Kiss Me Like You Mean It

ALIEN-RESEMBLING HARRIDAN

Being that I’d had about two hours to get through before I was expecting Oliver to return home, I’d decided to unload all my clothes into the dresser of his guestroom and all my toiletries into the bathroom. By the time I finished, it had killed about an hour, but I still didn’t know what to do with myself for the next sixty minutes—besides eat.

I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich being that there wasn’t really any other food in Oliver’s house—just a frozen loaf of potato bread, a large jar of crunchy peanut butter, and some unopened strawberry jam. Just as I was finishing up the last bite, the front door was thrown open, and Tom came trotting through, his arms full with two overstuffed brown, paper bags.

“Salutations!” he greeted cheerily, a large grin on his round face. “Sleep well?”

I smiled back at him and began rinsing my plate off. “Yeah, that memory foam is to die for.”

“Oli’s quite the spender—as I’m sure you’ve seen.” He chuckled as he placed the bags on the white, granite countertops. “The wanker got me my own memory foam for my twenty-third and then again on my twenty-sixth just this past summer—made me feel like a proper twat, I tell you. All I got him were seat covers for the GLE ’cause I figured he’s always smoking in it, probably burning the leather and all that. Never one for modesty, I swear it; and meanwhile, I thought I was being thoughtful.”

The car Oliver was driving was a silver Mercedes-Benz GLE, and I was actually less surprised about it than I’d expected I would be.

“Any roads, though, love, how’re you liking the Redcoats so far? Have you gone out at all?” As he spoke, he was nonchalantly putting away numerous liquor bottles that he’d been plucking from the brown bags.

“I haven’t really done anything besides sleep, to be honest. What’s all that liquor for—or rather, who?”

He stopped in the middle of placing a large Svedka bottle into the refrigerator, his arm extended midway. “Oli didn’t tell you?”

I shook my head. “I slept all day yesterday after we got home. I haven’t seen him.”

A wide, shit-eating grin stretched across Tom’s face. “He’s welcoming you here with all our best mates, and their best mates, and their best mates’ best mates.”

I narrowed my eyes at Tom. “So a party, then.”

“A proper rager,” he confirmed happily and wholeheartedly.

• • •

When Tom had said a proper rager, I really hadn’t been sure of what that meant; but upon seeing what had to be more than two hundred people jammed into Oliver’s overly large mansion, I was beginning to learn all the different kinds of British slang the Sykes brothers used.

I’d spent the day with them putting up an obnoxious amount of white string-lights around the house while sipping an actually halfway decent concoction of tequila, ginger ale, and lemonade that Tom had mixed up; and by the time seven o’clock rolled around, I was ready for another shower and a change of clothes.

It was just after eight when I finished getting ready for the second time that day, and all the while, I could hear Oliver’s front door swinging open and slamming shut every minute or so. Little by little, the noise of people’s voices grew louder until, eventually, they were all drowned out by too loud dance music.

Before making my way down to the first floor, I’d actually put some effort into my outfit—a loosely fitting, gold-sequined tank top tucked into a high-waisted, black, leather miniskirt, sheer, black tights underneath, and a pair of matching black stilettos. Oliver was introducing me to his friends—people that were going to talk about me when I wasn’t there—and these were the people that were going to get it back to Hannah Snowdon-Sykes that her husband was cozying up to someone else. I had to play the part wholeheartedly if I was going to make her jealous.

At least, that’s what I told myself because it had nothing to do with the fact that I just wanted to show Oliver that I could wash up actually halfway decent.

I reached the foot of the stairs on the first floor to find an overabundance of people dancing, drinking, and running in and out of the front door. Oliver was nowhere to be found, but I noticed his brother by one of the speakers.

“She lives!” Tom cheered as I approached the group he’d been standing with.

I smiled back to him and held my arms out to display myself. “I live, indeed.”

“Oli should be in the backyard if you’re looking for him,” he offered.

“Thanks.” I departed from the group with an awkward wave and made my way into the kitchen area and through the French doors that led outside onto his cement patio.

Sure enough, Oliver was seated on one of the white lawn chairs, a glass of some liquor on the rocks in his left hand and a cigarette in the other. He was laughing at something that someone in the circle he was sitting with had said, and I swore I was madly in love—at least with his smile.

“Violet!” he called happily when he saw me. He reached down to the side of his chair and held up a large bottle of Yamazaki whisky to me. “I saved it just for you.” From the lopsided grin on his lips and the glassy sheen over his eyes, I was pretty confident he was completely drunk.

I simpered back to him and swallowed a sip from the bottle. It tasted absolutely gross, but Yamazaki was way too expensive to waste by spitting it out. Instead, I just shook my head to try and stop my brain from registering the taste on my tongue.

He smirked back at me and held his arm out. “Come keep me company.”

I obliged and let him wrap his arm around my waist. Before I had a chance to react much more, I felt him slipping his parka over my shoulders. “Keep warm, love,” he murmured into my ear, his breath sending chills down my spine.

The only thing I could do to keep myself from focusing on how sexy his voice sounded was swallow more of the whisky.

“Violet, this is Jordan, Emma, and Matt Godfrey,” he introduced before flicking his cigarette out onto the lawn and resting his free hand against my thigh. “Matt works for me at Drop Dead, and Jordan plays with me in Bring Me The Horizon. He and Emma are married.” I’d already known Jordan was the keyboard player in Bring Me The Horizon, but I was happy Oliver had offered an explanation for his other friend.

I offered both of them a smile and took another sip from the bottle. Oliver was too good at pretending to be a boyfriend, and I wasn’t nearly drunk enough to stop myself from thinking too much about it. Plus, I didn’t think we’d be pretending for at least another week—it was far too soon, otherwise.

