After a singular taste of Marlow, I’m addicted. The toughest thing I’ve ever done was keep my distance from her all week. It gnawed at my bones. I wanted to knock on her bedroom door, fall down to my knees, apologize for agreeing to ‘Just one night,’ and beg her to give memore.
By some miracle, I held back from doing that.
I had to constantly remind myself that she was forbidden. I couldn’t have her the way I wanted to: for keeps.
I’d hoped that some distance would do me good but all it did was increase my longing and sexual frustration.
My mind is running on a broken loop ofI want her, I want her,I want her.
I’m parched with thirst and my body aches with the need to fuck this tight little cheerleader and make good on all her kinks and fantasies.
“Thane.” God, the soft way she whispers my name has everything below my belt clenching. “You’ve been so quiet…What are you thinking?”
I almost let out a humorless laugh. Telling her that my mind is enacting all sorts of dirty fantasies isn’t a good idea. It would be the excuse we need to cross a line and goddammit, I’m already hanging by a thread.
Based on the way Marlow stares at me, bottom lip caught between her teeth, brown eyes running over my body in a way that claims she appreciates all my ink and muscles, she’s also hanging by a single thread too.
“Nothing, baby.”
“It’s not nothing. You’re angry and your knuckles are nearly white from how hard you’re gripping the steering wheel.”
“Why was Hank bothering you?”
Marlow chews her bottom lip and I glance away, jaw hard. I have to focus on the road, otherwise I risk us getting into an accident, and not on the fact that I’m dying to kiss her.
The highway is empty at this time of the night, but it’s getting harder to see as rain starts to pelt down, my wipers working fast.
If this continues, I may actually have to pull over.
“Marlow?” I urge again, when the only noise in my truck remains a slow, rock’n’roll song and not her melodious voice. “Tell me.”
She sighs like she lost a battle with herself. “They were playing spin the bottle at the party, which is a lame game if youask me, but I decided to participate under peer-pressure. The bottle eventually landed on Hank and me but I didn’t want to kiss him. So I got up to leave. He must have been following me because after I said bye to Michaela and stepped out…he was right behind me. Hank was mad that I rejected him and he…”
“Was trying to take something that you didn’t want to give,” I finish for her, my voice flat and my heart feeling like a solid mass inside my chest. “I’m going to ruin him, Marlow. He’s going to wish he never laid a single finger on you.”
It’s quiet in the cab for a moment. The rain beats down harder. I can’t keep driving like this. We’re going to have to park somewhere and let the storm calm down.
Just as I take the next exit, Marlow finally speaks up.
“Why?” she challenges, tone tinged with defiance. “Why do you care that Hank touched me? I’m no one to you.”
You’re starting to feel like everything to me, Marlow.
“How can you ask me that?” I growl, shaking my head as I drive us to safer grounds.
“Fine.” She blows out a frustrated breath. “I’m your sister’s best friend and temporary tenant.”
I swallow roughly. “You’re more than that, baby, and you know it.”
Doesn’t she understand how difficult it was for me to stay away from her—for her own good? Didn’t she realize how altering that one encounter was for me? I felt like she rearranged my insides in a way where my entire heart was overtaken by her, scribbles of Marlow etched in every line.
The tension heightens in my truck as Marlow peers at me with so much softness and hope that fuck…I finally see it.
Hurt.
Over how I’ve ignored her. Over how I’ve probably let her believe that she means nothing to me.
“So why have you avoided me like the plague, Thane?”
