Pointe of Breaking (10 page)

I responded with a fake-as-shit grin of my own. “I’d call it a good kind of distracted,” I replied, my voice low and cautious.

Ivan nodded slowly looking me up and down. “I should be going. Luckily, I don’t have far to go. I just live a couple doors down.” He gestured toward the door behind him.

Of course you fucking do.
I nodded stiffly and stepped back as he made his way over to the closed bathroom door.

“Addy girl! I’m off, I’ll see you tomorrow!” Ivan shouted.

Adeline opened the door, her eyebrows raised. “Yes! I’m hoping that this all means something good!”

“You’ll be fine. Like I said, you’re our new star.” He leaned in and kissed her on both of her red, embarrassed cheeks.

I clenched my fists at the familiarity they had with each other. I was barely able to appreciate the sexy little pink dress she was wearing because he was all over her.
Fuck, this isn’t how I envisioned the start to our night.

I knew that this was her dance partner, and I shouldn’t be bothered by this. They did a lot more than this little hug on stage last week. Ivan gave me a polite nod that I returned as he gracefully left.

Finally Adeline acknowledged my presence. “Hey!” she said cheerily.

“Hey,” I replied, my earlier excitement dulled by our previous third wheel. My gaze drifted down the length of her body, taking in the way the soft pink fabric clung to her curves and how her muscled legs looked glossy and damn near lickable. Damn, I wanted this girl. But that Ivan prick seemed to be interested too.

“What’s up? Why the long face?” she asked, her adorable brow furrowed in confusion.

“Nothing,” I scoffed cooly. “I just didn’t realize you’d have company. If you don’t want to do this tonight, that’s fine. It’s no skin off my back. You were the one that said you wanted to see a fraternity.”

“Hey!” she cried rather abruptly. “I did want to see it. I still do.”

I silently nodded in response. “Fine. Are you ready then?”

“I am, but you seem a bit too grumpy to leave just yet,” she said, walking toward me.

My body was on red alert the minute she closed the distance between us. It had been too long. I had too much pressure riding on this moment. She looked way too fucking good in that dress.

“I’m not grumpy,” I replied defensively, my gaze flickering to her chest.

She reached up and twined her delicate hands behind my neck, standing up on her toes. “You are grumpy, and I can’t figure out why. Just a few texts ago, you seemed rather excited about seeing me tonight.”

I shrugged my shoulders knowing I’m acting like an idiotic child right now. If I was being completely honest, this was the first girl I’d ever felt jealous of like this. It was not a very fun feeling.

“You look good. And you smell amazing,” she said softly and pressed her nose to my chest.

She lifted her chin and yanked down on my neck to connect our lips. Instantly, my eyes rolled into the back of my head as she captured all my senses in a deep, drugging kiss. My previous anxiety completely evaporated. I banded my arms tightly around her small waist. I hadn’t noticed that her dress was backless and the skin on skin contact elicited a zing of sexual stimulation.

Pulling away from me much too soon, she broke our kiss and pushed her long brown hair behind her shoulders, exposing her sexy neck to me. “Better?”

My eyes hooded with desire, and I did nothing to conceal my intentions as I pressed my body flush against hers. “Not quite,” I replied, smirking against her lips and dropping light kisses down her jaw, all the way to her neck. The feel of her soft skin and sweet smell were everything I’d been imagining for a whole week. This girl was something.

She tilted her head to open her neck to me as she combed her fingers into my hair. She gripped it firmly, pulling just hard enough to excite the fuck out of me.

“God, you look sexy. But if you want to go to this party, we better quit while we’re behind,” I said, sucking and tugging gently on her earlobe. She smelled the fucking best—like a deliciously sweet, tropical fruit that I wanted to nibble on.

“I do want to go. But maybe not for too long.” She smiled sexily at me.

I swear to God, my dick grew three inches.

“Let’s fucking go. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave.” I grabbed her hand and yanked eliciting a cute squeal in response.

As cliché as it sounded, staring at Leo in a fitted leather jacket, sunglasses, whilst straddling a midnight-blue motorcycle was the hottest damn sight in the world. His five o’clock shadow completed his rebellious demeanor. His jeans clung to his ass, giving a whole new meaning to
come-hither.
I just stood there, gawking at him as he revved the engine. He turned around and dropped his chin so that he could see above the sunglass frames. His copper-colored hair fell carelessly over his dark eyes.

Man, I was nervous. I hadn’t been out on a date in an embarrassingly long time…like Blake long ago. Hell, Ivan had to dress me today. Well, it wasn’t like I’d asked. When I told him about Leo taking me to the Gamma Phi house, Ivan made me strip down and dressed me up like I was his life-sized Barbie doll. He did a pretty good job too. My backless pink cotton dress was fun and flirty without being too formal. And pairing it with my favorite brown ankle boots.

“Adeline!”

I snapped to attention. Judging from his smart-ass grin, it wasn’t the first time he’d called my name. So much for not acting like an idiot.

Biting my lip, I pretended to be fascinated by the strap on my shoe. After fixing my nonexistent shoe problem, I joined him by his bike. He dismounted. He pushed the kickstand down, slid his sunglasses up on top of his head, and lifted my chin.

