“Thought about what?”
“I have thisthing,” he says, with clenched teeth, “inside of me. This crazyfuckingthing that won’t let me stay away from you. It makes me obsessed with you. It makes me need you in a way I’ve never needed anyone. It makes me break out in sweat every time I think you’ll leave me. That you’ll realize how toxic I really am and you’ll run. This thing inside of me, Jupiter, won’tlet me do the right thing and leave you alone. It makes me a wrecking ball for you and… I’m so afraid that it will only hurt you. I’m sofucking afraidnow that you’re really mine, you’ve let me in, I’m only going to hurt you more. More than I did the night I took your virginity, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to hurt you, baby, but I also don’t know how to stay away from you.”
“Are you saying you can’t love me?” I ask, point blank.
He flinches at my question. Like I smacked him in the face. It’s not even that, actually. Because Ihavesmacked him in the face, and he never gave me that reaction. This is more like a stab in the back. A knife he didn’t see coming, so he couldn’t contain his shock.
Then, swallowing and gulping, he shakes his head. “Not again.”
So this is it, then. He’s afraid he can’t give me what I want. He’s afraid that since his heart is already taken and broken, he’ll end up breaking my heart. God, he’s so…
He’s an idiot. But he’s also the most adorable man I’ve ever met. I said he was made of love and loyalty, didn’t I? And I was right. This is love and loyalty. Notthatkind of love, but definitely that kind of loyalty. What he doesn’t know and probably will never know is that that ship has already sailed. I fell in love with the idea of him a long time ago and only fell deeper when I met the flawed man
I’m not afraid of getting hurt or burnt or stung. What I’m afraid of is not getting to feel his bite, his teeth sinking into my neck, my heart, my soul. Not getting to drink his poison and sweeten his blood. I’m afraid of not getting to be with him even if for a little while.
I press my hands on his cheeks and stretch my legs up as high as they will take me. “If you ignore my calls or texts or disappear on me again, I will seriously be so very pissed that no amount of apologies or flowers will ever be enough.” Surprise passesthrough his features before something like satisfaction takes its place, but I keep going. “And I’m not afraid of you. I never was and I never will be.”
He stares into my eyes for a few seconds like he doesn’t ever want to look away, like I’m the most fantastical thing he’s ever seen, before his mouth comes down and he takes my lips in a kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Five
This kiss is justas all-consuming as our first one was.
My control still disappears the moment he makes contact, and his was never in the picture to begin with. So we’re all bruising lips and clacking teeth. He pulls at my hair to stretch my neck back, and I tug at his t-shirt to pull him down on me even more. He hauls me up off the floor and I wrap my thighs around his waist as we eat at each other’s mouths. As we kiss and bite and moan and taste each other. He, as always, tastes like strawberries, and even though I know I don’t, he still thinks I do. His mouth is hot and wet and so possessive that I melt and I think mine is the same, only so easily bent to his will that he grows harder.
A few seconds later, he breaks the kiss, and I think it’s over too soon. He puts me back down on the ground and I think I’m not ready to stand on my own feet. But none of those things matter because as soon as my feet touch the hardwood, he goes down.
As in, he kneels in front of me.
That in itself is a shocking thing to see, and not only because even kneeling down on the floor, he’s so large his face comesup to my heaving chest. No, the more shocking thing, themostshocking thing, is that floor is full of broken glass.
So essentially, my toxic asshole stepbrother who sent a soccer ball flying through the window, shattering it into a million pieces, is now kneeling on the wreckage he caused—he’skneelingon broken glass, in front of me.
I fist his t-shirt and say, as if he doesn’t know, “Shepard, there’s… There’s glass everywhere.”
In response, he puts his hands on my waist, his large, scrape-y hands, bloody from the same broken glass, and grabs me tight. I hold on to his corded forearms as he hauls me up against the door and practically puts me on his shoulders as I squeal and clench my eyes shut. When I open them a second later, I’m looking down at him, his face between my pale thighs, his stare all dark and drugged up.
Then, flexing his hands that are on my butt, that are actuallyunderthe little purple nightie I’m wearing and on my panty-covered butt, he rasps, “That’s why this is your seat.”
I arch my bare toes and flex my ankles, digging my heels into his back. “Your shoulders?”
He shakes his head once, his stubble scraping my tender skin, making me bite my lip. “No, my mouth.”
My eyes go wide, and I fist his hair with both hands. “But this is… You’re already bleeding and your k-knees?—”
“Makes us even, yeah?” he rumbles, nuzzling his nose in my thighs. “I made you bleed so I bleed for you.”
I tug at his hair, arching my back. “But I don’t need that. I don’t need you to do that.”
He flexes his grip on my ass some more, practically kneading the flesh. “ButIneed it. I need to eat your pussy, lick it, fuck it, French kiss it while I kneel on broken glass and bleed for it.”
My pussy clenches at his words. Like he’s speaking directly to it, directly to my needy, horny core. Still, I keep my wits aboutme for a second longer and try to make him see sense. “But you know… that this is what happens. This is how…” I blush so fiercely but still push on, “A girl bleeds when she loses her v-virginity.”
And yes, I was freaked out about it too, but then he went ahead and made everything better.
He digs the pads of his fingers into my ass, anger passing through his features. “Maybe, butmygirl doesn’t go another day without being issued an apology for it. And I’m already two days too late.” I suck my belly in, and he grabs my ass harder, parting the cheeks, stretching my crease out, and it’s such a novel sensation that I can’t help but arch my back again, as if offering up my pussy to him to apologize to. Then, “And I don’t think I can go another second without sucking on you again and getting the taste of your pussy directly from the tap. Pure and thick, like crack. Besides, I’ve also got another job to do.”
“W-what job?”
