Chapter 21 Dangerous Game
Dangerous Game
The cold night air was a welcome change when it greeted my face.
The temperature had dropped considerably since our arrival at the party, and it relieved the heat that seemed determined to cling to my ears, cheeks, and neck.
We came to a stop and stood beside each other on the sidewalk.
Apparently, neither of us knew where to go from there.
I’d never been this flushed before. The heat put my body on edge and made my limbs feel weak and energized simultaneously.
Like my body was preparing for some threat that I wasn’t yet aware of.
Then I realized what was going on. It was adrenaline.
Everyone called it the fight-or-flight reflex, but they often left out the third “F” in that sequence.
Fuck. I realized that was what my body was preparing for, and that realization did little to make the sensation less odd.
Because I’d never felt this way in the buildup to any of the times I’d had sex. So, why do I feel so strange now? I felt about to explode or fall over right here on the spot. It wasn’t even like we were planning on sleeping together. At least, not that we’d discussed.
“Are you okay?” Grey’s breath flew from his mouth in a giant plume of fog in the cold night air.
I forced a smile. “I’m great.” I shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold. My nerves had me trembling.
“You look great.”
Normally, I would’ve rolled my eyes or tried to play it off in some other way.
But ever since the wedding and that damn hotel, my ability to play it cool had been considerably damaged.
Now, I was as uncool as when I’d first met Grey—when I’d stammered an awkward hi before running away with my tail tucked between my legs.
Instead, I lamely looked at the ground, unable to meet his eyes when I asked the question on my mind. “Where do you want to go?” I whispered in the dark.
Something touched the bottom of my chin and forced me to look up into Grey’s eyes. I realized belatedly that it must’ve been his free hand because he had yet to let go of me with his other one.
Grey’s face was so close to mine. The vapors of our breath mingled in what little air stood between us. I gazed into his eyes that looked almost black in the dark. I wanted to close the distance. God I wanted to. But the distance wasn’t the only thing standing between us.
The Carina of it all had yet to be discussed to my liking.
And I was too drunk—and, let’s face it, horny—to have an objective conversation about that particular topic at the moment.
He could give the flimsiest of excuses, and I would lock lips with him, the damage to my heart or anyone else’s be damned.
A nervous sort of smile crossed Grey’s face. “I was thinking we could go back to my place. We’re only a few blocks away.”
New warmth flooded my cheeks and up my ears with such intensity, it felt like they were on fire. I was sure if I touched my face, I would burn myself. I took a tiny step closer. That was weird. I hadn’t told my feet to move. My body had done it of its own volition. “What would we do?”
Grey swallowed hard enough for me to hear it. I watched his Adam’s apple move as he did so and wanted to know what his neck would taste like. A fresh wave of electricity swept over me. My body hummed with barely contained energy.
“What would you want to do?” His face was closer to mine.
Is he going to kiss me?
“I don’t think I’m in a good state of mind to answer that question.” I was trying to be coy, but I wasn’t sure if it came across that way. The air caught in my lungs. I couldn’t breathe properly.
“Is that so?” His eyes sparked dangerously.
Some more carnal version of desire ignited there. It made me weak in the knees.
“Yeah—I mean, we’re both drunk, so…” I didn’t know where I was going with that, so I let it drop.
I was too winded to come up with a coherent argument anyway.
Why shouldn’t we give in? We’d fought it all semester.
If months of trying to keep anything from happening still leads to a moment where all we want to do is give in, what’s the point?
“So…” he echoed. God he was getting even closer. “What would your idea be in your current state of mind?”
“I—” I couldn’t think of a single thing I wanted to do more than close the tiny distance between us. Any effort I made to think of anything other than the fact that his lips were right there ran into dead ends in my head. “I… I don’t…”
Then Grey’s lips were on mine, forming to them perfectly.
As if our mouths had been designed for each other.
My breath hitched in my throat, and my body quivered.
I fell into him, my knees losing all ability to hold me upright.
Grey caught me, his arms strong as he let go of my face and my hand only to hold me so close to him, I could’ve sworn he was trying to meld us together.
I’d dreamed of kissing Grey before, but that imagined kiss had been nothing—absolutely nothing—compared to this.
This was real and rugged and intense. Every kiss I’d had up to this point had been with a girl, and I couldn’t help but compare the two.
Girls were soft, squishy, malleable. Some part of that must’ve lingered in my subconscious when I’d dreamed of kissing him because there was none of that here.
Grey was all strength and iron. Even his mouth was powerful under his full lips, and his arms were firm as they wrapped around me and held me up.
There was a sense of rightness in how he touched me.
Everything seemed to click into place in my head.
This was what I’d always wanted from a kiss—the thing that had been missing from any physical relationship I’d ever had.
It was hard to wrap my head around. I hadn’t been bad at relationships.
I’d just chosen the wrong ones. And now that I had Grey’s lips on mine, I never wanted to stop.
I didn’t think I could stop myself from kissing him if every deity in the sky appeared before me in that moment and demanded that I do so.
So, I let him kiss me. And I enjoyed the taste of him—the saltiness of his skin, the way his tongue grazed my upper lip.
My knees found their strength then, and I pushed into him, backing him against something solid—a railing, I realized distantly.
