“Nice. Keep body-shaming me, asshole. It helps emphasize your natural level of maturity.”
Parrish swings his long legs over the side of the bed and stands up, moving over to where I’m standing. My body betrays me, my breath stilling as that angry heat mixes with my natural attraction toward him.
“Ask yourself this: would I waste my Friday night hiding in the bushes on the off-chance that I might see you having a pillow fight with Lumen of all people? Danyella, the theater geek? Or is it you that I’m supposed to be interested in?”
I force myself to exhale as Parrish reaches around me, going for the handle of his bedroom door. I clamp my hand over his to stop him from turning it, and my stomach flip-flops dangerously.
“If it wasn’t you, then who was it?” I demand. “Someone was out there; someone was watching us.”
“How the fuck should I know? There are perverts everywhere,” he says, trying to turn the doorknob again. I tighten my grip on his hand, and he turns those toasted almond eyes of his over to me. Our faces are stupid close, like way closer than any two normal people would ever stand. “You seem to think you have a stalker who kidnaps you in the middle of the night and returns you unharmed to your bed. Maybe it was him? Like I said, if you’re that worried, go tell Tess all about it and see how much harder your life gets.”
Parrish yanks his hand back and turns away, returning to his bed and his abandoned sketchbook. He lounges back into his pillows and starts to sketch again, like I’m not even here. That infuriates me. It’s worse, I think, when he pretends I don’t exist versus when he actively ridicules me. Why is that?
“Don’t ignore me,” I demand, moving over to his bed and then climbing onto it. He whips his gaze up to glare at me and scowls. We do that a lot in one another’s presence, scowl like that. “I know it was you. It had to be. With Chasm tagging along, probably.”
“Why are you so goddamn obsessed with Chasm?” he bites back, slamming the cover on his sketchbook closed before I can snag a peek at it. “If you like him so much, ask him out.”
“I don’t date manwhores,” I tell him, biting my lower lip and then lunging forward to grab the sketchbook. Parrish doesn’t expect it, so I manage to pull the move off, yanking the book away from him and then rolling off the bed and onto the floor. As I scramble away, I flip it open to see what he’s been working on.
There’s a dead body with a puddle of blood nearby.
“Whoa, need to see a psychologist much?” I ask just before Parrish snatches the sketchbook back from me. “You need to stop listening to those murder Podcasts; they’re not doing much for your psyche.”
“Get out of my room,” he breathes, just like he did the night I got kidnapped. “Now.”
“Make me.”
The words come out before I can stop them, and we’re left standing there toe to toe, the air thickening and heating with unspoken things, forbidden things, taboo things. He kissed your neck, I remind myself, thinking of that night again, but for entirely different reasons. Why? If he hates you so much, then why?
Parrish just stands there, and then he smiles at me in a way that I can’t explain.
That’s about … two seconds before he leans down and presses his mouth against mine. Just like that. His tongue slips between my lips or maybe I part them for him, I’m not sure, but either way, as soon as he starts kissing me, I start kissing back.
That’s when things get really weird. Parrish’s right arm sweeps me up and he drags me closer, crushing our bodies together. The fingers of his left hand tangle in my hair as he tastes me, slow and languorous, like he has all the time in the world. Stupid, annoying, irritating, rude, piggish, selfish rich boy, I think, but ohmyfuckinggod, he’s delicious, too.
“Stop telling everyone at school I have a small dick,” he whispers, pulling back slightly. He can’t hide the way he’s panting, the way his eyes are half-lidded and heavy. It’s painfully obvious that he’s attracted to me—even if he doesn’t want to be. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were doing it just to keep the other girls away from me.”
I’m shaking now, completely and utterly confused by this hot-cold shit. How am I supposed to interpret this?
“You said you were going to bury me, remember? What else can I do but fight back? We could call a truce, if you want.”
Parrish studies me for a moment, his fingers lightly massaging the back of my head. It feels good, too good actually. I could stand like this for hours, my hands resting on the front of his t-shirt, that citrusy smell of his playing tricks on my senses.
