Page 2 of Toxic Kiss

“Or come inside you,” I cut her off, the words a sharp barb. But the reality is that I want her.

She gags, face contorting into an offended grimace which only pisses me off more.

“No. Eww. You’re my stepbrother.”

Confrontation with Haven is the best drug. Despite it all, she is the one fucking thing that makes my heart race, my skin warm, and my brain still.

“Step is the operative word. We aren’t blood. We hate each other. Angry sex will be hot, poetic, and a beautiful fuck you to our parents.”

I close the distance between us until I can feel the heat coming off her body. Her green eyes go wide with shock. There is a flash of fear under the surface of her well-crafted bravery and it spins something inside me.

She stumbles back off the curb, almost falling. There’s a clumsy, endearing quality to Haven when she’s nervous. It’s the only time she is truly vulnerable.

Haven is too small for the world to notice, too quiet for most to give a shit, too smart, too talented, and too damn beautiful for her own good. She’s fucking infuriating, and that’s dangerous. Haven is sexy in a way I will never admit out loud and yet crave with the very fabric of my musical soul. She is the kind of girl that makes me want to write songs for her, but I’d rather toss the music sheets into the fire and watch them burn as she cries.

That is Haven fucking Gaillard.

She steps back, and I follow, matching her stride for stride until she is trapped against the car with my hands close enough to feel the tremor that runs through her. I trace her jaw and watch the way she follows my finger like someone wanting to cross a line they’ve never been allowed to go near.

“You gonna bite it?” I tease, dragging the pad across her bottom lip.

“Don’t tempt me,” she snaps.

“But what if I want you to?”

The air between us thickens with something that smells sickeningly sweet, like broken things, unfinished sentences and dark desires.

She says it’s never going to happen. But when I press forward, there’s a flicker…a fault line in her denial. My mouth goes dry. Maybe it’s the mix of drugs, whiskey, and numbness, but I imagine breaking her hard…audibly. The kind of earth-shattering sex that lets the world know she is mine.

Her hair blows across her face, and I twist the strand through my fingers. She jerks away.

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” I do it again to piss her off.

“Your pupils are fucked. What the hell did you take?”

“Not enough of whatever it is.”

I grin because I’m allergic to restraint tonight, and she is trying to slip cuffs around my wrists.

Haven plants both hands on my chest like a shield, a useless press of skin against my ribs. She’s a year younger and still looks like someone’s little sister if you squint. She’s never been a fighter at least not physically. She couldn’t even push a fly away and claim victory. But, that fucking mouth of hers…

“Cy, stop being a jerk. I came to help you,” she tells me, and the word help tastes like ash on my tongue.

“And this is how you help? Drag me away?” I press my forehead to hers. “Do you ever think about me naked? Admit it.”

“No. Of course not.” Her voice is tight and wavers enough for me to catch it.

“Liar.” I lean in, and she tilts her head back until the glass of the car window stops her. She smells like blueberries and cream, like honey in tea, like something safe, and yet totally wrong. My jaw tightens.

I can’t resist Haven in this state and drop my head to the side of her neck, inhaling the intoxicating scent that is constantly driving me insane.

“Cy, stop it,” Haven says, her hand moving right over my pounding heart.

“Say the word, and I’ll bend you over the trunk of your shitty car and make you scream my name.” My voice is low enough that it’s more a promise than a threat. I trace the line of her throat and feel the flutter. Her pulse is wild and fast beneath my fingers. “You’ll come all over me and then beg for more.”

She gasps as I grab her neck and press my fingers into her soft skin. Something fierce and ugly rises in me. Something feral, something willing to kill to keep her.