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What the hell was happening? I went from being a caveman to a wolf to a bumbling fuckin’ idiot. And yet, I found I meant it. Lea had obviously been feeling herself in there, and she looked all the better for it. It wasn’t her fault that part of my brain wanted to cover her up so I was the only man who had the pleasure of seeing her like this. That wasn’t fair to her. Or anyone else.
When I managed to look back at her, the anger on her face had all but evaporated. She looked unsure. But also, maybe a little curious.
“I think,” she said carefully. “That you have the wrong idea about me.”
“And what idea is that?” I asked as I watched her cross the balcony to stand next to me.
This was dangerous. This close, I could smell those sweet flowers again. Feel her body breathing next to mine in the dark. See, all too clearly, the way her skin glistened under that dress—fuck.
“That I need money to be happy,” she said. “Restaurants or cars or shit like that. I’m still in freaking high school, Michael. I share a room with my sister. I’m not fancy.”
I swallowed. “Aren’t you?” Compared to my life, hers was the lap of luxury.
Out here, in only the ambient light of the party, the end of her nose red with the cold, she looked like a goddamn queen in her dress and tiny silver shoes, my coat thrown over her shoulders like a cape.
No, not a queen. A contessa.
My contessa.
The thought entered my head before I could stop it. All I knew was that she deserved the fucking moon if she could find a man to give it to her. And I would have sawed off my arm to be that man.
“I live as crowded as everyone else we know,” she argued. “Everyone in my family shares a room except Mattie, and he lives in an unfinished attic, like Cinderella. We hand down every piece of clothing we own. We might drink wine sometimes, but it’s the cheapest we can find. But we don’t care. Like you said to my brother—it’s the people in our lives who matter more than anything else.”
“I—yeah, I guess,” I said as she stepped close enough that if I looked down, I’d see her bare toes framed between my big, clumsy feet.
Instead, I leaned against the railing, trying to give her the out. Trying to let her get away, before I snatched her up for myself.
“I think you have a secret,” she told me as her fingers walked up my shirt.
“Oh, yeah?” My voice was hoarse, like I’d just been shouting.
“Yeah.” Her mouth was barely a few inches from mine, her heels granting a bit more height. “I think you’re actually a good person, deep down.”
I shook my head, though she moved even closer. “Nah. I’m nothing.”
“Liar.” She hovered her mouth over mine.
“Nope,” I said, my voice a low hum. “It’s the truth.”
“How do you figure?” Her eyes were lowered, focused completely on my mouth.
“Because I’m about to do this.”
And then I kissed her.
No, more than kissed. I grabbed her by the nape and slammed my mouth to hers. Flipped her around so she was the one backed against the guardrail, then yanked one of her legs around my hip and ground myself against her so she could feel exactly how not good I was for her through my jeans and her paper-thin dress. I grabbed handfuls of her round, full ass, grunted into that perfect, sinful mouth, and forgot my name in the sweetness of everything that was Lea Zola.
God, I wanted to do more. All she had to do was say the word, and I would have made her outrageous, vodka-soaked goals come true. I would have yanked up her skirt and fucked her right there on the balcony, in full view of Carrera’s party and half the Bronx, where any other pervert in the city with half a mind to look out their window could check out the show.
I expected her to shove me away. But she didn’t. Instead, her hands were all over me too, grabbing onto my arms, flying around my neck, threading fingers into my hair so she could pull me closer, daring me to grind harder.
If she only knew, I thought again for the second time that night.
But she didn’t.
And that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it?
Lea Zola was an innocent. She was a kid. Still in high school, as she pointed out, even if she was technically legal. She lived with her grandparents, took care of her sisters, studied for math tests, and had a whole goddamn future ahead of her that had no business being derailed by a dirty mechanic pawing her at a party in the projects.
