True (True Believers #1)(2)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Do you think . . . ?” Grant started to say, his whole body suddenly turning to me.

Startled, I choked a little, beer going up my nose. I didn’t know he was going to look at me. Not prepared. No coy smile in place. I blinked at him, hoping that just maybe he’d say something that could lead to something, and I would have a turn at this strange mating game we all seemed to want to play.

“Do you think Tyler and Jessica are serious about each other or are they just hooking up? Or could I, you know . . .”

I sank back into burgundy plaid. My turn was not today. I was stupid to think it ever would be.

“No,” I managed to say. “They’re definitely serious.” Even though I knew it wasn’t true, that Jessica wasn’t serious about anything right now. But I was feeling mean and a little sick, and drunk in a not-so-good way. It was rare for me to get angry, but I suddenly felt just that.

Because even Grant, who was like a terrified grasshopper clinging to the windshield of a speeding car, was too good for me.

I lifted my beer to my mouth and sucked hard, eyes focusing on Tom on the TV and his cheesy grin.

“She says she adores him,” I added, to emphasize my point, driven to speak by an itchy humiliation that prickled over my skin. It wasn’t a lie—she had said that. But Jessica adored her Hello Kitty slippers, and her iPhone, and Greek yogurt. It was her catchall word for anything that was pleasing her at that very moment. Tyler had been pleasing her half an hour ago. Whether he still was now was anyone’s guess.

Grant looked down the hallway, toward the bedroom. He didn’t say anything, but I could see it. That pathetic, hopeless wanting. The desire for what you want but can’t have. The need for someone to like you.

I recognized it because I saw it in my own face every day.

So I drained my fourth beer completely, my teeth starting to numb, my breathing sounding loud and labored to my ears. I knew I should slow down, drink water, stand up, but it was easier to feel sorry for myself, hidden behind a beer can, deep in the recesses of the plaid chair, my new best friend.

When Grant leaned over and suddenly covered my mouth with his, I was so shocked I made a startled yelp and dropped the nearly empty can in my lap, dribbles of cold beer spilling onto my jeans. Grant had eaten up the distance between the two chairs and was leaning on the oak table with one hand, grabbing the back of my head with the other. Confused, I sat there unresponsive for a second, my beer brain chugging along slowly, processing. Grant was kissing me.

I kissed back. Because, well, this is what I wanted, right? Grant to kiss me.

But then I remembered Grant wasn’t really interested in me. He was into Jessica. I knew that. And his mouth was hard, his tongue thrusting and swollen. I started to pull back, desperate for air. He tasted like stale cigarettes, and he smelled like he did laps in a swimming pool of Axe body spray.

“Pass that on to Jessica,” he said, panting hard, tossing his hair out of his eyes.

I blinked. I may have been the awkward girl, but I didn’t want to be second-best. A sexual stand-in for my hot roommate. Humiliation flooded over me, drenching my skin in heat from head to toe as I flushed with embarrassment and anger. When he started to move in again for another kiss, I put my hand on his chest to stop him.

“Tell her yourself,” I spat out, standing up, the beer can tumbling to the dirty carpet. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but away from him.

Only Grant grabbed me by the arm as I walked past and pulled me down onto his lap. Before I could react, he had his arms completely around me, his warm lips on my neck, the hard nudge of what I figured had to be his erection at the back of my thighs. Fear flooded my mouth. He didn’t look this strong. He didn’t look strong at all, yet his grip on me was tight, his sloppy, wet kisses trailing lower down my chest, under my T-shirt.

When I tried to stand, his hands held my arms so tightly it felt like my wristbones were being snapped, and I was too out of it from the beer to have great coordination. Trying to back up, I ended up sliding down his lap, between his legs and to the floor.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” he said, loosening his hold on me to take down his zipper. “Good girl.”

When he pulled out his erection, a mere foot from my face, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at, all smooth skin and dark hair, just out there, all casual. Right in front of my face. I realized he thought I was going to give him a blow job. That I was actually offering to give him o**l s*x, for no reason, with no conversation or lead-in, just a few shitty kisses when he referenced my roommate. That somehow, he was insane enough to think that I would willingly go down on him. Nauseated, I turned my head, so I didn’t have to look at his junk.

The beer was going to come back up. I drank it too fast and it was sloshing around in my gut, ready to rush up my throat in a Bud Light tsunami, crashing out over my teeth onto his lap if I didn’t get some fresh air, didn’t get away from him.

“Let me go,” I said, trying to get my feet on the floor so I could stand.

But he had my hair at the back of my head, and I realized the only way out was to go low, not try to stand. But if I fell to the floor completely, then he could fall on me, which meant that if I didn’t get out of this in the next sixty seconds, I might wind up having sex on the hard, filthy carpet of this crappy rental apartment. I’d rather give o**l s*x than lose my virginity to this douche bag, who I had thought was nice, who I had thought would never victimize anyone because he’d been the victim.

Neither was a good choice.

But if I faked oral, I could bite him instead. Sink my teeth down into his most sensitive spot and get away. Call a cab. I was just panicked enough that I figured I could actually do it, get away or at least go down fighting.

So I tried to stand instead of falling down, and he yanked my hair so hard tears came to my eyes. I had long, dark red hair, which made it easy for him to entwine his fingers to control my head and my neck, holding me so I couldn’t move.

“Stop! I’m serious.” I braced my knee on the bottom of the chair, my hand on his chest to keep my head as far from him as possible. “I’m going to be sick,” I added, because it was true, and I figured no guy wanted to be puked on.

But he ignored me and said, “Open your mouth.”

So I punched his wrist, trying to break his hold, desperate, panicked, my vision blurred from tears and too many beers, my stomach churning violently. “No! Please, don’t!”

“Let her go, Grant. Now.”