Wicked Love | √

Seventeen

His gaze takes in my old and worn shorts that barely show beneath the edge of my comfiest oversized sweatshirt. I look like a mess with my hair in an askew ponytail and ankle length fuzzy socks adorning my feet.

"You," he replies to my question. The word throws me back to the night in the basement of the library. The word he whispered against my lips as I fell apart in his arms.

"Seriously Preston, what do you want?" I ask him not realizing I've led us into my candlelight bedroom as he continues to stalk towards me.

His eyes finally break away from me making me feel like I can fully breathe. His dark gaze takes in my room. He's seen it from afar and walked by it when he's come over for tutoring sessions, but he has never been inside like he is now.

Preston walks over to a candle and waves his fingers through the small fire flickering on the blackened wick. It's as if his presence has intensified every single flame in the room and instead of the soft delicate light that once surrounded me the flames are now taller, brighter, and are casting daunting shadows on the walls.

He continues to play with fire like he's not in danger of burning himself. But with a burnt and black soul like his what fear should he have?

Preston's attention then catches on the book I left half open on my bed. He abandons the flame as he steps forward and picks up the book and leafs through the pages with an ease that somehow still unsettles me.

His narrowed eyes lift to meet mine. "Don't you ever take a break?"

My heart hardens on its own. I don't mean for it to happen. But she's always on the defense. She was created out of strict perseverance and grave mistrust. She's built to protect me and only me. Especially from men like Preston.

"No," I tell him as I cross my arms as if to shield my prickly heart.

Mischief sparkles in the depths of his gaze. "Well that's just not true Jameson. I know you do sometimes," he trails as if attempting to bait me, and I just know he's alluding to my night out at the bonfire.

He wasn't there. And yet I just know he's aware of everything that happened that night. Even when he's not around I always feel the weight of him. I feel Preston's heated gaze on my flushing skin, and his dark words whispering in my ear. He's inched his way so deeply under my skin I feel him constantly surrounding me.

I know there is no way he could, but a dark part of me begins to wonder if he knows what else went down that night when I was all alone. I shut my bedroom door after the long night, and my skin felt so alive from the electricity. In that moment I was so high off the flames and drunk off the liquor that I couldn't help but touch myself to the memories of him until I was a wild mess of desperate moans and sticky thighs.

A fierce blush heats my entire body at the memory making my eyes drop to the floor.

"Only sometimes," I reply with a shrug not wanting to give him an inch because we both know he'd take more than a mile if I did.

He'd take everything, and I can't risk that.

Preston tosses the book back to my bed. "Well take a break now," he tells me and his words don't sound like much of a suggestion.

I bristle at his tone. I've never been one for demands. "Why should I?"

"Because I want to show you something," he says, stepping a bit closer. His shadows are cast everywhere and his darkness seems like it might swallow me whole.

"Can you tell me what that something is?" I push back.

"No." The singular word is tinged with finality and brings no room for further discussion.