You Don't Own Me(92)

Ria laughs. ‘I love coming here.’

The champagne arrives, gets poured, and the girls take their polite little sips.

There is the sound of birds tweeting. It has Ria reaching into her purse for her phone. She looks at the screen, frowns, and says, ‘Sorry, I have to take this.’

‘Of course,’ Layla says.

I gaze at her expressionlessly.

‘Oh no,’ she exclaims dramatically. ‘Noooo. Really? Do you want me to come over?’

I turn my attention to Layla. She is staring at Ria worriedly.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll take a cab. I’ll be with you in 20 minutes at the most. No, no, of course not. No, they won’t mind.’

She ends the call and looks at me then Layla. ‘I’m so sorry, but a friend of mine has just gotten some bad news. I’ve got to go and be with her. I hope you guys don’t mind.’

I shake my head.

Layla says nothing. Just stares at Ria.

Ria turns to me. ‘You will give Layla a ride back home, won’t you?’

‘Sure, I’ll give Layla a ride,’ I say.





SIXTEEN





Layla

One corner of his mouth crooks up. I love his mouth. The way he says ride is slow and sexy. I bet he can give me a ride. Silently, I watch Ria glug her champagne down as fast as is humanly possible. Her eyes drift longingly to the bottle, but she stands and comes towards me. I allow her to hurriedly air peck both my cheeks and watch while she does the same to BJ. Then she is gone.

And I meet his eyes. ‘There’s no emergency is there?’

Utterly unperturbed he grins. ‘Of course not.’

I stand up.

He looks up at me. His eyes are no longer lazy, and tame. They are unblinking and burning with a fire-like intensity. ‘You’re all grown up now, Layla. You don’t really need a chaperone, do you?’

‘No, but I don’t appreciate being manipulated.’

‘Would you have come on your own?’

I pause. ‘I guess not.’

‘Do you want me to call Ria back?’ he asks gently.

My shoulders sag. Of course I don’t. I know what I’m here for. My anger is totally irrational, a result of nervous energy.

‘Sit down,’ he says softly. ‘I promise it’ll be the best fried chicken you’ll ever eat.’

I take a deep breath and reoccupy the chair I’d vacated. He smiles.

There is something about this man …. Even when he was 15 and I had convinced myself that I thoroughly disliked him, he was still that tough insouciant who stared at me. Now that he’s all grown up and forbidden to me, his magnetism whispers and beckons irresistibly. I want him. I want him more than I’ve wanted anything else in my life. I want him so much it’s an ache somewhere deep inside me.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asks casually, the tone totally at odds with what I see in his eyes.

The reptilian brain lurking inside my head is not in the mood for pillow talk or cuddles or food. It wants what it wants. And what it wants is a fuck. A mindless fuck of epic proportions.

I shake my head and stare at his sexy mouth hungrily.

He lifts his eyebrows. ‘You’re radiating sex right now.’

My breath comes faster. ‘Oh yeah?’

His nostrils flare. ‘Yeah. You’re giving me a raging hard-on.’

God that was delivered deep and sexy. Strange, my family made me believe I was made of sugar and spice and everything nice, and I have turned out to be made of an inner itching that makes me lewd and lusting.

I stand up and walk over to the door to turn the lock.

He stands up. ‘Come and show me how wet you are.’

I walk towards him. When I am about three feet away, I leap up on him, loop my arms around his neck, and curl my legs around his hips, making sure to rub my damp panties against the hard bulge in his jeans.

His large hands curl around my thighs. ‘Now you’re talking, Princess.’

I lick my lower lip slowly.

He groans. ‘Holy shit, Layla.’

I lean closer to his ear, my breath hot. ‘What about the fried chicken?’

‘Fuck the fried chicken.’

I look up at him from under my lashes. ‘How about that ride then?’

‘Time you were in my bed, young lady,’ he growls and carries me with my wet pussy stuck to the fierce erection in his jeans. We go through a second door in the room that leads to a dim, narrow corridor lit only by an emergency light. I clasp my fingers tightly around his neck and feel like a tick hanging on to the neck of a huge beast.

His skin is warm and he smells wild, like the sea when it is stormy or the forest at night. And ale, I get a whiff of that too. I lay my cheek on his chest and hear his heart beating fast and loud under his clothes. The corridor leads to another emergency door that opens out to the cold night.