Chapter 21
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Bow
I kissed Wells to make all the violence stop.
At least, that was what I told myself.
Wells froze against my lips. His mouth went tight, and his eyes were open.
I didn’t care.
I grabbed Wells’s shirt and put everything into it. A wave of ocean breeze hit me, and I drank it in.
I absorbed it.
I let myself get sucked up in Wells’s aura, and it didn’t matter that he failed to kiss me back. He wasn’t moving, and his body was locked up tight. His heart beat hard against my hands but at least he wasn’t punching Bru. He wasn’t hurting him anymore, and that was why I kissed him.
My eyes closed as I forgot about my reason, and suddenly, Wells Ambrose wasn’t Wells anymore, but Archer. He was my Archer.
Wells wasn’t kissing me, but he also wasn’t stopping me. He was letting it happen, just frozen, and I was taken back to the last time his lips touched mine. It had been when things changed at the pool that summer. It was the day he went from my friend and protector to something else.
It was the day Wells Ambrose became my enemy.
Wells gripped my arms. He was also shaking. His big hands dug into my arms so hard I thought he’d cut off the circulation.
Apparently, I didn’t care about that, and I might have let the kiss go on longer had I not noticed Bru. I opened my eyes to see him standing off to the side. His head was down, his dark eyes on the floor. He wasn’t watching the kiss.
It was like he couldn’t.
The seal between my mouth and Wells’s broke then. Wells released a breath like he’d been holding it, and I realized I hadn’t been breathing either. I stopped breathing when I kissed him. I stopped thinking. I just wanted him to stop hurting Bru and did the first thing I could think of.
“What the fuck,” Wells started to say, but I couldn’t react to that. He’d probably rage out and get angry at me. I was definitely going to pay for what I did, but I tucked that in the back of my mind.
I made myself be brave.
I approached Bru, and he blinked. He had a bruise on his face and a cut lip I felt terrible about. I touched it.
Bru’s mouth parted. “Bow—”
I kissed him silent, and his eyes flashed wider than Wells’s had. He hadn’t expected this. Heck, I hadn’t expected me to do this.
Why am I doing this?
The why was forgotten as my mouth molded against his, and, where Wells didn’t kiss me back, Bru didn’t hesitate. In fact, he got a fistful of my skirt and hiked me up his hard body.
He even groaned.
Bru’s tongue touched mine, and I dizzied just like I had on the quad.
He approached me about what I’d seen go on between him and Wells.
He addressed what I did. He saw me touch myself, and it didn’t seem like that bothered him.
He even asked if what I saw bothered me, like it mattered to him. Like he didn’t want me to be bothered.
I didn’t know what was happening now. I just knew I didn’t like the look Bru had when he saw me kiss Wells. I didn’t want him to wonder about us, how I felt about him.
“Dude, what the actual fuck.” Wells grabbed Bru, and our mouths broke away from each other.
Wells shoved Bru, and Bru let go of me. Bru willingly moved, I think because he was still thrown about our kiss.
Bru had a look of bewilderment in his dark eyes, but anger replaced it when he looked at Wells.
Bru shoved Wells back. “Bro, what the hell is your deal?”
“No, fucker. What the hell is your deal?” Wells gritted. His green eyes were wild, crazy. He held a similar look when I came into the house, and I’d also seen him with the same expression on the quad. He’d fought Bru twice now and both times sounded like they were about me.
Which didn’t make sense.
I heard all the things Wells had been saying to Bru before I intervened. It sounded like Wells believed Bru was the one I lost my virginity to, but it wasn’t him.
I wished it was him.
If it was him, things would have been different. If it was him, I would be different.
So many things would be different.
I couldn’t think about that as I watched Wells approach Bru again, and my stomach flipped.
Wells had his fist raised, and I didn’t get that.
Wells growled. “I knew this shit was true. She’s Thatcher’s sister, bro.
The fuck’s wrong with you? You call yourself his friend, and you’re going behind his back with his little sister?
Not to mention kissing her right now. Really? ”
“Ambrose, are you fucking demented? Nobody’s going behind anybody’s back. Well, not really. Not on purpose anyway,” Bru said, then looked at me. He frowned at Wells. “And last I checked, you just kissed her too.”
It was like the reality of that just resonated with Wells, and his eyes widened in actual horror. Wells did kiss me: even though he didn’t kiss me back, he didn’t stop it either.
