Page 17 of Grip Me Tight
“I should think of you as a sister. Noah’s baby sister,” my voice is hoarse.
“But you don’t.”
Sterling’s eyes drop to my mouth and she licks her lips. My body reacts like she’s licked my bare skin. I tug her towards me, “I don’t.” I lower my head, taking her mouth in a kiss, and I swallow her little gasp of surprise like it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.
I lift my lips away from hers, watching her eyes flutter.
“That doesn’t feel like hate to me.”
The comment throws me off guard. “I never said I hated you.” I hate how I feel about her. I hate what that says about me. I hate wanting someone I can’t have, but no, I could never hate her. “Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. You barely talk to me, and when you do, it’s to make fun of me or to remind me I’m just Noah’s little sister.”
Her eyes return to mine and I’m fucked when I glimpse the sheen of tears in the moonlight. I release her and take a step back, the sadness in her voice twisting my heart. “You were my only friend and then you went off to play rock star and you never came back.”
“I wasn’t your –”
Her hand clenches into a little fist and she gives me a jab. “Don’t say you weren’t my friend.”
I absently rub the place where she hit me. “I wasn’t going to. I was only going to say I couldn’t have been your only friend.”
“Well, you were. Noah doesn’t count because he’s my brother. When I was in an out of the hospital before my surgery, I didn’t really have anybody. I didn’t make a lot of friends at school because I was out so often, and then we had to be careful to make sure I didn’t catch a cold or something. Most of the people I knew went on without me, playing sports, going to dances and football games and concerts and I was inside, playing Mario Kart with you.” A tear shimmers on the edge of her eyelash.
I close my eyes, remembering Don taking Noah and me to get flu shots to try and protect her as best we could. I would have pricked myself with a thousand needles if it meant she could have gone to a school dance. And then I feel like an asshole because I know I would have wanted to kill any guy who got to dance with her.
I feel the weight of that tear like a brand on my skin. “I never hated you.”
“Then what? Is it because of what happened last time we were here, like this?”
“It was just a kiss. It shouldn’t have happened.”
“Which kiss, Tanner, the one just then or the one five years ago?” She blinks and the shimmer in her eyes is gone, her cheeks flushing with anger. She rakes her gaze down my body, slowing as she sees my body’s reaction to her. “Just a kiss, right?”
“Sterling…”
She folds her arms across her chest, like she’s hugging herself and I jam my hands in the pocket of my shorts to keep from reaching for her.
Sterling looks away. “I just want to say I’m sorry for that night. My parents miss you and you don’t come home anymore – at least not when you think I’ll be here. They haven’t figured out I’m the reason, but I have. I’m sorry I make you so uncomfortable you felt you couldn’t come home.”
I am wrecked by the sadness in her smile. She thinks I stayed away becauseshemakesmeuncomfortable? I stay away because I can’t be around her and not want her, and tasting her innocence that night, feeling her in my arms, it was too good. Even tonight I couldn’t resist it. A huge mistake on my part and not fair to send her mixed messages.
Not when I know I’ll eventually break her heart.
I shrug it off, needing to change gears. Her anger is better than tears. “You don’t make me uncomfortable, Silver. Five years is a long time ago. I’m just a busy man, remember?” I spread my hands, forcing a grin, pretending I don’t desperately want to take her in my arms and drag her down to the softness of the cedar needles that coat the path, smell that spicy freshness erupt around us combined with the lemony sweet scent of her that has haunted my dreams since the last time we met in this clearing.
She blinks again. “That’s right. You’re a star. I bet you don’t think about any of the girls you’ve kissed.”
I don’t. I only think about her. That’s the thing with obsession. It’s like quicksand – first you panic and fight it but as you sink deeper and deeper, you realize you can’t fight it. In fact, fighting makes it worse, so you let it envelop you, take you, until you’ve disappeared.
“So many girls over the years, I imagine. All willing to fulfill your every fantasy, right? Is it just a steady line outside your dressing room? Or do you have a list you keep and just call ‘em up in whatever city you roll into for the night?”
I’m not sure where to go with her rambling but watching her mouth in the darkness is getting to me and now that I know she’s okay, I need to leave. “Your mom is looking for you. You should head back to the party.”
“Go ahead.”
“Sterling, please just go.”
“You don’t need to wait for me.”
