Chapter 19 Bellamy
NINETEEN
BELLAMY
My palms find the floor. I close the distance between us—not all of it, just enough. “Like this?”
The inhale he pulls is audible.
For half a second, neither of us moves. Then I look up at him.
His jaw has gone tight. The muscle in his throat moves once.
His eyes have dropped to somewhere they shouldn’t be, and when they drag back up to mine, there’s something in them that wasn’t there a moment ago—something raw and immediate that he hasn’t had time to file down yet, something that looks almost like want stripped of its armor before he can get it back under glass.
There it is.
I let the moment breathe. Then I push back to my feet—smooth enough that it feels like a choice rather than a withdrawal—and turn on the ball of my foot.
I brace my hands against the edge of the sink and lean forward, letting the cool porcelain press into my palms. The overhead light catches in the mirror, throwing our reflections back—his seated behind me, mine angled forward, the line of my body curved in a way that leaves very little open to interpretation.
I meet his eyes through the glass. “I thought this was how you like it?”
I hold his gaze for a beat, then let my head tilt and arch into it, slow and deliberate, until the space between us narrows to almost nothing. “Or is this just how you like me?”
I don’t need to turn to feel him move. The shift registers in the air first—the subtle change in proximity, the quiet creak of the bench as he leans forward, the heat of him pressing closer before he ever touches me.
His fingertips find me first. The lightest drag along the outside of my thigh, slow enough to feel deliberate, careful enough to feel like restraint instead of hesitation.
The contact is barely there, but my body reacts anyway—breath catching before I can stop it, a flicker of awareness sparking low and sharp beneath my skin.
I hate that I gave it away so easily. And I hate that he hears it.
“Is this what you do for them?” he murmurs, his breath warming the back of my thigh. “Just flash them your pretty cunt and they forgive everything?”
I keep my eyes on the mirror and tighten my grip on the porcelain. “Why do you care?” The edge in my voice comes easier now.
“I don’t.” The lie lands at the exact moment his touch shifts. Not his hands this time. Something worse.
His breath ghosts along the back of my thigh—warm, measured, barely there. Light enough that I could almost convince myself I imagined it. I don’t get the chance. It moves, slow and deliberate, tracing upward beneath the hem of my dress, and my body registers it before my mind can intervene.
My breath stutters. And I hate that it does.
Goosebumps chase the warmth, rising sharp and immediate, and I tighten my grip on the porcelain and stare at my own reflection and refuse to make a sound.
Then his nose finally makes contact—just the faintest graze along the back of my thigh, almost nothing. Then he shifts higher, closer, more deliberate. Following the bottom curve of my ass cheek like he’s getting reacquainted with an old friend.
Something catches in my throat, soft and small. My eyes close for a fraction of a second, irritation flaring hot and immediate under my skin.
No. Absolutely not.
I force my breath to even out, loosen my grip on the sink, refuse to give him anything else.
He hums a little under his breath, his palms sliding up my outer thighs as his face slips underneath my dress, his nose sliding between my cheeks, his breath warming the path it leaves behind.
“You let my brothers here, sweetheart?” It’s a whispered, guttural sort of question, like he was fighting to keep it inside.
The tension stretches tighter between us, drawn thin as wire, every movement sharpened by the fact that neither of us is backing down.
“You tell me.” I shift my weight almost unconsciously, and the movement presses me back just an inch. Right into his face.
It’s enough.
“Fuck.” His breath catches behind me, sharper this time, less controlled. “You didn’t,” he breathes out, anger or something else tightening his words.
“How?" I ask lightly. I let my weight shift again, a slow, deliberate press backward that tests the space between us, that pushes just enough to make the line blur.
His head dips closer, and I feel it again—that measured proximity, the restrained contact that somehow feels more deliberate than anything else he could do. His fingertips flex into my skin, hard enough that I’ll be wearing his bruises tomorrow.
He doesn’t answer with words, just breathes out, his lips brushing against my cunt as he exhales.
And that’s when I know I’ve got him.
But I also kind of wish there wasn’t a scrap of fabric separating his mouth from my pussy right now, so I’m not sure that I necessarily won either.
That thought shouldn’t cross my mind. But it does anyway.
The door slams open.
“What the fuck am I looking at right now?” Lola’s voice cuts through the room. It slices straight through the tension before it has time to settle into anything more dangerous.
I turn at the same moment Bishop’s fingers press once—firm, fleeting—into my thigh before disappearing entirely. By the time I look back, he’s already leaned away, already pulled himself back into something controlled and distant, like none of it happened, like he wasn’t trying to inhale—
I don’t let myself finish that thought.
I straighten slowly, smoothing my dress down over my hips, forcing my body back into something neutral, something unaffected, even as my pulse refuses to settle.
I don’t look at him again.
Instead, I cross the room and take Lola’s hand, already pulling her toward the door before she can start in again. “Come on.”
She doesn’t move at first. “Bellamy—what the fuck—”
I pull her with me, stepping back into the hallway as the muffled noise of The Pit pushes against the walls.
The door shuts with a soft thud, and my sister whirls on me. She plants herself in front of me, crossing her arms and eyes wild. “What the fuck, Bells? Him too, really? He’s the asshole of the bunch.”
I lift one shoulder, and it takes effort to keep my expression even. “I was helping him dress his cuts.”
She stares at me for half a second before a laugh bursts out of her, sharp and disbelieving. “Oh, yeah? You got medical tape under your skirt? Butterfly bandages in your asscrack? Neosporin tucked under your thong?”
My lips twitch despite myself. I hook my arm through hers, already steering us back toward the main area, toward the noise, toward anything that isn’t that room.
“Enough about me,” I say lightly. “Tell me more about Nate and Easton. I’m surprised they let you ditch them.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You’re deflecting.”
“Maybe.”
She exhales, then shakes her head, but I can feel her giving in anyway, letting the shift happen.
“You know what,” she says after a second, a smirk pulling at her mouth.
“I don’t even care, because I already fucking called it weeks ago.
I knew that man was down bad. But we’ll talk about that later.
First, I want to hear your thoughts on East and Nate. They’re so hot, right?”
I follow my sister back into the pit, nodding at the right moments while she talks, while the noise closes back in around us, while the crowd swallows us whole.
I focus very hard on the way the floor feels under my heels and the way her voice sounds and the way the lights are too bright on this side of the room and not at all on how the fabric of my thong feels against my skin right now or the way my thighs are still—
“Ugh, you’re not even listening,” Lola yells over the noise.
I lean into her. “What?”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “I said—Nate asked if I wanted to get out of here.”
My brows go up. “What about East?”
She tips her chin toward the ceiling, fighting a grin. “Have I mentioned that they’re roommates?”
I laugh, and it comes out more genuine than anything I’ve managed in the last hour. “Okay. Text me when you leave. And keep your location on.”
She waves me off. “Obviously.” Then she glances over her shoulder. “They went to check on something. They’ll be back in a second.”
I look around at the crowd, buying myself another moment. “Before they do, quick: which one?”
Lola turns to me with her mouth dropped open, one hand pressed flat to her sternum, and gives me a look of such theatrical devastation that I almost lose it entirely. She straightens up, lifts her chin, and says in a voice pitched to mimic mine, “Bellamy, you know I’m not going to answer that.”
I raise an eyebrow.
She breaks immediately. “Okay, both. Obviously both. That’s not a real question.”