AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I walk toward him, my bare feet a whisper against the wooden floor. I reach him and press my palm into the center of his back. He flinches but doesn’t pull away. The heat of his body reaches out to me, embraces me, pulls me close. I push my cheek in between his shoulder-blades, and his muscles are so hard, I might as well be pressing into a wall. A living, breathing wall of steel-encased flesh that’s so full of coiled tension, the vibrations leap off of him and flutter through my body. My core clenches. Moisture trickles out from between my thighs. He must sense the effect touching him has on me because he becomes as immovable as a granite side of a mountain.
"Declan," I whisper. I’m not sure what I want, or what to ask for. I’m not sure I can put into words what I’m experiencing right now. This yawning pit at the base of my stomach. This need to reach for something that’s out of reach. This feeling of falling and being out of my depth, of being on the verge of something so forbidden, yet something that feels so right, surely, it can’t be wrong. Surely, when everything in me insists I want this, I need this, I yearn for this… I can have it, right?
"No," he says in a gravelly voice. "I cannot do this." He shakes me off and leans forward in preparation to shove his leg over the windowsill, when I throw my arms about him.
"Please don’t go. Pease, Declan. Just one kiss, that’s all I’m a-a-asking for."
He freezes. Maybe it’s my stammering that stops him from leaving. Maybe it’s the absolute desperation in my voice that reaches something inside of him, but he pivots, then glares down at me from his superior height. I tip up my chin and my gaze connects with his now indigo eyes. They blaze with so much passion, so much emotion, so much frustration and lust and everything I’m feeling that a sob catches in my throat. I throw myself at him at the same time he moves toward me. I’m on my tiptoes and he has his arms about my waist, pulling me up,
Our mouths collide and our teeth clash. The kiss is messy and fervent and a meeting of tongues, a collision of breaths, an intertwining of everything we cannot have. I push into him, press my breasts so they’re flattened against his unyielding chest. I lock my arms around him, trying to memorize how it feels to have my thighs against his, my center cradling that heavy weight between his thighs, my belly melting against his lean waist, the scent of him, the taste of him, the sound of his heart banging against his ribcage, the thrum of his pulse that mirrors the unevenness of my own. I close my eyes, open my mouth, and melt into him.
A growl rumbles up his chest. He locks his fingers around the nape of my neck, tilts his head, and thrusts his tongue even deeper into my mouth. He’s eating me up. I’m burning up. I’m going to combust, I—
I’m torn off him and flung aside.
5
Declan
One second, we’re kissing; the next, she's taken from me. She hits the ground and screams. I jump toward her, but the man who threw her off, steps in between us.How did I not notice him enter the room? How did I not hear him walk toward us? Was I so engrossed in her I didn’t realize there was someone else in the room?
"Who the fuck are you?" he asks in heavily accented English. His looks are swarthy, his hair cut close to his scalp. The shape of his face is similar to hers, and his eyes are the same color, too. He seems older than me, but surely, he’s too young to be her father.
Solene jumps up and throws herself at him. "Diego, l-leave him alone."
He raises his arm and catches her in the face. She screams again and falls to the floor with a thud.
The sound slices through my head, my heart. Anger surges through my veins, and blood pounds at my temples. "You hurt her? You fucking laid a hand on her?"
I throw up my fist and catch him in the chin. He staggers back, and a fierce satisfaction blooms in my chest. I raise my fist again, and this time, bury it in his nose. I feel the crunch of cartilage, and blood drips from his face. I follow it up with a blow to his side, then his stomach. He bends over, and this time, I raise my fist and catch him in an upper cut.
He groans; his entire body snaps up and back. I raise my arm, close my fingers into a fist and pull back, but Solene throws herself between us. "Stop, h-he’s my b-brother! P-please don’t hurt him, p-please d-don’t."
I glare at her, then at the man who straightens, then rolls his neck. Fucker’s powerfully built; only reason he’s still standing. A weaker man would be on the floor by now. He grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her. "What were you doing with him? Did you fuck him?"
Solene cringes. She glances from her brother to me, then back to him.
Diego’s features darken. "Did you lose your virginity to him. Did you—"
"N-n-no." she shakes her head. "N-no, you’re mistaken, I-I-I—" She draws in a breath, "I-It’s n-nothing like that."
"Then how is it?" He thrusts his face into hers. "Talk to me, little sister."
The color fades from her face. Her entire body shivers.
"Solene—" I growl.
"S-stop, d-don’t come c-closer." Her voice rings out, her stutter more apparent than ever.
She tips up her chin, squares her shoulders, then addresses her brother. "He…he c-came in through the w-window. I d-d-don’t know who h-he is. I’ve never s-s-seen him before in my l-life. He forced me to k-k-kiss him… It’s n-not my f-f-fault, I-I swear."
My heart somersaults in my chest. My vision tunnels.She’s lying. Why the fuck is she lying?Anger twists my guts. "Solene!" I take a step in her direction, when two more men burst into the room.
It seems to shake her out of her reverie for she turns to me. Her green eyes are luminous, her lips trembling. "Run," she mouths at me. Then she squeezes her eyelids shut and a teardrop squeezes out from the corner of her eye.
"Get thatpezzo di merdaand teach him a lesson he'll never forget," Diego snaps.
I shove myself out the window, and leap toward the tree outside her room. I grab hold of the branches, turning at the last moment to see her staring at me with tears streaking her face. Then, the men crowd the window. One of them reaches over to grab at the tree as I half slide, half fall down the length of the tree trunk. I hit the ground and lay there, winded for a few seconds. The shower of leaves tells me the men are right behind me. I jump up, try to run, then growl when my ankle gives out under me.
