CHAPTER 13 #2
I forced a nod, rolling my hips just enough to sell it. The crowd whooped, clapping to the beat, a blur of lights and sound and heat. One of the cheerleaders shoved another drink into my hand. I took a sip and barely tasted it.
Every nerve in my body told me he was still watching.
I tried not to look, but my eyes found him anyway.
Across the room, near the doorway, Matty stood with his arms crossed, shadows from the pulsing lights cutting across his face. He wasn’t smiling.
Jace and Parker were beside him, their girlfriends laughing at something I couldn’t hear, but Matty didn’t join in. He didn’t even pretend to be part of the conversation. People stopped to talk, clapping him on the back, trying to draw him in, but he barely looked their way.
His attention was fixed on me.
I told myself I was imagining it, that the lights were playing tricks, but for a split second, I could have sworn there was hunger in his eyes.
Ryan followed my gaze and stiffened. “Is he still staring at you?”
“Nope,” I said too quickly.
“Sure looks like it.”
I laughed weakly.
He spun me gently, trying to keep it playful, and when I turned back, Matty was gone. The air in the room felt thinner without him in it, which made no sense and too much sense all at once.
Ryan leaned close, his lips near my ear. “You wanna get out of here?”
My stomach twisted at his connotation. “Just—one sec,” I said, trying not to sound as panicked as I felt. “I need to use the bathroom.”
He nodded, looking excited. “Yeah, sure. It’s right down the hallway behind the kitchen. I’ll wait for you here.”
I slipped from his hands and wove through the crowd. The hallway beyond the kitchen was dim, quieter except for the muffled bass thudding through the walls.
Halfway down the hall, I stopped and pressed my palm to the wall, breathing hard.
You’re fine. He’s gone. You’re fine.
The bathroom door stood slightly ajar. I pushed it open, flicked on the light, and closed it behind me.
Cool white light hummed overhead. The mirror showed a girl I barely recognized, her cheeks flushed, hair mussed from dancing…eyes too bright. I turned on the tap and let the water run, focusing on the steady stream instead of the reflection staring back at me.
The door suddenly eased open, and he filled the doorway like he’d been carved to fit it…Matty.
He didn’t speak right away. Just looked at me, water dripping from my fingertips into the sink. Then he stepped inside and quietly shut the door, sealing out the music and laughter until it was just us and the sound of running water.
“I told your date you wouldn’t be coming back,” he said quietly.
I gaped at him. “Why would you tell him that?”
His mouth curved. “I just figured it’d save him the disappointment,” he said innocently. “His night was never going to end with you.”
For a second, the room tilted. I couldn’t breathe or think.
Because what he’d said, what it seemed like he meant, was everything I’d ever wanted to hear.
Every fantasy I’d built around him when I was alone in my room, staring at his face glowing on a screen.
Every dream that had felt too pathetic to ever believe it could come true.
But hearing it now, in his voice, with that look in his eyes…it didn’t make sense.
My fingers tightened around the edge of the sink until they ached. I jerked my head away from him, staring hard at the trickle of water circling the drain.
Click.
The sharp flick of him locking the door filled the room, loud in the sudden stillness.
Slow footsteps followed, the sound echoing against the tile, each one drawing closer.
Closer.
Until the heat of him pressed against my spine and a shiver raced through me so hard my fingers rattled against the sink.
I slowly looked up.
In the mirror, he loomed behind me, his broad shoulders swallowing the frame. I looked small and breakable next to him, his eyes locked on mine with an intensity that pinned me in place.
He reached around me, arm brushing mine as he twisted the faucet shut. The click cut the room to silence, leaving only the uneven hitch of our breaths hanging between us.
The girl in the mirror still didn’t look like me.
Her pupils were blown wide, her lips parted, a blush spread across her chest. She looked caught somewhere between fear and something she didn’t want to name…
like she’d fallen straight down a rabbit hole and woken up in a strange new land that had everything she’d ever wanted.
“I’m confused,” I whispered, the words shaking as they left me. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
He tilted his head slightly, studying me through the mirror. “You don’t?” His voice was quiet, almost thoughtful. “You really don’t feel it?”
Before I could ask what he meant, his hand lifted.
I watched in the mirror, wide-eyed, as his fingers reached for me and traced a slow path along my shoulder. The touch was soft, almost reverent, like he was testing the reality of me.
