This should help.
Cali lifts her phone, pressing her lips to my cheek while I blow kisses at the screen, a bottle in my left hand, sucker in my right.
Only when I place the lollipop between my lips and Cali giggles, saying something about my tongue game, do I realize she’s not taking a picture but recording.
I laugh, bending at the waist to get out of the shot and she giggles, moving it along the group instead.
Scott comes up behind me, his smile disappearing into my neck, only to steal the liquor from my hand.
I roll my eyes, pushing to my feet, and chuckling at myself when I nearly lose my balance, but Dax is there to catch my fall.
He smiles. “Look who decided to let loose.”
“Look who is really far away from his girlfriend.”
Both of us turn to where Jules is already passed out drunk, sleeping on her folded arms on Scott’s dinette table.
He sighs, his shoulders sagging. “Yeah, I should get her into the spare bedroom.”
I pat at his chest and free myself, moving over to the deck’s edge.
I bob around to the music, tipping my head back and forth and raising my arms in the air, only to drag them back down, but my hand hits the ledge and the glass I didn’t realize I grabbed on my way over slips from my palm, falling to the floor beneath it with a distant crash.
Laughing, I lean for a better look and several others make their way over.
“It was just a glass.” I look their way, but their eyes aren’t on me.
They’re focused on the vineyard below.
Facing forward, I squint, trying to see through the night, but the stars aren’t so bright this evening.
And then the liquor-induced fire swirling in my stomach doubles, but for a very different reason.
I knew for certain the boys wouldn’t show at the dance to see if I went after all, let alone with who. But I was so sure they wouldn’t be there, I failed to realize how they didn’t have to be.
They’d find out anyway.
The lights go out around us, and the whispers start, the laughter following, though not from everyone. Not from me.
Scott steps up beside me, and then a small light appears. It’s fairly far, way out in the middle of the grapevines.
It’s a low flicker, but it flashes across the face of a demon in the flesh.
My hands fly to my abdomen as a pair of fluorescent blues glow in the distance. I stop breathing when two more pairs emerge to the right.
And then that flicker grows... into full-fledged flames.
Ransom jams the flaming stick into the ground, dead in the center of the vineyard.
His eyes slice to mine, and then they’re running at warp speeds, all in different directions...
Shit.
I spin, bumping arms with other girls as they panic, pushing closer to the railing in an attempt to get a better view of the space behind me. Scott, Dax, and every other guy here dashes around the side, racing to get to the ground before the fire burns lower, reaching the vineyards that surround it and pumped for a fight.
But they’re all fools.
The boys aren’t down there hiding in the darkness.
They’re on the way up.
I shove through a few people, pulling my pumps off for better balance. I trip, bouncing on the heel of one foot as I try to steady myself, and the moment I get myself straight, my head flies up and I jerk to a stop.
The air in my lungs evaporates, every organ in my body shriveling at the sight before me.
Ransom stands as tall and sturdy as a stallion, his shoulders broad and stance wide. Dripping in black, his hood covers his hair, effectively shadowing his face as he intended, his glowing gaze glaring down into mine.
His lips are smashed firm, his jaw ground tight and ticking, his pulse wild and uncontrolled. Sharp.
But his chest doesn’t rise and fall.
I would almost swear he was a zombie, dead on his feet, if he weren’t standing here right now. He looks dead, the way I wish to feel but am unable.
Not anymore.
Not since him.
He pushes closer, and I shuffle backward.
Back onto the patio deck, where the other girls have finally realized we’re no longer alone up here.
The shock is clear and loud, the gasps and giggles following, but the excitement doesn’t last long. It fades into the darkness around us, or maybe only for me as all that’s left is him, angry and an inch away.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
He shoves against me, my body thumping against the railing and blocked from escaping by his.
“Jameson...” Cali calls, her voice hesitant. Unsure.
But I ignore her and so does he, if he heard her at all.
He’s fuming, his body flexing over and over again.
Scott’s shouts reach us from below, he screams for someone to grab the hose, barking for another to check the right side of the field.
Ransom’s eyes snap over my shoulder, toward the vineyards, and then he flicks his gaze to the deep plunge neck of my dress, to the high slit over my thigh.
Ah, of course.
It’s what I’m wearing that’s pushed him to show up tonight.
Not who I came with, why I ignored them all day.
Why I’m chasing a strong buzz, seeking comfort I shouldn’t and had never needed before he came in and warped my mind.
The stupid fucking dress is his concern, because how dare I...
My lips part with a low, drunken chuckle and I relax. Lifting my hands, I glide them along the cool metal behind me until my arms are stretched to their full length. I push up onto my toes, keeping my knee bent so the fabric slides off my skin, completely baring the smoothness there for any who wish to look.
I jerk when his hand darts out, gripping the material at its deepest V point and twists, balling it into his fist.
“This.” His voice is crisp, fixed, but only for me. “Is mine.”
“It was a gift.”
His knuckles press into my breastbone, his head lifting slightly, allowing me a somewhat better look. “I’m not talking about the fucking dress.”
I nearly choke on air, my eyes widening, only to narrow a moment later.
Me?
A heavy ache pushes against my ribs, but I don’t show it.
His?
“Yeah, mine.” He’s somehow closer. “The girl and what she’s wearing.” His wild eyes pop up. “Mine.”
I swallow.
Deny, deny, deny.
Love kills.
“You can have the dress—”
“I have the girl,” he snaps, my words clogging in my throat as the pad of his finger taps at my temple. “I’m in here.”
The hand gripping my top shifts, his knuckle now pressing near my left breast where my treacherous heart beats against him, as if begging to be heard or felt or any other stupid thing it knows I won’t want to ask for. “Getting close to here.”
His brows raise as he dares to slip beneath my dress, and right as a flash of fake blonde makes herself seen in the distance, purposely rounding us like a thirsty little vulture. “Been here—”
“Have you?” flies from me as I fight to slam the walls back into place, over my mind, my heart, and everything since he’s all over me, bleeding into the wounds I’ve kept patched with salon trips and smiles.
He freezes.
“’Cause I’m not so sure,” I force out. “Maybe it was your friends who slipped in—”