Long before my fated car ride with Laurie, I’d been aware of my hypocrisy.
It started around the time I’d walked up to Daya and had to defend myself and my actions with Spence. I’d been innocent with him, believing it when he said they weren’t dating and succumbing to the stomach loops and whirls of a crush. But when Daya sat there in front of me professing her claim over Spence and the gall I had in trying to swipe him away, I thought of Trev. And Laurie. And how deeply betrayed I felt by them despite the fading love. I couldn’t very well sit primly in that car with Laurie, spouting off my be strong, not stupid speech and not think of my current situation and how if I expected Laurie to follow the rules, I better put my ass in gear, too.
After a few minutes with my back against a brick wall by a stack of garbage canisters on one side and a homeless man covered in tarps, quilts and a sleeping bag on the other, I called forth my gumption and strode forward. I rolled my ankle in a sidewalk crack and toppled, a garble of “Godfuckindammit!” leaving my mouth before I found my balance again. The man cackled behind me.
I paused, searching through my purse in the middle of the walkway, but it was so late no one but a homeless man was witnessing my fall from grace. Finding the metal canister, I yanked it out and popped a few mints, proud that I’d had the foresight to do this mere steps away from my destination.
“Got anything for me, honey?”
I stuffed a few dollar bills in the half-empty container and tossed it the man’s way. He caught it with surprising ease. “Thanks, doll!”
When I made it to my target, I leaned heavily on the buzzer before that itty-bitty sober part of me that I’d basically used up on Laurie could say anything.
“Yeah?”
Hmm. A not-Spence voice answered. It was probably his roommate. Knox, was it? He sounded groggy, like I’d woken him up.
Uh oh. Potential idiot move commencing. Except Drunk Me was pumping her arms shouting yes! yes! yes! at the possibility of seeing Spence.
“Hi, Knox! Is Spence there?”
“Yeah? Who’s this?”
“It’s ah—it’s Emme.”
“Hang on.”
The buzzer screeched and I heaved myself in, better at tackling the entrance this time. In taking the stairs, I half expected Spence to be waiting for me at his door like before, his silhouette a gorgeous centerpiece on my horizon, but the painted black door was firmly shut when I arrived. I attempted a meager knock, which was more of a drag of knuckles against wood.
The black door receded from my vision and Spence stood there, bare except for a pair of low-riding sweatpants. “Emme?”
The pecs were as I expected, sculpted onto a lean canvas, along with his abs and the sneak peek I got of his obliques—a delectable V.
What I didn’t anticipate were the scars.
“What’s going on? Why are you here?” he prompted.
“Um.” I forced my gaze from his stomach, where on the left side, closer to his hip, his skin was mottled and pink. Like he’d—like a part of him had melted.
I shook myself out of it. I was here for a reason, and it wasn’t to ogle him. “Guess who I ran into tonight?”
He paused. “Tequila?”
“No. Well, yes.” I raised my hand to the doorframe to steady myself. “But also Daya.”
“Daya,” he repeated. Slowly, like he was still processing why I was standing at his door at 3 a.m.
“I try to do my job,” I said, with the flair of a lopsided flamenco dancer. I banged into the wall. Spence instinctively reached for me, but I waved him off. “I know it’s not something that impresses a lot of people, but I do it well and I’m proud to be in charge of my life and pay my way in this city.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said carefully, then gently pulled my arm from the frame. “Do you want to come in?”
“Yes.”
I hobbled inside, noting the darkened interior, the lack of Knox. It occurred to me that instant that Daya could be here, half-dressed or naked on his couch, or in his bedroom, and I would be perilously close to becoming the kind of girl who couldn’t take a hint, who would rather humiliate herself in front of the guy she liked than bow out gracefully. Peering with squinty eyes, it was a relief to note that she was nowhere. That I could see.
“Are you alone?” I asked.
That prompted a stifled laugh from Spence. “A bit late to ask that, don’t you think?”
I spun around, coming close to clipping my hip on the jut of his kitchen counter. “So you’re not?”
“Whoa. Steady on,” Spence said, resting two hands on my shoulders. It brought him closer. His breath was on my lips. I licked them, thinking I could taste his exhales.
In the low glow of the electronic oven clock and the creases of light through the blinds beside us, his eyes shone.
“I’m alone,” he said. “Except for Knox, but he and I don’t tend to sleep together.”
“I woke Knox up.”
