A. Jackson - When We Met

And was he? Obviously bad? For a second I wanted to suspend it, to disbelieve it, to reject the idea because something about him made me want and ache, made me want what I’d sworn to avoid.

Indy was right.

I was crushing hard on the boy next door.

He stilled with his fingers just grazing my exposed skin, and those hazel eyes latched on to mine. Endless moments passed in a blur as my gaze got all tangled with his.

Something wistful played around his mouth, something like regret and longing that melded with the gentle curve of lips. “Beautiful,” he whispered, the sound swallowed by the ceaseless drone of the mower, but so overtly clear as I swallowed the word down. My wounded heart wanted to believe that someone would truly see me that way, and not like the sick joke I saw when I looked in the mirror in the morning.

Creases wrinkled at the sides of his eyes, making him appear both younger and older, different. Making me feel different, still scared and unsure—but there was no mistaking the flicker of hope that lit somewhere inside me.

Again he reached up to touch the trembling edge of my mouth. Though this time it wasn’t a taunt, not a tease, not something meant to twist me up with confusion and fear.

It was just sweet.

Simple as that.

He dropped his hand and took a step back, seeming almost as confused and flustered as I was, before he turned and jogged across the yard. He scaled the fence in one stride, his feet landing on the top of the wooden planks, sending him sailing over to the other side.

Darryn

A stream of sun bled through the slit running down the middle of my bedroom curtains, a slash of bright light blaring directly into my face. I squeezed my eyes tight against it. Flopping to my stomach, I yanked a pillow over my head, making a valiant attempt at shutting it out, begging for more sleep. Just one more minute, and I’d be fine.

But it was no use.

The light had already roused me from sleep.

All right, so the problem was clear. I was aroused.

Big difference. Bigger problem.

Groaning, I threw the pillow to the floor and flopped over onto my back, taking up a staring contest with the pitted ceiling above.

My dick was throbbing, standing at full attention, all too interested in the lingering images that I couldn’t shake from my mind.

I flung my arm over my eyes. As if that would help.

Maybe the problem was the fact that I’d been dreaming about porcelain skin and inky hair, about the feel of her touch and the light in her smile.

Maybe the problem was the girl next door.

Maybe the problem was Misha.

Goddamn, this girl had done me in, burrowed herself like a tiny, nagging burr that had gotten just under the surface of my skin until she’d flamed into an all-out itch. Gotten to me. I couldn’t get that beautiful face out of my mind and there was nothing in hell I could do to purge the sweet sound of her voice from my ears. It flooded through me like warmth, all this lust and need mixed up with some kind of twisted infatuation.

But that wasn’t just it.

Yeah, I wanted to get lost in that body, make her scream and moan my name. My chest tightened. Shit, I couldn’t wait to hear the way it’d sound slipping from her lips.

But none of that was really a problem.

The problem was I’d be content just to take up a little bit of her space.

I’d started to make excuses to be out front when I knew she’d be leaving or coming home, excuses to talk to her and make her blush and cause her to fumble all over herself the way she always did.

It was the fucking cutest thing I’d ever seen, the way she got all nervous and stuttered, how the red would come stampeding in the second she did.

I crammed the heel of my hand in my eye. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Realization slowly took hold.

I liked her.

Pressure throbbed at my ribs.

Fuck me, I liked her.

It was killing me to know where she wandered off to in the afternoon, heading in the opposite direction from campus, when she’d come home nearly giddy, smiling this unending smile that I’d come to crave. Hounding her didn’t work, and neither did flattering her with all these little compliments that made her squirm. She remained tight-lipped, which only made me want to know more.

God, but more than all of that? I wanted to erase the pain I’d catch lingering in her eyes. I knew it now, what it was, what flared in those searing pools of the deepest black when she was speared with an errant thought like an arrow, like I could somehow feel it when it pierced her, too.

Shame.

It killed me that she felt that way, and I was dying to wipe away that look of distrust with my touch. Show her there was nothing for her to be ashamed of. I wanted her to know she was beautiful and good and anyone who made her feel anything less than that was nothing but a fool.

Images flashed, and I grunted as I was slammed with a vision of Misha straddling me on this bed. The soft slope of her neck was all exposed as she threw her head back, thick curls cascading down in waves that brushed along my thighs, her body all stretched out as she drove me right to the edge. Pleasure rocked through every hardened inch of my body, ecstasy hitting me somewhere deep.

But then she looked down at me. And those eyes were no longer hollow, they weren’t edged with sadness or creased in confusion, and not for a second did they flash with fear. They glowed with affection as she stared down at me.

Guilt gripped me by the throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut, choking on it, trying to purge the fantasy from my mind. It made me feel like an asshole, like some kind of perverted voyeur, picturing her this way.

But I didn’t know how to stop.

I raked a hand over my face. Fuck. I just wanted her to trust me.

How the hell did this timid girl next door manage to make my body beg? She didn’t have a single clue how badly I wanted her or how deep my thoughts went. Guess there’d always been something about her, something that had struck me before she lifted her face to the sky that first morning of classes, soaking the sun in as if it was somehow feeding her soul. Something that drew me to her.

I recognized it now.

Misha didn’t even know and she didn’t need to. I’d protect her. Collect everything due to her. Lay it at her feet.

