Page 34 of Lovefool

Sutton told me that Merit was off-limits when she and Crew first met. Coach’s daughter and all that. They snuck around her father’s back, defied all the odds stacked against them, and then came out the other side stronger. They didn’t let anything get in the way of their relationship.

Merit’s question cuts me to the quick, as painful as a freshly torn nail bed. Keratin bisected, thready pulse throbbing against air.

Sutton could say anything at this point. For someone who’s so easy to read, he can be unpredictable at times.

My stomach lurches from the steady influx of ethanol, and I’m beginning to think that my body is going through withdrawals because Sutton hasn’t touched me in ten minutes.

When he looks at me, I expect to be greeted with hesitancy, but his eyes shine brighter than firelight. A bed of coals breathed to life, a once-cold hearth now crackling with a warmth that could eradicate even the coldest of winters. I observe my disproportionate reflection in his dilated pupils.

“Yeah, I do,” he answers, still refusing to sever eye contact.

He’s talking about me. HE’S TALKING ABOUT ME!

The whole crowd oohs as if the culprit isn’t sitting right in front of them, and it’s taking some superwoman strength in me not to mark my territory right here and now, meshing my lips with his like I’ve been deprived of physical touch for the better half of my adolescent years.

I want to feel his hands clamp down on my sides; I want to hear a whimper wrench free from his throat; I want to swallow his yearning and grow dizzy on the taste of it.

Our, um, tame eye-fucking session is cut a moment too short when a loud, thickly Southern voice interrupts the conversation, taking over Sutton’s role and giving me—the guest of honor—another chance to exercise my terrible decision-making skills.

“Lake, truth or dare?”

Thanks to inhaling the fumes of Sutton’s sex appeal, my response time is slower than usual when I pinpoint the cocky drawl to the equally arrogant smirk. It belongs to none other than Knox Mulligan, the father of all fuckboys. I’ve been warned about him. His mean streak is worse than Foster’s, and something tells me I’m not getting out of this game unscathed.

Since my sensibility hasn’t clocked in yet, I don’t weigh the ramifications of my choice. The words shoot out of me like a startled animal.

“Dare,” I say.

I kid you not, Knox bursts into maniacal laughter, as if he’s been waiting all night for some unsuspecting victim to come along and step into his snare trap. Sutton looks at me like I’ve been condemned to public execution.

“I dare you to streak naked down the street.”

I’m convinced the night is alive and breathing.

The bruised sky swallows its reservations as I’m about to embark on one hell of a self-exploration journey. The forest rustles in the chill breeze, a beating heart hidden in a bark-like hibernaculum with large, gnarled roots dipping underneath a carpet of moss. Unseen creatures stalk on a neural network of rhizomes where everything is connected, and a susurrus greets the branches of aspens and the heads of thistles on its nightly routine. The pale flames of the streetlights are all I have to lead me down the dark mouth of the road.

Nobody’s going to see me, right? No pesky neighbors waiting to call the police?

I can back out whenever I want, but Lake Capitano is not a quitter. A little indecent exposure never hurt anybody, and I’m…I’m confident in my physical assets. Yeah. People would pay good money to see my boobs!

Sutton—poor Sutton—was chosen to be my escort for the night so he can report my completion of the dare back to headquarters. And he’s the only person in that friend group I want seeing me naked.

“You don’t have to do this,” he tells me.

I try and mollify him by pretending like my heart isn’t doing a million fouettés in my chest. “Don’t worry about me. Everything will be fine. We chose a street far away from the party, and all the houses are dark. Everyone’s asleep.”

“Knox is a dickhead. You shouldn’t do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

I begin to strip off my boots, tossing them onto the asphalt. Adrenaline is the only thing keeping me married to this ridiculous dare. My pulse is starting to hit tachycardic numbers; I think I’m hearing colors. I may be a reckless person when it comes to my own safety, but I’ve never aired out my hoo-ha in public before.

“It’s fine, Sutton. Really.”

I don’t know how convincing that sounded. Judging by the frown still knitted on his kissable lips, not convincing in the slightest. My dress is the next to go, which quickly rips away an integral layer of warmth, revealing a (thankfully) cute underwear set with a bunch of tiny flowers on them.

Sutton averts his gaze, tapping his foot nervously against the ground. I’m standing before him in nothing but discount lingerie. Penny pincher-sexy, if that’s a subcategory.

He’s so respectful. And sweet. And unlike any man I’ve ever met before who wouldn’t have wasted a single second getting an eyeful of these life-changing milk cannons. I even did a full-body shave before this party just in case underwear removal was imminent. Which, in some fucked-up way, it was.

“I’m not that repulsive, am I?” I jest, hoping that a little humor placates both of our nerves.