by Chloe Walsh
"Oh." Dallas smiled sympathetically. "Well, maybe if you squint a little, it won't be so noticeable." Climbing to her feet, she dusted off the back of her denim cut offs and smiled. "Well, I'll be seeing you, Adriana."
"Yeah, bye." I stared after her in confusion, wondering how the heck she had managed to compliment me and make me feel like crap all in one breath.
****
Chapter Twelve
"I'm telling you, Ives, she was weird. Smug, even."
Ivy and I were in Trigonometry. It was our last class of the day and I was trying to keep my voice as low as possible, but it wasn’t easy. Dallas had unnerved me and I was feeling off kilter.
Leaning over my desk towards Ivy, I added, "It was like a threat, except it wasn’t." I shook my head and sighed.
I should have never gotten involved in her and Nate's business…
"She's a bitch," Ivy growled. "A poisonous bitch. Andi, don’t let her intimidate you."
"She asked me if I had Grave's Disease," I muttered, feeling the burn in my eyes – a sure sign of the threat of tears.
"She said what?" Ivy's eyes darkened. "You're gorgeous, Andi. I would give anything to have eyes that pop like yours. That girl is jealous."
"And she thinks I dye my hair." My blue eyes had always been far too big for my face, and my hair – a shocking platinum blonde color – was the same I'd been born with.
"Like I just said, Dallas is a bitch," Ivy shot back. "God, I cannot stand that girl. How Nathan dated her for two whole years is beyond me."
The thought of Nathan dating Dallas caused a jolt of pain to spear through me.
"I'm sorry," Ivy whispered. Reaching over, she covered my hand with hers. "She's a bitch, and he's a blind idiot who can't see what's right in front of him."
"It's never going to happen for us, Ives," I muttered glumly. "Nate said so himself. I just need to forget about him." Forget about that night…
"Uh…yeah, that might be difficult." Pinching my wrist, Ivy pointed toward the classroom door. My mouth fell open when I saw Nate standing behind the glass. He was staring at me and gesturing to me with his hand.
"What the…" I almost fell off my seat as I craned my neck to the left, trying to figure out if it was in fact me Nate was seeking out. "Me?" I mouthed, pointing to myself.
Nate rolled his eyes and nodded.
"Don’t go to him, Andi," Ivy whispered. "Just ignore him and make him suffer for a change…. Oh, I don’t know why I bother," she added when the classroom door flew inwards.
"Mr. Lang?" Nathan asked, tone serious, stalking into my classroom like he owned the place. "Sorry for the intrusion, but can Adriana please be excused? There's been a family emergency."
Our trigonometry teacher looked at me in concern, and then back at Nathan. "Is everything okay, Mr. Cole?"
"I'd rather not discuss it here," Nathan replied smoothly. "It's a personal matter."
"Of course," Mr. Lang said before waving to me. "Go on, dear. Off you go."
Not daring to look at Ivy, I retrieved my backpack from the floor and walked to the front of the class.
"Thank you," Nathan said as he took me by the arm and led me out of the classroom. The minute the door closed behind us, Nate was dragging me down the hallway.
"What are you doing?" I asked, breathless, as I struggled to keep up with him and keep ahold of my backpack. "Wh-where are we going?"
Nathan didn’t answer me.
Instead, he continued to drag me down the hallway before taking a sharp left and pulling me into the fire-escape stairwell.
"Are you crazy?" I hissed, looking around anxiously at the empty stairwell. It was forbidden to use the fire-escape stairwells unless in a real emergency and I was no rule breaker. "We could get detention for being down here," I added, feeling like a teacher was about to jump out of some random crevice and catch us down here.
"You're making me fucking crazy," Nate shot back, glaring. "I've tried to talk to you at your house and in the hallway at school. I've watched you every damn day at lunch and you never look at me. You won't speak to me." He stepped closer, leaving me with no choice but to back up. There wasn’t much space down here and I shivered inside when I felt the cool cement wall against my back. "You've been avoiding me, Andi," he rasped, towering over me, making me feel tiny. "Freezing me out." His voice was low and harsh. "I can't get two damn minutes alone with you. Goddamn, Andi, you can’t even look me in the eye. So yeah, maybe I am fucking crazy, or maybe dragging you down here was my only way of making you stand still long enough to actually fucking speak to me!"
