“No. I’m not going to let him think I’m avoiding him. I’m going to be a big girl.” Why did he have to ruin everything?
Amber laughed at something Carter said and laid her hand on his shoulder, smiling at him. It could’ve been just friendly, but I didn’t trust that about Amber. She’d always been a bit of a mean girl in high school. She was older than I was, the same age as Pike, but I’d heard stories. Her family was rich and she’d been spoiled as fuck growing up.
“I wondered where you got to,” Carter said as he stepped out onto the porch, and I seized my opportunity. Pike was flirting with someone and so I could flirt with someone too.
And if I was hoping that Pike would see me and get jealous the way that he had last time, then I wasn’t going to admit it.
“Nice of you to join us,” I said, smiling at him all slow and sultry.
Michelle made a disgusted noise. “If you’re determined to do this then I’m not going to be around to see it,” she grumbled, and headed back inside.
I felt bad. I didn’t want to make Michelle uncomfortable. Was it really worth flirting with Carter to make my best friend unhappy? And it would’ve been one thing if I’d actually had feelings for Carter. I was sure that Michelle would understand, then. But I didn’t, and she didn’t get it, and that made me feel sick.
But before I could do anything, I saw Pike look over—and the look on his face was priceless. He looked like he was carved out of stone.
Fuck. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. My stomach was in absolute knots. I was tipsy and I probably shouldn’t have anything more to drink but at the same time I desperately wanted one. I pulled myself away from Carter, ignoring his confused questions, and went back inside, into the kitchen for a drink.
Almost as soon as I got in there, Amber, of all people, was following me in. “Billie!” She grinned at me like we were friends or something. “Make me a drink, darling? Like me—sweet and sultry with a touch of class.”
She laughed at her own joke, and I grit my teeth. Amber was like that—constantly complimenting herself and putting herself up on a pedestal. It was exhausting.
“I can’t,” I snapped in return. “We’re all out of the key ingredient: bitch.”
“What the fuck?”
I turned around to see Pike standing there, staring at me like he’d never seen me before. My cheeks flushed and I felt more shame churn my stomach.
Pike grabbed my hand. “I’m sorry about that, Amber. I’ll be back in a minute.” Then he yanked me towards the downstairs bathroom, closing and locking the door behind us.
“What the actual fuck?” he hissed. “What’s gotten into you? Are you drunk?”
“Not very,” I admitted. It would’ve been so easy to say that, to claim that I was drunk and that was why I was acting like this, but it wouldn’t be the truth. And I didn’t want Pike to treat me like some inebriated child. “What’s it to you how I act, anyway?”
“Billie, you’re the one who said that what happened between us was a mistake. Not me.” Pike said it in this weirdly earnest way, like I was supposed to understand what that meant.
“You’re not my babysitter. I never asked you to do—anything, to look out for me.”
“It’s a damn good thing I’m not your babysitter, because if I was, I’d spank you.”
A shiver ran down my spine at that. I knew that he meant it in a discipline kind of way, but I also couldn’t help but get turned on by that, wondering what it would be like if Pike sat me in his lap or bent me over his knee and spanked me, told me to count them out, to be a good girl and take my punishment.
“You’ve never been mean to anyone like that,” Pike went on. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“You are!” I spat before I could stop myself. I might not have been drunk but I’d had enough alcohol to loosen my tongue, apparently. “You’re the problem you stubborn ass!”
“I’m the problem!? I’m not even—you impossible woman.”
“I’m impossible!?” I tried to shove past him but Pike was a wall of solid muscle. He grabbed onto my hips, and I found my hands resting on his chest from when I’d tried to shove him, and we sort of swayed into each other. “I’m so done with you,” I whispered. “You annoying brick shithouse.”
Pike laughed harshly. “We’ll never be done,” he replied, his voice also in a whisper, and then he kissed me.
I kissed him back, angry but wanting him, wanting him so badly. It was like war instead of love, biting, licking into each other’s mouths, our hands tearing at each other too ineffectually to actually get each other’s clothes off. Pike’s stupid overalls at last came off and I could feel him hard against me as he rolled his hips, promising me that thick, gorgeous cock of his. I wanted it so badly I could taste it in the back of my throat.