Page 60 of House of Bass

She takes a menacing step towards me, “Do you want to find out?”

There isn’t much of a height difference between us, but I still tower over her by an inch or two, and it pisses her off and you can tell. Then I do what I always do, ruin a good thing. I push her.

There are moments in life when you do something terrible and regret it almost immediately, it happened once when my mother baked a tray of cupcakes and I ate them all which left me sick the whole weekend. I didn't regret the cakes, they tasted great but I regretted the outcome.

This is what is happening here. I don’t regret pushing Scarlett but what I do regret is how she yanks my hair back and holds me in a tight grip pulling out that blade of hers.

God, I had forgotten how crazy she was. And strong.

It’s like I blacked out in that brief moment, I hadn't even noticed when the music stopped playing. An arm wraps around my waist to pull me away from her as others did with her, my voice hoarse from all the yelling. Somehow that is going to be my biggest regret of the night. Turning my head, I put a face to the arm in question, it is Arden’s.

MJ takes charge of escorting Scarlett out of the party, having to do something she doesn’t do often, be stern and serious. No one likes it when MJ is angry, it makes things terribly inconvenient, she can hold a grudge.

Harley anger radiates off her in waves, “What is fucking wrong with you? Why can't you ever be normal for once!”

“She started it.”

“Are you twelve?” She says, her tone dripping with disgust, like she’s lost all respect for me the second I uttered the words.

“This is why you don't let the riff-raff in,” Devon adds, taking the chance to throw in a snarky comment, not even noticing when she had got here.

“Shut up!” Harley and I snap in unison, our anger mirroring one another. We face each other again, and she sounds resigned, her shoulders slumping as she says, “I finally found someone in this place who doesn’t treat me like an outsider because of where I came from, and here you go ruining it. Stop meddling in my life.” Her final words hang in the air as she follows in the same direction MJ and Scarlett disappear to.

The worst part about it all is that I’d gone through it still entirely sober. Clearly, the worst thing you can mistake me for is being sane or stable. I grab a bottle of vodka from the table next to me and storm off in the opposite direction, too wrapped up in myself to notice I am being followed until I hear footsteps behind me. By then, I have found the most secluded place I can, free from prying eyes that I can and promptly laid face-down on the floor.

“Are you proud of yourself?” Arden says. I don’t look up at him, just lift a middle finger and groan a muffled leave me alone without raising my head. If I’d wanted a lecture on my behaviour, I’d have called my father. “The constant fighting is unbecoming, and you know it.”

“Get off the floor,” he says once I don’t grace him with a reply. I turn my head towards him. He’s taken his mask off, and his hair is sticking up in every direction. If I point it out, he’d immediately want to find a mirror to fix it, but I like him like this. Messy.

He crouches down to my level, studying my tired face. I can tell he sees through me, past the aggression and upset. Something he caused, because he knows which buttons to press, and he’s proud of himself for it; I could see it in the smirk tugging at his lips.

“You’re so easy to provoke, Saint. You should’ve just given in from the start,” he says, confirming my suspicions. He takes the unopened bottle from my hand and rolls it away, not even sparing it a glance.

“Leave me alone, Richard. Why can’t you just let me be?” I beg, knowing that going down this road will only lead to damage far worse than what I’d already caused outside. And if it ends again like it did last time, it will tear me so viscerally apart that my throat is already tightening at the thought. I am getting ahead of myself and we haven't even really done anything yet.

“For the same reason you can’t,” he replies plainly, with a shrug — as if that alone is reason enough to blow our entire world apart. His hand reaches out, pulling me to my feet, and the air seems to crackle as we stare at each other.

“I don’t want to live any more of my life without you. We have wasted enough time apart that we will never be able to get back and I hate that. We swore it once, and I meant it. From cradle to grave, it’ll always be you and I.”

“Cradle to grave,” I murmur, my eyes transfixed by the fullness of his bottom lip, every part of me aching to close the gap but holding back.

“If we do this, no one can find out,” I press, not realising I am subconsciously leaning in, until we are less than a foot apart.

“I’m not a fool.”

“Perhaps I am. We really are going to hell.”

“I’ll go wherever you are, and if it’s hell then so be it,” he replies, the tip of his fingers lingering on my face.

When I slam my lips against his, I want to make sure the taste of me is the only thing that lingers. He lifts me and I wrap my legs around his waist, pebbles forming on my skin as he delicately touches parts of me I never thought he would. I can’t help but want more than what I am being given. It leads to me grinding on his hand a little harder, hoping he’ll get it, as I try to unbuckle his pants with my hands but he slows me down.

“The first time we have sex won’t be at a party where I can't even hear myself,” he whispers, giving me one last lingering kiss that gradually drags into biting my bottom lip. “It’ll be on my bed, in my house, where there’s no chance of anyone disturbing us,” he continues, his slow, seductive words sending a chill running down my spine.

“However, I can give you this,” Arden says, ripping apart my underwear in one yank. Slowly he strokes me up and down and we both fight for control as I use his two fingers to bring myself to climax at the same time he is moving in and out of me.

Once I come, I flop against him. Sweat beads on my forehead. I don’t want to unlatch myself from him, but I know we have to get back out there before anyone notices we’ve been gone too long.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” I say softly. Years of back and forth led to this, to finally being able to put us first and blocking out the noise.