SEVENTEEN

BACK WITH THE BAND

Pandora

After the concert, the guys are, once again, determined to party. Mackenna leads me into the bar and hunts down one of the waiters. “What do you want to drink?” he asks me.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

I hear him order for us, and then I’m once again being casually steered toward a booth in the back. “Shame on me for expecting Crack Bikini to party somewhere tamer,” I say, glancing at the bar/disco place.

“This is tame, babe, but don’t worry—we’ll get the fun started soon enough.”

He’s directing me to the darkest booth in the darkest corner of the club when he’s stopped by two guys about his age, who both call him “the bomb!” as in, “You’re the fucking bomb, dude!”

As they high-five, swear, and do generally ridiculous boy handshakes, I watch the Crack Bikini dancers jiggle and dance their way toward a dance floor flickering with lights. The music reverberates everywhere in the room. Under my feet. Under my seat.

Some girls separate from their flocks and fly over to Mackenna and the two men still nearly praying to him, and the moment they reach them, they start dancing around him.

“Dance with us, Kenna!”

He slides an arm around each of their waists and immediately moves his body to theirs, all while still talking to the other guys. He is a great dancer. A great singer. A lover of life. Of fun. Games.

Games.

I drop my gaze to the tabletop. You’re such an idiot, I swear to myself.

This is just a game to him. A challenge. Like The Taming of the Shrew.

“What’s up, pussycat?” Lex drops into the booth beside me, jerking my face back up with a fist under my chin.

“Not much. You sound drunk,” I say.

“That may be because I am?” He laughs and nods toward Mackenna. “It’s because of you he makes good music, you know. Every song.”

“Your number one hit is the worst song I’ve ever heard in my life, FYI.”

“No, it’s not, and that’s not the only song he wrote about you. Maybe it’s not a bad thing you broke his goddamn heart.”

“Me?” I sputter.

“Oh, please! You think you didn’t? He’s never done more than fuck a passing girl ever since you, and it’s all because of the way you burned him.”

“Me?” I cry in outrage, completely disbelieving.

“This jerk bothering you, Stone?” Mackenna asks as he sets my drink down and slides in next to me.

I smirk playfully. “He can’t help it, I guess.”

“Dude, I was just telling her what a great catch you are,” Lex tells him. “Trust me, you want me to talk to her.”

Mackenna slides an arm along the back of the seat behind me and leans in. The gesture is casual in nature, but I’m not deceived. He takes a sip of his drink. “Uh-huh,” he says, nodding in a way that says, “Suck my dick.”

“She doesn’t care that you like wearing pink hair during your concerts. She likes that it matches her skunk-look,” Lex continues. “She also doesn’t care that you talk like hell in the morning. She doesn’t care your ten-inch dick can rip her in half. She’s all for you, man.”

“Tell me something I don’t know—like why your ass is parked right next to her?”

“Keeping her warm.”

“Get out of here, Lex.”

“Dude, I’m tired as fuck, chill.” He eases away from the booth, though, and I feel a hand on my thigh. My eyes flick up to meet silver ones, and Mackenna smiles at me.

Danger . . .

My heart starts to pound.

I can’t fall for him again. I can’t.

But you are. You are. You are!

“Your hand going somewhere?” I ask breathlessly, sounding amused even though I’m more alarmed than amused. And excited. I’m more excited than anything else.

“Yes,” he says as he slides his fingers higher, his eyes shining with something. Challenge? Lust? His head ducks, and my stomach dips as I feel his lips, his breath, on my ear. “I can’t keep my eyes off you, and I want my hands on you, my lips on you. Really, I’m developing a serious problem with sharing you, even for the night.”

I laugh nervously. “Do these lines usually work for you?”

“Remember our first time?” he continues, ignoring me, his seductive whisper caressing my ear as his fingers stroke up my side, beneath my top, as though . . . as though he really likes to touch my skin.

He snakes his hand around my waist and settles there, on the side of my rib cage, his thumb only a hairsbreadth away from the underside of my breast.

