The Duet(69)

“We’re going to get in trouble,” I warned as I worked at his tuxedo pants. They were impossible to take off, with hidden buttons and trapped doors. Or at least it felt like it to me.

“Now Ms. Heart, it’s time for you to serve your detention,” Jason said, unable to get the words out without smirking.

“Oh God, so gross. We are not roleplaying,” I groaned.

Jason dipped his head to kiss my chin and then he slipped the spaghetti strap of my gown down off my shoulder. I shivered in response to the cool fabric sliding across my skin. Or maybe it was the way Jason was touching me. His hands were everywhere, they moved beneath my dress so that my head fell back against the chalkboard. The pads of his fingers slid up my inner thighs, making my stomach quiver. They inched higher and higher until his fingers found their mark and spun my world on its axis.

I could smell the chalk and the pencil shavings in the air. The weird stench of an old science experiment was impossible to ignore, but then Jason’s pants were gone and his head was in the crook of my neck so that the only thing I could smell was his spiced cologne and body wash, mingling together as he pressed inside of me. It was the first time we hadn’t used a condom and I couldn’t fathom how excruciatingly beautiful it would feel to have him inside of me like that.

“Brook,” he whispered as he paused and pulled back to look into my eyes.

I wanted to turn his face away or close my eyes, anything to prevent him from seeing what I’d been constantly trying to hide for the last two weeks. Just let me pretend like this is nothing.

I could lie to myself. That part was easy. It was lying to him that I knew I wouldn’t get away with.

He pulled away slowly, drawing his hips back, and then sinking back into me again, maintaining the eye contact that was tearing me apart. He kept up that maddeningly slow pace, stealing my heart and gripping it in his hands. Couldn’t he see it all? It was there plain as day. Everything I felt was splashed across my face like a blinking neon sign.

Except neither of us dared to say a word. I tilted my head back, stared up at the paneled ceiling and let myself come apart around him.

Maybe he didn’t see it because he didn’t want to.





Chapter Twenty-Two





“Are you awake?” Cammie asked, prying my eyelid open with her fingers.

“No,” I lied, turning my head away from her hand. She laughed and rolled over on top of me so that her weight pushed me into the mattress. Why don’t the social rules that exist for the rest of society apply to sisters? She started jumping up and down, dipping me into the bed. This would not be appropriate behavior for normal people.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” she said, reminding me of what she used to be like on Christmas morning—a complete hellion.

“Cammie, you skinny twat, get off me.”

She jutted out her bottom lip and then let her upper body fall forward onto me.

“Ow!” I yelled as her head collided with my chin.

“Sorry, but you’re boring when you sleep and I’m curious about last night,” she said, rolling off of me once she realized I wouldn’t be going back to sleep. Due to the freaking broken jaw she just gave me.

“Nothing happened,” I answered, staring up at my bedroom ceiling. After we left the classroom, we found our dates and headed to the limousine. The ride home was quiet and full of tension. It wasn’t there on the way to the prom, but it was filling up the limousine on the way home. It was everything I could do not to roll down the window just to alleviate the pressure.

Cammie didn’t question me further; instead she leaned over and rested her head next to my shoulder so that we could lay side by side in silence. After our parents died and I became Cammie’s guardian, Cammie and I slept together most nights. It was easier that way. Cammie was my constant, my rock, and I wanted her with me all the time. Laying there in Jason’s house, she still felt like my constant and I clung on to that feeling for as long as possible.

“Could you play me what you have for the duet so far?” she asked.

I nodded and sat up, but when I looked over, my guitar stand beside the bedside table was empty. I must have left my guitar in Jason’s room the day before.

“Hold on, let me go get my guitar,” I said, slipping out from beneath the sheets.

Cammie relaxed back onto the pillows. “Fine, but if you aren’t back in five minutes. I’m going to come looking for you. And I don’t like to knock, it ruins the surprise.”

I rolled my eyes as I walked out of my room. I wouldn’t be gone long. Jason probably wasn’t even in his room anyway.

I took the third floor steps two at a time and was about to knock on the door when I heard the first strumming of a guitar. I should have walked away or knocked. I should have let him know that I was standing there, but I couldn’t because a second later, I heard his deep voice start to sing, and I was completely lost.