Bad Intentions (24 page)

“Yes, it matters.” He sits up. My body instantly misses his expert touch.

“Why? Why does it matter?” I shoot up as well, jerking my dress down hastily in the process.

“Because it does,” he rubs the back of his head feverishly. “No. Listen. It doesn’t mean anything bad. It just means that we need to take our time. I don’t want you to regret anything or wish that you had given that gift to someone other than me.”

“Do you like me less because…because I’m a virgin?” I can feel the heat in my face reach the tips of my ears. I cannot believe I just said that word out loud.

“What? Are you kidding? Adaley, knowing that no man has ever tasted you—touched you in that way—makes me fucking ecstatic. I thought…I really thought that you were more experienced though. I mean, you spent your first few weeks here parading yourself around and binge drinking. You’re not like any virgin I’ve ever met.” Ryle catches me scrunching my nose in distaste. “I mean, you are the
only
virgin I’ve ever met. But it’s not a bad thing. It’s hot, actually.”

“How so?” I try to sound as seductive as possible, while scooting closer to him on the couch.

The mood in the room shifts as the sexual tension becomes almost palpable.

I feel the tips of Ryle’s fingertips stroke the side of my arm. “You’re going to make me say it?

I simply nod.

“I’m a man, Adaley, so I don’t mean this to sound disrespectful, but to be the only guy to slide into your perfectly tight pussy…” he coughs. I blush. “It’s a giant turn on. I can’t explain it. Just know that it means something that you’re not like the rest of the college population.”

“Are you?”

“What, like the rest of the college population?”

I stifle a laugh. “Yes.”

“I’ve had my fair share of women, I’m not going to lie. But do I boast it around like some guys? Hell, like half of the baseball team? No way. I’ve never been a kiss-and-tell kind of guy. Although most of my hook ups were one-night stands, it’s still personal. Whatever I’ve done in my past doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is us. Our future.”

“That’s some deep stuff right there.” I fight the urge to jump up and down like a schoolgirl, and try to play it cool.

I don’t know where we go from here. We’re both frozen, staring at the other. Does he want to make a move? Do I want him to?
Yes. Of course
. But now that we’ve opened the door to this little discussion, there’s one more thing that I want to know.

“Have you ever had sex with Naomi?”

“It seems like she’s always on your mind, so I’ll tell you the truth.” His mouth twists. “A long time ago, we messed around. I’m telling you right now, there is nothing to be jealous of. What we had, or didn’t have, is in the past. Does she still try to get under my skin? Hell yeah she does, and it’s annoying as hell. But I want you to know the truth.”

“I just don’t understand. She’s always around. She makes it seem like you two have a thing going on. If you truly don’t, then why does it seem that way?”

“We live together,” he says. His voice resigned.

I pull my hand away from Ryle’s embrace. I tilt my neck every which way, while I glance around the living room looking to find some evidence or a trace that a woman lives in this apartment.

“Wait. That came out wrong. We did live together. Our parents.
Fuck.
We were adopted by the same people. Naomi was there before I was. We were both screwed up teenagers who found solace in one another. Eventually, I wanted to stop. Although we’re not related at all, people knew we were adoptive siblings, and it got weird. The more I pulled away, the more she clung to me. She still does. Now that you’re in the picture, I think she’s trying to prove something. I don’t care about her though. It’s sad, and I’m going to look like a dick for admitting this, but I never did. She was strictly just someone to get me off.”

For the second time, I’m clueless as what to say to his admission. I’ve never heard someone talk so bluntly about sex other than Zoe and Tank. I wonder what they put in the water here in Biloxi?

“Are you sure you don’t have any feelings for her?”

He sneers. “None whatsoever. I never did. It may be wrong, and I sure as hell hope you don’t see me as some heartless bastard now, but I never felt anything romantic toward her. You on the other hand…I do.” He closes the distance I’d put between us. With the flick of his wrist, he gently brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “I want you to understand me. I want you to know my past—and me—but there’s so much pain there. I want to keep it away from you so you never have to know what it feels like. You’re so pure. This version is…” he places his palm on my chest above my heart.

“This
is
the real version of me. The girl who drinks like a fish was only a façade.”

“I know.” He leans forward so that our foreheads are touching. “Tell me why you came here. Not my apartment, but Braxton University. I saw your application on Kaiser’s desk. I know you’re from West Virginia. I also know that they have some pretty well known colleges there. So why did you decide to come here, of all places?”

Instead of pulling back to look in his eyes, I keep my head pressed against his. My breath is hot as I open my mouth to talk. “I…” I choke on a truth that I don’t know if I’m ready to share. “I came here to get away from my life. From my overbearing preacher father, my ex-boyfriend... I wanted a fresh start. I needed to figure out who I was without all of them by my side.” I feel okay giving him a half-truth, because it’s not a lie. Those are all reasons behind my decision to come here. I just leave out the biggest one.

