Spider

“No.” I march over toward him and he backs up against the wall.

“Rose?” His chest expands, and I know he’s breathing me in.

“I know you.” My voice is soft, aching with memories, wanting him to see. “From Tin Town . . . when I was eleven and you were sixteen. You were at the Quickie Mart and you gave me three hundred dollars. It was the morning after Mama died. You . . . you gave me your cell phone number and told me to call you if I ever needed you.”

There’s a dawning in his eyes.

Lifting my hair up with my hands, I turn around to show him my back. I know what he sees: the butterfly tattoo on my upper back, inked in orange, green, and purple. Although small, his cell number is etched inside the swirls of the right wing.

“The butterfly . . . it’s in memory of you, a reminder of the boy who flitted by for an instant and gave me hope and then was gone, flying away somewhere else. I-I got it done in New York. Your old cell is inside the wings.”

I can’t see his face, but I hear him inhale as he traces the numbers with light fingers. My body shivers as goose bumps rise at his touch.

There is a deep silence as he processes this.

I don’t mind it.

His voice is filled with awe. “That’s my old number. My father disconnected it when I didn’t go to college. How do you—” His voice stops. “I remember you. You were hungry.”

I turn back around and face him, gazing up into those fathomless eyes, the ones I carried in my heart for years. I repeated those digits over and over in my head when I was faced with mean foster siblings, hungry nights, or just plain loneliness.

His eyes meet mine and we stare at each other.

My brain knows he’s going to be a rock star. It’s plain as the nose on my face that he’s going to break my heart.

But I can’t let him go.

I take a deep inhale, my eyes still clinging to his. “Staring at someone for longer than six seconds signals that you either want to have sex with them or murder them. Which one is it?”

He closes his eyes, and I weave my hands into his white hair, tugging on the ends as our lips come together.

He hesitates slightly and then groans, his hands going to my ass and pulling me against him.

With a swift movement, he flips me around until I’m the one against the wall and he’s in control. He kisses me back hard with a desperation that says he’s afraid I might disappear in the space of a heartbeat. There’s scruff on his jaw and it rubs my face and throat as his lips work me over, devouring me.

He wrenches himself from me, his breathing ragged, his shoulders quivering as if he’s holding himself back with the utmost restraint.

“Don’t stop,” I say.

My body gravitates toward his, my breathing shallow as a swell of emotions flies at me. I go in to take his lips again but he holds me at bay, leaning his forehead against the wall behind us.

He finally speaks, his voice rough as if it’s been dragged over rocks. “I told Father I’d leave you alone, but I can’t.”

“Thank God.”

He raises his head and looks at me, and I feel like I’ve ensnared him, captured him. I feel like a siren that calls sailors to jump from their ships and worship them forever.

“You’re too good for me,” he says, his hand lightly touching my shoulder before dipping down to caress my arm. His lips hover over mine . . . waiting.

“I’m not. I want you just the way you are. I don’t care about anything else.” I trace the outline of his lips, pulling on the bottom one until he groans. I take his mouth, my tongue nipping at his, inhaling his scent of spice and leather. I’m rough with him because I want it rough back. I want his desperation. I want his need.

He groans my name and pushes down the straps of my bra until my breasts spring free. His mouth encircles one of my nipples and tugs as his hand cups the other, tweaking it with his thumb. “You’re so beautiful. I want to touch you everywhere.”

“Yes,” I moan.

He kisses the side of my neck and sucks the skin. “I want to fuck you, Rose. I have since the moment I saw you.” His voice is guttural and harsh, and his dirty word makes my core clench.

“I’m not stopping you.”

My hands go to his jeans and unsnap them, reaching in to wrap my hands around his hard cock, my fingers sliding up his velvet skin.

He hisses, his mouth claiming mine once again.

Amidst our heavy breathing, his shirt disappears as he whips it over his head. I kiss my way down the hollow of his throat while he slips his hand inside my pants and underneath my underwear. I’m wet as he touches me, sliding in and out.

Everything moves in a blur as we melt into each other, grasping and kissing.

In a blink we are in a bedroom, our clothes gone, our skin touching in places that makes me moan and arch my hips toward him with need.

We lie on top of a white feather comforter and he hovers over me. I wiggle closer, needing him inside me. Part of me wants to rush, to get the painful part over.

“Are you a virgin?” he asks, his brown eyes hot yet hesitant.

I nod, and he lets out an exhale. “I want to say I’m sorry for taking it from you, but I’m glad it’s me and not Tren—”

I put a finger to his lips. “It’s you. Always you.”

He runs a long finger down my cheek, his brown eyes holding mine, an anxiousness there that makes my heart flutter even more. “Before we do this . . . will you come to LA with me?” he whispers. “I want you with me, Rose. All the time.”

What about New York? I think for half a second, but then he kisses me.

I want to be with him. He’s my butterfly.

“I’ll follow you anywhere,” I say.

He kisses me again, his lips hot, his hands hotter as he touches my center, preparing me for him. I writhe and beg him to hurry.

Neither of us hears our parents walk into the room.

Spider

“YOU SAID YOU’D LEAVE HER alone,” my father yells as we face off against each other in the kitchen of the flat. He glares at me as he paces around the penthouse. I sit on a barstool with no shirt on, drinking the watery Jack and Coke Sebastian left out for me before everything went to hell.

I set the glass down and rake a shaking hand through my hair, tugging on the ends. Fuck. I really screwed things up now.

Rose has already left, whisked away by Anne as soon as she threw her clothes on.

God, her face.

It was white as a sheet.

She was mortified . . . and calling my name.

What a cluster fuck.

“You’re a bloody liar who can’t keep his hands to himself,” Father tosses out as I take another drink and slam my glass on the counter.

“You can leave any time,” I grind out.

“This is my penthouse.” His lips tighten. “Whether it’s women or drugs or booze, you always take too much.” He shakes his head. “By the way, the housekeeper found the coke you left in the bathroom upstairs. You go too far, Clarence. Too far.”

“Piss off.” I scrub my face.

Rose.

That’s all I can see.

Her face. Those eyes that look at me like I am a fucking hero.

Far from it—I am a goddamn mess.

I’m not fit for anyone—not like this, not really.

I clench my fists. What have I gotten her into?

I need a bump.

I need a hit.

I need anything.

I need Rose.

My heart cracks, fucking breaks in my chest, and I want to rip open my body and yank it out. Instead, I jerk up and pace around the room, opting to make myself another drink and suck it down. Father watches me warily, his lips flat.