Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
My spidey senses perk up inside me. “He gave you something?”
“They were mini Twix bars, babe. Relax. And kiss me a little more.”
“I’ll kiss you in the ballroom. We need to go.”
He can’t keep his hand off of me as I start walking down the path through the quad again. He keeps his palm under my jacket, at the small of my back.
As we catch up to the other guys, Niko pushes his fingertips under the back of my waistband, halfway to my ass.
“Hey, lovebirds,” Weston says as we approach. “You stop tongue-fucking long enough to grace us with your presence?”
Noah cackles ahead of him. “They’ll be dick deep in each other in one of the ballroom bathroom stalls by the end of the first song, guaranteed.”
“Lovebirds,” Niko muses, tilting his head back to look up at the sky as he walks. “Weird fuckin’ word, isn’t it?”
“Like two little flitting birds, in love,” Wes says. “That’s you guys.”
Niko lets out a long breath and it dissipates into the air like a cloud of smoke. “Maybe I’m wrong about everything. Maybe love can be real. Given very specific circumstances.”
The fuck?
There’s definitely something off about Niko tonight.
He’s almost acting like…
Like he did the night he got dosed with ecstasy.
And that realization sets off every alarm bell inside me.
Part Two
Shadow and Light
15
Niko
Niko, checking the app before walking into Onyx House, earlier today
Username: Dragonfly
I feel a little too good as I check the Camboy account.
Good in a way that makes me not give a fuck about what any commenter might be posting.
They’re not Oliver.
So why the hell should I care?
I belong to him, after all.
Wait.
No.
It’s all just fake.
But maybe I don’t give a fuck about that, either.
I’m surrounded by a shimmering sea of color.
Beauty.
Shades of blue and silver, falling in rivers around me, welcoming me into the grand ballroom.
“This is fucking incredible,” I say out loud. “Those trees weren’t here yesterday.”
Each edge of the ballroom is lined with staggeringly tall, lit-up rows of Christmas trees, four on each wall. The ornaments reflect and shine the light, nestled between slowly pulsating tiny white twinkle lights. Paper lanterns hang from the ceiling. The live band is playing up on the raised stage that I watched people help build yesterday. The music fills the room, making it feel alive.
The whole space is alive.
And people are filling the ballroom wall-to-wall, far more people than I ever expected to see at a winter formal. It feels like the whole student body of Crimson College is in attendance, far more than just the secret societies.
And he’s here with me.
Oliver.
With those fucking gorgeous eyes. Right in front of me, reaching back to clasp his hand in mine.
Something’s happening.
I can feel it, by now.
A rush of euphoria that came on slowly at first, but is falling over me in a burst, now.
I know this feeling.
I know it.
Why do I know it?
“Niko, come with me,” Oliver says.
“I will do fucking anything with you,” I tell him. “Do you know how much I mean that?”
“Just come here.”
He drags me through the sea of silver and blue, past the heat of a bunch of bodies, everyone dancing, talking, and having a good time already. I catch bits and pieces of the type of conversations I might usually hate, one girl chatting about a bunch of pompous shit like flying on private jets and another guy talking about how many girls he fucked last year.
And none of it bothers me.
It almost sounds sweet, in some strange way.
All of these people, just trying to find something. Sex, validation, love.
Isn’t it normal, to want those things?
I’m lost in my thoughts as Oliver pulls me through the crowd and toward a narrow, dim hallway at the far edge of the ballroom.
He pushes open a wooden door and takes me into a bathroom, stopping in front of a mirror.
“Look at your pupils,” Oliver tells me. “Mirror. Now.”
I love the sound of his voice.
I watch him for a moment, then raise a thumb to his mouth, dragging it over his lower lip.
“So fucking soft. Your mouth is made for me, Oliver.”
“Look in the mirror.”
I don’t want to stop looking at him, but I want to do what he says right now. I tear my gaze away and look into the mirror.
Yep.
Knew it.
“Damn. My pupils are wide. As fuck.”
“Jesus Christ, Niko.”
Suddenly I’m acutely aware that we’re alone in here. The steady thrum of the live music filters in.
I love his hair.
His eyelashes.
Even the fucking look of worry on his face that I just want to kiss away. Even when he’s all concerned, with his brow furrowed at me, he still looks at me…
Like that.
Like he needs me.
Like he fucking wants it so bad, and god damn, it makes me want it, too.
“You think I look kind of sexy like this, don’t you?” I ask him, cocking my head to the side a little. “Take a picture with me.”