Page 96 of Bite Me

Does he know about the party? Does he think I was alone with him the whole time? I keep my cards close to my chest.

“Were you spying on me? How do you know I was with Luther?”

“With Luther?” he asks, his voice grave.

“Yeah . . . I was having a good time with Luther. How did you know?”

“Okay, we’re down to good.” He scoffs with a smile. “You smell like him.”

Gross. “I smell that good, huh? Must be from his sheets.”

That erases the smile from his face. A gleeful satisfaction runs through me. I win.

I could prolong his torture, but I have no desire to be associated with Luther in any romantic capacity.

“It was a party in his room. Yes, I was on his bed, but there were plenty of other people there too. Happy now?”

The edges of his mouth curl into a smile as we reach the lawn, which is covered in dew from the sprinklers and bathed in moonlight. The smell of salt carries on the cold air wafting in from the ocean. Before I can finish a string of words about the wetness on my feet, Dacre lifts me. With one arm.

I cuddle up to his chest with my arms wrapped around his neck. All consuming comfort suffocates me from all sides. It’s what I imagine it’d be like being with the stars, like my mother is. She’s probably looking down on me right now, watching me get carried barefoot in the moonlight by a man to our room.

“Careful, Em.”

“What?”

“You know what.”

I wasn’t doing anything, just thinking . . .

Playing with the collar of his shirt, I trace little hearts across his skin.

He really does smell like . . . mine. Not in a possessive, no-one-else-can-touch-him type of way, more like a cologne made for me. A person born for me. And with the large amount of sloshing of alcohol in my stomach, I can’t help but think of what it might be like to blend our chemistry together. How it might feel to be that close to my person. Skin on skin, with nothing between us.

Personally, I don’t have much of an idea, and that’s what makes me so curious.

“I mean, what do people even do all night anyway? It just seems excessive,” I mumble.

“All night? You mean . . .”

“Sex. Everyone in the movies seems so . . . into it, just like these animals going at it. The girl is always so loud, panting like a dog, and it just never feels like that, I guess.”

“This isn’t surprising, coming from the girl who hadn’t had an orgasm yet.”

“I had a really overbearing family, okay? I shared a room with my sisters till I left, so things like that, not really on my mind.”

He drops me next to our door, and I wait while he unlocks it.

“I thought you were mad at me,” he says.

“I am. But . . . I’m also a little drunk, and I can’t help but want to talk. Ask my sisters.”

“I don’t need to ask what I already know. You like to talk, drunk or not.”

Once through the door, he sits on the edge of the bed. His green eyes glow as he takes in my full image. His gaze crawls slowly over me from head to toe.

What might happen if I joined him at the edge of the bed and pressed his lips against mine? And what if that’s better done naked?

“Emma.” He tilts his head and shakes it like a rejection.