Chapter 40 #2
“What should I want? You were with Will, I don’t want shit from you.”
“And that’s all so medieval,” she hissed loudly, challenging me again. But this time her blue irises shifted onto me. Finally.
“What the fuck are you saying?”
I saw her gasp.
I was all over her, so I pulled back, letting her breathe.
“It’s not that I’m not interested. I’m just curious: Do I have a scarlet letter just because I was with him?”
“But you were.”
“Enough, we didn’t even—”
She realized what she was about to say too late. She massaged her neck, embarrassed, while I smiled smugly.
“What?” I chuckled, making her even angrier.
“You know what.”
She tried to escape, but I obstinately stopped her again, positioning myself in front of her.
“It doesn’t change much. Exes don’t touch each other.”
“The other day in my room, you did nothing but touch me.” She lifted her chin and shot me a look.
Fuck, she was provoking me.
“It was nothing, and I would’ve stopped.” I rushed to explain.
“Yeah, yeah, sure, you looked like two people who didn’t want to do anything,” she hissed, barely retreating.
“We looked like that.” I quickly corrected her.
The faint color tinting her cheeks suddenly intensified. The hallway was completely empty; the bell had rung a few minutes ago, but I wasn’t going to let her go back to class. I grabbed her wrist and brought it close to my chest.
“Are you saying that just because I did it like that?”
She was breathless when I placed my warm palm on her right thigh. I felt my rings sink into her soft flesh.
“What, did you like it too much, Snow White?” I egged her on.
“No! Of course not,” she retorted with a hint of embarrassment.
“So why do you have to exaggerate saying I touched you?”
“Can you take your hand off my leg, James?”
“Do you really want me to? Do you want me to do that, or is it just a matter of getting to know my intentions, White?”
June moistened her lips innocently and without malice, but that gesture was unbearably arousing for me.
“What, you’re so stuck to it that you can’t let it go?”
Our eyes were chained to each other’s lips like two famished animals ready to attach. We’d devour them with our gazes waiting for the other to make a false move.
“You always talk so fucking much.”
“You’re not used to someone standing up to you, are you?”
I heard an unmistakable clattering on the floor. I turned around and saw Taylor walk behind us with her friends. She didn’t look the best.
“I bet that even Taylor only says Yes, James,” June whispered in my ear meekly, making me lose the use of my voice.
But I remained focused on my objective. My hand rotated covetously around her leg to get to her inner thigh.
I felt the heat emanate on her skin while I put her right in the middle.
I pressed the tip of my nose to her ear.
I barely rubbed against it, and I felt her shiver.
“I’ll make you say yes, James, if you don’t cut it out.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Um, wanna try it, Snow White?”
I let my fingers slowly creep back up. Why was she letting me?
“And tell me, how would you do that?”
At first glance, she was the one to put me in a difficult position, but I was actually gently exploring her legs with my fingertips.
I quickly searched for a mark, a sign, anything.
But her skin up until now was damn smooth.
And suddenly my mouth got dry, maybe because the search was turning out to be more pleasurable than usual, and I’d never imagined that weakness on my part.
Instead of my hand, I’d gladly put my face right between there.
“James!” she exclaimed breathlessly when she realized how far up her skirt my hand was. With throbbing cheeks and an unsteady chest, she pushed me away.
“I don’t like this backward way of thinking. I’m not anyone’s property nor do I want a scarlet letter just because I was with William.”
Great. Well played, change the subject.
“So you’re coming to Connell’s party.”
“What does that have to do with anything? No, I’m not.”
I pulled back until I’d backed myself against the row of lockers across from hers. “Why?”
We studied each other from far away. I understood why her breath was faster, her pupils dilated, and her cheeks flaming, but I couldn’t figure out why I found myself in the same situation.
“I’m grounded. My mom doesn’t want me to leave the house.
” I untangled my hair with my fingers, deceived by the compelling need to smoke.
She didn’t have anything under there, no scars.
Now I was almost certain of it. I just had to see her in a swimsuit and remove all doubt, hoping that it was my imagination.
“Come anyway,” I demanded.
“No, I told you.”
She was making me lose my mind. First she asked me to sleep with her then she let me touch her that way. And last night she could’ve very well hung up on me, but she didn’t.
“Not even if you said—”
I pulled away from the metallic wall and walked back toward her. It was a dangerous game, but now I had to know.
“Not even if I told you I wanna see you there?”
She let out a sob; I saw it clearly. To my surprise, it was harder to make her give in than I’d thought. June bowed her head, continuing to shake it.
“No?” I pressed.
“No, I better not.”
“Fuck, June, why are you acting like this now?”
I saw her look around before speaking softly again. “Look, I don’t know what kind of game you have in your head, but I don’t want to be a part of it.”
“What the fuck are you saying?”
“With Will—I heard you guys talking about it.”
Obviously, it didn’t even occur to her that it would’ve been William’s idea.
“You don’t understand.” I’d started a conversation, and I didn’t know where it would lead. I felt confused and flushed.
This whole matter of finding out if she had marks on her was turning out to be a double-edged sword. She pulled back and looked like she was about to open rapid fire on me.
“Look, James, you’re the one who doesn’t get it. I’m losing myself being around you guys.”
Her sentence threw me off center. How could I blame her?
“Every time that you’re near me, I do stupid stuff, and I don’t want to blame you. I make my own decisions, but it doesn’t—”
“What?”
Her eyebrows lowered into a gentle expression, sealing the end of all the strength that she had worked so hard to display.
“I don’t trust myself when I’m with you,” she breathed, out of breath.
“But I wouldn’t have done anything with you. Not like that, not with him,” I said quietly.
Her chest was heaving, and instead of making space for her, I took it away from her. I drew nearer to her face, breathing in the scent of her hair.
“I don’t believe you, James.”
“And most of all, I’d never let Will do that,” I admitted, with my stomach topsy-turvy.
“And so then why—”
Fuck, I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“There was something between us.” I shrugged, continuing to look down at her.
“Did he ask you?”
She kept tracing the contour of my lips with her eyes. I knew the shape of hers by memory. I just needed to find out the taste and texture . . .
At that point, June remained as rigid as an icicle, so I grabbed her hips and pulled her against my chest, enjoying the softness of her breasts and her inexperienced and clumsy reaction.
“June.”
Was I really going to kiss her in the school hallway?
“James.”
I caressed her jaw with my mouth, causing her to let out a little moan of pleasure that became uncontainable when I brushed the skin behind her ear.
That point seemed particularly sensitive because she stopped talking and provoking me.
Now she was incapable of making a sound.
She’d finally given in. She’d fallen into my trap.
“You’re coming tonight.”
The tips of her lips barely trembled while I said those words, an inch away from her inviting bikini.
“I wanna see you in a fucking bikini, Snow White.”