Grey gasped into my mouth on impact, and his teeth grazed my skin before gently biting my bottom lip.
My hands found the small of his back, and I pulled his waist into me, reveling in the pressure of him against my skin. This was everything I’d ever wanted from him and, somehow, so much more.
What about Carina? a treacherous voice whispered in the back of my head.
It killed the momentum of the moment, which all things considered, might’ve been a good thing. The last thing I wanted was for the first time I had sex with Grey to be at the bottom of the stairs to an apartment building.
I couldn’t believe I was beginning to view sex with him as an inevitability rather than merely a possibility. But I needed resolution before I let things continue. So, with a colossal effort, I forced myself to stop kissing him and pulled away.
Confusion flickered across Grey’s face. Clearly, he hadn’t expected such an abrupt stop.
To be fair, neither had I. And judging by how hard certain body parts were, neither of us were prepared to do anything but keep going.
But I couldn’t. I had to be strong, even if he wasn’t willing to be. Doing the right thing sucked so much.
“What’s wrong?” Grey asked, his chest heaving as he caught his breath.
My eyes hardened despite the fact that our legs were very much intertwined. “Carina.”
“What about her?”
“She’s your girlfriend.” Why do I have to keep reminding him of that?
He was silent, his breathing eventually slowing to its normal rhythm. “I told you, it’s complicated.” His voice came out as an almost growl.
“Then, explain it to me,” I said. “I can’t, in good conscience, do… this unless you tell me what’s going on.”
From his pained expression, I would’ve thought I’d just asked him to chop off his own foot. “Ethan, I can’t. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just—”
I stepped away from him mid-sentence. “You just what?” I snapped.
He blinked at me, bleary-eyed. Clearly, being drunk was better as an aphrodisiac than energy for a fight. I could see him struggling to come up with the words.
Had I been more sober, I might’ve given him more time.
But as it was, I was pissed. We were playing a dangerous game.
Three people were invested in its outcome, and one of them had to lose for the others to win.
Until he said the words to convince me otherwise, I would assume that the one to lose would be me.
Because of course it would be. That was how life worked.
The closer I grew to him, the more my past stances on love proved right.
Nice on paper, but it never went according to plan.
I’d been stupid to think that my feelings for him could ever be more than a fleeting crush.
I’d been stupid to think that we could even just be friends.
Clearly, we were incapable of that. And for whatever reason, he seemed incapable of letting me in.
It was enough to make anyone lose their mind.
“Tell me what’s going on.” The words were harsh as they left my lips. “Why can’t you just tell me?”
“Because I’m scared!” Grey said in a rush, louder than was necessary.
I blinked and took a step back.
He ran a hand over his face. “I’m scared,” he repeated then looked at the ground as if he were ashamed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You can trust me.” I placed my hand on his chest, hoping that he would feel my earnestness in my touch.
The faintest hint of a smile crossed Grey’s lips. “That’s what Carina said.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Did she tell him about our conversation backstage? The more he let slip, the more questions I had.
“Then you should listen to her,” I pleaded. “Trust me.”
Grey sighed. “It’s a long story…” He began then paused. He seemed to be fighting some internal battle. A pained look crossed his face.
“I don’t mind a long story,” I coaxed.
“I—I don’t think I can tell it tonight.” He looked exhausted. “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”
I couldn’t hide my frustration. My face fell in spite of my best attempts to appear neutral. “Sure, Grey. We can talk tomorrow.”
I turned to leave, but his hand wrapped around my wrist, stopping me.
“Ethan, I promise I’ll tell you tomorrow,” he said, more earnest now than I’d ever heard him before.
It was enough to turn me around, and I looked him in the eye. The pain there made my heart ache for him. Dammit, how does he disarm me like that?
“Will you stay the night?” Grey asked. “We don’t have to do anything… actually, we shouldn’t do anything physical. I just don’t want to be alone tonight.”
He looked like he was about to cry, and I couldn’t help my confusion.
He’d never seemed so vulnerable. Grey was always confident, almost to a fault.
Sure, he could be tender and thoughtful, but never like this.
Except—my brain was sluggishly connecting dots—he’d behaved similarly that one night in the hotel room.
My “no way in hell” died on my lips before it had a chance to fully form.
He’d promised me answers in the morning, and if my growing suspicions were correct, those answers had to do with how he’d been treated as a campus celebrity before Carina.
I’m scared, he’d said. Maybe he was worried that if he gave us a shot, it would somehow expose him to what he’d had to deal with before.
Even if that wasn’t the case, I would rather know the truth as soon as possible, and staying the night at least meant zero commute in the morning.
But he was right. We shouldn’t do anything physical tonight. Unsaid was the fact that our little argument had killed any risk of that happening. More than killed it. The conversation had dropped a nuclear bomb on my sex drive—not only was the mood dead; the surrounding area had radiation poisoning.
So, with a deep, steadying breath, my tension eased, and I did my best to smile. “Okay. I’ll stay the night.”
His face relaxed, and he nodded. As we left the bottom of the stairs to the apartment, a thought from earlier in the conversation replayed in my head. This was a dangerous game we were playing. And I couldn’t help but be terrified of the results.