“No, I don’t remember,” I lie through uneven breaths. “It’s all that Diet Coke offing my brain cells.”

But my brain contradicts me, and as he presses a less-than-innocent kiss to my temple, I’m transported back seven years, to a booth like this one, hands like these, lips like these. Back to a time when I was confused about who I was, and who I wanted to be, but never confused about this boy.

They’ll see us, Kenna . . .

What’s wrong if they see? Why, are you fucking ashamed of me?

He’s a man now. Hard. His hard thigh against mine. His hand curling tighter around my ribs. He used to be frustrated and pained because I wouldn’t allow my mother to know about us. I knew she’d take him away. But in the end it didn’t matter. He left all on his own.

“You do remember. I can see in your eyes that you do,” he says softly.

I close my eyes as he presses another kiss, this one a soft, seductive flutter, against the corner of my lips. “I don’t like to remember either, Pink. It’s the worst form of torture, to think of the way you used to look at me. To think you won’t ever look at me like that again,” he whispers.

I force my eyes open and look at his face, so close my hand itches to curve around his skull. Leaning closer, my teeth tug and play with the diamond earring on his ear, and he holds his breath, as if barely holding himself together.

When I edge back, his gaze is so intense and I feel so drugged by my own effect on him, I start closing my eyes. He stops me. “Don’t. Don’t fucking close them.”

I keep them open and his jaw flexes, his eyes dark as twilight, his pupils dilated, and I’m scared. Scared of everything. Of the heat of his body on mine. Of his gaze holding me. I’m scared of how close he feels, how close we are . . . emotionally.

He smiles, but it’s a smile that’s not quite the cocky smirk I’m used to. It’s tender, so tender. I’m confused as he rubs his silver thumb ring over my jawline, his wolf’s eyes staring deep into mine. “I swear you took something from me, but I’ve never been able to figure out what.”

I loved you, you idiot. And you loved me too. And it scared you—like it scared me—and so you left!

The reminder makes me squirm. I try to put some distance between us. To put up my walls. I jerk my head around to stare blindly at the dance floor. “I stole your heart, of course. I chewed it up and spat it out. It’s why you don’t feel anything now.”

“There’s my man-eater.” The laughter that follows doesn’t sound merry, though. He’s just following my lead, but I know he doesn’t really find the comment funny.

He tugs playfully on the pink strand of my hair. “Okay, Pink,” he says, conceding me this one, “so if you won’t walk with me down Memory Lane, then at least talk to me.”

I don’t know what to say, and I find myself using silly words to deflect his attention, like I used to with my mother when I was young. With Mackenna, when we had long, comfortable silences and I felt like breaking it—or when he felt like making me laugh.

“Circumcision,” I blurt out.

He bursts out laughing, and this time it’s real, and it’s a sound I love. “Bad girl.”

“Liposuction,” I continue, smiling now.

“Ah, babe, you know how to skip the small talk, don’t you.”

“Tyrotoxism!” I laugh.

He lifts his eyebrows. “Poisoned by cheese?”

“Yup. Sternutation!” I continue, catching my breath when he pulls me to his chest. He squeezes me to him, and emotion squeezes in my heart when he kisses the top of my ear.

“God, I love that laugh,” he whispers, smiling down at me. “Dance with me now.”

“Nope.”

“Come on, dude. Dance with me.”

“The answer is no. And I don’t answer to ‘dude.’ Or ‘Pink.’ Or ‘gorgeous.’ ”

“How about ‘Darth Vader,’ hmm?” Smiling, he tips my head back and teases me.

“Why? Do you have a thing for men in masks?” I tease in return.

“I have a thing for you.” He sighs. “Why is that I can have any girl out there and forget about her the moment I come, but you . . . ? Once just isn’t enough. I want to come in you, again and again. I want to watch you come. I’m a selfish prick who fucks girls to feel good. So, why is it with you I want to make you feel good? Explain that to me.”

“I can’t.”

“Then dance with me.” He stands, and he stretches his large, beautiful hand with the silver ring on his thumb out for me.