AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His hand practically engulfed my neck. As much as I wanted to tell him off for calling me a sad little kitten, compared to him, that’s exactly what I was. He was the big, scary, one hundred plus pound dog who befriended the orphaned kitten, the one who could tear someone apart while at the same time protecting their little buddy.
Ugh. I couldn’t believe I was going along with that analogy.
“You can’t,” I whispered. “Not unless it’s him.”
All Brett did was say, “Hmm,” like he wasn’t convinced. He didn’t move away from me, didn’t release his hold on my neck. It was like he couldn’t do any of that, like some invisible force kept him right where he was, and because of it, I couldn’t move, either.
The memory of his mouth on mine, the way I’d felt when he’d kissed me, how my entire body had reacted in a way it never had before; all that surfaced in my mind, and for whatever reason, my gaze dropped to that same mouth.
I didn’t like it when people touched me, but with Brett… it wasn’t so bad. It actually felt good. Zak had been many of my firsts, but even he couldn’t elicit this kind of response from within me.
“You can’t,” I repeated, though I didn’t sound too certain myself—I attributed that to the hand on my neck and the closeness of his body. “And you can’t… you can’t kiss me again.” God, it was a lot harder than it should’ve been to say that last part.
Almost like I wanted him to, in spite of how angry the whole thing had made me.
“It was that bad, huh?” Brett whispered, the hand on my neck loosening and lowering to my collarbone. Thank goodness for the sweater, otherwise I would’ve gotten a taste of his warmth directly over my chest.
“It wasn’t—” I caught myself before I finished that sentence, correcting myself by quickly saying, “It was terrible.”
Even though his face was shrouded in darkness, I swore I saw him smirk as he gazed down at me. “Liar.” He accompanied that word with pressure—his lower half pressed against me, hard enough to make me gasp. The hand on my collarbone moved off me, his forearm resting on the tree directly beside my head. He dipped his head low, as low as he could while still keeping up the pressure between us. “You’re such a liar, Charlie. A little liar in that stupid grandma sweater.”
The way he pressed up against me, how his heat flooded my senses, the way he gazed down at me, his lips parted just a hair… it was hard to think straight, even harder to remember who he was.
A killer. A bad man, one of the worst.
It took me a minute to mutter, “It’s not a grandma sweater.”
He flashed me a smile. “Oh, it is. It is an ugly, vomit-inducing sweater that belongs in a nursing home, not on you.” His chest let out a soft chuckle, and the hand that had remained on the tree this whole time moved to my chin. His thumb danced up my chin, gently caressing the corner of my mouth. “And, anyway…”
How did we get in this position? I’d come here to yell at him, to tell him never to do any of that again—and look at us now.
No, wait. Don’t look at us. I didn’t want anyone to see us like this.
“As if,” Brett paused, letting out a ragged breath as his thumb still touched the corner of my mouth, “I’d want to kiss you again. You should stop flattering yourself. Did you think I enjoyed kissing you, hmm? Did you think I got one taste of those lips and thought to myself,fuck, I never want to kiss anyone else ever again?”
“I didn’t say that.” I could hardly get the words out. Having Brett this close for an extended period of time made my thoughts go haywire. Logic itself had grown hazy, and my heart pounded like I’d just run a marathon.
Brett’s lower half grinded against me once, causing a feminine sigh to escape me as he murmured, “Good, because I don’t, and I definitely didn’t think that.” His thumb danced across my entire bottom lip, the small movement sending a jolt of electricity zapping through me. At the same time, his other hand fell to my side, curling up beneath my sweater and gripping my waist, must like he’d done at the party in front of Zak.
Only this was different. This felt different.
I could get him off me by pressing the wound on his abdomen. I could poke it, stick my fingers against it, punch it. I could get him off me, stop this… whatever this was, but for whatever reason, I was frozen, unable to do anything other than stare up at him and be on the receiving end of his thumb and that roaming hand on my side.
“I’m definitely not thinking about kissing you again right now,” he whispered.
I wanted to ask him something along the lines of,Now who’s the liar?But I couldn’t. I was trapped, stuck between a rock and a hard place, the rock being a tree and the hard place being Brett’s body. And the craziest thing about it was that it wasn’t the worst place to be trapped.
The thumb caressing my lower lip stopped, the entire hand dropping to hold onto my neck once more—only this time it was different. This time that hand angled my face back, tilted my chin up, and held onto me so gently my eyelids fluttered shut on my own, like…
Well, like I wanted him to kiss me.
The pressure between our bodies lessened somewhat as Brett bent his top half down. He was so very close, so close I could feel his hot breath blooming on my face, tickling my senses. So close I could practically feel his mouth on mine again.
But what would you know? My phone rang right then, seconds before his lips could come down on mine. Literal seconds. And that ringtone was the only thing that stopped Brett from doing the one thing he said he didn’t want to.
His hand dropped from my neck, but he didn’t move away. As I opened my eyes, I saw him staring down at me, expectant. “Answer it,” he told me, and based on his tone, I’d say I knew what he was thinking.
My stalker had been at the party tonight, following me somehow—or he’d been there from the start, and it was just happenstance that I went to the same party.
