Chapter 2 #2
She slips her phone into her back pocket and stares down the road, lips moving with words I can’t make out. Then she throws her middle finger into the air, cursing the sky like it’s personally fucked her over one too many times, and she’s finally done pretending she can swallow it.
I grin around the joint, the smoke catching in my throat as I take another drag.
She’s pissed. Wound tight and close to breaking. Holding the kind of weight that crushes you slow, bone by bone, until you forget how to stand without shaking.
I’ve been there.
Too many fucking times.
And that’s probably why she gets to me more than she should. Why my eyes stay locked on her even when I tell myself to walk away. Even when I grit my teeth and remind myself she’s nothing more than another girl. Another distraction. A mistake I can’t afford to make.
I drag another hit from my joint, holding it in until the burn claws its way up my chest. It scorches through me, a slow, crawling fire that does nothing to dull the pull she has on me.
She runs a hand through her hair, yanking it into that messy knot she always wears. A few strands fall loose around her neck, sticking to the sweat at her collarbone, and I can’t look away.
I run a hand down my face, trying to force her out of my fucking head.
I’ve had girls. Names that meant nothing. Bodies that meant even less.
Fake moans echoing in the dark because they thought that’s what they were supposed to do. Mouths spilling promises they assumed I wanted, desperate to be wanted back.
But none of it ever fucking mattered.
They came to me chasing danger. Wanting the thrill, not the pain. The edge, not the fall. They’d beg. Scratch. Moan my name and take every filthy thing I gave them.
But Skylar is different.
It’s the flash of her eyes that turns my chest into a fucking vice. One glance and I’m drowning in it, ready to tear the world apart to hear the sound she makes when she breaks.
And the worst part… She doesn’t even know she’s doing it.
It doesn’t scare me getting close to her.
It should. Any sane person would be running the other way by now, trying to carve her out before she digs any deeper. But I’m not sane when it comes to her.
I never fucking have been.
It only makes me hungrier.
Fuck this.
I’m not the kind of guy who waits around, bleeding in silence for a girl who doesn’t even realize she’s gutting me with every breath she takes. Every second she stands there, all unaware and untouchable, she carves a little deeper.
I shove myself off the ground, boots scraping loud against the concrete. My spine cracks as I straighten, every joint stiff from sitting too long in the shadows. Too long wanting something I’ve got no business wanting.
The stretch pulls at my muscles, chest tight, arms heavy, blood still thrumming with that slow, dangerous pulse she dragged out of me the second she showed up to this dump.
I flick the joint across the gravel, watch it spark, skip, and die in a curl of smoke. All burned out. Same as me.
I move toward her.
Every step soaked in intent. Gravel shifts beneath my boots, crunching under the weight of restraint I’m barely holding onto.
She hasn’t seen me yet. Her chin is tilted with that same don’t-fuck-with-me defiance, shoulders squared like she’s ready to throw punches at the next person who breathes too loud.
I take in all of it.
She’s chaos wrapped in calm.
Fury masked as silence.
The world around her dulls, edges fading out like even it knows better than to get too close. She doesn’t need to do anything to steal the scene.
She’s got no idea I’m watching. No clue that she looks like a fucking masterpiece, built from bruises, bite marks and broken rules from here.
The kind of girl they write songs about but never survive.
Unless someone knows exactly where to press, and I do.
I don’t speed up.
There’s no need to.
She isn’t some quick fix, some easy thrill you chase down in the dark just to feel alive. She’s not a girl you rush. She’s the kind you earn, slowly, painfully, one step at a time, if she even lets you.
Even if I don’t deserve her. Even if getting close to her means I’m the one left bleeding.
She’s vibrating. Full of fury. All wound-up tension and sharp silence. Every part of her coiled so tight it looks like the next wrong breath might set her off.
And fuck, I want to be the one to do it.
When I get closer, each step cuts through the silence like a warning. I don’t hide the sound. Don’t soften my approach. I want her to hear me. To register it in her spine. Let it crawl under her skin and settle there, the way she’s been living under mine.
The air between us turns electric, humming with something that burns too close to want and too heavy to ignore.
It’s still. Waiting. So thick I can almost chew through it, every breath laced with the weight of everything we’ve never said and all the fucked-up glances we’ve thrown when the days got too sharp.
It settles in my mouth, bitter and charged.
She doesn’t move.
Doesn’t flinch.
She stands there breathing harder, chest rising too fast, as if some part of her already senses it’s me behind her—already bracing for what’s coming.