Okay, so maybe Nate was right. I had been purposefully dodging his attempts to speak to me. And maybe he was right when he said I couldn’t look him in the eye. But this was what he wanted. He'd said as much.
"I thought this is what you wanted." Frustration and lust coursed through me as I forced myself to look at him. "You said you don’t want me. I'm just respecting your wishes."
"When," Nate hissed, pressing himself closer to me. "Have I ever said I don’t want you?"
"In my bedroom," I shot back, flushed. His eyes darkened and I could feel him strain against me, our bodies flush against each other. My heart raced erratically when I said, "You told me that you and I would never happen."
"Where in that sentence did you hear the words; Andi, I don’t want you?" he demanded.
I shook my head, at a loss. "I just presumed…"
"Don’t," he growled. I could hear his heart rate escalate, pounding against his chest as he pressed against me. "Don’t fucking presume." Nate's eyes were so dark they were nearly black with desire. I felt the lightest of pressure when his forehead touched mine. "And don’t pretend I don’t fucking exist, either." His fingers trailed over the curve of my hip before clamping down hard on my flesh. "I've been going out of my goddamn mind with worry."
"With worry?"
"Yeah, Andi, with worried," he growled, mouth close to mine. "You wouldn’t talk to me. You didn’t text. You turned off your phone and locked your bedroom door. For all I knew you could be pregnant and I was out of the loop –"
"I'm not," I blurted out. "Pregnant, that is. I'm not. So you're off the hook."
"I wouldn't have walked away from you either way," he shot back, disgust laced in his tone. "You know that."
"Do I?" I muttered under my breath, feeling redder by the minute. I needed to get away from this boy and quickly.
"I know I handled things horribly, okay," Nate shot back in a heated tone. "I was drunk and rough and afterwards I was a complete fucking tool. But you don’t get it, Andi. You've been a part of my life since as far back as I can remember." He shuddered. "I've grown up with you. Treated you like my own damn sister… and then you changed… and I changed and the way I look at you changed…and shit got so complicated."
"What do you mean?" I whispered breathlessly, feeling myself weakening. My legs felt like noodles. My heart had jackhammered in my chest.
"You grew up so good, Andi," he groaned, pressing into me. My vision became clouded, intoxicated by his presence. "Fuck, why'd you have to grow up so damn good?" His breath quickened as he lowered his mouth to within millimeters of mine. "Tell me to stop." A deep guttural growl rolled deep in his chest; a sound that caused the muscles in my pelvis to tighten. "Tell me to walk away from you."
"Don’t ever walk away from me," I breathed. My hands moved to his neck of their own accord and I lunged for Nate at the same time he lunged for me.
His lips, when they crashed against mine, were severe… hungry. His body pressing against mine was entirely welcome. A niggling fear crept into my mind but I didn't dare entertain the notion. I blocked it out hard and fast, concentrating entirely on the feel of his tongue in my mouth and his hands on my body.
I'd never been in a situation like this. This boy had the ability to make me feel like I was ten feet tall one moment and the dirt on his shoe the next. It was so frustrating. But I wouldn't leave. These feelings petrified me. I was in un
chartered territory with the only person I was absolutely certain of.
I knew that… and whatever Nathan wanted from me, I was more than willing to give to him, regardless of how it made me look.
"So, how are we going to do this?" I whispered, breaking the kiss. I looked up at Nathan with my heart in my mouth, waiting on an answer that could make or break me.
"The hell if I know, Andi," he whispered, brushing his lips against mine once more. "But I know one thing." His hands moved to cup my face. "I can't spend another three weeks like the last three." His stroked my nose with his and exhaled a shaky breath. "I know I shouldn’t want you, but it doesn’t change the fact that I do."
"You do?"
