He’s pulled back, looking at me, concern replacing some of the lust in his eyes.
Because I told him to wait, I realize. He’s respecting my body, respecting me, and that’s another thing that makes this so different. Stone never had sex with me, but I like to think that if he decided to, he wouldn’t stop. Not even if I asked him to.
That’s the way I fantasize about him, being hard and demanding.
“You want to go inside?” Liam says, his voice a little hoarse.
It would hurt him to go back inside, be a strain on his body, but he’d do it if I asked him to. The knowledge sends a tendril of tenderness through me. “No. I want this.”
To prove the point, I reach back up for him, curling my hands into the lapels of his tux and pulling him down to me. His lips meet mine again, and I can almost, almost be in this moment with him. I’m a few seconds away from letting go of those car rides. A single breath away from forgetting.
Suddenly he’s off me.
There’s a flash of hands and black leather. The shattering smash of a body against steel links. A delayed grunt of surprise. Protest. Pain. Liam leaning against the fence, a stunned expression on his face.
A hulking shadow stands in the alley between us.
“What the hell?” Liam says, pushing away from the fence.
“Walk away.” Stone. He came for me. He watched me. And he’s standing between Liam and me. I can hardly process this. It’s like seeing a wild animal in the middle of a shopping mall. He doesn’t belong here, but I’m so angry. Angry that he messed up the one thing that might help me get over him. Relieved, too.
“Who the fuck are you?” Liam demands.
Stone takes a step toward him, and in a matter of seconds, I’m flashed back to my sixteenth birthday party. To seeing Stone for the first time. To blood and death.
“Wait,” I say, breathless with panic. “Don’t kill him.”
He turns to look at me, his face in shadows. Even in the dark, I can see his expression. Terrifying. And a little incredulous. “You think I’ll kill him.”
His voice is flat, and I realize I’ve managed to insult him.
The truth is, I don’t know what he’s going to do. He beat that man in the truck stop bathroom, but that was entirely different from this. I didn’t want that man. And, for my own reasons, I wanted this boy.
“Please,” I say, soft. It’s only meant for Stone, that one word. Not for Liam, who’s cursing and threatening to call the police.
Stone takes a step toward me, and I’m too glad to be scared of him. Maybe I should be worried that he’ll hurt me, but he’s protected me too much.
“I should leave you with him,” he says, his voice still strangely flat. “So he can paw at you. Put his filthy hands on your body. That’s what you want?”
I have the sense of being at the top of a mountain, that whichever way I lean now will determine where I roll, one word to decide my whole future. Stone will leave me here. That much is clear in my voice. If I tell him that I want to stay, that I want to lose my virginity to Liam, he’ll let me.
“No,” I breathe out, before I’ve even thought through the ramifications.
Liam chooses that moment to wave the phone at us, the screen overbright in the dark alley. “The police are on their way, asshole. You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
My blood runs cold. The police. They won’t take kindly to a grown man crashing a rich-kid prom night. “You have to go,” I whisper.
“Come with me,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s ever asked me that.
He’s taken me hostage three times now. Sat in the passenger seat and told me to drive. But he’s never asked me to come with him. The question sits between us, as precious as crystal, fragile as dew.
“Stone,” I say, and it’s impossible to mistake the longing in my voice.
I’m standing here in a dress my mother picked out, with the boy she wants me to lose my virginity to. With that foil packet in my clutch, a symbol of everything I’m worth to them. The dutiful daughter to make a sacrifice. What about what I want?
What about what I need?
Light bounces off the bricks, flashlights on cell phones. Then Randall appears at the entrance to the alley, his arm slung around Kitty, who’s carrying a bottle of wine.
“We’ve been looking for you,” he says, his voice almost a shout. “It’s time for Solange, baby!”
It’s Kitty who realizes something is wrong. “Oh my God,” she says.
Randall sobers up real quick. “You can take what you want. I have money in my wallet. I’ll give it to you.”
He thinks we’re being mugged. And in the middle of this mess of teenage hormones and drunkenness, Stone stands like he’s actually made of marble. Still. Cold. Unfeeling.
With a terrible shudder I realize he never had this. Prom night. Tux rentals. A limo.
He stands there looking so alone.
I take his hand in mine. He squeezes so hard I gasp, and I realize I was wrong. He’s not unfeeling. Not cold. He burns hot with fury, with regret. “Let’s go,” I tell him softly.
“Come quietly and your pretty boy doesn’t get hurt.”
Stone’s words ring loud through the alley, bouncing off brick, and I realize he wants it to seem like he’s taking me hostage. Even though I already asked to come. I don’t know why he wants it like this. Maybe this is the only way he can take me.
“No,” I say, a little hesitant at first. “Don’t.”
“I won’t let you touch her,” Liam says, but he doesn’t sound sure. And he doesn’t place himself between us the way that Stone did. Doesn’t defend me with his body.
“What are you going to do about it?” Stone says, soft with menace. “Are you going to fight me? Going to throw a punch at me? Does it seem like you’d walk away from that?”
As threats go, it’s effective. A visible shudder grabs Liam.
Stone grabs my wrist, his grip firm but not bruising. “He understands, princess. You don’t fight me. Got it? That’s the way you keep your friends nice and safe.”
He drags me down the alley toward the street.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Liam, hoping he’ll understand. It sounds like I’m sorry that he was threatened, like I’m terrified and mindless. In truth I’m just sorry he didn’t get the sex he deserves.
Stone pulls me down the street, with Liam shouting about the police, with Randall staring after us. Kitty whispers to me as I pass by, asking where I met him. She thinks he’s some kind of bad man, the kind who would snatch a young woman off the street. She doesn’t know he’s so much better than that. And so much worse than that. Because he’s done this before.
A white truck waits at the corner, a sharp contrast to the long line of black limos in the parking lot. I’m supposed to be in one of those limos, getting felt up, getting drunk. I’m supposed to be a regular eighteen-year-old girl, but instead I’m holding hands with a murderer.
My high heel twists in a sewer grate, and I yelp as I start to fall.
Stone catches me, pulling me into his arms before I can land on the street. One shoe stays stuck in the grate. The other flies off and lands on the pavement. I’m barefoot, and my feet don’t hurt for the first time all night. It’s enough to make me laugh. I must look like a maniac, wearing a ten-thousand-dollar gown while he has on a leather jacket with a T-shirt and jeans. Happiness courses through me, the certainty that I’m doing something right, even as I make the biggest mistake of my life.