“That you did. He conks out like a two-year-old and he’s already back asleep, so you don’t have to deal with his cranky side.”
“I might wake him up again.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’m here to yell at you.”
“Then he’s your grizzly bear to deal with, not mine.”
“You’re dating Daya.”
I blurted it. Quickly. So I wouldn’t lose any nerve, coated with alcohol like they were.
He angled his head. “I told you I wasn’t.”
“She said you were. Then her friends piped in. They said—” No. I wasn’t going to go into that humiliating part. “They backed up her story.”
His hands, which had been warm, steadying anchors on my increasingly floating body, lifted. It threw off my center, and my hand flew out to splay against the counter.
“Did you funnel some liquid courage to come here?” he asked.
“Not initially,” I said. “But then Daya was in the bar and she kept looking at me and Laurie also kept staring at me. I could feel it all over my skin. Not literally, but enough that I thought they were spiders. Like I was a bug. Like I could take their men back from them…but…but are they the ones who’re wrong?” I slapped my free hand to my chest, and said with a warbling voice. “Am I the vixen?”
I heard a suspicious noise in the dark. Like a laugh. “I doubt that’s the case, Emme.”
Now I was insulted. “Uh, how would you know?”
“I mean…” He caught himself, then gently directed me to the couch. “I mean, you can’t always figure out what other people are thinking, or how to please them. I’ve been clear to Daya about our status, and actually, we haven’t seen each other for a while. She might be hurting over that and decided to lash out at you instead of talk and be honest with me.” He sat, and guided a pouting me down next to him. “And as for—Laurie, is it? She gained Trevor through nefarious means, and probably feels extremely insecure about that. Any second, Trev could change his mind, the way he did with you. Forging a relationship through cheating never leaves a person on solid ground.”
“I knew all that,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know why I had to drive across town and wake you up to have you validate all of that.”
He patted my knee. “It’s the tequila.”
“No. It’s you.”
His hand froze on my leg.
“Are you mad at me for coming here?” I asked softly.
“No.”
“Are you mad at me for kissing you?” I asked bravely.
His lips parted. “No.”
“Will you…” I leaned closer. “Will you be mad at me for kissing you again?”
Spence cupped my cheek, drawing me closer. The heat of us sent invisible sparks leaping off my skin. He said, “Why don’t you take the risk.”
It was the second time our lips had ever met, but it was like we’d known each other for one hundred years. His silk molded with my plush, velvet to velvet, and it became feverish, aching.
Spence lowered me, one hand combing into my hair and the other on my hip, his scruff a tingling sandpaper sensation on my lips. The weight of his body held me still until I was writhing underneath, wanting more, more, then maybe he was willing to give.
I didn’t care.
I wanted all of him, every piece, and when my hands dived, feeling his skin, the soft down of his hair, the ridges of his body, my fingers brushed against his scar and he pulled back with a hiss.
“S-sorry,” I stuttered. Words were difficult to grasp during spontaneous bliss mode. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay, it didn’t hurt,” he said. Our noses touched. “I’ve—I don’t normally let people touch that part.”
I lifted up and he maneuvered so he was laying on his side against the couch, our bodies still in contact, holding in each other’s heat.
“I noticed it—before,” I admitted. I looked at him. “It’s nothing you should be ashamed of. Scars are a part of you. Your life story.”
“It’s not shame, exactly,” he said. His voice was roughened—hopefully because of me. He dragged his fingers across his marred flesh. “This didn’t come from beauty. It’s not something I like to think about or be proud of enduring.”
I touched my fingers to his, stilling his movements yet complying with his wishes not to actually touch the wound. He tensed under me. “How old were you?”
“About…thirteen,” he said.
The answer to what happened to him was in his age. I inwardly winced at the idea of Spence, at the impressionable age of thirteen, cowering against fire. Outwardly, I appeared calm. I was sure plenty of people had cringed with pity once they laid eyes upon his scar.
“That’s very young,” I said.
“It started long before this. And long after.” He flipped his hand so he could weave his fingers with mine. “I shouldn’t be—we don’t have to be talking about this.” He tried for a smirk. “It’s a bit of a buzzkill.”
Oh, Spence, I almost said. But I was already torn inside, and knew how it would sound in my voice. “What stopped it?”
His smile vanished into the shadows. “Turning eighteen.”
Spence said nothing for a while, instead choosing to trace patterns on my palm, above his burn, continuing to protect it. I didn’t push and was content to linger here, him beside me with the calm of night cloaking our bodies. If he never wanted to move, than I didn’t either.