For about ten minutes, I listened to Jordan, Emma, Matt, and Oliver make small talk amongst themselves while nursing the Yamazaki bottle and simultaneously trying not to focus on the feel of Oliver’s thumb mindlessly stroking my thigh. It caught me off guard when they all finally stood up to leave Oliver and me, though, because I didn’t know what had made them decide to do so.

Before I could question it much, Oliver shifted me in his lap so that I was sideways against him and could look at his face. He was smirking at me.

“What?” I asked; and then I realized how drunk I was.

“That bottle was almost full.” His eyes flickered down to the 750-millileter glass in my hands. When he’d handed it to me, about a third had been emptied from it, but as I followed his glance down to it, I saw there was only about four or five shots left at the bottom.

“Yeah, well.” I just shrugged and took another sip.

He took the bottle from my hold and swallowed a sip of his own. “You look brilliant, by the way,” he declared, grinning as he handed it back to me.

“Thanks. You do, too;” and he really did. He was wearing a pair of black jeans and a maroon button-up that he’d left undone at the top and rolled the sleeves up to his elbows.

“I wanted to introduce you to everyone tonight,” he declared, sighing; “but now I’m too drunk, and I just wanna cuddle on the sofa.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed some of his hair away from his face. “You don’t have to pretend-date me when no one’s around, idiot.”

He gave me a goofy grin and an even goofier chuckle. “I think you might cuddle well.”

I finished off the last bit of the Yamazaki before leaning over to leave it on the ground. When I straightened back up—and just as I was about to get up from his lap—three women shuffled out onto the patio, giggling with glasses in their hands as their heels clicked against the cement. I immediately recognized the one in the center: none other than Hannah Snowdon-Sykes.

I looked at Oliver’s face, half expecting him to drop me on the ground and bow at her feet, but he just simpered back at me and wrapped his other arm around my waist to pull me closer.

He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment. “I think I’d like to kiss you, love,” he whispered, so low that the women on the other side of the patio couldn’t have heard him. They still hadn’t looked over, so I could only assume they still hadn’t even noticed us at all.

My body went cold at his notion because I was drunk enough to want him to kiss me, too, but I was still surprisingly sober enough to be able to accept how stupidly I was thinking.

“You should probably kiss me like you mean it, then, Oliver,” I finally murmured back, studying the tiny cracks in his chapped lips.

Just like that, he brought his lips to mine and slipped his tongue in between. He suckled and nibbled; he grunted and sighed; he squeezed me closer; and I couldn’t concentrate on any one thing because, damn, he was a good kisser. I could feel his excitement beneath my leg, and I couldn’t stop the warmth from building up between my own thighs because I was the cause of it.

Had I been sober, I might not have taunted him into kissing me like that; but for the time being, I was rather enjoying myself in the frigid, wintry air.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he mumbled into my mouth before pulling away altogether and signaling for me to stand up.

I followed his lead, all the way up the two flights of stairs to the third floor and into the master bedroom at the end of the hall. Without even giving me a chance to take in my surroundings, he crashed his lips back into mine, kicked his door shut, and pushed me onto his memory foam mattress.

He straddled me on either side, groaning and sighing into me, and ran his hands under my skirt, where his fingers danced around the waist of my pantyhose. He pulled at them, haphazardly yanking them down to my knees, and grinned against me as I gasped at his cold fingers skimming against my thighs.

I was expecting him to go further—guys didn’t usually yank my tights off because they knew how uncomfortable tights could get—but his hands simply explored every inch of my thighs and backside, squeezing and gripping as he went.

He moaned against my lips before finally pulling away and giving me a chance to catch my breath. “Bloody hell,” he sighed, collapsing beside me with a large grin on his face.

I merely just peered at him, probably looking like a deer in headlights, because I hadn’t been expecting him to stop so soon. I’d known all along that he was just pretending to be interested in me like that for the sake of his partygoers and his wife downstairs, and I’d known all along that there was no need to continue the charade in his bedroom, but I’d just figured that he was drunk enough to simply want some meaningless sex, despite all of that. After all, his wife was probably out banging that guido-looking douche all over her Instagram feed, so I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t have wanted to get back at her by banging me—even despite the fact that I was more of an alien-resembling harridan. I felt like I was at least better than nothing.

I am Jack’s inflamed sense of rejection. I couldn’t figure out why he was happily gaping at me like an idiot after taking me to his bedroom and not pulling my tights off completely.

Instead of letting the drunken words leave my tongue, though, I just fixed my stockings so that they were on properly once more.

I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise. I shouldn’t have been expecting him to take me all the way, anyway. I had no right to be irritated with his kick in my teeth, even if it was just that—a fucking kick in the goddamn teeth.

Actually, it wasn’t really a kick in the teeth, either, but I was just being a girl—a very drunk girl with a lot of feelings.

He sighed, a sense of satisfaction in his breath, and silently laced his fingers between my own. “You’re a good kisser,” he murmured, smirking at me.

I just offered him a tight-lipped smile in response. “You, too.”

He squeezed my hand at that and sat up, still not letting go. “I suppose we should rejoin the party, then, yeah?”

I nodded before standing up from the bed and pulling my hand back to myself. I wordlessly left the room, but waited for him at the head of the stairs so that everyone could still buy our ruse. I was fairly sure that I’d forgive him when I was no longer drunk, so I didn’t want to irreversibly affect our friendship with my irrationally drunken repudiation and affliction inside the pit of my stomach.
♠ ♠ ♠
DISARM YOU” by Kaskade always reminds me of Violet’s relationship with Oliver.