Last Light(77)

Seth raised a brow and stepped closer still, his hips touching mine. I could lift my leg, drive my knee into his groin, and he’d be walking crooked for days. But I didn’t.

“What do you think you are, Hannah, a player in his game? The queen to his king?” He lowered his head so that his mouth hovered beside my ear. He smelled like winter, smoky and masculine. “No, I’ll tell you what you are.” His breath whispered along my neck. He pressed against my thigh and I felt the hard length of his dick. “You’re a class A drug.”

I shuddered and shook off Seth’s hand, but instead of fleeing, I grasped his hips.

“Hannah,” he growled lowly.

Lana sang move baby. The music vibrated through the wall, strumming my blood.

Everyone gives in eventually.

I bent my clean-shaven leg, silky soft, until my knee slid under Seth’s shirt and rubbed over his flank. I pressed my calf against the small of his back and tugged him closer.

“God,” he said, grinding his erection against my thigh. “You’re strong…”

Strong? I felt ephemeral, suspended outside of the scene.

P.S. I slept with Seth.

I wrote it to force Matt to get over me.

Now I was doing it to force myself to get over him.

Seth didn’t kiss me, but he took what he wanted. He squeezed my breasts through my shirt, hiked up my skirt, and kneaded my ass. Everything was different … from being with Matt. Seth was rangier. Sharper angles. Cocaine fueled.

I simply held on to him and breathed.

When he undid his jeans and freed his cock, the thick weight of it resting against my stomach, I looked down.

My lips twitched, but I managed to keep my expression neutral.

A Prince Albert piercing crowned Seth’s tip, the silver barbell shining in the dark.

My eyes lifted—and I met Seth’s sly smile.

“What?” he said.

I shook my head. “Nothing…”

Seth pulled my hand to his dick. My fingertips brushed the overheated skin and he sighed. Tentatively, I touched the piercing—cool and weighted—and watched the ripple effect of pleasure on Seth’s face. Eyelids drifting down. Lips parting.

This is power, I thought, touching a man like this.

And then I knew what I wanted to do.

I wrapped my fingers around his shaft. He hardened fully in my hold. I began to stroke him, my gaze moving between his arousal and his face, and he watched some unspecified point on the wall. God only knows what cocktail of substances Seth took that night. He looked delirious. As I jerked him up and down, faster, reaching into his jeans to rub his balls, he braced his forearms against the wall and began to thrust into my grip.

We stood so close. The serpentine movement of his body hypnotized me. If I stopped … we would f*ck. I would undress him and see those curling tattoos on his sides. We would kiss and say things we didn’t mean. Counterfeit intimacy.

“Sweet girl,” Seth whispered.

His cock thickened in my grip. I wrapped my fingers tight around his girth and head, and I let him buck into my hand until he came. He was curiously silent. Warm fluid surged across my palm. An expression like pain flickered on his face, primal and stunned, and then it was over.

The drumming of my heart filled my body.

Seth tucked himself away, zipped his jeans, and turned toward the window. I moved automatically to the bathroom and washed my hands in the dark.

When I stepped out, my skirt straightened, I found Seth seated on the edge of the bed. A few more pieces of hair had come loose from his ponytail. He looked beautiful, and fallen, like Lucifer. He lit a cigarette and smoked vapidly, his eyes on the floor.

“I’m pretty f*cking high,” he said after a while.

“I’m kind of wired, too.”

“I knew it would be this way, if I hooked up with you.” He sucked in a lungful of smoke. “So I just let myself go.”

“Hey, don’t even worry about it.”

Seth chuckled. “I’m not worried about it.” He lifted his head, looked at me, and I felt nothing. Not aroused. Not embarrassed or coy. Nothing.

I knew if I thought about Matt, though, and how much this would have hurt him, I would fall to my knees.

The heart always knows what the mind refuses to accept.

My heart knew that I would be holding a torch for Matt forever.

“Stick around and I’ll make you come,” Seth said, but his voice was defeated, as if he already knew my answer.

I went to him and tucked a piece of hair behind his ear. I touched his cheek and frowned.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and left him smoking on the bed.

I let myself out of the room and found Chrissy. I told her that I wanted to walk back to my hotel, and then I did, feeling less and less alive with each step.





Chapter 38


MATT


One foot in front of the other. The rhythmic slap of my sneakers on pavement. The streetlights passing in long yellow ellipses.

And my breath coming faster and faster.

Calves burning, arms aching, my heart outpacing my stride.

As if I could outrun the pain.

But maybe I could. When I ran like this—dead runs late at night—I left behind the nauseating unease of Hannah’s absence. I stopped picturing Hannah and Seth together, and I stopped trying to work out the logistics of their romance.