At least I owed her that.

Misha

“Misha, if you don’t hurry up I’m going to come up there and drag you down here.” Laughter and loud voices and impatient calls rose from the first floor, Indy’s voice lifting above them all as she shouted at me for what had to be the hundredth time.

“I’m coming,” I hollered in the direction of my bedroom door that stood wide-open behind me. “Sheesh,” I added under my breath.

“I heard that!”

With a soft giggle, I turned, letting my gaze wander over myself in the full-length mirror set up in the corner of my room. Uncertainty tickled my nerves, and there was no mistaking the self-conscious flush that bloomed hot on the exposed skin on my chest, before it blazed a path up my neck to settle where it always landed—right on the apples of my cheeks.

I was wearing skinny jeans and heels with a shimmery silver and black shirt that fell off one shoulder, my long hair sprayed into shiny ringlets that spilled over my shoulders and down my back. Months ago, I’d bought this outfit to wear out with Hunter, thinking it was sexy and cute, and I’d hoped it would make me feel confident and pretty. It was something so out of character for me and I’d wanted to do something special for him, to make him proud to have me on his arm when we went out with his friends.

Too bad I didn’t get a chance to wear it before he drove that treacherous knife right into the center of my back.

I’d had the intense urge to set fire to these clothes. To watch them burn up so I’d have no reminders left of who I’d tried to make myself be for him.

I wouldn’t change for anyone.

Never again.

But I realized wearing something that made me feel pretty didn’t change me. Pride had hit me hard when I slipped into these clothes. Not because of the way they made me look, even though I felt good in them, but because they were no longer for him.

I chewed my lip, shifted to look at myself in the mirror.

“Forget him,” I whispered to myself.

Tonight I was finally letting Hunter go. It wasn’t because I missed him and loved him and was letting my broken heart heal. I didn’t feel any of those things. I knew it now, knew picking a guy like him was just me trying to fit in, to be more like the girls I thought I was supposed to fit in with.

But what he’d done had hurt me.

And today I would finally let go of all that pain.

“Misha!” Indy shouted again.

Grinning, I grabbed my little purse from my bed. “All right . . . all right! I’m coming! Don’t get your panties all in a bind.”

I headed out my door, doing my best not to wobble on my four-inch heels.

“Who said I was wearing any?” she shot back as I carefully maneuvered down the stairs. So maybe the shoes weren’t exactly me, and I was much more comfortable in my sneakers, but I liked them, so I was wearing them, and I didn’t care what anyone else had to say.

Chuckling at her, I clung to the railing as I made my way to the bottom floor. When I got downstairs, I found all three of my roommates in the kitchen. Courtney was pouring amber liquid into tiny shot glasses, one round ready to get the night started.

Indy grinned in my direction. “Cheers!” she said as she handed a shot glass to me.

“Cheers!” The three of us lifted our glasses and tossed them back, Chloe sitting out the drinking like she always did. I was actually surprised she’d agreed to come out with us at all tonight.

Liquid burned a fiery path down my throat, and I forced myself to swallow, doing my best not to choke on it and spew it right back out. My face screwed up with the awful taste when it settled in my stomach. “Ugh . . . that is terrible. Why are we doing this again?”

“Just a little preamble. Tonight we’re letting go.”

“To tonight.” Courtney poured us one more round. We clinked glasses, toasting us. In unison, we slammed them down on the counter, grinning like fools as we swiped the backs of our hands over our mouths.

Was I tipsy off two shots? I wobbled on my heels, giggled more.

Oh yeah. I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a drinker. But I loved the fuzzy feeling that swept through my body, the way my nerves became subdued and thoughts of Hunter became nothing but a distant memory.

The four of us filed out into the night. A dark canopy kissed with twinkling stars covered us like an embrace from high above. We laughed and talked the entire ten-minute walk to the club. It’d been a very long time since I felt so good.

We were ushered in, and I felt like I stepped into a whole new world when I entered through the wide double doors. Music pulsed, heavy and loud, colorful lights throbbing with the beat. Bright strobes flashed over the crush of bodies on the dance floor, people moving against each other, completely free.

As free as I felt.

Indy tugged at my hand. “Let’s hit the bar. I need another drink before I go anywhere near that mess of people.”

Funny, because I felt drawn to it, like the only thing I wanted to do was get mixed up in it. Just for tonight, I wanted to get lost.

I let her lead me through the throng, Courtney and Chloe just ahead. The three of us partook of another shot.

I slammed my glass down as I forced my drink to stay in my stomach. “Gah! That’s the last one for me.” I furiously shook my head. “Whew.”

Indy smirked at me. “Lightweight.”

And that I was.

My head spun, and the music blared, calling me into it. I began to shake my hips right at the bar. “Come dance with me!” I prodded, yanking at my friends’ arms.

“I’m in.” Courtney linked her elbow with mine. The two of us were giggling as we pushed through the groups huddled up close to the bar and wound our way into the middle of dance floor, where we completely cut loose.

Sweaty bodies beat around us, but I couldn’t even begin to mind. We danced for minutes, or hours, I didn’t know. All I knew was I was having the best time I’d had in so long, and I no longer felt like the pariah, like someone people would whisper about.