I peeked around Ren’s body some more to get a better view of her deadpanned expression. “No. Why?” Looking around the room like she’d be there, I shook my head slowly before seeing Gina standing off to the side biting nails that already looked rugged and torn. “What’s wrong with her?” I already knew the answer. She was acting like Kat was when I met her here, the sickly tone to her skin and eyes being a dead giveaway.
Gina was the one who was snorting the coke and not caring who was around to see it when I’d hung out with them. It made my stomach hurt.
“Don’t worry about her,” Sam snapped at me, stepping closer. “I know for a fact Kat was seen here with you yesterday. Where did she go after?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Stepping around Ren, I crossed my arms over my chest. Ren stayed close by my side and Tiffany even came closer. “I left before she did, Sam. I told her to get help. Just like I’ll tell you and Gina. You all—”
“I don’t care. I need to know where Kat is. If you don’t know then I’m out of here.” She grabbed Gina’s arm and yanked her away, shoving past a few girls huddled in their path while Gina protested.
Ren and Tiffany looked at me. It was Tiffany who asked, “You saw Kat yesterday? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Us,” Ren corrected skeptically. The disapproval was thick in his tone and I didn’t appreciate it. “You said Kat told you shit about Sam and her family, but I thought you meant over the phone. You two used to talk for hours that way when we were younger.”
What was I going to tell them? I wasn’t about to admit what I’d kept in my purse, or how I’d gone home crying until I fell asleep because I was upset over how bad Kat had been. It didn’t matter that I walked away freely, willingly, or that I handed her the drugs without much of a fight. It still hurt.
“We got into a fight. Sort of. I don’t know where she went afterwards. The bartender that was working isn’t here today, and I doubt he would even know.” I could try calling her, but if she wasn’t picking up for Sam and Gina, the girls that were closer to her than me, then I doubted she’d answer my call.
“I’m sure she’s okay.” Ren pulled me into him, squeezing my arm. “She’s almost as scary as Lauren. Determined, too. I’d be more willing to fight her though. Like Sam.”
“Yeah, what was that?” Tiffany snorted, setting her drink down. “No offense, but you’re not really built to fight.”
Ren did take offense to that. “For the right people, I would.”
She didn’t reply. Or blink. I knew how she took it the second her face drained of any expression. He hurt her feelings. Again. “Ren is protective of all his friends if he needs to be,” I tried telling her.
“Friends,” she murmured, downing her drink in one long gulp. “I think I’m going to head home. My mother is bringing a few new trainers by to help get me ready for the tour.”
“Tiff, wait. We can go together.”
She waved me off. “I’ll get a cab. Don’t worry about it. You and Ren have fun and try not to think about Ribbons or any other professor. You don’t need to anymore. While you’re at it, screw Kat and those other bitches. Trust me, girl. They’re not worth your time.”
I frowned when she weaved through people without looking back. When she disappeared out the front door, I smacked Ren until he whined and rubbed his arm while looking back at me. “Really?”
“What the hell did I do?”
“You upset her!”
“You’re the one who emphasized the friend thing, not me.” He dropped into a seat again and sighed. “She’ll be fine. She’s hard-headed.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t worry.”
“Only you,” he mused. “I know you’re not supposed to think about school, but I’m curious, and this has nothing to do with Ribbons. What ever happened to that project you said Ambrose had offered you? You never brought it up again after you mentioned it a while ago. It was about that class that starts this summer, right?”
That class. The one where she wanted me to model naked in front of a bunch of strangers I didn’t know, who probably knew me through newspapers and TV reports casted from the trial since they decided to televise the event. I hadn’t told anybody but Tiffany about it because I was worried about what they’d say. Not even Theo knew more than the basics.
“I met with her a couple days ago, but she wants to speak with me again soon.” She needed a final response, but I couldn’t make up my mind.
“Are you still taking the class?”
My throat was dry. “Yes.” I paused. “I think so? To be honest, a lot has changed. I’d be stupid not to.” But was I ready to take a robe off in front of everybody and let them draw every flaw on my body?
Ren reached over and grabbed my hand, giving me a comforting smile. “You should do it, Della. What do you have to lose?”
I didn’t want to think about that.
Hadn’t I lost enough?
Chapter Twenty-One
Theo
Smooth lips peppered kisses down my bare chest as small hands pulled the comforter down. Eyes cracking open as those bow-shaped lips wrapped around my bare cock had me groaning loudly, my hand finding the back of her head.
“Christ, Della.” Feeling the hot, wet heat of her mouth glide up and down my length, flattening her tongue on the underside of my thickness, had me awake in a flash. My free hand gripped the sheets beside me, still warm from her body. Cursing as she took me deeper, I tipped my head back and thrusted my hips up.
Her gag had me smoothing my fingers through her hair as she worked to the rhythm my hips were setting, one of her hands gripping the base of my cock and jerking me while her other fondled my balls.
“Fuck,” I rasped. Sentences were beyond me as she quickened the pace, her head bobbing up and down, making wet fuck-me noises, as the sunlight filtered through the blinds of my bedroom window. When I asked her to stay the night, I’d wanted to do every dirty thing my mind could conjure, but she’d fallen asleep watching some Disney movie with an old man in a floating balloon house, and fuck if I could wake her from looking so goddamn peaceful. Even the dog was curled up beside her on the couch until I carried her to bed.
The sounds her mouth was making against me was enough for me to fucking blow, but I didn’t want to. “Sweetheart, I’m going to come if you don’t stop.” Though the thought of her taking all of me in her mouth and swallowing was tempting, I liked filling her a different way. It was a primal need that only made me harder for her as she sucked on the head that I knew was leaking. “Get on top of me, Della.”
She didn’t listen. Instead, she did everything she could to get me to come instead. When her hands squeezed me tighter and her teeth lightly grazed me as she deep throated, I was fucking done for. Her free hand massaged my balls as my hand tangled in the strands of her hair and pulled her into me instead of away like I’d demanded.
I thickened in her mouth, arching up, and came. Fast. Hard. And fucking came some more.
The sweet blonde between my legs took it all, looking up at me through her lashes as she swallowed and slowly withdrew, some of my cum on the corner of her lips that she licked away with her tongue.