Harder (Caroline & West #2)(52)

The house fills with people. I know a lot of them—people I’ve sold to, drank with, handed paper bags of muffins at three in the morning. Old lab partners, group project partners, girls whose names I know because Krishna hooked up with them, girls whose names I know because they’ve tried to hook up with me.

I let it infect me. Noise and heat, girls and sweat. The house gets loud, the music gets louder, everybody’s got a red plastic cup and something to say. Every time someone raises a hand and shouts “West!” over the crowd—every time someone presses another cup into my hand—I let myself take it.

I’m drinking and talking, laughing with some dude whose name I can’t remember, leaning a palm against the wall, dipping down so I can hear this chick named Sierra who seems to know me though I’d swear I’ve never talked to her before. I’ve got a view down her shirt but her tits are just tits and mostly what I’m doing, even when I’m not doing it, is watching Caroline.

I like the way she looks. The way she laughs.

I like the way she moves when she’s weaving through bodies with her drink held high, the way she jokes around with Krishna and Bridget and her other housemates, the way that even though she’s not all that tall she looks like the tallest girl in the room because she holds herself so straight.

She holds herself like she matters, laughs like she cares, smiles like she’s somebody.

Regal. Caroline’s regal. Always has been.

Always will be, and nothing I do or say to her is going to change that, because she wasn’t lying when she said she wouldn’t cut off her hair for me.

She knows who she is deep inside herself. I can break her heart, but I can’t break her pride. I can’t break her. She’s not ever going to let that happen.

Fuck, I want her.

All the time, like a virus, a disease I caught, except the other way around—like a cure I caught a year ago, and it’s inside me, winding through my veins, pumping through my heart.

It’s easy to take it.

It’s easy to drink more than I’m supposed to, easy to go to her when I see her resting on the arm of the couch.

It’s easy to walk up behind her and sweep her hair back over her shoulder and lower my head.

I hold her shoulders, bracket her between my palms, tell her keep still with my hands, and I open my mouth there, right at the edge of her jawline. It’s the first place I ever put my lips on her, and I know she’ll remember.

I act like she’s still mine, because I’ve never stopped being hers. Not for a second.

I step in closer, bending down, pressing against her as I wrap my arms around her front, feel her breathe, feel like I’m home here, now, with her.

“You having fun?” My mouth is so close to her ear I can whisper. I can tell her anything, sneak explicit words beneath the music—tell her every single dirty act I want to carry out on her body, and no one but Caroline will hear.

“Yeah.”

I feel her breathing, her back rising and falling against my chest, her heat and her excitement.

“We should go somewhere,” I say. “Have some more fun.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

But she’s got her hands on top of mine, and she’s pulling my arms tighter around her.

She’s got her ass against my crotch, and she’s pushing back into where I’m getting hard, making me harder.

This, we always knew how to do.

My hands are at her ribs, crossed around her. I slide them up until they’re just under her breasts. Not quite indecent, but I feel the hitch in her breathing. I know she’s getting wet for me, just thinking what I could do with one sweep of my thumbs. “This feels like a good idea.”

She twists around, heat in her eyes, color in her cheeks. “How much did you drink?”

“Four beers.”

“You’re not wasted.”

“Buzzed is all. What about you?”

“Two beers, and I switched to water a while ago.”

We study each other. Around us there’s movement, shouting and laughter, posturing excitement, but it might as well just be me and Caroline, because I could give a f*ck about everything else in the room.

She’s sober, and I’m close enough. We both know what we’re doing. If this happens, it’s because we’re deciding to let it happen, right now, unimpaired—except I’m never unimpaired around her.

I’ve been drunk on her since the day we met.

“Come upstairs with me,” she says.

“You sure?”

“I’m not sure about anything.” She wets her lips, the tip of her tongue flicking out, mesmerizing me. “But yeah,” she says. “Come upstairs.”

I let go of her so she can stand up.

I grab her hips because I can’t help it. I need to grip her. I need to hold her and bite her, lick her and take her, everything I can get from her tonight, all of it, I’m going to store it up, hoard it away.

She covers my hand with hers. Interlaces our fingers together.

She pulls me toward the stairs, up the risers, down the hall to her room.


The framed Putnam Women’s Rugby jersey on the wall above Caroline’s bed vibrates with the thump of the bass.

I stand in the middle of the rug, not sure where she wants me. I’m in the calm space at the center of a tornado. If I move too far in any direction, it’ll fling me out, fling me away from her.