Chapter 4 #2
Nix released a growl of frustration and raked his fingers through his hair before pushing to his feet.
“What do you want from me, Harper? You either want me to kiss you, or you don’t,” he grunted with his teeth bared, looking down at me from his towering height.
I shifted in my seat, wanting to stand, but that would bring our faces closer together.
Or should I say face to chest, considering his height?
“I don’t know what I want,” I sighed, twisting the silver ring on my finger. I’d found it in the girls’ restrooms at school and had ‘forgotten’ to hand it in.
Phoenix smirked. “Clearly. Well, you need to think long and hard about that because I don’t play games, especially not with you.
If Ma suspects anything is going on, we’re both fucked.
You know that.” I watched as he moved away from the sofa and walked over to the cabinet where they hid their liquor.
“Interesting choice of words,” I muttered, enjoying the sight of his muscled back as he started foraging in the boy’s version of a mini bar.
“You’re such a fucking baby sometimes. You make me want to spank the shit out of you,” he called over his shoulder.
His words generated a sweet hum between my thighs, but I kept my voice steady. “Yeah, you and what army? You touch me like that, you die,” I mumbled under my breath. I so didn’t mean it.
The door of the cabinet clicked closed, and he turned towards me, clutching a bottle of spirits.
With his free finger and thumb, he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes again.
“OK, time out. I’ve said sorry about the past and what happened on Saturday, can’t we leave it there and move on? ”
I lowered my legs to the floor and stood up. “Move on where? With each other or generally?” I scanned his perfect face, almost like the answer to what was going on would be written there.
Phoenix dropped his hand and opened his eyes. Once he had twisted the top off the bottle, he cut me a glance.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Are you saying you want something romantic with me?” He tipped the rim of the bottle at me as he spoke. Yep, that was about as romantic as a death threat. Could a man like Phoenix even do romance?
And that was the million-dollar question. Did I want romance from him?
Yes, you do!
But what happens when he finds out what you are?
My hands started to itch. The ring I’d stolen now felt like it was burning through my finger.
“Harper!” he barked.
Shifting on my feet, feeling uncomfortable beneath his penetrating stare, I replied. “No—yes. I don’t know. It’s all so messed up.” I struggled to formulate a response, the words almost getting stuck in my mouth.
I moved around the back of the sofa I had been sitting on and rested my hands against it. I needed support as my legs had started to feel like Jell-O. I hadn’t had lunch, which would be part of the reason for that.
My shoulders slumped as Phoenix lifted the whisky to his lips and drank.
Once he’d lowered the bottle and I had his attention again, I explained, part of how I was feeling.
“I can’t forgive you for leaving me, Nix, but I know I don’t want to carry on as we are. At each other’s throats all the time.”
He took another drink and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Me neither. Should we call a truce then? Stop striking sparks off each other for a change. God knows our brothers and Ma will be thankful for that,” he pondered, nodding towards the open doorway.
Phoenix moved towards me, the bottle in one hand and his other scratching the scruff on his jaw. The rugged look suited him.
“Well?”
“I could agree to a truce. But…”
He rolled his eyes as he came to stand before me. “Here it comes.”
I began to play with my hair, feeling anxious. “No more trotting your victims out in front of my nose.” His proximity was having a strange effect on my pulse rate.
Nix’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Victims?”
“Girlfriends then,” I translated with a tart look.
Shaking his head, Nix rubbed his temples before stating. “I don’t have girlfriends, they’re hook-ups, that’s all.”
I glanced down at the sofa and started to play with a frayed edge of stitching, no longer able to deal with his laser-like glare. “Well, whatever, I still don’t like it. It’s disrespectful.” I knew I sounded like a silly little schoolgirl talking to her first crush.
My tormentor’s lips twisted into a lopsided smile as he moved closer. “Are you getting possessive on me, baby girl?” I noticed how his gaze lingered on my mouth.
I glared back, hating that smug expression. “No. I just don’t like bumping into your cast-offs in the mornings. They always hog the bathroom and make me late for school.” I was such a liar, and of course, the douche called me out on that.
“First of all, I said hook-ups, not castoffs, and secondly, you’re a liar, Harper Radcliffe. One who is totally in denial.” Phoenix was now at my side of the sofa, and I flinched as he lifted his free hand and pushed some of my hair behind my ear.
