I pounded on the cell walls, yelling, shaking the bars until my throat was hoarse and my hands were bleeding. I wanted to explode outside of myself and kill him for hurting her.
I had done this to her. I had killed her soul.
Then suddenly I fell through as the glass wall dissolved into nothing and I was free, but Robin wasn’t there anymore . . .
Waking up with a start as I fell, I half sat up. I must have made a sound because Robin jerked awake, too.
“Shit,” I muttered, heart pounding, sweat all over the back of my neck, the image of her still floating in front of my eyes. “God.”
“Are you okay?” Her hand stroked my arm, then my back, her touch warm and small and caring.
And suddenly I didn’t give a fuck that I was bad for her. She was letting me be there, right? She was offering comfort and I was going to take it, because I couldn’t stand the way she had stared at me in my dream, like I wasn’t there. Like I didn’t exist.
“Yeah,” I whispered, wiping my forehead as I eased myself back down onto the mattress. “I’m fine.”
She touched my cheek and pushed my hair back. “Are you sure?”
Nodding, I shifted closer to her so that our faces were aligned. She was so beautiful, so sweet, so trusting. I ached with want, the need to touch her greater than my self-control. I needed to see her smile, see her willingness to kiss me. Me. Her eyes, still heavy with sleep, darkened as I watched her, running my fingers down her cheek to her lips.
She knew what I was about to do because her mouth drifted open, so that when I kissed her, she kissed me back. And of course, just to torture me, it felt as good as I had imagined. God. Those lips were plump and soft, and nothing had ever felt so simple and good and important. She gave a little sigh that had me pulling her leg up onto my hip so we could be closer, my other hand buried in her thick hair.
Robin was safe, I wasn’t in a cell, and the kiss was perfect, our bodies pressed against each other, my tongue darting in between her lips. She opened for me without hesitation, and her hips started to rock against mine. Her skin, her breath, were warm, and my hands felt big, covering so much territory on her body at once. Our breathing got heavier, and I was inching under her dress, endorphins or whatever the hell they were called shutting down my ability to think rationally.
Which is exactly how we were when her roommate flung open the door and said, “Robin, sweetie, you awake—oh shit, sorry!”
Robin broke off our kiss and yanked her leg off of me, slumberous eyes now full alert. “Kylie?” she breathed, rolling onto her back and gripping her chest. “Oh my God, you scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know you had, um, a friend here.” The blonde in the doorway eyed me with a naked curiosity that annoyed me. She started twirling her hair around her finger, and her hip came out as she leaned on the doorframe.
Shoving my hair out of my eye, I sat up, giving her a long look that hopefully would send her scurrying away. A little privacy wasn’t too much to ask for, was it? Christ. Since she had just interrupted what was shaping up to be a fucking awesome moment.
Her eyes widened. “We can catch up later.”
“What are you doing?” A guy’s voice came booming down the hall, then a head appeared behind her. “What is going on here?” He took in Robin and me in bed, and he looked appalled. “Phoenix? Phoenix Sullivan?”
Fuck. I knew this guy. It was Nathan, Tyler’s best friend from middle school on. I’d always thought he was a bit of a tool. “Nathan? What’s up, man?” I gave him a casual head nod, reaching for Robin’s hand.
Her cheeks were stained pink with embarrassment, and she had curled up into a ball.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked me.
None of his business. I shrugged. “Hanging out with Robin.”
“She’s not just some chick you can screw around with.” Nathan looked and sounded angry.
Robin made a small sound in the back of her throat, but otherwise she didn’t say a word. She looked like she was fighting the urge to cry. She didn’t seem anything like the girl I’d just spent the last forty-eight hours with. She looked like the girl I’d met in Tyler’s living room, tenting herself inside her T-shirt. She was literally tucking her legs into her body right beside me. What the hell?
“Hey,” I said, getting pissed off right back at him. “Mind your own business. You’re embarrassing Robin. You don’t know a goddamn thing about what is going on here, but I do think you know I’m not someone to fuck with.” I’d mop the goddamn floor with him and his baseball scholarship. Thought he was someone because he was going to college. He could fuck the bat he swung to get there.
Since Robin’s hand was tucked away, I couldn’t squeeze it, but I did touch her hip when I stood up. I figured if I moved toward Nathan, he would back up. Which was exactly what he did.
“Does Tyler know?” he asked.
“Does Tyler know what?” My cousin appeared in the doorway, too, and when he saw me, the smile fell off his face. “Seriously? Phoenix, Jesus.”
I stepped forward, but they all stayed crowded in the doorway. “Back up!” I demanded, irritated. “You’re embarrassing her and it’s really starting to make me angry.”
Tyler knew well enough that angry was never a good look on me, so he tapped Nathan and jerked his head toward the living room. Once they cleared the doorway, I turned back to Robin and said, “It’s all good, don’t worry. Be back in a second.” I pulled the door closed behind me so she could recover or whatever. She was starting to freak me out. She looked so upset, way more than the situation merited. We weren’t even naked or anything. It was just a kiss. Well, kisses. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal.
Other than the fact that I shouldn’t have done it, but I didn’t think she really understood that. This was something else.
“Is there where you’ve been the last two days?” Tyler asked me. A pale redhead put her hand on his arm, like she wanted to calm him down.
“Yeah.”
“What about me saying it was a bad idea did you not understand?”
“The why.”
Tyler clenched his fists. “Dude, it’s like you want to screw yourself over. Why do you do that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just hanging out. It’s not a big deal.” But that was a lie. It was a big deal. I knew it was. It was a big deal in that they all knew just as well as I did that she was above my reach, but more important even than that, it was a big deal because I really, really liked her.
The door opened, and Robin appeared, arms across her chest. “Why do any of you care?” she asked in a small voice. Then she went to the redhead and hugged her. “Hey, Rory, welcome back. I missed you.”
Tyler got a sheepish look, but Nathan was still shooting me looks of instant death.
Then Robin went to the blonde and hugged her, too, hard, though she shifted out of the way when Nathan tried to hug her.
I was getting a bad feeling that I really wanted to ignore. “So is this move-in day?” I asked.
The blonde nodded. “Yeppers. I’m Kylie.”
“Phoenix, Tyler’s cousin. You need help unloading stuff?”
“Oh, God, yes, I have so much crap.”
She wasn’t lying. Her car was crammed with boxes, and we unloaded the car in an uneasy silence except for Kylie, who babbled like she had no clue she was with a group of pissed-off people. When both her and Rory’s stuff was in the apartment, my cousin leveled a look at me. “Can I give you a ride back to the house?”
Since I was on day three of the same clothes, I didn’t mind that he was about to go all paternal on me. Whatever. It was his personality, and I had been dealing with it for twenty years. “Sure.”