"Damn fucking straight I do," he shot back, voice ragged. "I've wanted you since fucking middle school." Exhaling a haggard breath, he pressed his forehead to mine. "But I'm not allowed to have you, Andi." He ran his nose up and down my jawline. "You have no clue how hard this is for me. No fucking clue." His hands moved to my neck, clutching me gently. "I lose my mind over you every day. And every morning when I wake up, it starts all over again. You start all over again."
"Nate…" I breathed, my words trailing off when his lips touched the skin covering my pulse.
"I'm such a fuckup, Andi," he whispered as he kissed my neck. "I hope you never figure it out. But fuck, you make me happy, Andi. You always have."
He was ruining me with his words.
Destroying me with his kisses.
"I never meant to be a dick to you," he rasped. "But I couldn’t be around you and just be friends. You have never been just a friend to me. Shit's probably gonna get real messy, Andi, and I have no clue what the hell I'm doing. All I know is I can't fucking keep away from you anymore. I can't do it…"
"So, how are we going to make this work… with Jackson and my parents?" I moaned, wrapping my arms around his neck. "I'm not giving you up."
"That's good to know," he shot back before hoisting me up. Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around his waist, reveling in how perfectly his body slotted into mine. "Because I have no intentions of giving you up, either."
****
Chapter Thirteen
I left school on Tuesday with a spring in my step and a dress on my mind.
Nathan Cole was mine.
My boyfriend. My secret boyfriend, but mine none the less.
Nathan's words today had been a liberation. A defining moment in my life. He had opened up to me. Given me a little piece of him.
I managed to wrangle Ivy into going dress shopping with me after school. I was pretty sure she thought I was insane since only a few short hours ago, I'd thrown a tantrum in the middle of the cafeteria announcing that I didn’t care about dresses. And yet, I'd spent over an hour in the store trying on dress after dress, desperate to find the one. I finally settled on a baby blue strapless full length dress. It was simple but elegant and perfect for me.
"You're hiding something from me," Ivy accused for the fourth time when we pulled up outside my house. "You're being coy." She narrowed her eyes. "You're never coy. Spill."
"I'm not hiding anything," I shot back and the lie came easy to me. I shuddered at the thought.
Nate and I had decided not to tell anyone about our relationship – not even Ivy. He said it was too risky and I knew deep down he was right. My father hadn't been joking around when he threatened boarding school, and Ivy was getting closer and closer to Jackson. One of these days, her loyalty would switch and I didn’t want to be the one to put her in the middle.
I knew we were on borrowed time. Eventually, Jackson or my parents were going to figure it out, but I couldn’t think about that. For the first time in my life, I was doing what I wanted to do. I was being selfish and reckless and enjoying being seventeen. I knew that if the time came I had to choose, it would be Nathan. I was that willing to give myself to him. But I didn’t want to hurt Jackson. It was the very last thing I wanted to happen.
"Nathan just wanted to clear the air between us." Shrugging, I added, "You know, before the dance on Friday."
"I don’t believe you," Ivy countered coolly. "You might be able to pull the wool over Jackson's eyes with your meek little exterior, but I know you, Adriana Davis." Grinning, she added, "And I know what that boy means to you. So tell me the truth. You know you can trust me."
"Can you trust me when I tell you that you're better off not knowing?" I whispered, looking at my best friend. "I don’t want you dragged into any of this," I added in a meaningful tone.
"I would never tell on you, Andi," Ivy shot back, wounded. "You're my best friend. I wouldn’t do that to you."
"And you are mine," I replied. "Which is why I refuse to put you in a position where you might get caught in the firing line. Can you just accept that? For me?"
"Do I have a choice?" she replied.
I shook my head.
"Fine. But you know that you can always talk to me, Andi. I am always on your side." Pulling me into a hug, Ivy whispered, "And whatever it is you're doing or not doing, use protection."
****
"Are you sure it's okay to be in here?" I asked Nate as he unlocked his trailer and quickly pulled me inside. "What about your mom?"
