Chapter 30
June
I sat still, staring at the girls running around in circles in the room, in a desperate attempt to understand what was going on. I’ll kick them out, I thought, throwing the sheet to the bottom of the bed. James didn’t seem to like that. I saw him fumble around for the blanket on the floor.
“Are you crazy?” he groaned irritably.
He pulled me toward him, making me lie back down, and then hid behind me.
Suddenly I felt softer pressed against his solid physique.
James’s skin was so boiling hot that a wave of heat washed over me.
My back was squeezed against his chest, my hips were pressed against his, his legs fit into mine, and my backside . . . oh my god.
“Are you really hiding behind me?” I whispered, hoping that the girls wouldn’t hear us.
My words got stuck in my throat as soon as his hand landed on my hip. James stopped me with a firm grip before I could move. Only when I felt his fingers dig into my skin did I realize that the T-shirt was completely lifted up. The fiery spurt that reached my cheeks was almost unbearable.
I felt my body temperature skyrocket.
“Easy, princess. Give me . . . gimme another minute.”
I heard him breathe drowsily and huskily against my neck, sending a million chills down my spine.
James’s breath caressed the most sensitive areas of my skin. The sensation dulled my senses like I was still dreaming.
I realized that I was distracted because suddenly the girls disappeared, and I heard a voice call them from downstairs. They vanished just like they’d appeared out of nowhere.
“Who were those brats?” I asked.
James broke our embrace then turned to me indifferently. “My cousins.”
I turned over on the mattress, trying with all my strength to not stare at his half-naked body. But soon I heard an annoying buzz.
“Do you have family here?”
“So what?”
Unlike me, James didn’t seem disturbed in the slightest by what had just happened. He stood up, and I tried to resist, but the curiosity was eating away at me.
I quickly stared at his silhouette as he hunched toward his leather jacket on the seat.
His broad, bare chest was a band of muscles that linked with each other until they got to his narrower waist. My eyes carved every line of his torso until it reached his tight-fitting boxers, surrounding his solid backside.
There wasn’t a single part of his body that didn’t look like the result of intense workouts and a healthy diet.
The total opposite of me, I ended up thinking.
I felt my cheeks itch again, so I looked up at his hands.
I saw him take something out of his pocket and bring it to his pouty lips.
Looking at it better, it totally looked like a joint.
“Isn’t your dad downstairs?” I asked, slightly agitated.
“So?”
“Oh my god.”
With my brain still cloudy, I tried to make sense of what had happened the night before. I watched James walk over to the window, open it, and lean away from me on the windowsill.
When he turned around and I met his blue eyes, I relived the sensation of our bodies pressed against each other. That morning, but most of all, last night. Did he really say all that stuff, or was it just my imagination?
James smoked without batting an eye, while I looked at the state I was in. If he was half naked, I wasn’t any less. Now I remembered perfectly.
We’d slept together, he’d hugged me, but the most unmistakable thing had happened just before. Or rather, it didn’t happen, but I’d wanted it to happen so much. I’d wanted him to kiss me.
I shut my eyes to chase away that inconvenient thought, and William came to mind. I’d danced with him and made out with Tiffany.
This wasn’t who I was.
James looked down at me like I was an alien as I stared into space, thinking over everything I’d done wrong in the past twelve hours.
“What are you looking at?” I asked shyly, when I noticed his eyes fixated on me.
“What do you think? Your phone’s been vibrating for half an hour,” he snapped, pointing at something on the nightstand.
Here was the worst part of all: my mom. I’d slept somewhere else and hadn’t let her know.
Maybe I could escape to Siberia. I could start thinking about the names I’d give the bears I’d be living with.
“Eighteen calls?!” I exclaimed, shocked.
I scrolled through the threatening messages with my heart in my mouth.
Mom: June, this time you’d better have a more than valid excuse. Besides the last one from that morning
Mom: WHY ISN’T MY DAUGHTER IN HER BED?!
The all caps would only exacerbate my already enduring headache.
And if I was worked up before, right now my throat was doing somersaults that reached up to my lips with a strangled gesture.
I started panicking. I was out of breath, and my head was completely confused.
“White.”
James was talking to me but I wasn’t listening. Only when I felt his warm grip on my shoulders did I come back to reality.
“Calm down.”