My breath stuttered and vanished, caught somewhere between my chest and throat as the world narrowed to the heat of his hand on my skin.
The touch was barely there, just the edge of his fingers skimming down my arm, but it might as well have set me on fire.
A small sound escaped me, half gasp, half plea. My eyes stung. I’d imagined this—him—so many times that it felt like a cruel trick for it to finally be real. All those nights I’d pictured what it would be like for him to reach for me, to touch me like this, and now he was.
How could this be happening?
He leaned in, close enough that I could feel his breath ghosting across my neck. “Tell me you don’t feel it, too, pretty baby,” he murmured.
My hands trembled on the sink. “I…” The word barely made it out. My pulse thundered against my ribs.
“Why do you keep running?” he asked softly.
“I’m not—”
“You are,” he murmured. “Every time I get close, you disappear, Ophelia.”
My name rolled off his tongue like a prayer and a threat all at once. It hit me low in the belly, filthy and sweet. My knees buckled a fraction, and the tiniest whimper slipped past my lips before I could trap it.
His grin was smug and victorious. “Do you like when I say your name, sweet girl?”
Before I could answer, his hands gripped onto my hips and spun me to face him. The mirror vanished, and there was just Matty, inches away, eyes blazing.
Up close, he was brutal in his beauty.
His hair was a dark, careless mess, the kind that begged to be touched, and his jaw was tense enough that a muscle jumped when he looked at me.
But it was his eyes that undid me—bright and alive with something I couldn’t name.
Looking into them hurt, like staring straight into sunlight and realizing too late you couldn’t look away.
“You don’t know me,” I breathed, the protest thin as paper.
Not like I know you, the voice in my brain whispered. Not like I’ve memorized the way you chew your mouth guard on third down, how you crack your neck before a lecture starts, the brand of cologne you slap on in the morning.
His thumbs dug in, pinning me to the sink.
“You’re right. I don’t know you. But I want to know everything,” he said soothingly.
“Every flavor of lip balm you keep in your backpack. Every song you play on repeat when no one’s listening.
The way your breath catches right before you come.
” His gaze dropped to my mouth, lingered, and then dragged back up. “I want it all.”
I want to know everything.
The words landed like a fist to the chest. I panicked.
He’d find out, somehow. About all of it.
That I hadn’t come to this school for a degree, but for him.
That I’d watched every practice from the parking lot, hoping for a glimpse of him.
That I knew his schedule, his stats, his favorite drink before a game.
That I’d waited outside his classes just to see him walk by me once.
He’d put it together piece by piece, and when he did, he’d see me for what I really was…obsessed, broken, wrong.
He’d see the freak I’d been trying so hard not to be.
I tried to twist away, but his grip only tightened, grounding me. “Hey,” he murmured, his voice dropping into something softer…coaxing. “Look at me.”
I couldn’t. My eyes stayed locked on the hollow of his throat, the way his pulse beat steady under the skin. He ducked his head, chasing my gaze until I had no choice.
“Ophelia.” Another slow, deliberate roll of my name. My spine arched without permission. “I’m not asking for a résumé. I’m just asking for…you.”
His thumb brushed the waistband of my jeans, a touch so light it felt like a question, and his mouth found the curve of my ear, his breath warm against my skin.
“I want the parts you’re scared to show anyone,” he said, softer now, like it was a promise instead of a threat. “The ones you hide. I want all of it.”
The words sank into me, molten and dangerous, and for a heartbeat I couldn’t tell if he was saving me or destroying me.
My lungs burned. Just once, the thought whispered, wild and traitorous. One night. One taste. Then I’ll let him go. I’ll bleed him out of my system and pretend I’m clean again.
His hand slid beneath my shirt, his palm flat against my stomach, heat spreading fast until it hurt to stand still. “Tell me no,” he whispered in a frayed voice. “Say it, and I’ll stop.”
But I couldn’t. The word tangled in my throat and died there.
His eyes fluttered shut, like he’d been bracing himself…for me to end it. But when they opened again, they were dark, undone, and sure of exactly what was about to happen.
He leaned in, closing the space inch by inch until his breath mingled with mine. The air between us thickened, humming with something that felt dangerously close to inevitability.
His lips brushed against mine.
It was barely a touch, soft enough to be a mistake, but the world tilted anyway, everything in me tipping toward him. A whimper broke from my throat, quiet and raw, the kind of sound that belonged to someone losing control.