Everything she said was for my ears only.
The two strangers lingered by the door, giving us a confused glance.
Della pulled away but not before I lashed out and grabbed her wrist.
She gasped, her eyes dropping to where I held her, her soft inhale ripping through my defences and making my fingers squeeze against my command.
I clutched her hard, unable to let go even though everything inside screamed to back the hell off. “Don’t threaten me, Della.”
Her eyes widened then hooded to that sultry stare I had no power against. “I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you what’s going to happen. Come if you want. I want you to. If only to get out of the apartment and live a little.”
“You know I don’t like crowds.”
“Well, stay then.”
“You know I can’t. Not now.”
“Because you don’t trust me.” Her tongue licked her bottom lip as once again my fingers squeezed her wrist in reprimand. The feel of her tiny bones. The rush of blood in her veins. The electricity infecting both of us that wasn’t there before.
Fierce.
Forbidden.
Off-limits.
She shivered, leaning closer.
It took everything I had, but I released her and stepped back, rubbing my fingertips from the residual burn from touching her. “Because I don’t trust them.”
Or myself.
“Fine.” She stood tall and any hint of being affected by our whispered conversation disappeared. “Come then. I’ll see you there. It’s the house four blocks away toward the campus. Follow the music and pumpkins.”
Without another word, she grabbed Tom’s hand, smiled at the girl, then dragged them out the door, closing it with a slam.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
DELLA
* * * * * *
Present Day
AH, DATING.
So much fun, right?
Wrong.
The minute I met Tom in line at a local McDonald’s of all places while I did English homework with Tina, I’d been rather smitten.
He went to a school not far from ours and regularly used our school’s facilities like the basketball court and track as part of the physical education offered.
To be honest, the first thing that attracted me to Tom was his sable hair—almost the exact same colour as Ren’s in autumn just before winter made it dark and summer made it bronze.
Instead of Ren’s dark soul-deep eyes, Tom’s were a startling green. Instead of Ren’s well-honed and work-hard muscles, Tom’s was gym perfected on a body still growing into manhood.
But despite his youth, Tom was cute. And compared to Ren’s fine lines around his eyes and the aura of impatience and intolerance that came from hating people and growing up with the loner deep inside him, Tom was different enough to remind me I wasn’t dating him to replicate my fantasies of being with Ren, but he was similar enough to ease that ache in my heart.
Sick, I know.
Twisted, I agree.
But…I always warned you I wasn’t a nice person. That the more I followed this road, the worse I became.
I mean, most of the fights between Ren and me were my fault.
Shocker, right?
I know, I know, not a shock at all.
Most of the days that were full of tension and miscommunication were because those days…I couldn’t hide how I felt about him, and instead of blurting out that I was madly in love with him, I made him think I couldn’t stand him.
And those were the nights I fell asleep torturing myself with imaginings of what it would be like to share my first real kiss with him and be touched in places no one had touched and have him climb on top and—
Anyway, back to Tom…
He was sweet. There isn’t much more to say.
I suppose, while I’m at it, I’ll confess everything else I did wrong while Tom was in my life. I was cruel to him because I knew he liked me more than I could ever like him. Not that I could ever tell him why. When he texted me pages of ardent affection and how much he missed me when we weren’t together, I focused on giving him something I could all while hiding the bits that I couldn’t.
I couldn’t give him my heart.
But I could give him my body.
But even in that way, I used him again because my physical desires…well, Ren had nailed it when he accused me of being an animal wanting to get laid.
I wasn’t quite ready for sex, but holy cow, I was ready for something.
Just a kiss, a touch, a fumble in the dark.
I’d been ready for months, but something had held me back.
Ren.
Of course, it was Ren, but not in the way you’d expect.
His blurted, extremely surprising honesty that he hadn’t slept with Cassie until he was nineteen had effectively dampened my libido.
I honestly thought he’d been screwing her for years as I slept stupidly in the room next to the barn. The looks they’d shared. The kisses they’d stolen—it all hinted at full blown sex.
So how had he waited so long?