Despite all her attempts to push me away, her arms circle my neck, and one hand curls into my hair at the back of my head.
My hands roam her body, desperate to pull her closer.
The kiss is demanding, intense, and no matter how tightly I hold her, it still doesn’t feel close enough.
I lift her effortlessly, her legs wrap around my waist as I carry her towards the bed without breaking the kiss, without giving her the space to think, to retreat, to build those bloody walls again.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she breathes against my lips.
“You’re still talking,” I mutter, my voice rough as I kiss her again, silencing her once more.
I need her the way a drowning man needs air.
And fuck, I need her to need me just as badly.
What the hell happened to me?
For the longest time, I thought I was immune to this sort of thing.
Now I know better.
Piper bloody Ashthorne happened.
Chapter 21
Piper
I blink back the tears that threaten to fall and meet his eyes as he gently lowers me onto the bed before leaning over me.
“Please,” I whisper.
And even I can hear the contradiction in it.
Because that single word carries two meanings.
I am begging him to stop.
And I am begging him never to.
My heart and my mind are at war, each pulling me in a different direction and neither willing to surrender.
My traitorous body leans towards him and aches for what only he seems able to give me. But my mind, the only rational part of me left, screams at me to end this before it destroys us both.
This isn’t right.
None of this is right.
But I don’t stop him.
I let him kiss me again, and my hands find their way to his back before they move into his hair. I hold on to him, and in doing so tell him everything I can’t bring myself to say aloud.
“Give me one good reason why,” he murmurs between kisses, the same question he always asks, “and I’ll stop.”
His hands move to the hem of my hoodie and pull it over my head, leaving me in nothing but my bra.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“That isn’t a reason,” he replies, and claims my mouth again.
