I applied some lip gloss, my hands shaking. Love heart flavour. I liked the smell. I ran my hands through my curls and clipped it up so it was out of my face, then smoothed down my trousers. I sighed, realising that I didn’t have a plan. He’d be out there with Margot and I’d have to fight off Karma and we’d both leave here separately, wondering what all this meant.
I took one last look in the mirror and walked out the door.
The music seemed louder; the club filled with more people. I didn’t know where to start, disorientated by the thump of the base in my ribcage and through my collarbone. I headed down a walkway, hoping to find a quieter room, somewhere to think and gather myself together, but as I reached a corridor filled with doors, I felt a pull.
“Shit!” My body hit a wall, a push forward, a breath against my face.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Will said, running his nose against mine.
“You found me.”
“Don’t run,” he said, as I tried to push away. “You’re always running.” He looked broken and smashed, like a man on the edge. I cupped his face instinctively, whatever was going on between us would never override the fundamentals of our relationship. I cared about him. Deeply. “Let’s talk about this. About us.”
“Is there an us?” I asked, because there were Margot and Karma dancing a few feet away and we were always running, hiding, pushing each other away before holding on tight again.
He laughed lightly, the sound fading into a smile. “You look beautiful,” he said, and I couldn’t take it.
“Better than Margot?”
“What?” he asked, pulling back.
“You’re here with Margot on a second date. Not a first date, a second.”
“You’re here with Jesus!”
His face dropped like he was so close to finding and holding a fairy, but it flew away again as he took a breath.
“To try to get over you!” I shouted, dropping my head to his shoulder. “He’s a distraction. I couldn’t think about you and…her together…tonight…on your second fucking date.”
“I’m not an arsehole, Skye. Stop treating me like one,” he said. “You know why I did it.”
“She asked for one date.”
“I’m doing this for you,” he replied. “All of this is for you.”
“One date,” I repeated.
He shook his head. “For you, Skye! You know I’d do anything, and you’ve always taken advantage of it.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Where shall we start? How about the whole porn thing?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Have I pointed a gun at your head? You can say ‘no’, Will.”
“You know I’d never say ‘no’!” he shouted, both hands on the wall behind me, above my head, caging me in. I could feel a vibration. A buzz. There was always something. It happened whenever he was near me. Like a fine mist swirling over fields in winter, shrouding everything, keeping it cloaked. The mist of lust stayed under my skin, dancing along my bones, keeping my infatuation moving and alive. Stirring me. Untangling me then tying the knots again. Just a look and it surged, reaching parts I was tired of suppressing. “I’d give you anything. Give you me.”
Oh, fuck. I was parchment paper. Petrol. Flammable. His smile lit the fuse; his words fanned the flames.
Will lifted me up, my back sliding up the wall as I hooked my legs around him. His sigh travelled through my body and into my soul.
“We’re both dying here.” He ran his mouth along my jaw and that’s all it took, I was ready to give myself, all of myself, damn the consequences. “We’re torturing each other.”
“Why now?” I asked, needing to know.
“Because I didn’t think you’d feel the same way, I was worried that if I started it, I wouldn’t be able to get enough of you.” Our hands were on each other’s faces now, fingers looped around ears, tugging at hair just to get as close as physically possible without diving under skin and bone. “We’re messy and complicated and anyone sane would run in the opposite direction. But me? Skye, I gravitate to you. I have this infatuation that never gets tired.”
“You annoy me,” I taunted, banter never far away, and a sexiness about me that I really fucking loved. “We tolerate each other, always have. In fact, I’d say we have a hatred.” His finger pressed against my bottom lip, stopping the words. His eyelids dropped. Closed. Briefly shut until he was with me again.
“We don’t hate each other. We have a mutual want,” he growled as his hand found my breast, moulding the shape, watching the flesh push up around his fingers. He’d pushed his shirt sleeves to his elbows revealing the arrow tattoo and I’d never found it sexier. The geek in the flannel shirts and Superhero T-shirts had the most awesome, hidden tattoos. “I’ll give you a challenge. Walk away from me now or let me kiss you.”
“Let you?” I laughed, pretending to be outraged but loving his claim of me.
His hand gripped my chin. “Look at me. Turning away means you’re hiding. Look.” The grip loosened and his hand trailed the contours of my neck “Don’t give me that hard stance bullshit, Skye. Let me kiss you or walk the fuck away.”
“Will,” I gasped, ready to hear the words, ready to accept this but still hearing the doubts. “We need to stop this. We’re here with other people.”
“Two dates. A brief fling,” he replied. “They’re insignificant against the history we have. The last I saw your date, he was checking out a drag queen dressed as Lady Gaga, and Margot, well…she isn’t fucking stupid, Skye!”
I pressed my head against the wall. Needed to feel something else, something other than this clouded lust that had been permeating for what felt like decades. I tried to focus on the pain of the clip fixing my hair in a tight spiral as it pressed into my scalp, but all I could feel was the bulge in his trousers pressed against my hip, his hand tracing my neck, and the need to fuck.
“How long have you wanted this? As long as me?”
“Longer,” I whispered breathlessly. “Longer than you. I guarantee it.”
“I wanted to fuck you the second we met.”
“Liar,” I panted.
“I don’t lie. I tell the truth plain and simple. I’ve imagined fucking you for what feels like a lifetime.”
“Why didn’t you?” I goaded.
“I have to answer that?” He laughed. “When we both know that friendship stood in the way.”
“A perfect cock block,” I said, tracing my fingers along the ridge of his erection.
“Damn our friendship,” he moaned against my neck.
“I don’t care if it ruins what we have. I need to feel. I need to unleash it.”
“Fuck, Skye. I need you.”
“Can we be friends after this?” I needed to know, needed to hear his answer.
“No,” he mumbled against my pulse. “We can be lovers.”
Fuck. Right answer.
“There’s no going back after this,” I gasped. “And I’m worried I’m going to fuck it up.”