He barely shook me, so I lowered my head. I couldn’t look him in the eye anymore. I probably wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror anymore.
“I gotta go home,” I said flatly.
James curled his lips, wrinkling his forehead.
“Hey, so,” he said, turning around.
I felt the bitter cold from the window cut against my skin. I shivered while James rummaged through his closet looking for clean clothes.
“Come with me. It’s too cold to bike home,” I said.
He grabbed a pair of tracksuit pants, put them on, and turned to shoot me a look.
“I don’t think so. I’m eating breakfast first.”
“Asshole.”
I lifted up the blankets and bent down to look under the bed for my backpack, which had my clothes.
“Well, then I’m going alone.”
“What do you have to do at home?”
I was stunned by his question, but even more by the firm pressure he applied when he grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward him.
I barely stumbled but managed not to lose my balance. James pulled me toward him, swallowing me up in his space.
“Don’t tell your mom you slept here, or she’ll give you hell for a year.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you think I’m dying to tell her? I won’t tell anyone, especially not her.”
I saw him nod, before running his fingers through his hair.
“That would be better.”
His lips hypnotized me for a fraction of a second, but reality set in quickly.
Was he telling me he didn’t want me to go around telling everyone we slept together? Or that I should hide it from William?
“Where are you going?” I muttered when I saw him go to the door.
“Breakfast. Move it, Snow White,” he hissed, reluctantly finishing his joint.
“Your dad’s here. I can’t go down there.”
I glanced quickly at the window, but I already knew it would’ve been difficult to get down from there.
“Do you think my dad gives a shit about you?” he shot back.
“No. But it seems like—”
James curved his lips into a mischievous grin. “Like what? That I banged you all night? Quietly?” He was using a tone that got on my nerves.
“Oh, because you usually use megaphones so the whole neighborhood can hear you?” This time my provocation elicited a genuine smile. I stood astonished for a few seconds. I’d never seen him laugh like this.
“No, usually it doesn’t take megaphones to wake up the whole neighborhood.”
“Eww,” I spat, as I flipped over the room, looking for my clothes.
“Eww, huh, Snow White? You’ve never gotten off five times in a row?”
I lifted my eyes to his. James was staring intensely at me. Now what did I say?
I gulped, embarrassed, and ended up bursting into nervous laughter.
“Yeah, sure, tell fewer tall tales and maybe I’ll believe you.”
He shrugged. “I don’t give a flying fuck whether you believe me or not. I’m just talking about facts.”
“No way.”
That provocation seemed to set something off in him, because without warning he came up to me, forcing me to back away.
“James,” I whispered faintly.
“Is that a challenge, Snow White?”
I saw him bend his head down to my height. Why was everything always a challenge for him?
I lifted my chin fiercely, despite feeling confused.
“I could, yeah. Challenge you.”
He was pleasantly surprised by my murmur. I understood that from how he parted his lips and licked them.
“You wouldn’t last five minutes with me, princess.”
I was powerless when those words sent chills down my spine.
“Don’t bullshit me.” I looked down to avoid the intensity of his eyes. The chain around his neck made me think about the sensations of the night before.
A gruff whisper slipped out of his full lips when he caressed my lower lip with his fingertip and tempted my earlobe with his mouth. “I bet all it would take would be to brush against you the first time.”
A solid feeling of heat rushed between my thighs, right when his gaze got harsher and stopped at my lips. I felt myself collapse against the wall. My knees were weak, my stomach was doing somersaults, and my head was empty.
Maybe it was his scent.
Or maybe something invisible in his eyes.
There was definitely an undeniable electricity that pulled my body toward his. I wondered if it was mutual.
He must’ve been with thousands of girls and must’ve now been used to sensations like that, not to mention he had the sensitivity to notice these kinds of things.
James’s gaze drifted from my eyes to my lips, victims of his delicate fingertips. He kept playing with them like my mouth was his.
“When you’re done pulling your head outta the clouds, I gotta eat breakfast.”
I pushed him away, and James raised both eyebrows. He certainly seemed stunned by my reaction.
“I was just waiting for you to stop quivering,” he smirked, satisfied by the effect that he now understood that he had on me.
I shook my head, then looked in the mirror. My hair looked like a depiction of a nuclear fallout, my face was red, and my eyes were surrounded by two heavy bags.