“That’s not the same,” Wells said, his jaw tight. He stared at the floor, and I felt gut punched; both these guys were talking about me like I wasn’t even there. I doubted Bru was doing it on purpose, but I couldn’t help feeling invisible in that moment.
I was so tired of feeling invisible.
Invisibility didn’t just make you feel small. It made you feel inferior, like you didn’t matter. Like what you wanted didn’t matter. It made you make poor choices.
It made you make mistakes.
I was so tired of not having agency in my own life. It felt like that was the case more often than not, and that was all I was thinking when I approached the boys again. I refused to think when I grabbed Wells and pressed my mouth to his again.
I just did it.
I wanted to kiss Wells. I wanted that feeling of our mouths together again…
I think I’d wanted it for a long time.
Wells froze again, but, this time, his mouth parted. He let me divide his lips with mine.
He even groaned.
“Squeak, what the fuck are you doing?” he asked me. He lifted his hands. “Stop it.”
No, I wasn’t stopping. I wanted to kiss him and maybe a part of him wanted to kiss me too.
He actually sounded jealous that he thought Bru was the one I lost my virginity to.
He made it sound like that was about Thatcher, but I wasn’t so sure.
Wells Ambrose didn’t always use to hate me.
He used to like me, maybe not romantically, but he hadn’t despised me. He used to protect me.
“Archer,” I said, seeking out that boy I loved. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly to come back. I pushed my hands in his hair. “I need you.”
A noise escaped Wells’s chest. It sounded angry, violent, and, when he grabbed me, he pressed me up against the wall.
The impact sent the air flying from my lungs, and Wells gazed down at me with a ray of heat I could only explain as madness.
He gripped my arms. “I said fucking no. Do you understand me? I don’t want you. I don’t want…”
His voice was strained, heavy.
His chest rose. “I don’t fucking want you, Squeak. Not like that. I can’t.”
Can’t?
He shook his head. “Please…”
It sounded almost like a plea, but his hands didn’t leave my body. My chest rose up with rapid breaths in response, and Wells followed the movement with his green eyes. He stared at my breasts through my top, and I felt a new heat blast through me. No way could Wells Ambrose actually want me.
No way.
My mind had played with the thought before, but I hadn’t actually believed it.
I touched his chest.
“Stop, Bow.” He called me by my name this time. Not Squeak or something equally condescending. He squeezed my arms. “I can’t.”
I can’t wasn’t that he didn’t want to. It wasn’t that he didn’t want me.
And that was enough for me.
It was enough for me to be brave again, so I wrapped my arms around him. Immediately, Wells cuffed my wrists and worked them off his neck.
“I won’t,” he said this time, but, once more, he didn’t fight when I pressed my lips to his. He let them settle, and his eyes shut so tight. A noise left his mouth. “You have to stop this. You can’t let me do this.”
His mouth trembled against mine, and I instantly felt the moment the tide shifted. When his mouth parted with mine and pushed back.
He does want me.
This was confirmed when his lips pinched my own. Wells pulled my lip inside his mouth. He sucked, and my nipples charged to life. I pressed them against his hard chest, and the noise that escaped from his lips was feral.
That was enough.
His response to me was enough for me to push back my own boundaries and take something I realized now that I wanted for years. I didn’t want him to hate me. I wanted him to love me.
“Please, Archer,” I pleaded again, and, right away, that familiar ache rumbled in his throat. He didn’t want to do this, but he was doing it anyway.
“I can’t,” he said, his voice incredibly strained. He released my mouth. He still had my wrists, and he was now using them to put distance between us.
No.
I tried to go to him, but he was so much stronger than me.
“Squeak,” he said, and I never heard a word with such anguish. “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry.
Something was holding him back, and I broke inside. A million insecurities came flooding back, and the tears pricked at my eyes. That I wasn’t good enough, worthy enough to love.
“You see what he does to you.”
A familiar voice that wasn’t my own came into my head. It only confirmed all my thoughts. I was pathetic. I was the little pipsqueak that wasn’t worthy of love.
Wells started to let go, but he sucked in a breath when another set of hands grabbed his. They were big and gripped Wells’s hands so hard they went white.
“Let go, dude,” Bru said, his voice a honied velvet. His nose touched Wells’s ear. “Why are you fighting this?”
Wells’s mouth parted, and soon, he was crowding me in. Wells pressed my wrists to the wall, and my chest brushed his again.
We both drew in a breath.
Gripping my wrists, Wells shook his head. “No, dude. I can’t.”