Licking lips that now felt like they hadn’t touched water in a decade, I raised my chin. “About what?”
“Wanting me,” he smiled, his grin even wider now, full of ego again.
Phoenix ran a thumb over his jaw with the hand that held the bottle.
He was so handsome and confident, even when he was being ridiculous and annoying.
His dark eyes blazed with heat, and I felt it deep in my core.
Nix was now looking at me with such possessive ferocity, and I didn’t understand how he could blow so cold one minute and then hot the next.
I decided to play him at his own game and batted that shit back at him.
“Well, you clearly want that—as in—you want me to want you.” What the fuck was I saying!
? The words that came out of my mouth made me sound like a moron.
I was never this inarticulate, and I blamed the annoying boy standing before me.
He made me come undone in every way possible. “You know what I mean,” I added hotly.
“I know what you mean. As I said, it’s human nature.”
Phoenix leaned his hip against the back of the sofa and held the bottle of spirits towards me. I shook my head, and he shrugged, taking another drink. The spicy tinge from his breath gave me goosebumps.
Folding my arms over my chest, I held my own during our staring contest. “Now what. Stalemate or that truce we talked about?” I decided to put the ball back in his court.
He cradled the bottle against his wide chest. “I’m up for a truce. I said that.”
“So, you agree to my terms then? No more girls stopping over here?” He didn’t do it every day, as Ma would see.
Ma had forbidden hook-ups under her roof.
I remember how the shit hit the fan that first night Hudson snuck Molly into his room.
He’d been grounded for weeks. They were in a relationship now, and so things were different, but Ma did not like one-night stands.
And neither did I. Not when they were Phoenix’s anyway.
“So, you’re asking me to give up pussy for you? You sound like Hudson,” he snorted, nudging me with the bottle. I moved back a step and dropped my arms.
Hands on my hips, I hissed. “You’re so gross. Just call them girls, and if you must slake your lust. Just do it at their place.” Fuck! What was I saying? I didn’t want him to do that either.
“Fine,” he barked and turned away.
As I watched him place the bottle on the table, I stated. “And I will agree to do the same.”
“What does that mean?”
“I won’t bring guys home.”
I only said it to needle him, and it worked as he spun back to face me. “So, you agree to the no-guys rule too, yeah?” He wasn’t impressed, but I could see a quality that suggested he was almost amused, and that pissed me off. He didn’t believe me.
I wasn’t the Virgin Mary! Well, I was a virgin, but I’d done some stuff.
“Under this roof, yes. Anywhere else is fair game,” I explained haughtily. “What’s good for the goose and all that.”
Phoenix then burst out laughing, and I snapped. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Wasn’t that a joke?”
He was such a cocky sonofabitch. The way he walked back over to me was panther-like. A beast stalking its prey, a smug beast, I might add. His eyes glittered with fresh amusement. “You’re so full of crap, Harper. You couldn’t get a guy to come within five yards of you, let alone in this house.”
Fisting my hands by my sides, I squared up to him. Anger burned through the last shred of my pride. “Yes, I could. I can easily sneak a guy into my room. That type of shit isn’t just a boy thing. A girl's gotta eat, too, you know.”
“Have you ever even had one?”
“One what?” I knew what he was asking, but was biding my time.
“An orgasm.”
“That’s none of your business,” I huffed primly, my spine stiffening.
Phoenix grinned, “That’s a no.”
“You know nothing about my sex life.”
He lowered his head moodily, so his nose was inches from mine. “That’s because you don’t have one. And I know that because I put the fear of God into anyone who so much as fucking looks at you.” His voice doubled in volume towards the end of his sentence.
I physically recoiled from him. “What?”
His smarmy look had my nails cutting into my palms. “Both Hudson and I did,” he explained, looking so sickeningly proud of himself.
And the penny dropped. The bastards!
Single-handedly, Phoenix had the subtlety of a wrecking ball when he wanted to get a message across, but with Hudson involved, that would carve the warning into any male anywhere near my age. I had been cock-blocked!
I tugged my head away and started pacing as the shock of what he’d admitted resonated with my brain.
“So that’s why none of the guys at school talk to me.
That I’m treated like I’m diseased. And to think I thought it was me.
You’re an underhanded son of a bitch! You and Hudson.
Talk about double standards.” Shit, I was mad.