Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways #1)(24)

“Have you read it?” I wheezed out the question, my face blazing hot.

He shook his head. “Heard some of it is pretty raunchy, though.”

“Yeah. But, like, that’s not the point of the book.”

“Making out is always the point of everything.” His eyes lifted to meet mine, and he let loose a rakish smirk. He handed me back my book. “Maybe I’ll give it a try one day, if Mr. Van stops giving me Penthouse hand-me-downs.”

This was my in to tell him what I’d thought about the entire year. What I dreamed about at night.

“Congratulations, you officially became gross.”

He laughed. “I missed you.”

“Yeah. Me too.” I twisted a piece of hair over my index finger, feeling so strange in my body, like it didn’t belong to me. “I’m thinking of taking theater class, now that I’m going to high school.”

I absolutely wasn’t, but I needed a solid background story.

“Cool.” He was already roaming the room, opening drawers, looking for new, shiny things to explore. My house was like a theme park for Nicholai. He liked to use my dad’s lighters, to cross his ankles on the mahogany desks, to pretend to take important calls on the vintage Toscano office phone.

“I thought maybe we could reenact part of the book. You know, as practice, for my audition in September.”

“Reenact what?”

“One of the raunchy scenes. In the book. I need to do something risqué for my audition.”

“Risqué?” he murmured, pulling drawers open, sticking his hands in them.

“Yes. They’re not gonna let me in if I give them something mild.”

What the hell was I talking about? Even I had no clue.

“How raunchy are we talking?” He was too distracted, on his hunt for something to steal.

I grabbed the book and flipped through it before stopping at page 126 and handing it over to him. He stopped rummaging through drawers. His eyes dropped to the text. I held my breath as he read it. When he finished, he passed it back to me, and I tucked it in the library behind me.

“You’re kidding, right?”

I shook my head, my pulse nearly jumping out of my skin.

Nicholai froze. His gaze flew from one of the desk’s drawers to mine, disbelief touching his topaz eyes. There was knowledge in them. Irreverence and annoyance too. I wanted to recreate that scene at the library, where Robbie pins Cecilia against the shelves and kisses her like the world is ending. Because to him, it is.

Every hair on my arms stood on end. I didn’t want to throw up on my own shoes. At the same time, it seemed like I was about to do just that.

“We’ll just kiss,” I clarified, faking a yawn. “None of that other weird stuff, obvs.”

“Just kiss?”

“Hey, you were the one who just told me everything begins and ends with making out.” I raised my hands in surrender.

His lips curled into a slight smirk. My heart free-fell to the floor.

“Have you raided your old man’s liquor cabinet, Ari?” Nicky erased the little space we had between us. He trailed a finger along the shell of my ear. A shiver ran through me. “We can’t kiss. Unless, of course, you want our parents to kill me.”

“You mean us.”

“Nah.” He took the cigarette from behind his ear and chewed on its butt, keeping his hands and mouth busy. “You’ll get away with just about anything under Daddy Conrad’s watch. The blame always lies at the feet of the poor person with the funny-sounding name. Haven’t you noticed a theme in all of the classics we read last summer?”

“I’m not gonna tell anyone.” My throat felt tight. Full of pebbles. Suddenly, rejection had a taste, a scent, a body. It was a living, breathing thing, and the sting of its fist burned my cheeks. I couldn’t even be mad at Nicky. I was a reluctant observer all the times my father, my mother, and Ruslana tossed threats like arrows into the air, aimed at Nicky.

Don’t you dare touch her.

Take a step back, son.

Nicholai, don’t you have to help your mother with the dishes?

“I know; it’s not that I don’t trust you,” Nicky agreed. “It’s that I don’t trust my luck. If they find out somehow, if this place is wired or whatever . . . Ari, you know I can’t.”

It was gentle, but it was final. Subject closed. And while I understood him, I was also angry at him, because he was still levelheaded about us, whereas I was as logical as a truck tire where he was concerned. The bile in my throat rolled an inch forward toward my mouth. But I wasn’t that kind of girl. I prided myself in being exactly what Nicky wanted me to be. I watched action flicks and played wall ball and said dude at least fifteen times a day.

“Hey, we going down for a swim or what?” Nicky wrapped his fingers around a small crystal ball on the shelf behind me and pocketed it. He did that a lot, and I never minded. Maybe because I knew he’d never take something that was dear to me. “I practiced at the YMCA pool all year. Prepare to be crushed, silver-spooned girl.”

The sharp bite behind my eyes told me that I had three seconds, maybe five, before the tears began to fall.

“Dude.” I snorted. “Who’s being high now? I’m going to end you. Let me put my swimsuit on.”