CHAPTER TWELVE
Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.
Even with an entire floor between us and dozens of people swarming The Tavern – talking, laughing, clanking glass bottles together – I could hear Wisp’s heartbeat, the soft, rhythmic lub dub so loud in my ears that she may as well have been standing next to me.
…God, I hated her. (False.)
Fine, I hated the way she made me feel. (Closer, but not quite.)
Even Blair’s hot mouth on my neck couldn’t distract me from it. From her.
She had looked so sad sitting there at the bar when I’d told her to stay, that I’d be back in an hour, something like heartbreak flashing in her eyes, like she knew.
How could she not? You weren’t exactly subtle about what you were after down there.
My will had fractured in that second, and I had hesitated, tempted to turn back – to just haul her up and take her home. But I knew if I didn’t do something about the tension practically fucking vibrating inside me – blow off some steam, get some goddamn relief – I was going to end up taking the turbulent emotions I could feel brewing beneath the surface out on her.
And I could never – would never – allow that to happen. Even if she looked at me with those wide, heartbroken eyes. Even if she was the catalyst of my instability.
Part of me was still furious with her.
For what? For being curious like a goddamn normal person?
But I was more furious with myself for the way I’d reacted to her questions.
She had looked so upset – frightened, even – and fuck if under all that forced apathy, I hadn’t wanted to gather her up in my arms and… and what?
Tell her the whole sordid story about what happened to your family? Beg her not to leave you, too? Fuck her? A little, eighteen-year-old, maybe, who didn't know better than to not get involved with the likes of someone like you?
No!
No.
I would never do that, ruin her with my bullshit.
That’s why I was here with Blair, sandwiched between her and the wall, the spare bed that Gemma kept around for drunken fools who were too inebriated to drive home and didn’t have any friends to pick them up only a few feet away.
She was as warped as I was, and knew exactly what this entailed.
Sex. That was it. Absolutely no strings attached, and certainly no feelings.
This wasn’t some feel-good relationship. This wasn’t playing house with some beautiful, dark-eyed teenager.
Fuck!
What was wrong with me?
I had a fine woman draped over me, her plush breasts pressed flush against my chest and her leg wrapped around my waist, and all I could think about was Wisp, and her fucking eyes, and the unrelenting lub dub of her heart.
Sharp teeth scraped against the edge of my stubbled jaw.
Blair was desperate for it. It was pathetic, really. (Almost as desperate and pathetic as you, pinning after a fucking eighteen-year-old.)
But I needed some way to release the tension I could feel building up in me day after day or I’d erupt like a goddamn volcano, and it would be ten times worse than the little spat this evening.
I could hurt Wisp, really hurt her, and I didn't think I could ever look at myself in the mirror again if that happened.
So I’d found a willing body. Because I certainly couldn’t do this with Wisp. I wouldn’t.
But, fuck, the thought of her doing what Blair was doing, of her mouth on me. She wouldn’t be rough like Blair, pulling at the little hairs on the back of my neck. She’d be sweet and tentative, let me take the lead. And I’d be so, so careful, knowing how small and delicate she was on the outside even if on the inside she was so much stronger, so much more.
“God, I’ve missed this,” Blair whispered, her voice a breathy moan in my ear. “I’ve missed you. You’re such a fucking stud.”
I grimaced. Goddamn Blair. She always knew how to ruin the mood.
Before I could stop her, the hand not entangled in my hair was grabbing lewdly at my crotch, trying to palm me through my jeans.
I grunted at the rough treatment, yanking her hand off me.
But I hadn’t acted quickly enough, and now Blair was as hyperaware of the same thing as I was: my dick was as soft as could be.
She jerked away from me. Furious splotches of red burst across her cheeks as anger and something closely enough resembling hurt flashed in her eyes that I would have felt bad if Blair wasn’t such a bitch. “What the fuck?” she demanded hotly, voice drenched in disbelief. “I thought you wanted this. I thought you wanted me.”
I grit my teeth against the sound of her shrill whining; it was so different from Wisp’s soft, inquisitive voice. I forced my jaw to unhinge to answer her, “I do.”
