THIRTY TWO

Lexie

His eyes became more drab, and his face became more stooped. He approached me to the point where I could hear his breath. The bright lights were obscured by his head, which was in the way. Although I was unable to hear the beat, I was still able to sense its presence. having a consistent rhythm or beat. My heart rate increased in sync with the growing intensity of my excitement. The moment his mouth came in contact with mine, I couldn't help but have negative thoughts. This was not the case at all. I'd never be forgiven by Samantha. But I was completely unable to process anything when his strong arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me against him. I was so giddy with excitement when Ryder kissed me that I was completely unable to think clearly at the time. When he kissed me for real, his tongue used its devilishly skilled technique to split my lips open. My stomach was beginning to churn with desire, and the tops of my thighs began to feel damp. Even though my legs were shaking, it was of no consequence because he had me pressed up against his rough chest so tightly that I was unable to even support my own weight.

I'd never been kissed like this. My eyes were half closed as a strange, disorganized sequence of images of the boys I'd loved in the past appeared on the screen in front of them. Even the face of my most recent exes, with whom I entertained the possibility of reconciling while we were both attending law school, was obscured by the haze. As Ryder continued to intensify the kiss, his tongue became entangled with mine in a demanding manner. Suddenly, they vanished, just as my fear had before.

My fingers naturally curled around the front of his shirt, and I couldn't help but do it. Now that I had his attention, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed myself up against him. It was almost as if the luxurious fabric of the dress did not exist at all. Each and every muscle exerted a strong force against me. The ridge of his pecs, the hard pane of his stomach, the bulge of his belt buckle, and then an even larger and more difficult bulge below that all pressed into my hip.

The procession of boys whom I had previously loved became further and further distant in my mind. I can't remember a single time when I've felt this way with any of them, like I wanted to carry on. Even though I wasn't entirely blameless, I had a gut feeling that no matter how I felt about them, it wasn't enough. This was the moment that I had been looking forward to.

After that, there was a dazzling flash of light that appeared out of nowhere. Ryder recoiled, his hands flying up to grab my arms, which were still encircling his neck. As he searched the area for the origin of the bright flash, his eyes, which were already unsettlingly dark, became even darker than they had been before. He gave off the impression of being confused and wary, just like a dangerous animal that had been startled out of hibernation.

At the front door, a bouncer separated himself from the line of people waiting to enter, and as he made his way toward us, his broad shoulders cut through the crowd. I had a terrible and perplexing thought for a brief moment that we were his final destination. He intended to kick us out of the house. Indecent exposure in public Before I realized what he was really getting at, my mind raced through a dozen other hysterically puritanical fears that could possibly be triggered by his words. Towards two young women who were obviously visitors to the area, to the point where even I was able to identify them as such. They had a selfie stick raised, and they were grinning up at it as they tried covertly to get a celebrity that I only hazily recognized in the picture. However, once more, their camera went off. They burst out in fits of laughter.

When the bouncer reached them, he announced that photographs were not permitted.

It all started with one of them arguing. I turned to look at Ryder again, hoping to catch his smoldering gaze on mine as he prepared to resume the kiss that had been interrupted. Although he was looking at me, he was not doing so in the way that I had hoped. Something had broken in his gaze, and I saw self-recrimination mingled with the lust that he was looking at me with. His fingers were curled into a tight fist around both of my forearms. Even as I began to sway toward him once more, he pulled my arms away from their position around his neck.

My chest was churning with feelings of dissatisfaction and confusion. Even though there was still heat in his eyes, a wall had begun to form between them.

"What's the matter?" I inquired, my tone trembling with anxiety.

Ryder gave a dismissive shake of the head and pointed in the direction of the exit. He released his grip on my arms, placed a hand on the small of my back, and led me firmly through the crowd and out into the warm night.

"I should say goodbye." I turned to look behind me for Victoria, but I couldn't find her anywhere. She must not have been there. When I started to head back, Ryder gave me a little head shake.

“No.” He chomped down on the word. “Let’s go.”

I felt a surge of excitement, but when I saw the look on his face, it quickly dashed any hopes I had that the reason he wanted to leave was so that we could continue what we had been doing together. We turned around and started making our way back to Samantha's apartment. In the light of the streetlamps, he had an angry look on his face. He always walked around with his hands stuffed in his pockets. In order to keep up with him, I had to take two steps for every one that he took.

We proceeded to walk in eerie silence for a few minutes until I felt a sharp pain in my heel, at which point I let out a piercing scream.

