Swallowing and avoiding his gaze, I turn back to my food and glance up to see if Erika is gone. She is. If I were her I wouldn’t have stood there and watched that either, which was my original thought. Now my mind is too fuzzy for thoughts, too entranced by Carter and his magical mouth.
Get it together, mind.
Carter’s arm curls around my waist, casually possessive. With his other hand, he lifts his own fajita. “Good thinking, babe,” he remarks.
“It was a stage kiss,” I assure him. “Nothing more.”
“Uh huh,” he says, unconvinced. “Why are you flustered, then?”
“I’m not flustered,” I mutter.
“Aw, are you blushing?” Cartwright asks, smirking at me. “She’s blushing.”
I look up at him across the table. “Et tu, Brute?”
Cartwright frowns. “Huh?”
“I’m gonna buy you a book for Christmas,” I tell him. “Even in the likely event that we have nothing to do with one another by then. If you get a random copy of Julius Caesar slipped into your locker, know it was from me.”
“Nicer than what he’s slipped inside your locker,” Carter murmurs.
I cock an eyebrow and look up at Cartwright, remembering the lube someone put into my locker all those weeks ago. “Really?” I ask him.
He has the good grace to look bashful about it, but I know it’s only because I’m in Carter’s good graces today. As much as I might like to write Erika off, more than anyone else at either of these tables, I know she’s not entirely wrong about Carter. Right now, she might be between his crosshairs, but he could turn on a dime and treat any one of us the exact same way. He could tire of chasing me tomorrow, and by this time next week, have Cartwright lubing up my locker again without remorse.
It’s a shallow, unreliable world, this world of Carter’s. One might think it would be a comforting thing to have friends like these who do his bidding without question, but I can see why it isn’t. Because something Carter said to me a long time ago is so very true. These people don’t like him, they like what their closeness to him does for them. They don’t follow his orders out of loyalty or a genuine desire to support him, but out of fear—fear that if they step out of line, he will banish them, and all the benefits of his friendship will disappear in a puff of smoke.
Erika was wrong. None of Carter’s friends think they’re safe, they just make sure not to cross him so that he never has a reason to throw them to the wolves.
Looking over at him, I feel a strange stab of sadness for him. In so many ways, he is so spoiled, but in the most basic ways, I think he might be starving. Like he said to me once before, I am the first real thing Carter has ever encountered. To have gone this many years never believing a single person likes who he is… I can’t imagine how lonely he must be, despite his superficial fans and his army of minions.
My own thoughts make it even harder to stick to my guns. I yearn to wrap my arms around Carter and give him a big hug. To tell him even when I’m so angry at him I want to scream, I still like him. I always like him—and not the shiny, perfect side of him, either. I like the filth and the sadness and the darkness. I do crave his depravity, because I know it’s inside him whether he has somewhere to put it or not.
I love being the place he puts his darkness. I love being the keeper of the secret of who Carter really is.
I love him, dammit. I didn’t entirely mean it when the words slipped out that night in a post-orgasmic bliss bubble, but God help me, I do.
I love Carter Mahoney, and that means I am well and truly fucked.
Chapter 48
“Carter, no!”
His hand roughly covers my mouth, cutting off anything else I intended to say as he drives his cock inside me. I close my eyes and groan, relieved that he stole my ability to speak. It’s getting harder and harder to beg him to stop when all I want is for him to keep going.
“Not another fucking word out of you,” he says roughly, his fist tightening as he yanks my hair.
God, yes.
I shake my head and try to utter a muffled no, but his hand is closed over my mouth too tightly. He draws back and pistons into the tight, hot wetness between my shaking legs and I cry out against his hand. My whole body needs release more than it needs even the most basic necessities. I’ll give up oxygen for the next two minutes and take my chances if he’ll just let me come.