Sway Read Online Free PDF

lie.
    Of course I’m alone. Every one of those idiots tucked tail and ran the second I invited them along. Matt claimed a sudden sore throat. Scott blamed his curfew—the guy is freaking twenty-two but still answers to his mother. And Kimball…for all I know he’s passed out cold in a garage somewhere.
    My friends. What a bunch of worthless losers.
    Guilt chases that thought and I kick the front door closed with the heel of my foot. Once we make it inside the empty apartment, I bump nose-first into a bedroom door, try not to curse, then lay the girl down on the first bed I can find. I reach for a blanket to cover her. Even in the dark, I can see that it’s a bright shade of pink—just like her coat. This is obviously her room, which has me seriously questioning this girl’s sense of taste. Pink is nauseating. Pink is shallow. Pink is sororities and air-kisses and chicks who talk about manicures—everything I despise.
    Pink was my mother’s favorite color.
    That thought comes from nowhere, and suddenly I’m angry. I don’t even know this girl and she’s making me revisit things I would rather not remember…things I can’t change or undo or wish back. Not that it’s her fault, and not that it matters. I’m out of here in ten seconds. Hopefully less.
    I tuck the headache-inducing blanket around her shoulders and stand, intending to walk out. But then she moans, rolls over, and shivers when the blanket falls off. I’ve seen these kinds of drugs at work before, so the coldness doesn’t surprise me. The fact that she isn’t completely out of it does.
    Tugging the blanket up across her shoulder again, I push back a long strand of curls that manages to spread across her cheek. Her hair is silk, like lengths of gold chord that slip through my fingers, imprinting their memory long after they fall back onto the pillow. I stare for a moment, a strange longing to feel them again coursing through me. My heart picks up speed, and I know I need to leave.
    Before I have a chance to move she rotates onto her back, and two soft hands slide up my arms. Her fingernails are short, blunt from a recent clipping. The edges are sharp as though she didn’t bother with a file. I’m not sure if it’s the absence of pink or the plainness of the cut or the fact that she’s touching me at all, but it surprises me. She doesn’t get manicures? As I’m mulling this thought, she yanks on my shirt and pulls me down, pressing her lips to mine. Shocked doesn’t describe my reaction. I know she’s unaware. I know she’s out of it. But the contact rushes to my head and makes it hard to breathe.
    The breaths I manage to grab turn shallow when her arms snake around my neck. Her lips touch mine again as my own hang slack. I’m stunned, but not enough to keep from noticing that her lips are soft, inviting, warm in a way I haven’t felt in forever. They taste like butterscotch, rich and liquid. A longing burns in my gut, fierce in its pull, and I feel myself falling.
    Falling.
    Pressing into her, I lower my mouth over hers as desire numbs everything but the way this feels…the way she feels…until her teeth nip at my bottom lip and bring me to my senses. With my pulse hammering a painful beat into my neck, I rip myself away and stand, giving her a gentle push onto the mattress. She’s drunk and I’m a jerk. The back of my hand instinctively moves to my mouth to remove her taste, but it doesn’t quite work, and I’m mad all over again. She begins to giggle, and I blink at her change in demeanor, puzzled by her random mood swings. The sound melts away my anger, because it’s musical. Funny, even. I find myself smiling down at her as she curls into the mattress and laughs. It goes on and on until I begin to think she’s losing her mind.
    But then she stops. Goes completely still. Turns white. And loses her dinner instead.
    Twice.
    All over the bed. And of course on my leg.
    And now I’m right back where I started. My life could not