Bad Boy Blues(30)

His answer is a tight clench of his jaw.

Then something else occurs to me. He hasn’t smoked in a while. I haven’t seen him with a cigarette ever since I took his pack. Not that I keep tabs on him but still. Even now, his smell is… un-smoky.

“Wait a second. Are you…” I shake my head because this is bizarre. “Have you not been smoking? Why would you not smoke?”

This is the very first time I don’t understand him. I don’t understand his motivations, his actions.

All these years, it’s been simple. He was rich and bored and bad. And I was the new girl from the other side of the line. He and his friends bullied me because they could. Because no one would lift a finger and because I was on their turf.

Why would he deliberately hurt himself though?

“I…”

I trail off again because I literally have nothing to say. My mind is blank.

Actually, no.

I’m lying. My mind isn’t blank. It’s flooded with stupid, crazy thoughts.

Thoughts like… maybe he did it for me.

He hurt himself. On purpose.

He hurt himself because I wanted him to hurt.

Zach lowers himself over me some more, making my jumbled thoughts go away.

Okay, thank God. Because it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever thought. Zach doesn’t care what I want. He never has.

Crazy with a capital c.

There’s no touching between us, nope. But the weight of his chest inches apart from mine still feels crushing. It still halts my breaths.

“You’re getting brave, aren’t you?” he asks, instead of answering my earlier question.

“What?”

“But there’s a very thin line between being brave and being stupid.”

A barely-leashed threat lingers in his tone. A threat that steals my voice.

He cocks his head to the side and licks his lips. “You don’t wanna cross that line. You don’t wanna be stupid and steal my stuff or run your mouth off about my dick.”

Oh God, I’d forgotten about my careless, harmless little joke.

He knows.

How does he know?

“There are no secrets in this house. Not from me. Do you understand?”

“I –”

“Shh.” He puts his finger on my navy-blue painted lips. “Don’t talk. Just listen. I’ve been real nice to you. Real patient. I’ve been giving you passes because I can’t change history. I can’t change what happened at St. Patrick’s and if these little, childish games make you happy, then you can have your fun. I can allow you to have your fun.”

He lowers his eyes to look at my lips, which I realize are parted. I’m breathing onto his finger, misting it up as he continues, “But it’s getting a little annoying now. People who annoy me, make me angry. And you really don’t wanna make me angry, do you?”

I’m frozen.

He presses his finger into the plumpness of my lips, flattening my mouth, pushing against my teeth, probably smudging my lipstick.

“Be a good girl, Blue, and shake your head.”

I don’t. I can’t.

He’s never been this close to me. If I thought the bathtub was close, then I was crazy. This is close. This is hovering and looming. This is the definition of the word pervasive.

He’s everywhere.

His smell, his breaths, his voice, his heat and his skin. So much skin.

Then his whole hand captures my jaw, all while his finger is still on my parted lips. He puts pressure on my chin and forces me, makes me shake my head.

“Good. That’s good,” he murmurs. “I told you the first night I came back: don’t tempt me. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”

His soft tone hits me in the stomach. Right in the indentation of my navel, and I suck in a breath.

Zach notices.

He notices my heaving chest. I bet he also notices how my breasts are punching the fabric. They feel heavy to me. Heavy and dangling and… ripe.

God, and sweaty. Just like his torso, all ridged and corrugated with muscles.

It’s like we’re both suspended in this moment. Him with his eyes on my chest and me with my eyes on his face.

It’s wrong and it shouldn’t happen but it is happening and I want it to stop.

A second later, it does when a sound travels from down the hallway. I hear footsteps bounding, approaching. Someone is climbing the stairs.

The weird paralysis of my body breaks and my palms slip on the wall. Zach looks up at me, at his hand that’s still wrapped around my jaw.

“Let me go.” I look toward the stairs at the end of the hallway.

His reaction, however, is completely opposite to mine.

Amused, he says, “I don’t like your tone.”

My heart’s in my throat, my legs are shaking. “You’re joking, right?”

“Are you laughing?”

I grit my teeth. “Whoever it is, I don’t want them to see me like this. With you, okay? I can’t have anyone think that we have something going on.”

Zach frowns as if he’s genuinely bemused. “But we do have something going on.”

I throw another glance toward the stairs, wanting to push him off, physically. But I don’t want to touch him. Especially when he’s not wearing a shirt. I’m afraid to touch his skin.