What the fuck? Usually her voice evokes some kind of frustration in me, which then morphs into an uncontrollable urge to throw her onto the closest surface and fuck her until her legs only know how to function while wrapped around my head, shoulders, or waist.
“Amber,” I reply, my eyes pinned on hers.
She looks at the table then back up at me, her voice remaining soft. “There’s a lot I don’t know about you because every time you’re around me, you wind up acting like a certified prick.” She gnaws on her thumbnail. “Is it an act?”
“Why would you think it’s an act?” My tone comes out harsher than intended, causing her to flinch. My stomach tightens with guilt as I gaze into the eyes of a broken, fallen angel.
Christ. What the hell is wrong with me?
I know what happened to her parents. Though it took some hard convincing, I got Brock to give me the details after he hung out with her at the lake. That shit rocked my head, so I can only imagine what it’s done to hers.
Still, a pissed-off Amber Moretti is as hot as they come. Call me an asshole, but since the moment her tight little ass fell into my lap, it’s been pretty simple. I get off on pissing her off.
But I’m not all douche. Sure, some of my reasoning for fucking with her is sexual, but the other is an attempt at eliciting an actual smile from the girl. Her whiskey-colored eyes alone are amazing, and ninety percent of the time, they’re drenched in pain. The emptiness beyond them is a mirror of what lies beneath her hardened front—bottomless, polluted torment. It nearly kills me, and had I known the source of her pain, I wouldn’t have laid my shit on as thick as I did.
I wet my lips, trying to buy myself some time. I need to figure out how to respond. “I’m sorry,” I mumble, dragging a hand across my face.
“You should be,” she asserts. “Admit it’s an act, and I’ll forgive you.”
I lean back and seriously think about her request. It is all an act, and though I don’t want her pissed at me, I have no intention of admitting a damn thing. “There’s not a second that goes by that I’m not thinking about you,” I hear myself say. In an instant, my throat seizes up, and I want to slam my head into the fucking wall.
Lips mashed together, Amber’s shocked attention wanders over my face. She remains silent, which causes my suddenly fried brain to continue spilling the truth.
“I didn’t know how to handle you,” I say, remembering the second I set eyes on her.
I knew she was cut from a different cloth from all the rest. I felt it in my bones, in the hollow of my chest. Completely rocked, I felt it in the way my lungs burned, making it hard as fuck to breathe. I don’t believe in premonitions and stupid shit like that, but I saw it all the day she fell into my lap. I saw her not only in my bed but as a permanent fixture in my life. I saw her wrapped in my arms after a long day, felt her lips on mine before I kissed her. It was as if I knew she was supposed to be mine. But I fucked it up, and the only place she wound up, other than hanging out with Brock, was in every waking thought I’ve had ever since.
I shrug. “To be honest, I’m still not sure how to handle you.”
“Why do you feel like you have to handle me?” she whispers, pain evident in her confused expression.
“I don’t know,” I mutter, wishing I did. “Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m an asshole, and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Ryder. Not about your feelings.” With a sigh, she pitches her head to the side, her sympathetic gaze and tone burning a hole in my skull. “They are what they are. But stop feeling like you have to handle me, okay? Brock told me that you know what’s up with me, but I’m only human. A fucked-up human with a fucked-up past, but still, you get what I mean.”
I nod, wanting to unfuck her spirit, open it up, and release the girl I know resides beneath the steel she’s wrapped around her heart. She slides a hand through her thick mane and gives me a small smile. Sweet Christ, her smile is the most goddamned beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Pure fucking candy to each and every single one of my senses.
“So tell me something about yourself that I don’t know,” she says, her voice light and airy.
For good measure, I check her eyes for any signs of drug or alcohol use. “It was my fault you tripped,” I confess, inwardly telling myself to shut the fuck up already.
What is this? Spill-your-secrets day? Show-and-tell? I toss another dollar into the jukebox, this time going with “Bleeding Out” by Imagine Dragons since that’s what I seem to be doing. Though I’m not shocked, because I knew she had it in her, this girl has me bleeding out everything I had no intention of ever revealing to her.
Her brows pull together. “What do you mean?”
“When you walked into the cafeteria the first day of the semester,” I say, remembering how I got her in my lap. I chuckle to myself. I had to do it.
“It’s called a dining hall,” she corrects, “but how was it your fault I tripped?”
“Who the hell calls it a dining hall?”
“The intelligent people do.” A smart-ass smile wavers the corner of her mouth.
I lift a brow. “Are you saying I’m not intelligent?”
“Maybe,” she answers with a giggle.
God, now I really want to bury myself inside her.
“But, seriously, it’s not called a cafeteria in college,” she says.