Pulling up to Ryland Street, Eden piped up from the backseat. “My house is-”
“I know,” I said, interrupting her. It was all for Lake’s benefit, of course. She was probably stewing with resentment that I knew where her best friend lived.
The car was silent when I pulled up next to the curb in front of Eden’s house. Nothing was said as sounds of Eden getting out of the car filled the uncomfortable silence. But as Eden shut the door behind her, Lake reached for her seatbelt, and my fingers flexed around the steering wheel.
“Well, it-”
“Put your seatbelt back on,” I commanded. “I’m not dropping you off here.”
Just then Eden tapped the passenger side window and Lake lowered it for her. “You…uh, are you getting dow-”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Eden wisely kept her mouth shut, but the poor girl looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her whole. She clearly had no idea what to do.
Lake took a deep breath before looking over at me. “I can get a ride home from-”
I leaned in a bit, not caring if Eden could hear me or not. “Do you honestly believe I went to SC to give you a ride to your friend’s house?”
“I don’t know why you went to SC,” she fired back. “And I really don’t care.”
“Well, you should,” I informed her. “Especially, since I went there for you.”
“So you already said,” she replied. “But I can’t see any reason why you felt the need.”
I arched a brow. “Oh, you don’t?”
Lake shook her head and reached for the door handle. My hand snaked out and grabbed her upper arm. My eyes pinned to hers, I said, “I hope you do try to get out of this car, Lake.” The look she shot me would have leveled a lesser man. “Take your fucking hand off that handle and put your goddamn seatbelt back on, Lake. Or, so help me God, you’ll regret it.”
And points for Eden, she came to her best friend’s defense. “Oh, hey,” she jumped in. “You can’t force her to go with you, if she doesn’t want to.”
I leaned in farther to make sure Eden got a good look at my face. “Who’s going to stop me? You?”
Lake looked back at me. “That’s enough,” she bit out.
I jerked my head towards her friend. “You better get that shit under control if you don’t want her becoming a Reed casualty.”
Lake’s blue eyes fired with anger and a good amount of hate. “Do not threaten my friend,” she seethed.
“Don’t make me threaten her,” I shot back. “Play nice, Lake, and Eden will be safe.”
“Whatever you’re up to, leave Eden out of it,” she demanded. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“Well, now, her role in all this depends entirely on you.”
“Lake, don’t worry about me,” Eden said through the window. “If you don’t want to go with him, just get out of the car.” The girl wasn’t a coward, I’d give her that.
When Lake turned to look back at her friend, my hand on her arm tightened. If Lake got out of this car, shit was going to get ugly. Well, ugly for her, not me.
I already knew I was fucked when I couldn’t stop thinking about her. And I knew my dick was fucked every single time I thought about how she fought back. But standing in the SC High’s parking lot, watching her walking with Eden, unguarded and casual, had added a whole other level of crazy to what I’d already been feeling. Especially, when Eden had mentioned how her ex-boyfriend had been watching us.
It had been a gamble when I had leaned forward to kiss Lake on the neck, but it had paid off. With her ex-boyfriend watching, I’d felt pretty confident that she wouldn’t push me off. Pride was a motherfucker, and Lake Warren had it in spades. She might be over her cheating ex, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still a bit bitter about it all.
Lake let out a deep breath. She looked at her friend, and said, “It’s okay, Eden. I’ll call you tonight and explain everything. I promise.”
Eden started chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know, Lake…”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Lake lied. “I swear. It’s okay.”
She didn’t look convinced, but said, “Call me as soon as you get home, okay?”
Lake nodded. “I promise.”
Then Eden Rudolph impressed me more when she looked over at me and said, “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but if anything happens to Lake, I won’t care who you are.”
I arched a brow. “Careful who you talk to like that, Eden,” I warned, regardless of how impressed I might have been. “Lake’s a big girl. She can take care of herself. You might want to remember that before you put everyone you love on my shit list.” I wasn’t winning any points with Lake by threatening her friend, but I couldn’t have her thinking I wasn’t serious about this shit. About her.
Lake’s head jerked back towards me. “I said that’s enough,” she snapped before turning back to Eden. “I promise it’s okay,” she repeated. “I’ll call you, okay?”
Eden nodded her head, but the girl was pissed. “Okay,” she finally relented, and with that, she turned and walked towards her house.
Once Lake had refastened her seatbelt, I let go of her arm. However, she was quick to light into me. “Don’t ever threatened Eden again,” she hissed. “I mean it, Ramsey.”
I pulled the car away from the curb. “I already told you,” I replied. “That’s entirely up to you.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“I know exactly who my father is,” I chuckled darkly.
Her voice was low when she remarked, “We all do.”
Ignoring her comment as I drove us more towards the upper hills of Sands Cove, I said, “Open the glove compartment.”
“Why?”
“Just fucking do it, Lake,” I snapped, not used to people challenging me.
She did was she was told, opened it, and pulled out the folders. I didn’t say anything as she sifted through them, the point I was making obvious.
Outrage was plain as day in her voice. “What in the hell do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I told her.
“Then what is it you want?
“I don’t want anything from you, Lake,” I told her. “What I want is you. Just you. All of you.”
Chapter 8
Lake~
I could hardly breathe.
His words were like an anvil on my chest, and I wasn’t sure if I had the strength to push it off.
‘What I want is you.’
What did that even mean? So what? He wanted to sleep with me? But that made no sense. The guy could have any girl he wanted. And if he was in the mood for slumming it, Erica Chambers could be in his car with him right now. It made no sense that he’d want me.
Plus, was he so goddamn entitled that he could just say shit like that to a girl and down her panties would go? I mean, I wasn’t a prude, and I wanted to experience desire just as much as the next girl, but that didn’t mean my first time was going to be at the whim of a goddamn lunatic, no matter how gorgeous he was.