Ryder turned around at the exact moment that he saw me grab the nearest lamp post. I bent down and rubbed my ankle as I reached down. It had been a short, sharp pain, and it was already starting to subside. He inquired, "Are you okay?," but there was no indication of concern in his tone of voice. His leg jangled impatiently, like he wanted to keep walking.

I responded with a snarl, "Go on." "There is no need for you to wait for me."

The tone of his voice remained neutral as he stated, "Of course it is necessary for me to wait for you." "I'm walking you home."

I stood up straight and put all of my weight back on the ankle that had been injured without first checking to see if it could handle it. I would never show weakness in his presence. I exploded and told him, "I didn't ask you to walk me home." "I'm not sure if I'm even ready to go home yet," she said.

I didn't even need to ask him if he wanted to go home with me because I was already anticipating that he would say yes. It appeared as though every muscle in his body was tensed in preparation to flee as far away from me as humanly possible. His eyes, on the other hand, continued to take everything in.

Ryder was staring at my ankle. Now, as he looked at me, his gaze moved gradually up the length of my leg. I felt it like a laser beam. When he reached the natural curve of my breasts and lingered there for a moment before lifting his gaze to the hollow of my throat, heat began to blossom in my cheeks. He must have been able to hear the pounding in my chest because he saw it. At long last, he looked directly into my eyes.

He spoke to her in a low voice and told her, "Lexie, you are going home." "And you're getting in bed alone, like a good girl."

"There's a chance that I don't want to be a good girl." My intention was to make my voice sound defiant, but instead it came out sounding timid for some reason. Pleading. It was such a distant memory.

The corner of his mouth pulled back into an unhappy smile. "It makes no difference what you want to do."

Even though he was speaking to me, I got the impression from the way he was saying it that he'd been repeating it to himself the whole time. Perhaps on a never-ending loop, in the same way that I had. I felt a bud of hope blossoming in my chest. "What do you want?" I inquired while my heart raced in response to my nerves. I was on the verge of charging at him head on in the next second.

Ryder's dark eyes flashed briefly before shifting their focus in the direction of the towering white apartment building that rose up on the other side of the avenue. "It makes no difference to me what you want, either. It is not possible for either of us to have it.

I reached out for his arm before I had time to stop and reconsider my decision. Why shouldn't it?

But before my mind could even begin to process what had happened, he was pulling me against him again and stepping backward until we were both in the shadowy alcove of a closed storefront. He had moved his arm out of my reach so smoothly that I could only grab air.

My entire being melted into his, and the release I felt from being against him caused my knees to buckle. It wasn't over, he was going to kiss me once more before we parted ways. We had planned to go to the upper floor together, and—

But no. However, he did not move his face any closer to mine. His jaw was firm, and he spoke in a tone that was unyielding. "You're so young that it's embarrassing. I am not supposed to be thinking about doing things to you that I would kill a man for doing to Samantha; instead, I am supposed to be looking out for you. His tone was harsh, as if he was repulsed by himself.

"But I'm not a kid." I raised my hand to run my fingers along the jawline of his iron face. "Also, I'm not your daughter," she continued. It's all right to—"

He put more pressure on me, which eventually caused me to pass out. Even though his hold was starting to hurt, I was determined not to break free of it. Anything was preferable to the icy void that lingered on the other side of the boundary formed by our intertwined bodies. At this distance, I was able to hear and feel his heart beating like an anvil against his chest.

He bent his head forward until the corner of his mouth was against my ear. "There is absolutely no way that what I'm thinking is acceptable, Lexie. And I'm not going to allow that to take place.

Why shouldn't it? I mumbled in a breathless whisper. "There would never be a need for anyone to find out."

I was taken aback by my own words. Not only did I want to give myself to him and only him, but I was also willing to do so without even the pretense of maintaining some semblance of respectability for myself. I was pressing myself against him and almost pleading with him to take me on a public street, despite the fact that I had never even kissed someone before we went on our second date.

And he desired to do it. Even though we were both trying to think of Samantha first, our connection to her was becoming less immediate as time went on. He was giving it some thought. His hold was still rough, but now his fingers were getting caught in the tangles at the ends of my long hair. The rhythm of his breath was shifting. He was pressing into me excruciatingly hard, and the darkness in his eyes was incomprehensible.

I cocked my head back, mimicking a prey animal that was about to give a wolf her throat.

In the hopes that he would bite.