“Don’t do that, Adeline.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Make me feel like the luckiest guy on Earth because
you
can’t take your eyes off of me and then shy away like you’ve done something wrong.” He tilted his head to get a better look at me. “What happened to the sassy, confident girl from the apartment?”

“Just bad habits, I guess,” I said, more embarrassed that he called me out, but also oddly more at ease.

“You didn’t shy away when you were on stage.”

On stage, behind all the stage makeup and costumes, I could pretend I was someone else. Of course, the Aerosmith arrangement had been different since I was tormented with a hundred different emotions. Betrayal. Guilt. Anger. Fervor. Aphrodisia. Just to mention a few. I was lucky enough to have been cast as a rock star so I could live vicariously through those impulsive feelings.

It was the first dance where I’d let the audience see me, the real me. “That dance was different.”

“Why?”

“Because I was dancing for you.”

Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!
What the hell had I just admitted
out loud
? I froze. On a subconscious level, I knew the attraction between us pushed me harder on stage that night. Verbalizing it made it so much more rea—

“What are you thinking?” Leo demanded. “Tell me. Everything.”

He wanted a confession of that magnitude in public? Had he lost his damn mind? People were walking by, cars were honking, any number of onlookers could over hear our conversation. Although I was happy to not catch sight of any photographers.

“It’s just us.” He cupped my face in his hands. “Adeline, you can trust me.”

Trust: the fickle backstabber of emotions.

I wanted to tell him
everything.
However, we’d just met. Even so, there was something about him that just moved something inside of me. To trust him was something I craved but…

“When I was dancing onstage, I needed you to want me.” My confession was barely audible. “I caught your gaze and almost lost my count and step. Everything I was thinking about before vanished when I laid my eyes on you.”

“Tell me more.”

He clutched the small of my back and drew me against him. His warm hands on my bare back sent shivers up my spine. The daring determination in his stare, the audacious stance… I loved it being directed toward me because I imagined my disposition to be a mirror-image. His voice deepened as he made his next demand. “What were you thinking when you were wearing those fishnets?”

This felt too much like phone sex. Telling him what I had wanted, hell what I still wanted and fantasized about, was far too intimate.

I pulled away. “I’m not good at this—”

“I can’t stop thinking about you in your ballet shoes,” he confessed, pinning me against his body and the motorcycle. I grabbed his leather jacket, steadying myself as he said, “I don’t want to go to this party. I want to drag you back up into the apartment, tear your clothes off, and make you forget about every man you’ve ever been with.”

I wanted that too. Bad. Him doing what he desired…Heaven help me, I wanted that so bad. I shouldn’t have wanted him this intensely, this deeply, this obsessive ache… I wanted him in ways forbidden for having just met. More importantly, I didn’t want to be just another girl to him. I wanted more. He had so much more to offer than a fling. He was intelligent, kind, funny, and had a sexy-as-hell grin.

And he couldn’t take his eyes off of me.

Even so, I knew that being with him so soon would be something I’d regret. “I can’t let you into my bedroom just yet, Richards.”

“Good,” Leo said with such intensity I knew he wanted more than just a one-night stand as well. “You can still tell me what you were thinking when you put your foot fucking straight above your head and stared at me like it was an invitation.”

If I told him everything I wanted, it would be too easy to stumble up the steps and play out my fantasies in my dangerously close apartment. “I’ll tell you what I was thinking while you drive me to the frat house.”

Leo’s grin was the best consolation prize ever. He straddled the bike and helped me on behind him. When I was settled, I wrapped my arms around his waist and waited for him to go. He chuckled, grabbed my hands and pulled my handhold so I grasped his body tighter. With my chest pressed up against his back, I never wanted to get off of this bike. His muscles flexed under my touch as he navigated around the City. Maybe I was just on some sexually-induced high, but was there anything hotter that the feel of a strong man revving a motor, and have it shoot euphoric vibrations between your legs?

As we tore through town, I couldn’t exactly whisper sweet nothings in his ear. The engine was far too loud. I certainly wasn’t going to be screaming them. So I had to wait for the red lights to make my confessions.

At the first stop, he lowered his feet to the ground for stability. I slipped my leg over his, dragging my heel up his leg.

I whispered, “…It was an invitation…”

I lowered my grip and slipped my hands down to his waist only to dig my nails into his jeans. That he wanted me as badly as I wanted him was all consuming. I rolled my thumb over his waist, loving that even when he was hunched over, I could still feel the ripples of his stomach.

“…I wanted you to know just how far you should stretch me…” Looping my fingers through his belt, I jerked my hips closer, like that was even possible.

On the next red, I dropped my hands, rubbing my thumbs down the inside of his legs. “…I wanted you to fantasize about bending me to the point where I’d break… Oh, I want you to find my breaking point…”

I pushed up further. His body was hard under my touch. It was when I slipped my hand over his chest that I realized he was holding his breath. His heart was pounding under my fingertips. With my tongue, I flicked the bottom of his ear.

