“I’m not really sure why I need to consider your brother’s feelings at all,” I say, irritation clotting my veins where euphoria has fled. A hollowness settles over me, the weight of needing to be in everyone’s good graces reforming like an inflated balloon. “We’re both adults, we can kiss who we want.”
“But you don’t really think that, considering you just pulled me away from a coffee date to keep me from kissing Nico.” I open my mouth to point out her admission, and she rolls her eyes. “Which I wasn’t going to.”
“Why else would you have been out with him?”
She blinks, her brows knitting together above her nose. “What do you mean? I know you have friends, Boyd. Surely you don’t want to sleep with all of them?”
Not bothering to correct her, to let her know my only friend is her brother, I stuff my hands in my pockets and shrug. “That’s not the same issue.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Because I’m not a naive eighteen-year-old girl who’d let just anyone kiss them.”
I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth, my tongue moving faster than my brain and cock, but there’s nothing I can do to retrieve them. That’s the thing about remorse; it only comes when it’s too late for you to change the outcome. It’s an afterthought, something our consciences drum up to try and make you feel guilty for being human, but it doesn’t really make a difference when it counts.
Now her eyebrows shoot into her hairline, her lips folding in, an indecipherable expression morphing her facial features.
“So, that’s why you kissed me.” Her voice is small, fragile, and it eats away at something inside my chest, making me nauseous. “Because you could.”
When I don’t immediately deny it—can’t deny it, because I’ve already given away too much of myself tonight—she huffs out an incredulous laugh. Reality comes crashing down around us, our differences in age and life experience smacking me in the face as she stares at me, as if she’s never once been used like this before. As if I’m the first person to ever hurt her.
What a luxury that must be.
Annoyance wins out over fleeting regret, my defenses clicking into place once again, imaginary barbed wire fences keeping her separate. Away from me, where the only one who can hurt her is herself.
Knowing her family’s history of self-destruction, I have no doubt that she will.
“Well, thanks for ruining my evening, I guess.” She takes a step away from me, the heels of her black boots creating a dull thud on the pavement. “See you around, Boyd.”
I spring forward, my fingers fisting the material of her shirt, pulling her back into me. “How’re you getting home?”
Struggling against me, she tries to elbow me in the stomach, but I flex so it barely registers. “Nico drove me here.”
“Then I’m taking you back.”
“Jesus, can you drop the macho-possessive-alpha act? It’s very tiring trying to keep up with that and you ignoring me.”
“Did you prefer it when I didn’t acknowledge your existence?”
She doesn’t say anything, and a sharp pain stabs at my heart at the crestfallen look that shadows her pretty face. Why do I seem to only say the wrong things with her?
“Yes,” she murmurs finally. I twist her in my arms and hold her a few inches away, studying the soft lines of her face. Her skin is still flushed—though from the kiss or her embarrassment after, I don’t know—and she keeps her eyes locked on the collar of my shirt, deliberately ignoring me.
“Okay, then.” Wrapping my hand around her bicep, I drag her out of the alley and back up the street toward my bike, sliding on before she has a chance to. She just stands to the side, silent, arms crossed over her chest, and I sigh. “Would you get on?”
Biting her lip, she shakes her head. “I don’t want to ride this.”
“I don’t really care.” Pulling my helmet off the back of the seat, I hold it out to her. She frowns, the gesture creating deep crevices at the corners of her mouth, and only takes it after I threaten to drop the thing.
Gripping the black helmet in both hands, she brings it over her head, flipping the tinted window down even though the sun’s set and we aren’t moving yet. Almost as if she doesn’t want me to be able to see her anymore. Hoisting her leg over the seat, she slowly climbs on, and I can feel her hands in her lap at the base of my spine.
The heat from her cunt sears into me through my clothing, and I grip the handlebars tightly to stave off the chemical reaction happening behind my sweats. Even though there’s nothing I’d like more than to bend her over this bike, lap at her until she forgets her name, and fuck her on the seat until it’s coated in both of us, I can’t.
I shouldn’t have fucking kissed her tonight, but I meant what I said. It’s like there was this overwhelming outside force propelling me toward her, and once the kiss was set in motion there was nothing I could do to stop it.
It was a need, carnal and forbidden and just plain wrong, but there’d also been a certain sense of rightness while it happened. As if kissing Fiona Ivers was the missing link in my life, and nothing else would ever compare to the act.
But it can’t happen again. I like my dick attached to my body, and there’s no telling what Kieran would do if he found out what’d happened.