“The other night…” he said.
I tilted up to look at him. “When we were here studying?”
“Yeah. I want to apologize for how I acted in the end.”
“You mean, when you left a footprint on my ass after shutting the door behind me?”
The muscles in Spence’s jaw ticked in the dark like a wince. “I feel terrible about that.”
I gave him a light smack on the arm. “I’m kidding.” Then I softened. “I could tell I hit on something. A subject you were uncomfortable with.”
His chin bumped my forehead when he nodded. “My past. When it comes into conversation unexpectedly, it’s like this old part of me shoots forward before the new, improved Spence can talk him down. But it’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have been a dick.”
I leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Apology accepted.”
Spence’s chest started bopping up and down, taking me with it. I glanced down in confusion, but eventually realized he was laughing. “What?”
“You reek so badly of tequila.”
I covered my mouth, totally forgetting that I must be a tequila-breathing dragon crawling all over him.
“I’m going to get wasted if one strand of your hair touches mine,” he continued, still laughing.
“Spence!” I lifted off, mortified, thinking I should find my shoes and go back to my cave.
“Don’t,” he said, but the gleam of his teeth was still visible. “I don’t want you to leave.” Gently, he pulled me back to him. “Stay a while.”
He drove a very hard bargain. Remain here, in the warmth of his bare chest and arms, his heart beating softly against my ear, or go back outside in the freezing cold, waiting like the no-night stand I was, for a car to turn the corner and drag me home.
“Fine,” I said, and scooted closer. “But only if you can find me a breath mint. I gave my last ones to a blanket man.”
“I’ll just take your word for that,” he said, and hooked my chin. Then Spence managed to make my thigh muscles clench by saying, “I brushed my teeth a while ago. I think there’s still some wintergreen you can score.”
I didn’t hesitate, because if I did, I would’ve blushed and ducked my head, hiding in his neck. Another part of me, the one that had me aching, shivery, and hot in all but a second, wanted to explore him immediately. So I did.
My lips connected with his, and my, he was so supple, but firm. Demanding. I rose up to deepen the kiss and have his arms wrap around me, pressing me to his hard torso, the thin fabric of my clothing seeming to dissolve on contact. All I could feel was him—Spence’s pulse, his pumping blood, his synapses firing against mine. Muscles holding me firm, skin keeping me hot, breath panting for more.
“Fuck,” he breathed into my mouth, then spun me so I was underneath him. “Emme.”
My fingers dug into his shoulders and my voice made these strange noises. Gasps and moans combining that were driving him over the edge. “Don’t stop,” I said. “God, don’t stop.”
He broke off. Cold air draped my lips.
I blinked. “What?”
“We can’t,” he said above me. His hair fell over his forehead. “You’ve…ah, shit.” He paused to collect his breath. “You’ve had a lot to drink and the last thing I want is to—”
“Don’t you dare say you don’t want to take advantage of me.” I wanted to scream, Take advantage of me!
His fingers dragged across my cheek. “Not like this, Emme.”
Not like this. What did he think I wanted? Roses and candlelight? Gentle caresses? Chocolate? Seconds ago, his tongue was doing things to my mouth that I thought only porn stars knew how to do, and now all I wanted, all I cared about, was tearing those sweatpants off and having him fuck me.
I’d never wanted someone’s dick in me more. Oh my God—the mere hindsight of thinking that had me flushing. Not with shame. More like with the realization that Tequila Emme was viscously horny.
I wanted him. Bad. I felt him against my thigh.
“Spence…” Instinctually, my hips ground against his. His lips thinned and he groaned.
Spence stilled me by placing a hand at my waist, though his fingers stroked. “A kiss. I told myself I was only going to taste you. But you are damned irresistible.” Sadly, he maneuvered until I was tucked in beside him again on the couch. “You’re not gonna win. I refuse.”
“I feel like this would’ve be a win-win situation,” I muttered.
Spence laughed, then tucked me closer. “When that time comes, I have no doubt.”
I pressed my lips together at his words. Spence wasn’t rejecting me or asking me to leave. He was content for us to lie together, no pressure, a move I appreciated even though my nerves were scrambling for more of his sex-fueled heat. Spence was merely waiting for another, better time. This, I could accept, because being next to him, draped inside his arms, even with blue balls, I honestly couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather be this close to.