Page 22 of Her Crew

That means he intends to fuck me, and that thought absolutely sends me through twenty different emotions. They must flash across my face, because Ace releases my arms and his fists fall to either side of my head.

“If I tell you something fucking embarrassing, will you stay with me tonight?” he asks.

“Maybe.”

“Then I’m not telling you shit.”

Curiosity gets the best of me. “Fine.”

“Remember when I said I had to clean up earlier?”

I nod.

“I came in my fucking pants to you.”

My mouth drops open. Excuse the fuck out of me, but did I hear that right?

“You . . . what?”

I expect that from a fucking fifteen-year-old, but not someone older and more experienced like Alec. But all the signs back in the van were right in front of me. Well, behind me. His writhing. The gripping. Dragging me back into him so he can whisper in my ear.

I like when you dance.

It all makes sense now, and I can’t tell if I’m completely repulsed or blind with arousal at the thought. Is it possible to be both? Fuck, I need to get out of this room.

“That is pretty embarrassing,” I say, “but not embarrassing enough for me to stay the night.”

I move to get up, but he doesn’t release me. He just holds my hands and looks down at me like he can see inside me, to my thoughts. I mentally will him to let go of me before I do or say something I shouldn’t.

But his grip only tightens.

Chapter 13

Alec

I just wanted her to get out of her head for a little bit, and if that meant embarrassing myself, then that’s what I was prepared to do. Looking down at her, though, I can’t tell if she’s turned on or very turned off by my confession.

Looking down at her, I don’t know if I should want her as badly as I do right now.

Does she feel my erection against her thigh? The problem is, I don’t know that I can do anything, even if she wants me back. That little intimacy problem I have? It rears its ugly head at the worst moments. When I’m stuck in my own head, being nagged by my own trauma.

A lot of the crew knows trauma, but something tells me this girl knows it deeply. Painfully. And it’s kinda nice to have someone understand the way that knife can cut open a wound the rest of the world can’t see. You can only feel it and the damage it caused.

I’ve managed to get intimate on drugs or with alcohol, numbing that pain until I can find solace in someone else’s body, but she already made me come. It’s just different once my cock comes out. The insecurity ravages me and ruins the moment. It’s not my size or a fear that I can’t please a woman. It’s . . . so much worse.

Even if I could fuck her right now, I might not be able to tomorrow. Or next week. It all depends on how much my brain decides to fuck me at any given moment.

Unless she’d indulge me with my biggest turn on: letting me watch her with someone else while knowing she’s mine.

But I have to stop thinking about that. And most importantly, I shouldn’t fuck her anyway. I’m nearly a decade her senior, and I know better. I’d be preying on her, even if she doesn’t see it that way. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. A girl like her can’t consent to a man with such inner darkness. She’d have to love me in times when I can’t get hard, when I have to bring in someone else to please her the way I can’t. And once that forbidden act finishes, I can take her how she deserves.

Goddamn it. Stop thinking about it. She’s not mine. She can’t be.

But fuck if I don’t want to be selfish and take advantage of this nagging, sober hardness in my pants.

“Do you trust me, pup?”

She chews her inner lip and looks up at me with hazel eyes. I don’t think this girl has trusted anyone a day in her life. Why I think she’d trust me is beyond me.