“I was adopted when I was in high school,” Ryle begins. “Before the Bensons, my life was chaos at all times. I would fight in alleyways just to prove me that I wasn’t a pussy to the thugs that roamed the street we lived on. I’d steal food from corner stores when our Welfare check was late, and I’d stay up almost every night with my hand on my mother’s back just to make sure that she was breathing.” He pulls his head back slightly, so he’s able to look into my eyes.

He has more courage than I do.

A lone tear falls out of my eye and slides down my cheek. I don’t dare move to wipe it away. “I’m sorry,” I mumble under my breath. Now I know why he’s always so guarded and distant. At our age, I can’t fathom having to have dealt with half the stuff Ryle has had to see. It all makes sense. The center…the soft spot he has for Kaiser because his scumbag father hits him... He deserves nothing but my honesty. Especially now that he’s opened up to me and left himself raw and exposed.

“I calculated everything but falling for you. My intentions for moving were true. I wanted…needed to get away from the sheltered little bubble that I existed in. I had an accident—.”

“You mentioned in the car that you were almost an Olympic gymnast,” he interrupts, before sliding the pad of his thumb down my face to wipe another tear that escaped.

“I am…I was a gymnast. It’s
all
I was. It defined me. And in the blink of an eye, the purpose for my existence was ripped away from me. That’s the real reason why I decided to transfer colleges. Everyone in my town was hell bent on watching me build my life without gymnastics. It’s like they almost wanted me to fail, just to prove to that gymnastics was all that I had going for me. So I left the only place I’ve ever known, to see who Adaley Knight could be. I admit I was a little lost at first, but from the first time that I first laid eyes on you, I was intrigued.”

“I was probably one of the first guys you saw.”

“Actually, Tank was. Remember you guys were laughing at me in the hallway. Regardless, I was smitten from the beginning, and you wouldn’t give me a second glance.” I look at him quickly, searching for a sign of objection.

“You’re right. Again, I’m sorry for being a moron. If I had known what an awesome chick you were from the beginning, we could have saved some time this semester.” I watch as Ryle’s eyes wander the room and then land back on me. They steadily roam up my exposed thigh.

“I think we’ve gotten to common ground today, don’t you?” My eagerness to move on from this conversation is visible.

“I want you to know how bad I want you, Adaley. How sexy you are. How many times I’ve jerked off thinking about those sweet, plump lips around me. Have you done that before?”

I force the word
no
out as I clench my now squeamish legs.

“Come here,” he wraps his arm around my waist and, in one swift motion, he positions me on his lap so my thighs straddle his. We’re nestled together on the couch, and my core is directly above his most tender spot. I beg that he takes me today, like this. I don’t need anything fancy, or even romantic notions that might make me feel like the only girl in the world while I’m surrounded with dollar store candles and cheap wine. What is silently passing between us is so much more. It’s the real deal. It’s a freshly found love trying to bind two souls together.

“We’re going to try something okay?”

I nod, speechless.

“I’m going to walk us through this.”

“Because I’m inexperienced,” I add, my tone salty.

“Yes, and because I want my voice to be what you play back in your mind when you think about this very moment. No one can ever take this away from us.” He jabs my chin with his and nudges my face up before seizing my mouth with his. It’s a frantic, wild kiss that literally takes my breath away.

Before long, my body starts to move. The motion causes my core to rub against his. “This is called dry humping.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, I’m struck with a sense of insecurity. My boyfriend, or whatever he is, has to tell me what dry humping is, like I’m some child sitting through a sex education class. It’s mortifying.

He senses my panic and places his hand under my chin. Positioning my face directly in front of his he says, “Let your body indulge with me without tensing up and becoming self-conscious.”

I listen to his advice and allow him to dictate this moment. With each grind of my hips, I lose more control. Ryle makes wild love to me with his eyes, and I know that with each barely audible moan and grasp on my thigh, that he’s burning for me as I am for him.

Oddly enough, I end up being pleased without hitting a homerun. I never in my wildest dreams thought I could be as turned on as I was then, and that I would feel safe in the hands of someone who is a hundred times more experienced than I. But as Ryle’s finger slid inside my panties, I forgot to think about anything other than the experienced touch that brings me to the brink of ecstasy.

Ryle’s cock twitches in his jeans. As much as he wants to lose control with Adaley and slide into her wet, virginal opening, he knows once that line is crossed, their fate would be sealed. No matter how possessive he feels in this very moment, after the fact, his possessiveness would reach new limits.

He is frightened to death to claim her.

Even so, there isn’t anything in the universe that he wants more.

“A
nd then what happened?” Zoe asks with a mischievous grin on her face.

I blush, not wanting to tell her the yummy details, but settle with, “He fingered me.” After she pinky promised not to tell a soul.

“Oh my God!” A screech flies out of her mouth.

“Stop! Don’t make a big deal out of it! You swore you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Why would I tell someone that? It’s not like you went all the way, and guess what? Even if you did, I wouldn’t write it on a T-shirt and flaunt it around campus. Calm your tits,” she retorts with sarcasm. “Was it good?”