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Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to do what’s best. Wendy had never been more aware of this fact than when she was standing outside of Peter’s house at 3 am, while he grinned and brushed his hand over her waist in an unusual form of torture. This cruel caress awoke her from her shocked state and she took a step backwards, almost falling off the stone stairs. His arms stiffened and pulled her in so tightly that her treacherous heart fluttered.
Wendy is normally quite agile but Peter has a way of making her trip whenever he’s around. It was the eyes, she’d decided, the way fire danced in his devilish green eyes. She was certain they’d never looked more mischievous than thirty seconds ago when he’d asked if she was a virgin.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Wendy said with far less force than intended. Her flustered state was obviously a result of the near tumble, not the way Peter’s top
clung to his chest in the rain.
“I intend to make it my business,” he said, nonchalantly twirling a strand of her golden brown hair. “I don’t mean any offence, it’s just better to know. And you look so… pure.” He leant forward to whisper the last syllable in her ear. The warmth of his cheek made her heart beat like a hummingbird’s but his words enraged her.
“Sorry, are you saying your goal tonight is to screw me?” The force she’d lost returned with a bite that caused a slightly delicious look of shock to flicker over his normally composed face.
“Obviously. Why else would I have brought you here? So you could tell me bedtime stories?”
Peter’s tone held the incredulity of someone who was used to women weeping tears of joy upon receiving the offer of sex with him. Why wouldn’t they? Everything he did was utterly seductive. How he ran one hand back through his auburn hair or used it to waft smoke away from his face. Even the way he stood, always leaning on a wall with his hands in his pockets.
She’d met him at a fresher’s week party. Wendy had been invited by her flatmate Bae, who’d been invited by a girl named Lily whom he’d met at lectures the day before. Lily didn’t actually know anybody who lived in the house but some of her friends did, so it was cool. Everyone had told Wendy that at university she’d create connections that lasted forever. So every night she’d forced herself to get dressed up and go spend time with people she couldn’t really relate to and every day she’d sat alone in her room reading books and blasting Chopin to drown out her thoughts. Wendy had won the school award for her volunteering work at sixth form prom and was voted most enthusiastic table top dancer at the after party. She’d never been short of social invitations but she’d also never stayed up all night just talking to someone about everything that buzzed in her brain and lit that spark in her eyes.
Peter couldn’t be that person though. She’d known that from the first night she was caught staring at him across the room, eyes following the path his hand traced down another girl’s arm so intensely she could almost feel a warm brush on her own. Lily had appeared at her shoulder with an overdramatic sigh.
“Isn’t he the most fuckable thing you’ve ever seen?” Wendy nodded slightly.
“He’s terrible though, like, honestly the worst. We were dating for two months last year, then I walked in on my housemate sleeping with him for free coke,” she smirked.
“What? Why do you still hang out with him?”
“He has the best coke” she shrugged. “Hey, Peter come here!”
The time it took him to walk over somehow seemed to take both years and less than a second. He reached them and his eyes travelled slowly up Wendy’s body. When he finally met her gaze heat was coiled like a snake in her belly and she’d never felt more powerful. Wendy was intelligent though, so it didn’t take long for her to realise how dangerous Peter was. Maybe she couldn’t stop herself from hanging on to his every word and yeah, she’d had a few joints and never thought she would. But she’d never taken anything stronger. Maybe she let him flirt with her but she knew he flirted with everyone and made sure not to look away when he went home with a different girl or guy every night, no matter how much she wanted to.
She’d held out for a month when he showed up four hours late to one of Lily’s parties. In that time she’d eventually stopped glancing at the door and started throwing back stinging vodka shots instead. Then he arrived, striding straight toward her with a grin that made her fingers tingle.
“Hi, darling. I was hoping you’d be here.”
They’d talked and he’d looked at her like her thoughts were the loveliest things he’d ever heard. Then everyone was gone and he’d asked if she wanted to continue the conversation back at his. And oh she had so desperately wanted to. She’d wanted to share stories with this fascinating boy until she fell asleep on his chest. Instead, she insisted on sleeping on a sofa that reeked of stale smoke. Creeping out in the morning she’d reminded herself that it was never going to work. She couldn’t take him home. “Hello, mummy and daddy this is my boyfriend the drug dealer.” Ridiculous. So she’d laughed defiantly and tried to ignore the salty tears trickling into her mouth.