Waves of jealousy crash over me when Qiang’s arms wrap around Cade’s neck with a familiarity that makes me wonder if this is the first time they’ve been this close. Arguably, it’s obviously more friendly than not, since, compared to most other couples on the dancefloor, there’s a whole fucking ocean between them. But it doesn’t help. Qiang’s arms are solidly around Cade’s neck, and Cade has a smug as fuck smirk on his face that looks like he’s won the night.
Imani wraps herself around me and starts grinding to the beat. I think I move along with her, not even sure because I can barely keep my eyes away from the two of them. Qiang’s eyes meet mine briefly before they turn back to Cade and tighten their arms around his neck; a blatant statement telling me that they are where they want to be.
I hate tonight. I should have stayed home. The petulance crashing through me in waves and washing across the jealous sands of my heart’s shores.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Kingston heading towards Qiang. Halfway there, he stops, practically plucks some girl off the floor, and brings her with him, not even seeming to care whether she wants to join him or not. The absolute disregard in the move itself is jarring enough to make me know Qiang doesn’t need whatever game that fucker is about to play.
Kingston stops near Qiang, the guy playing some weird eye contact game with them while grinding on the girl who seems a bit too drunk to really care what’s happening. Qiang grimaces, and I pull away from Imani, wanting to insert myself between Qiang and Kingston.
I don’t know what he’s planning, and he’s done enough damage. He doesn’t have the right to randomly show up and do more. There’s a wiggle in the back of my brain that tries to remind me I don’t have a right to insert myself at all, but fuck that voice. Qiang can yell at me later.
That’s the rationale, the reasoning for stepping forward. But then I notice Cade’s eyes are on the indecently dancing pair as well. I slow down, thinkingmaybehe’ll handle it without me making an ass of myself. However, when he grinds his body against Qiang’s, my entire body stills; an entire ocean of anger, jealousy, and rejection crashes into me and pulls me under so deep that it hurts to breathe.
Qiang’s face shifts from a confusing medley of frustration, anger, and resentment to one of consideration and resolve. My heart seizes in my chest, somehow knowing what’s about to happen before it does. Maybe it’s the way Qiang’s body tilts slightly forward, rocking just enough to shift their weight forward and up, or the way their eyesmeet Cade’s with determination; either way, I see the liplock before it happens.
It’s like the screech of tires before a collision, followed by the imminent shrill of metal folding in on itself and the tinkling of a thousand shards of glass shattering. My heart, my body, my brain, just fucking break into pieces, right there in the middle of the dancefloor. I can feel a slight tug on my hand, but for the life of me, I can’t register what it is.
Qiang had said they hadn’t kissed anyone since Kingston, and while a huge part of me knows that kiss was meant more as a fuck you to Kingston than anything to do with Cade or me, it doesn’t stop the rage in my heart.
That kiss was supposed to bemine.
Yeah, they told me to take a fucking hike earlier, and I get that, but it hadn’t registered that it meant Qiang would be givingmykisses away to someone else in the same night.
I can’t move, can hardly think. Everything is crashing through my head with a visceral rage that wants to tear this entire house down to the foundation. I want to reach my hands out and wrap them around Kingston’s throat because it’s his fucking fault.
If he’d just stayed the fuck away, Qiang and I would have been fine. And yeah, I get that Kingston showing up being all it took to derail Qiang like it has means that there’s a whole lot of room for healing that Qiang needs, but we could have worked on that without that asshole showing his fucking face here.
And there are a million other spirals of thought weaving in and making my head spin. Like if Qiang had been dancing with me, they probably would have had the wherewithal not to kiss me like they just did Cade, or the fact that I don’t know if Cade realizes that the kiss was a knee-jerk trauma response and not real.
I don’t even notice that I’m being led from the scene while I watch Cade whisper something to Qiang and lead them towards the stairs, most likely to his room.
It’s like a fucking train wreck. I can’t fucking look away, no matter how gruesome or painful the scene is. I thought the kiss wasmeaningless, but I know both Qiang’s and Cade’s reputations, and there isn’t really any other way to translate Cade leading them up to his room.
There’s an urge–deep-rooted and all-consuming–to march across this house, grab Qiang and carry them home, to stop this nonsense right fucking now. But there’s a force that’s driving me back, moving me away from it.
As they disappear from view, it’s not until a door closes behind me that I realize it was Imani, dragging me away from the dancefloor, who was the force keeping me from crossing the room. I mean, if I’d been even a bit more tuned in to my surroundings at the moment, I could have easily not been led away, but I was too fucking gutted to pay attention.
I’m not even completely sure I didn’t just let her lead me here. I don’t remember moving while the world flipped upside down. I don’t even know where we are. A dark, empty room of some kind, but I’m too overwhelmed to really take it in.
My hands tingle, and for the first time in a long time, I’m itching for a fight. I want to rearrange someone’s face, and I know just who I want to hit, but before I can reach for the door and search for Kingston, Imani finds her way into my arms.
Her lips crashing into mine is the final piece that brings me back to reality. I’ve been so stuck on how everything came about that I hadn’t bothered to ponder why Imani brought me here. It bothers me that I don’t remember enough of the evening, being so completely focused on Qiang and those flocking around them, that I don’t even know how I’ve been acting towards Imani.
Have I been flirting back? Leading her on? I can’t recall hardly a single thing with her this evening, other than agreeing to dance with her after Qiang slipped onto the dancefloor with Cade.
The thought reminds me of what happened on that dancefloor, and something so ugly and forceful rears through my head that I crash my mouth back down to hers, like kissing her hard enough will somehow erase the pain that seeing Qiang kissing Cade, and then letting Cade take them to his room, has caused.
Her hands wrap around the back of my neck, and my body is on autopilot. This is by far not the first party I’ve ended up in a back room with a gorgeous mouth on mine. My body knows how to react, and maybe if I just close my eyes, she can make me forget, just for a minute.
I’d thought about this earlier, slipping back into this lifestyle. Obviously, Imani isn’t the best candidate because she’s made it clear she’s hoping for more than a night, which immediately breaks the code, but she’s warm and wants me. Maybe that’s all I need to get through sleeping with her. Maybe it’ll even be easy if I close my eyes and let it happen. The reasoning jars me; it’s not fair to her to do that.
Her hands snake down my chest, rucking up my shirt and flitting across my bare skin. It’s been so long since I’ve been intimate with anyone that my skin pebbles beneath her touch, but my brain keeps screaming at me that this is wrong. She’s the wrong person in my arms, and I’m only holding her here to soothe the ache of someone else’s absence. She may have been the one to bring me back here, but every ounce of my reciprocation is fucked up on every level because not for a moment has it been about her.
I know Qiang left our house in a mixture of emeralds and sapphires with eyes hiding more pain than they allow their countenance to show. I know they were wearing their favorite boots, and their hair was curled around their face. I know they had on four different-colored scarves and no fewer than a dozen different lengths of chains around their neck. But without looking at Imani, I haven’t the faintest idea if her hair is up or down, or even what color her clothes are, or whether she’s in pants or a skirt.
This isn’t me, and Imani deserves way better than some guy having to get through sleeping with her to help him not think about someone else for five minutes. It’s absolutely cruel, and something I would deck the fuck out of someone else for doing.
I pull back, gently pushing her off of me until her eyes clear, and then tilt up at me with more defeated understanding than confusion.
