Without letting her get a word in, terrified she will turn me down, I kiss her harder. She’s burning on my lap—pure fire scorching me through denim as if it is litmus paper, spurring me on and on.
Squirming and fucking giggling now—she pants against my lips, the bashful sound barely breaking past the obsession taking root.
“Mmm, you laughing at me, sweetheart?”
“M…maybe. What you g…going to do about it?” Even now she teases me, giddy, taunting, and making me work for the privilege to exist in her orbit.
Escaping her deliciously kiss-swollen lips, she hovers those few inches over me, knowing she has all the power to bless or condemn me if she so chooses. What better way to get back at her, than play with each of her sensitive nerves. Sliding a hand down, rough fingertips graze the bare skin of her arm where the finest little hairs stand on end in a parade. Bypassing her hand, my fingers ease further down to her leg—where I may flirt with the hem of her shorts. Weaving my rough touch slowly in and out from under it at random, igniting another blaze.
“That’s not very nice of you. Kicking me when I’m trying to tell you you’re coming home with me. Not just for tonight though, not for the weekend or the summer, forever.”
Down the length of her leg I go, around to the back of her thigh, through the ditch of her knee to her calf, and further until the ridge of her ankle bone combats the firmness of my touch. Up this time, along her shin, kneecap, then she parts her thighs and I groan.
“F…fucking hell.”
Adrenaline is surging through me, on a mission with a few other choice endorphins, kickstarting my heart.
“Forever?” Her lips caress the three syllables while staring at me so hard I swear I’m made of glass and might break under her scrutiny.
“Yes,” Answering confidently. “Forever. You have until the end of the weekend to enjoy your graduation and then I’ll be back on Monday with boxes. You’re leaving with me. If you want to take time off from school to figure out what works for you, take it. If you decide to say ‘fuck your opinion’ and start college, I’ll support your decision—from our place.”
I’m proud of myself for getting all of that out without stuttering like an idiot. I mean every damn word, she will be with me and free from her dad before he manages to get his nasty ass home from work. There’s even the choice for her to go no-contact if she wishes, I won’t push it on her. The asshole will show more of his true colors once he realizes she’s gone and not hanging out with her friends where he can show up and bully her back to the house. By then, she’s all mine and there’s not a fucking thing Gene can do about it.
“Is that what you think I want, Kaleb? To run away with you? Uproot everything I know and depend on another man to take care of me?”
“Yes. You deserve a better life and I promise to give it to you. Hazelwood will crush you like it does everyone else. There’s no amount of thriving or being happy there—you’ll end up anotherstatistic and I can’t have that. I don’t give a damn how selfish it sounds, you’re not living this way anymore.”
All while I’m spilling my ill-expressed hopes and dreams to her, my hand travels up her frame back to her face. There’s no stopping me from roughing a thumb against her bottom lip and watching it blush—she sure as fuck doesn’t. The way she talks, the tone, the intentional way she moves through life, has me momentarily distracted but I pick up her words anyway.
“What did you say?” Catching her throat with a firm grip, I squeeze, daring her to repeat the shit she had the nerve to say.
“M…make m…me.”
Chapter nine
Nadia’s heart is beating wildly in my hand, her pulse is directly beneath my fingers with my thumb feathering on the other side of her neck—preventing her from moving again. Not while I’m starving for her, not when she’s squirming on my lap and every brain cell I have has taken a sudden vacation.
I want her, I need her. I…fuck, I’m so gone.
Crushing my lips to hers again, our foreheads meet with the same level of desperation, all while I grind my hips against her ass. Rough gasps of breath rush through my nose, fighting the eagerness pulling me apart, so I don’t make some rookie-ass mistake and pass out on the girl I’d conquer empires for. For years I’ve told everyone brave enough to ask who she belonged to, who I needed more than the blood coursing through my veins; truthfully? I belong to her. She sank her claws into me a long time ago, back when she told me to kick rocks, as if she isn’t the earth beneath them, knocking me off my feet. Here she is again, coiling her constricting chains around me—capturing my love, my mind, my soul.
The second she opens her lush lips, I dive in. Tongue slipping into the heat of her mouth, tasting her silent pleading, teasing her until she whines and the vibration tickles my palm. I can’t stop myself from kissing her, slow and deep, the way I plan to for the rest of our lives as I hold her in place by her thin neck. Controlling the moment because the second I let her go, a new kind of blaze will scorch the both of us.
“R…rey.” My name’s a desperate breath stolen from my mouth that she inhales.
“What… what is it, sweetheart?”
Please don’t talk. It will break me if this ends.
When words fail her, she answers me by rocking her curvy hips back and forth instead—I’m about to lose my fucking mind. As needy as I am for her, seeking and silently begging for the very thing her mouth is too shy to ask for, I have to hear her say it. Not only because I want to make sure she’s as hungry for me as I am for her, but because it strokes my ego a little bit and makes me hard as fuck when her mouth is filthy.
“Mmm, words, Nadia. Tell me what you’re hunting for; wiggling around like that.”
Stopping her motions, my free hand dips under her shirt and slides up to her waist, the ghost of her rib bone firm and unforgiving under my roughened fingertips. She doesn’t answer, not yet, but we will work on that—she will learn to beg. And plead. And scream before I let her out of this fucking car.
It might have been a few years since we lost our virginities to one another but I’ve done my research—studied a darker side of pleasure that she seems to like, given the way she’s rutting on my lap. After everything, I still discover something new about her that convinces the heavens made her specifically for me.
We’ll learn all sorts of things together—deviant.
