Chapter Fifteen – Vaughn
I shouldn’t have egged her on like that, but I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t late. I was able to use the excuse of sleeping in because lunch was the only time I saw Jaz. The reason I was so late to lunch was because I was trying, stupidly, to avoid her.
I could not get her off my mind, no matter how hard I tried, couldn’t stop myself from thinking about her as I lay in bed at night. Hell, I couldn’t even stop myself from dreaming about her—which was just odd to me, because I’d never dreamt of anyone like that before. Being close to anyone, desperately desiring someone else, it just wasn’t me. I was born into a family of psychotic, obsessive monsters, but I’d never been like my brothers.
Until her, it seemed.
The moment Jaz walked into my life, everything was thrown off. She sat with me at lunch, didn’t flinch away at my glares. She didn’t try to get with me out of a thrill, nor did she avoid me because I was an outcast. She was…she was different. So different.
Jaz held her head high, her gaze unblinking as she said, “I don’t see why we had to have this conversation here.” I stood near the door, having just locked it, and she appeared completely at ease.
Well, mostly. There was a slight twinge to her cheeks that was not there before.
“We didn’t,” I confessed, seeing no reason to lie to her. She stood less than four feet away from me, and I closed the distance between us with two long strides, studying the way she held her ground. She did not back herself up to the wall as some might’ve. “I just wanted to get you alone.”
Jaz didn’t let my confession rattle her. “Why?” The pink color in her cheeks grew, and I recalled the same reaction from her when we’d been in the woman’s study in Oliver Fitzpatrick’s house. Her house, too, technically.
Why seemed to be the million-dollar question here. Why was she so adamant in finding out everyone’s secrets? Why couldn’t she just let things be? Why did she affect me like no one else had ever affected me before?
My fingers flexed at my sides; keeping my hands to myself had never been so hard. What was this girl doing to me? Making me crave things I’d never thought twice of before…this wouldn’t end well for her, or for me. I wasn’t like everyone else here. My family was unlike any other. If she kept digging, she’d see it.
I just wished she’d keep her focus on Oliver, not me. Not my family. Investigate Oliver’s past, dig up his skeletons, and leave mine alone. His were ugly, but my family’s were worse.
“Why do you think?” I posed the question, cocking my head at her.
Jaz’s eyes, more of a light amber than dark, soulless pits like mine, fell to my chest. “I don’t know. It’s why I asked you first.” Her lips drew into a pout, and I wondered, just for a split-second, what they’d feel like brushing against mine.
A kiss. I’d never been interested in kissing anyone before. I never saw the point, but this girl…this girl was bringing things out of me left and right. I felt crazy, like a madman, with how much I thought of her, how badly I wanted to touch her. Was that normal? Did other people feel like this, too?
I took another step towards her, pressing my front against hers. Still, she didn’t take a step back, didn’t seek to put more space between us. “I think you know,” I whispered, meeting her eyes and holding them.
Her face was…stunning. High cheekbones, not a scar or blemish in sight. Full, luscious lips and wide, innocent, alluring eyes. Her black hair was down today, falling in waves over her shoulder, and I had the urge to tangle my hands in its lengths, tug, expose her neck to me and that throbbing artery I knew pumped full of blood—harder now, based on the way her cheeks were pink. Her heart was in overdrive, but that was fine…mine was, too.
My heart beat almost wildly in my chest, beating so loudly I could practically hear it. Simply being near her made my heart go crazy. If this was normal, I could understand why other people would be addicted to the feeling.
“I don’t,” Jaz muttered. “Your family…” Not another word she could say, because I’d lifted both hands and set them on her waist, just over her shirt. I could feel her warmth seeping through the fabric, and I wondered how warm she’d be skin-on-skin.
“I don’t want to talk about my family,” I whispered, my hands holding onto her more firmly now. Now that I knew she wasn’t going to push me off or run away—like any sane girl would’ve done at a time like this—I felt a bit more confident.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be. This feeling, this inner urge, was as new to me as something could be, and yet I let instincts take over—wasn’t that what my family had always fostered? Our instincts were primal, baser, more animalistic. We were monsters wearing the faces of men and women, and we used it to our advantage. My family would surely be shocked that a girl had somehow claimed my attention.
I wouldn’t be the first to fall prey to a woman. Other men in my family had, and the results were mixed. Sometimes the woman fit well in our family. Sometimes they didn’t. Above all else, though, our family remained. We were huge and we were widespread…my father had many women, and they in turn had many children. Not every man I called a brother was a full-blooded brother, but they were brothers all the same.
Cousin just didn’t have the same ring to it.
But, enough about them. Right now the only thing on my mind was the girl in front of me, the girl whose hips felt ridiculously warm under my touch. The girl who currently gazed into my eyes with a level expression, her lips slightly parted.
“Then what do you want to talk about?” Jaz asked, hardly sounding like herself. Her voice was soft and light, the kind of voice that a breeze could blow away. Her eyelids fluttered as if they fought to instinctively close. Her body leaned against mine, and her hands were slow to grip my arms, her fingers curling around my biceps, keeping herself steady.
“Maybe I don’t want to talk,” I suggested, sounding utterly serious. Sounding like I’d suggested that before, to other girls. I hadn’t. This was completely new territory for me, and I wasn’t sure if I was nervous or not.
My heart didn’t beat in anxiety or nervousness; it beat with anticipation, a hunger that I’d never known until now.
More. It wanted more. It wanted everything Jaz had, everything she was, everything that made her Jaz. My heart beat with a steady throbbing desire to take what I wanted, and right now—and for the foreseeable future—that was her.
“I don’t think we should be in here,” Jaz whispered, angling her head up to mine, a wordless challenge. When she breathed out, I felt her warm breath on my face, and my heart sped up even more, which I didn’t know was possible. “We should probably go back to lunch.” A feeble attempt at getting this—whatever it was—to stop.
I feared the time for stopping was in the far distant past, because as I gazed down at her, my body warmed up, and I felt a twinge of longing between my legs. My dick wanted her, too. Every single part of me wanted to make this girl mine, which hardly made sense; I barely knew her.
But maybe that was the thing. You didn’t need to know someone that well to want them. You simply did. You wanted what you wanted and you couldn’t change it, no matter how hard you tried.