Nothing Left to Lose (Guarded Hearts 1)

Monica turned her nose up, obviously finally deciding that she didn’t want him now that he was a noisy sleeper. “I hate guys that snore.”

I smiled weakly, feeling the need to defend him in some way. “Yeah, but he wakes pretty easily, and if I wake him up then he always insists on apologising properly, if you know what I mean.” I waggled my eyebrows suggestively.

“Oh well then, I’d definitely forgive him,” she replied, laughing and looking at me enviously. Immediately, I wished I hadn’t said my comment. I’d rather she kept her wandering eyes to herself, but stupidly I’d said the wrong thing. Suddenly she nodded behind me. “Speak of the devil.”

I barely had time to turn and see he was walking up behind me before his arms snaked around my waist. “I figured I could steal one dance before we have to go,” he whispered in my ear. His hot breath blew down my neck, and I shivered as his chest pressed against my back. My hands started to get a little sweaty as the temperature in the already warm room, started to climb. “Oh, and apparently these damn sexy legs are also driving the guys wild, so Peter tells me.”

I frowned, confused by his statement. I knew Peter was watching, he was standing against the wall at the edge of the dance floor trying – and failing – to fit in. “What are you talking about?” I asked, confused, looking at Ashton over my shoulder.

He smiled teasingly. “You’ve not noticed?” We swayed to the beat of the song as one of his hands slid down to the outside of my thigh. “Young, impressionable, sex starved, geeky college guys are staring at you as we speak.”

I frowned, looking around, seeing that he was right. There were guys looking in our direction, some of them looking at me, others looking at the other girls that I was dancing with. I guess a group of girls dancing would normally draw some male attention. I gulped as my back stiffened.

“It’s fine, don’t worry,” he whispered reassuringly. Sliding his hand back to my waist again, he guided me to turn around to face him. “People just need to know that you have a boyfriend, that’s all. It’s easily sorted.” He pulled me closer to him, wrapping his arms around me.

I nodded, keeping my eyes focussed on him as I looped my arms around his neck. As I looked into his deep green eyes, everything else seemed to fade into insignificance around us. They were beautiful and they trapped me there. He raised his hand and slid it slowly up my back before tangling his fingers into the back of my hair; his other arm wound around my waist and pulled me closer so that there was no gap between us at all.

I had no idea how long we danced like that for before he finally started to inch his mouth closer to mine, all I knew was that however long it was, it wasn’t long enough. I wanted to live in that moment forever. Holding my breath in anticipation of feeling his soft lips against mine again, I closed the distance between us and then, I was lost.

When he moaned in the back of his throat, my heart seemed to do a little flip in my chest. His lips parted against mine and then his hot tongue slipped into my mouth, tangling with mine in a tantalising kiss that left me breathless and giddy. With his mouth on mine, I forgot everything else around us and what this kiss was probably for. In that moment, we could have been anywhere, we could have been standing in the middle of a stampede of wild horses, yet I wouldn’t care, so long as he didn’t stop kissing me. His kisses were addictive. My excitement was growing inside me, building like a raging inferno as I pressed my body against his, needing to be closer, to feel more of him, to be devoured and possessed by him.

But he broke the kiss and put his forehead to mine. A needy whimper left my lips as he breathed heavily and clutched me closer to him. Tilting my head, I captured his lips again, tangling my hands into the back of his hair, needing just a little more of his undivided attention. An involuntary moan escaped my lips as he kissed me back, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth and biting it gently.

Again he pulled away, shaking his head this time. “Enough now.” His voice was husky and thick with lust as he swallowed and those sultry, heavily-lidded eyes met mine.

I blinked a couple of times and nodded in agreement, even though every nerve in my body was screaming for the opposite. I laid my head on his shoulder as he continued to dance, swaying to the slow beat of the song that the DJ was blasting out. His ragged breathing slowly returned to normal as I tried desperately to push the lustful thoughts away so that I could calm my jittery body.

As the song slowly filtered into another, his pace changed seamlessly to compensate. I smiled and looked up at him. “Are you good at everything?” I asked.

“No, why do you say that?”

I waved my hand at him as an explanation. “You’re a really good dancer. I’m yet to find one thing you can’t do.”

He laughed and smiled at me. I tilted my face, rubbing my nose up the edge of his jaw, breathing him in as his hands stroked my back softly. “I would say the same for you, but the only thing I know you’re not good at is letting people in,” he said in my ear.

I pulled back to look at him. “Hey, I can let people in; I let you in, didn’t I?” I was a little annoyed at his comment.

He shook his head. “No. You won’t let me in; you barely even want to be my friend because you think I’m going to leave you. You close yourself off from everyone so that you don’t have to feel anything again. You like to be numb,” he said matter-of-factly.

I stared at him, dumbfounded. How the hell does this boy know so much about me? Oh my God, does my file have my therapy tapes in there or something? Has that bitch of a therapist breached my confidentiality?