Page 184 of The Stranger

A vicious pressure builds behind my ribs.

“You don’t need to see me. I need to see you.” When I should step away, my hands grip her hips instead. The action is firm and proprietary, and the other man smiles like he recognizes the claim. Respects it, even.

Fuck him. Just, fuck him.

He watches the way I shift, how my jaw grits. How I keep possessively close, almost as though I’m going to spin her out of his reach at the last second.

A standoff, but not quite. He smiles at it, his gaze gliding to Primrose, sandwiched between myself and a man whose name I wish I didn’t remember.

“May I?” He asks which of us, I’m not sure, hand already outstretched.

She leans into me, hesitant. My hands on her hips tighten, the way you grip the rung of a ladder, halfway up and no way down but to fall.

She nods eventually, then adds, “Yes.” Her voice is softer than she probably intends, the consonants blurring as his hand cups her cheek.

I want to intercept, but to rescue, ruin, or redeem, who the fuck knows. Not me, that’s for certain. Tension knots in my muscles as though preempting motion. Primrose knows it. Feels it. Her hand lifts languidly and she slides it to the back of my neck with a sultry sound—a taunt.

I guess that told me, right?

No need to provide her with a rescue.

His thumb moves across her jaw, her skin pale against his hand. Skin I know, skin I’ve kissed in darkness and in the sunlight. Skin that warmed beneath my mouth with a responsiveness she once believed herself incapable of.

He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know anything about her. How she’s terrified of geckos or how she loves cake. He doesn’t know about her whip-sharp tongue and her stubbornness, the way she cares about people or the sounds she makes when she reaches her peak.

He knows shit.

His fingers drift to her shoulder where he traces the narrow strap of her dress, his touch unhurried as it moves to the zipper at her side. The sound seems so loud as he pulls.

“Look at me,” he whispers, leaning closer. Primrose shivers despite the room’s warmth.

His mouth hovers near her ear as he says something else, something designed to soothe or seduce. But I can only see his breath stir the fine strands of hair at her neck as my mind seeks to protect itself, feeding me the images in fragments.

Lips meet skin, and my body reacts before my reason can contain it. A surge of heat, a primitive and violent refusal. Mine. The word is immediate and shameful because she can’t be mine, and this is the whole point of this lesson.

She lifts her chin, the movement exposing more of her throat to him. But it is aimed at me and the tight grip of my fingers. It’s defiance, not surrender. It’s her silent you wanted this as he presses his mouth below her ear.

I’m not jealous. A lie.

Or angry. Another untruth.

This is my fucking play.

My out. Her protection.

Our joint heartbreak.

“Beautiful.” The word is just a breath as his mouth skates to hers. A tremor runs through her and, at the last minute, twists her head, offering him more of her neck.

I step back as the cloying scent of his cologne replaces her perfume. Her hand slips from my neck, but I don’t relinquish my hold.

His kisses start off small but quickly become wetter, like he’s trying to make out with her neck as she stretches it like a fucking giraffe. Enjoyment or avoidance? It’s none of my business as jealousy eats me alive from the inside.

She trembles, her breath catching in a soft, broken gasp. A knife twists in my gut. I told myself I could do this—that it was necessary—but every tremble he draws from her feels stolen from me. I am seconds from tearing his hands away. The ache is bitter, not sweet, as my fingers continue to bruise her hips.

He pushes at her dress, sliding it from her shoulders. It catches at my wrists because I can’t fucking let go. My jaw aches, and I’m almost certain the burn I’m experiencing in my throat is bile as Primrose’s body goes almost rigid.

She makes a muffled sound. Pleasure or distress?