"She's on another bender," he replied before roughly shoving me against the closed door. "Knowing my mom, she won't be home for days." Slamming himself against me, Nate dipped his face to my neck and pressed a kiss to my bare shoulder. " And I need time with you – even if it is in my shitty fucking trailer."
"I don’t care about where you live," I whispered. Reaching up, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed myself into his embrace. "You know that." I never have…
I knew we should take some time to talk about us. Heck, we needed to figure out this relationship we had going on, but I was driven purely on hormones.
I was vulnerable, self-conscious, and desperate to make him want me. Good, bad or otherwise, I was willing to do whatever it took to keep Nathan Cole interested in me.
Maybe Dallas was right and I did have daddy issues, but my feelings for Nate were real and overpowering. I wanted to give myself to him. Every part.
His hands dropped to my ass then, and I was being hoisted into his arms.
As I wrapped my legs around his waist, I came to the conclusion that straddling Nathan Cole was quickly becoming my favorite pastime.
He walked us down the tiny hallway to his bedroom.
When we were inside, he threw me down on the bed and kicked his bedroom door shut before whipping his t-shirt off, revealing those washboard abs of his.
"You're so beautiful," I heard myself whisper as I climbed onto my knees and studied his inked skin.
Exhaling a shaky breath, I reached down and pulled the hem of my sundress over my body.
Kneeling on his bed in my plain white bra and panties, I felt incredibly vulnerable.
Nate's brown eyes were even darker than normal and focused entirely on my bare flesh.
His tongue snaked out across his bottom lip as he took his fill of me.
"I'm in fucking heaven right now," he said, tone husky, as he dropped his hands to the belt buckle of his jeans. "Having Adriana Davis in my bed." He shook his head and bit back a groan. "You wouldn’t believe how many times I've dreamt of this."
Breathing hard and fast, I watched as Nathan shamelessly stripped naked before reaching over to his nightstand and retrieving a small foil wrapper.
"Plan A tonight," he told me with a chuckle as he tore the wrapper open and rolled the condom on his erection.
My entire body quaked as he lowered himself onto the bed.
Reaching out, he pressed his hand to my hips, caressing my skin with his thumb, while his other hand moved to the middle of my back.
"You're not a game to me, Andi," he whispered, unclasping my bra with experienced fingers. "And I have no plans of screwing you around."
With gentle fingers, he flicked my bra off my shoulders before pressing down on my shoulders so that I fell b
ackwards on the bed.
"I’m real fucking serious about you, Andi baby." His voice was thick and husky as he caught ahold of the waistband of my cotton panties and pulled them down my legs.
I shook all over as I kicked off my panties and rested my legs on either side of him.
He was so big and muscular that he took my breath away.
But I was nervous...
"Will it hurt this time?" I asked, breathing faster as Nate lowered himself down on me.
"No, baby," he whispered. Resting on his elbow above me, he probed his hard shaft against my entrance. "It just hurts the first time." Hitching one of my thighs around his waist, Nate pushed inside me, moving slowly, giving my body time to accept his welcome intrusion.
He was right; it didn’t hurt this time.
Tentatively, I rolled my hips upwards, embracing his slow thrusts.
I cried out loudly when his erection filled me up.
I could hardly stand the explosive, tingling, rippling sensation inside of my core.
"It feels different with a condom on," I whispered, holding on to him. "I like it better when you're bare."
"Jesus," Nate choked out. "Don’t say shit like that to me… not when I'm trying to be good…"
"It's true," I cried out when he fucked me a little faster – a little deeper and harder. "I like the raw feeling of you…oh god… of you inside me."
My heart was racing.
My body was aching all over.
I felt like I was falling off the edge of something amazing…
"As soon as we get you on the pill, I'll fuck you bare again," Nate hissed as he buried his face in my neck. "Christ… You're so goddamn tight."
"Then stretch me," I urged, bucking my hips upwards. "Make me yours."
Gripping my thigh, he pounded himself into me, speeding up to an almost merciless rhythm.
I wanted him to own me and take care of me, and never let me go.
My every waking thought was consumed by the boy who had his cock buried deep inside of me.