“…When I was sprawled out on the floor, I wanted you to come up on stage and fuck me while everyone watched… I
want
you to take me on stage… I
want
to feel the hardwood under me as you rip screams from my lips…”

He ran a red light.

“…I want the feel of your dick in my mouth… I want you to keep your heart-stopping eyes on mine as I wrap my lips around you…” I dropped my hands lower and slipped them over his jeans. Tracing his groin, I moaned in his ear.

“…I want the only thought you had to be an image of me straddling you…the sight of me on top of you…the feel of you inside me…” When he hit the gas, I dug my nails in deep.

He stopped the bike outside an immaculate white house with a contemporary style. Gamma Phi and its Greek sign was painted on top in gold lettering, but that’s all I cared to take in because Leo twisted around and had me pinned against his chest as soon as the engine cut.

I didn’t care how he got me off of the bike without it falling. I didn’t care who saw me tear his jacket and cast it somewhere in the front yard. I didn’t care who heard the whimpers that tore at my throat when he slammed me up against the front door. I pressed my hands up this chiseled body as he found that sensitive place under my knee that made me come-fucking-unglued! I didn’t care about another person when he covered me with his body.

I grabbed his hair, knocking the product out of it. I let out one last confession that I needed, wanted him to know…even if I couldn’t tell him just yet. “…What I want more than anything is still a secret.”

He broke our kiss, gasping for air, reeling himself together. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

I couldn’t believe I was falling for him so fast! What had he done to me? Taking an uneven breath, he fought to control himself and lowered me to the ground. After a few deep breaths, he tweaked his eyebrows playfully and opened the door to the inside of the house.

The party was already well underway. The dining room was bursting at the seams. There had to be two dozen people in the living room alone—and it wasn’t close to capacity. The place was
huge!
The living room had a television the size of my futon bed mounted onto the wall. Next to a mounted Codex, a row of past fraternity presidents hung on the wall in gold frames dating back to 1960’s crew cut; Blake’s photo in one of the frames.

“Dude! You missed Chase’s epic jump!” a guy holding a pikestaff exclaimed. “One foot shorter, and he’d have third degree burns.”

Leo asked, “What type of flaming car…”

I didn’t understand a lick of what they were saying, and I was sort of taken back by the overwhelming party. The dining room was filled with people wearing the school’s colors. I felt out of place in this Ivy League college scene. Columbia blue and white colors were a fashion staple. My pink flowy dress was not the norm amongst the white and blue attire for the homecoming party. Why had I listened to Ivan? My insecurities got the better of me, but luckily no one noticed because they were all chanting
keg stand
while a girl was being held upside-down by two fellas. The girls skirt fell over her head, exposing her racy blue panties with a glittery lion on the crotch. The bedazzled mascot had to have been a twisted Pinning project.

However, few men cared about the peep-show. Hell, some of the girls seemed turned-on but most, like Felicia—who was glaring at me from behind a few bystanders—looked pissed. Felicia was standing next to another girl with brown hair, both decked out in blue and white attire: short white miniskirts that barely covered their butts and blue halter tops. Greek symbols of a sorority were embroidered on the fabric around their necks. She had a lion paw on her cheek, which I had to admit was cute. I could see how Blake was attracted to her. She was beautiful.

My stomach twisted into knots. She deserved to know the truth about Blake. I wanted to tell her—well, that would be an awful conversation, and so I didn’t actually want to. Even so, she should know. Or did she already? Her lip curled and she shook her head when I took one step to her. She then brought a phone up to her ear and started talking on it whilst staring at me. She rolled her eyes after looking me up and down and then disappeared into the crowd.

Leo didn’t seem upset so I figured that he hadn’t seen them in the mass of the crowd since his brother had come up to him to tell him about “Chase’s epic jump,” whatever that meant.

However, I couldn’t help but to notice that his demeanor became more agitated the closer we got to the kitchen. He clenched and opened his hands like he was fighting the urge to sucker-punch a wall.

“Let me show you the back yard. There’s a decent pool and fireplace,” he said a little too desperately to be casual.

Leo blocked my view of the kitchen—a kitchen that at a quick glance belonged in a
Better Home and Garden
magazine. He reached for my hand, leading me right through the dining room and onto the back porch. As much as I wanted to see what or who he was barricading me from, I let him.

Once I finished gawking at a gas fireplace that looked like it had been chipped from a fire-cast boulder, I saw the oversized pool. It was then that I knew just how out of my league I was. A gigantic swimming pool took up a good portion of the yard. For New York City, this kind of real estate was a rarity.

In the pool, a group of girls were on one end, tossing beach balls into round floaties. Several guys had taken to the water and were attempting to block the ball from getting into the flotation devices. Obviously, it was some game I didn’t know the rules for and wasn’t going to make a fool of myself by asking.

Instead I muttered, “Too bad I didn’t bring my swimming suit.”

Leo gave me the once-over. “I like the pink.”

I bit my lip and savored Leo’s expression my bite instigated. He stared at my lips like they were candy to be sucked on. Nevertheless, he didn’t kiss me then. He casually rolled his thumb over my hand, like touching me would be enough…for now. He pointed across the yard.