear, sweet Princess, was called kissing.” His words are slow and child-like. I glare at him and almost kick the bulge in his pants. My cheeks heat when I think about how I…erected that. Poor choice of words, but it’s true. A sense of pride thunders through me, but I shake it away and replace it with confusion and anger. Two emotions I know I am supposed to feel at this moment.

  “I know that, but why did you do it? Kiss me? Did you not hear me clearly in the bathroom?”

  “Oh, I heard you.” His smirk makes me want to smack it off, but I have to keep myself composed. If I don’t, I know I’ll be undone and become insane, possibly exposing every thought possible running rampant through my head.

  “Then why did you kiss me?” I nearly scream, scrambling against the headboard while fumbling for my shirt. When I sit back up and hold the thin fabric against my chest, I see he’s staring at me with an unreadable expression.

  “Because I had to stop you from leaving,” he replies nonchalantly.

  I stand and laugh hysterically as I pull on my shirt. Not because any of this is funny, but because I don’t know what else to do. “Are you serious? What kind of person kisses another person to ‘stop them from leaving’?” I put up air quotations.

  “The kind of person who…” He stops himself and looks away.

  “The kind of person who—what?”

  “Nothing,” he says dismissively. He stands and starts for the door. Oh, heck no! I rush over to the door and stand in front of it, holding my hand out. “Get out of the way, Liv,” he says through gritted teeth, arching his eyebrows.

  “Not until you finish that sentence,” I tell him firmly.

  He rolls his eyes and clicks his tongue in his mouth. “Don’t act like you didn’t like that just now, Princess.” He’s changing the subject.

  “I didn’t…” I look away to escape his smoldering look. He drops his head and succeeds in catching my gaze. Damn it. “You could have just called my name, but why would you need to, anyway? I already told you I didn’t want to be near you again, only after you told me yourself we weren’t compatible. How I was so stuck up and how you just…messed with Diana, knowing damn well how much I despise her—”

  “You’re jealous of her, aren’t you?” he cuts me off, picking only that part to get an unnecessary reaction out of me.

  “I am not jealous of her,” I say, almost offended.

  He snorts and winks at me. “After what we just did, and what her and I actually do…” He pauses, making a light hissing noise. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Screw you, Grey!” I turn around, ready to leave myself, but his hand pushes against the door and spins me around, pinning me. I glare at him and spit, “But you were right, I can’t keep up with you. You’re too damn all over the place. You go from insulting me one second to joking with me and pushing me against walls and kissing me the next! It’s exhausting—”

  “But don’t you think that was building up for quite some time?”

  “This is what I am talking about!”

  “Shut up and listen to me,” he drawls, piercing his coal eyes into me. I feel my cheeks bloom under the suffocating look and breathe out heavily. “I think it’s pretty obvious how attracted you are to me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I glance at his lips and take in every shape they make as he speaks. But I snap my eyes up to meet his heated gaze and slanted smile. He caught me staring. He knows I’m lying.

  I’m pushed further against the door with his body pressed to mine. My eyes glance at his reddened lips that are stained with drying blood and my kisses.

  “Oh, I think you do,” he says, gently trailing the pad of his thumb across my cheek all the way down to my bottom lip. I slowly look up and make eye contact with him as he tugs at it and takes in his own. My…lady parts tingle, and I nearly let out a moan. “You’re doing it right now…reacting to my touch…my presence.”

  He presses into me, groin on my abdomen. His bulge is massive and demanding. A moan does slip out this time. I wish I could stuff it back in my mouth, because it only strengthens his already inflated ego.

  “You say you want me to leave you alone one minute and then looking at my lips like you want them to do oh-so-unholy-things to you the next. Looks like I’m not the only confusing one here.”

  “Screw you,” is the only thing I can think of to say. I can’t help but look at his lips. And when I look into his eyes, he’s a bare inch away from my lips. The heat exuding from his mouth warms me up with an unknown sensation desperate to be sated.

  “Name the time…and place,” he whispers, his voice causing a moan to slip out of my mouth.

  “Never,” I manage to finally say, finding my will power. I straighten my body and step forward, pushing him off of me. I turn around and, with shakier hands than before, I wrench open the door. But I don’t look over my shoulder like I did before, because that was my one mistake—looking back at that insanely dark demon looming
over me with a wicked smile and shimmering black smile.

  I locate the room Jaimie texted me about. When I finally enter, I fall into the bed next to Mason’s and find myself staring at the wall as I try to find my ability to fall asleep with all that just happened fresh on my mind.

  Before my mind drifts off into an empty space to dream of motorcycles and demons and blood, the last thing I heard before leaving that room bounces around my brain like an endless echo—

  “See you around, Princess…”

  Chapter Thirty

  I regret waking up the second I do. My head pounds lightly, working through a slight headache. My tongue meets my dry lips.

  I blink and moan. It doesn’t take long to realize where I am, but I was mortified for a second. I take my time sitting up against the headboard of the unfamiliar bed. One look around the dirty room with stained shirts and boxers hung on doorknobs and hanging off chairs and the funky odor of dirty laundry, and I know exactly where I am: the fraternity house.

  I thought we left last night. Why didn’t we? Yawning, I rub my eyes and look over at the twin bed on the other side of the room. My eyes nearly pop out of my head when I spot Mason laying on the bed, his face turned to me. His mouth is bulbous with a cut on the bottom lip, dry blood slathers his entire face, and a dark ring surrounds his right eye. Finding him like this both frightens me and sparks a memory from last night. He got into a fight…with who, I can’t remember for the life of me.

  “Mason,” I whisper. He stirs and winces and faces the wall behind him. I let out a lengthy breath and cautiously stand from the bed. I rush over to Mason. I get on my knees and gently pull his shoulders back until he’s facing me. “Mason?” My voice is quiet.

  His eyes flutter open, and he lets out a groan and tries to turn away from me until he realizes it’s just me. “What time is it?” he asks, his voice groggy.