She snorted. “Yeah, well, your dick doesn’t,” she snapped back snidely.
“Maybe you’re just not trying hard enough to get a fucking rise out of me,” I spat back.
She narrowed her eyes. “Screw you.”
“I thought that was the point.”
Her face twisted in rage. “Asshole.”
And then, predictably, she was kissing me: grabbing me by the sides of my face and jabbing her tongue impatiently in my mouth. She tasted like stale cigarettes and cheap beer.
Nothing like Wisp, who probably tasted as sweet as she smelled. Like fucking honey nectar. But I didn’t deserve that, her.
I deserved this. This, exactly.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t imagine it, a voice whispered tauntingly. Her soft, pink lips on me, instead of Blair’s.
Fuck.
She’d be so perfect. Shy, yet demanding in her own way.
Blair’s nails – her goddamn talons – dug into my back as she scratched them down my spine. She thought it was sexy, but in reality, it just fucking hurt. But I knew Wisp would never do that. She’d trail her fingers carefully over every bump and line of muscle, taking her time to explore my skin, almost as thoroughly as I would explore hers, first with my hands and then my mouth.
Blair pressed herself against my crotch before pulling away with a grin, and I knew she had finally felt me stirring to life. “That’s more like it,” she teased, no idea that she had nothing at all to do with the half-hard dick in my jeans.
And shit, I was going to feel bad about that later. (Not for using Blair, for using her.) But I could drown in guilt some other time. Right now, I needed this so badly.
When Blair tugged impatiently at the hem of my shirt, it was Wisp I was thinking of as I tore it off my head. When she directed my mouth to her neck, it was Wisp’s sharp collar bone on my mind. It was her pale flesh I was nibbling at with my teeth.
Lub dub. Lub dub.
It was her ear I was sucking into my mouth.
Lub dub. Lub dub.
It was her heartbeat beside me, under me, beating so loudly in my ears it was calling out to me like a fucking siren.
LubdubLubdubLubddub.
What the-?
It was Wisp’s heart I was hearing, and it was beating so fast, it sounded like it was trying to race right out of her chest.
Unease trickling down my spine, I forcibly pulled myself out of the lustful haze I’d fallen into and strained my ears, trying to pick out Wisp’s voice among the others I could hear buzzing downstairs. I ignored Blair, who had sunken down to her knees sometime in the past five seconds and was tugging impatiently at my belt.
And… there it was.
The low mumble of something, but I couldn’t quite make out the words. Regardless, her familiar lit sounded stressed. Anxious, even.
Every hair on my body was suddenly standing at attention.
“You’re so hot,” Blair praised as she worked on my belt buckle.
I frowned, my eyes flickering down to where she was kneeling. “Shut up.”
She huffed. “You love it when I talk dirty,” she griped, but she quieted as she continued fiddling with my pants.
“Let go of me.”
Now, that I heard with perfect clarity, and reacted immediately. “Get off!” I demanded harshly.
Blair shot me a half-confused, half-angry glare. “What? No! We were just getting to the fun part,” she protested, fingers clinging to the zipper of my jeans, no doubt wanting to spring my dick free.
“Stop it!”
Definitely more than anxious. Panic-stricken. Scared.
“I said to get the fuck off!” I yelled, grabbing Blair roughly by the forearm and shoving her away.
“What the hell?” she cried, getting to her feet. “What’s wrong with you?”
I ignored her, too focused on buttoning my jeans to even comprehend what she was saying. I needed to get downstairs. I needed to get to Wisp. Now. Something was wrong.
I was shoving my arms through my shirt’s sleeves when a crash so loud reverberated from the bar downstairs – it sounded like glass shattering – that even Blair heard it and frowned.
“Hey-!” she protested, trying to grab at my arm as I passed her, intent on the stairs. Her nails dug into my skin, but I didn’t even feel it.
Shaking her hand off, I sprinted for the stairs. Taking them two at a time, there was only one thing – one person – on my mind, the same person who, despite my best efforts, had been there all night: Wisp.