Home > At First Hate (Coastal Chronicles #2)(6)

At First Hate (Coastal Chronicles #2)(6)
Author: K.A. Linde

“You thought I was a Chuck?” he asked. “What a pickup line.”

I laughed. “I’m not trying to pick you up. I’m trying to say that I think maybe you’re not as terrible as you make yourself seem.”

He straightened on the sofa next to me and swept a curly lock out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Oh? You think you’re terrible?”

“I know what I want.”

I laughed and pulled back. “You were doing so well.”

He arched an eyebrow. “So why are you still here?”

“Really asking myself the same question,” I admitted. “You’d think I was smarter than this. I’m in Duke TIP and everything.”

“Ah, good old Duke TIP,” he said with a sneer.

“What?” I asked, automatically offended. “You have something against smart kids getting opportunities for one of the best schools in the South?”

“Nah. Now, hold on. I didn’t say that. I was offered for TIP, but we don’t do Duke in this house.” He grinned broadly. “Go Heels. Go America.”

I snorted. “Oh, I see. You’re a UNC fan.”

“Tar Heels all day, every day, baby.” He leaned back on the sofa and stretched his arms out wide.

“That’s nice and all, but Duke is a better school.”

He snorted. “No.”

“No, what? Objectively, that’s true.”

“Meh.”

I shook my head at him. “You do realize that rivalry is clouding your brain so that you can’t think clearly about this.”

“You can say that, but I will continue to disagree. UNC is better than Duke on every metric.”

“Wow. That is blatantly false.” I threw my hands wide at his rejection of the one thing that had made me special for so long. The one way to get out of this town. My brain, my supposed brilliance, the scholarship that would put me on the road to bigger and better.

“Look, Marley, you’re hot when you’re all riled up,” he said, tipping my chin up. “But UNC is just better at basketball, and that’s a fact.”

“Basketball,” I said slowly with a disbelieving head shake.

“Priorities.”

“You’re absurd.”

He grinned. “I’ve been called worse.”

“I don’t—”

But I didn’t get to finish my sentence.

His hand slid back into my wild brown curls. His perfect lips formed the word, “Shh,” and then he fitted his mouth to mine.

My brain malfunctioned at the touch of his lips against mine. Those damn lips that I’d thought were too pretty and perfect for one person. Now they were touching mine, and fuck it, they were even better in person. Soft and tender.

My heart raced as he dragged me closer. He laughed softly when I didn’t immediately respond and pulled back to look deep into my eyes. When I didn’t run in the other direction, he slid his thumb across my bottom lip. I shuddered at that touch. God, he knew what he was doing, and I was so inexperienced. This was my first kiss, and I was sure that I was botching it.

“Should I stop?” he asked sincerely.

Though he’d stolen my first kiss, he was offering me my second.

And to my surprise, I responded, “No.”

He tugged me forward, harder this time. And I forgot all else but the feel of his lips against mine. I moved against him, letting instinct take over. For the first time in a long, long time, I didn’t think at all. Not even a little. I just gave myself over to the moment.

He dragged his tongue across the seam of my lips, and I gasped. I felt his smile against my mouth at my response, and then his tongue moved forward and brushed against mine. I moaned at that first sweep of him inside my mouth. Everything felt so amazing and overwhelming. I was hot all over, and his hand moved from my neck down my back. I could feel every point that our bodies touched like it was superheated. A small inferno down my back, all the way to my hip, and then across my thigh to the hem of my skirt.

I gasped as he slipped a hand under the tiny St. Catherine’s skirt and pulled back. His breathing was ragged as he stared down at me. He didn’t apologize, but his hand moved back on top of my skirt.

“I should probably…” I managed.

“Marley,” he breathed my name like a prayer. His hazel eyes swirling all over my face.

I didn’t want to go. My lips felt swollen. My body hummed in a way I’d never experienced before. Was this how I was supposed to feel? It was exhilarating. And I was going to make a huge mistake if I stayed.

I tried to stand, and he tugged me down into his lap. My eyes widened as I felt exactly what our kiss had done to him.

“Stay,” he pleaded.

I shook my head, even as I leaned forward and kissed him hard and in earnest. In that moment, I understood drug addicts. Because Derek Ballentine could very easily be the most addictive substance on the planet.

“Derek, I…” I tried again.

“Keep kissing me like that.”

And so I did. I’d always followed logic. I’d always been the smart one. And I didn’t want to be.

But I wanted to be my mother even less. With twins at eighteen, right out of high school, and no husband to show for it. A desperate need for love, chasing stupidity around every block and never taking responsibility for a damn thing in her life.

I pushed him backward, ignoring the pitter-patter of my heart and the ragged quality to my breathing. “I should get back to my friends.”

“Marley…”

I stumbled to my feet. “I should go.”

I didn’t wait. I just hurried back down the stairs. A second later, a hand grabbed my elbow at the base of the stairs.

I whipped around to find Derek had followed me.

“What?” I got out.

“I just…”

“Yeah, Derek!” a group of guys yelled nearby.

I jolted at the noise, sharply bringing me back to reality.

Derek laughed and shouted out to them. I looked up at him and saw the same guy that I’d seen at the football game yesterday. It hardly mattered that he’d given me my first kiss and made me lose my ever-loving mind. We existed in two separate worlds. And I couldn’t end up like my mother.

So, I snuck away while he talked to his friends and headed back to Lila, who was still attached to Maddox.

“You were gone forever!” Lila said. “Did you find the bathroom?”

I glanced backward to make sure Derek hadn’t followed me again. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I found it.”

I’d found a whole hell of a lot more than the bathroom.

 

 

4

 

 

Savannah

 

 

Present

 

 

“Come on, Mars!” Derek yelled from the other side of the door.

I leaned back against the front door and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t need this. I didn’t need Derek Ballentine in my life especially right after Gran’s funeral. I had hoped to be in Savannah and never, ever have to see him again. Ever. Not after all the shit we had gone through together for years. I couldn’t lose Gran and deal with him at the same time.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)