I’m close now.
Close enough to thread my fingers through that wild, reckless knot in her hair and yank her head back to hear what kind of sound she makes. Close enough to press my chest to her spine and let my mouth brush her ear, whisper every filthy thing I’ve been biting back.
But I don’t.
I hold the space between us, keep it taut, keep it dangerous, to see if she’ll break first. To see if she’ll turn around and fucking dare me.
My smirk curls slowly as I drop my voice, low.
“You standing there waiting for a hero... or just someone to fuck your shit up?”
She whips around fast, eyes flashing. Her jaw’s set. That mouth, already half open.
“You wanna fuck off, cocky prick?”
Her tone slams into me, and all it does is make the heat coil lower in my gut.
I take another step.
I don’t touch her. Not yet. I let the weight of me settle too close, breathing too steady, grinning as if the ending is already written.
“Careful, trouble. You keep talking like that, I might think you want me to ruin you.”
She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t back off. She tips her chin higher instead, fire catching in her eyes like she’s daring me to do it.
Fuck, she’s perfect.
I laugh, and it’s real. Deep and rough, torn straight from somewhere buried under all the shit I’ve had to choke down.
A sound I haven’t heard from myself in years.
“Careful,” I murmur, my gaze dragging slow over her mouth. “I might take that as a fucking challenge.”
She steps closer, head high, daring me to strike first. “What? You gonna fuck me up?”
God, that mouth.
That tone.
That fury.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink. Just stares straight through me.
I move in slow, eating the space between us with that kind of swagger that makes girls step back and beg.
But she holds firm. Breath sharp. Chest tight. Shoulders locked. Braced for impact and refusing to back down.
I’m close enough now to smell her shampoo. Vanilla and sweat and danger. Close enough to feel the tremble she’s trying so fucking hard to hide.
“Depends,” I say. “You asking me to or warning me not to?”
Her lip curls. Her eyes narrow. “I’m warning you, asshole. I’m trouble you don’t wanna fuck with.”
I grin, eyes locked on hers. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m the king of fucking trouble.” I lean in. “But I’m guessing you want a little chaos,” I say, voice rough, daring.
The corner of her mouth pulls up with a kind of cruel grace, wicked and slow, sharp enough to slice skin if I got too close.
The way she stares at me?
It’s pure fucking challenge. Brazen. Dangerous. Dripping with everything I should walk away from and already can’t.
She’s not just standing her ground. She’s daring me to shove against it, to see how far I’ll go.
And fuck, I want to.
She holds my gaze, letting the tension thicken until it settles in my gut, low and dangerous. Every second she keeps her mouth shut makes me want her more.
My blood’s thumping harder.
My cock’s already aching with the image of her pressed to the wall, her hands in my hair, her teeth in my neck.
But I stay still.
For now.
We’re both staring, both waiting, both pretending we’re not already ten steps past the line.
And then I move, because I fucking have to.
I turn away.
My boots grind into the pavement with every step, each one a warning she won’t forget.
I don’t rush.
I move in a way that makes damn sure she senses the weight of me leaving. I don’t need to turn around to be certain her eyes are on me. Their heat drills straight through my spine.
The airs still charged.
Her heat crawls up the back of my neck, and fuck, it makes my cock twitch all over again.
Finally, after giving her just enough time to stew in it, to think maybe I’m done, I glance back over my shoulder. Grin still there. Sharp. Cocky.
“Are you coming?”
She folds her arms tight across her chest, rolls her eyes hard enough to make a priest flinch, and fires back, “Where?”
It’s clipped.
Drenched in sarcasm.
But buried under the bite is something else.
A pause. A pulse. That soft edge of hesitation she hates me seeing.
I nod toward the alley.
The one behind the fence. Cracked concrete, rusted bins, graffiti bleeding through years of paint. It’s where I go when the walls press too hard. When breathing comes at a cost.
“Away from this shitshow,” I say, voice low. “Somewhere quiet enough to piss off the neighborhood.”
She snorts. One of those short, sharp sounds she doesn’t mean to let slip. “Real tempting.”
I shrug, let my grin stretch just enough to tease. “Thought you’d appreciate the view.”
Her brow lifts, eyes trailing down my body slow enough to make it count.
“Not bad,” she mutters. “Shame about the mouth.”
That smirk again. Crooked, dangerous, and carved from trouble. It’s sharp enough to leave scars if I get too close.
I laugh.