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Tragedy or not, I imagined he had been the boy who was always stronger, better, and faster than everyone else. He was probably the one teachers let get away with every little thing because even they weren’t immune to the awe he practically oozed.
And now all that tragedy and privilege had shaped him into this frightening combination of charm and coldness. The closest comparison I could think of was that it felt like looking at a gorgeous painting while ominous music played in the background. As much as you could trust your eyes that what you saw was pretty and pure, you still couldn’t help but let that chilling music twist your perception.
“Tell me this,” I said. “Are you a bad person?”
He looked at me, almost sadly. “Yes.”
“And what do you really want from me?”
“Everything.”
I licked my lips. “What if I told you I have gonorrhea; would you want that too?”
Landon didn’t even flinch. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“I’ve finally made you nervous enough to get a joke out of you. Here’s what I think. I think you’re nervous because you know you’re going to submit to me before long. And you’re scared that you’ll like it. But you want to hate it, just to spite me.”
“Those are a lot of assumptions. What if I just want to feel like I can trust you before I give you a piece of my heart to play with?”
Landon’s eyes were like glinting coals in the dark room. He moved closer, one hand cupping my cheek and the other on my thigh.
I shivered against the sudden contact. I almost recoiled back, but I couldn’t make myself do it. His touch was the most delicious kind of sin.
His mouth was just inches from mine again, but his eyes bore into me. “I want to make you moan my name. I want you to say it until you’re hoarse and your muscles are shaking with need. I want to feel you shudder against me as you come.”
Each word that came from his cruel and perfect lips was like an impact in my chest, forcing more and more air out of my lungs with each syllable. By the end, I was breathless. “So, you’re saying you think I’m cute,” I whispered.
There it was again. I was waving a pathetic attempt at humor over my head like a little white flag. Meanwhile, all around me, bombshells were exploding—stinging my cheeks with dirt and shrapnel. Despite it all, I had to sling out a stupid joke, or at least a bit of sarcasm.
The difference between Landon and everybody else was that he plowed straight over my humor. It slid past him like a harmless breeze. He just kept coming. Kept advancing. He made me think of that scene in Terminator 2 when the T-1000 was chasing down John and Sarah Connor in their car. No matter how many shots they fired at him or how many twists and turns they took, he just kept coming. And when hands weren’t good enough to hold on, he morphed his entire arms into metal things with hooks on the end. And yes, they eventually shot those off and lost him, but everybody watching the movie knew that wasn’t the end. Even if they couldn’t see him in the rearview, he’d be coming. Always in pursuit. Always advancing.
“I would be bad for you,” he said, almost gently. “I’d want to punish you for being such a pain in my ass, but the worst part would only come once I’d shown you how badly you want me.”
“That pain in your ass could be hemorrhoids,” I said. “Staring at your phone on the toilet? Straining? It can happen to anyone. They say you shouldn’t spend more than five minutes at a time on there.”
Landon didn’t so much as blink, then he straightened, letting me feel like I could breathe again when he wasn’t acting like he was about to pounce on me.“I know you’re hearing all of this. And it doesn’t matter what words come out of that pretty little mouth of yours. Your pupils are dilated like your entire body is flooding with adrenaline, and…” he tapped my knee and I flinched like I’d just been shocked. “You’re wound as tight as a wire. So do I need to keep reading you, or are you ready to talk to me. To actually talk to me.”
I cleared my throat. “Maybe my adrenaline is pumping because I’m pissed off.”
“Could be,” he reached out and softly pulled my hand away from my lips, which I had been absentmindedly rubbing with my thumb. “But people tend to touch their lips when they’re aroused.”
“You’re a body language expert, too? Tell me. What does it mean if somebody’s foot is touching your balls at a high speed? Do you want me to demonstrate?”
