Without waiting for a reply, I turn and walk away, my heart threatening to beat its way out of my chest. I don’t look back. I just pray he’s following me.
The side hall is blessedly empty. Halfway down, there’s a door labeled ‘HVAC ACCESS’. I glance over my shoulder. He’s there, a dark shadow detaching from the crowd, his long strides eating up the distance between us.
I don’t hesitate. I grab the handle, twist, and slip inside, pulling the door closed until there’s just a crack.
The room is small, and smells of dust and ozone. It’s filled with humming machinery and metal ducts. When I see Raiden’s broad shoulders fill the doorway, I fully turn, my back pressing against a cold metal unit.
The door clicks shut behind him, plunging the room into near-total darkness, broken only by a few blinking red and green LEDs on the equipment.
He doesn’t give me time to speak, to breathe.
One second he’s closing the door, the next he’s on me, his hands bracketing my head as he slams me back against the door.
His mouth crashes down on mine in a desperate, frantic kiss that’s all punishing need, his frustration, jealousy, and obsession pouring out of him and into me.
His hands tangle in my hair, gripping tight as he devours my mouth, one of his powerful thighs pushing between my legs, pinning me, claiming me in the humming darkness.
11
Chapter 11
This time, I don’t just take it. I claim my own fire.
As his mouth devours mine in the humming darkness of the HVAC room, my hands, which had been trapped at my sides, come up and dive into his hair. It’s thick and soft, and I grip the strands at the back of his head, pulling him closer, answering the punishing pressure of his kiss with my own. I meet the sweep of his tongue, the scrape of his teeth.
He seems excited by my response, by the force of it. He breaks the kiss for a fraction of a second, his chest heaving as he exhales a hot, shuddering breath directly onto my lips. The green and red LEDs of the machinery blink across his face, carving it into stark, demonic planes.
“I won’t let you go,” he says, his voice a low, guttural promise. “Anyway, you’re probably glad to be pinned against the door. That way no one can come in and find us.”
The raw sarcasm in his voice is a shield, but I can see right through it to the possessive, jealous thing writhing underneath. It should annoy me. Instead, a low chuckle escapes me, surprising us both.
“Stop it,” I whisper, my fingers tightening in his hair. “You talk as if I could be ashamed to be seen with you.”
The very idea is absurd. He’s the king of this campus, and I’m… me. But we can’t kiss in the middle of the hallway in front of God and everyone, not when I don’t even know what thisis. Not when I haven’t had a single second to process the whiplash of going from enemies to this.
My breath hitches, loud in the small space, as his hand slips past the waistband of my jeans.
His rough fingers close around my cock through the thin cotton of my boxers, and I gasp, my head falling back against the door.
His movements are quick, desperate, nothing like the slow exploration I would have imagined. He’s not teasing; he’s claiming again. He presses his face into the curve of my neck, his other hand coming up to hold my jaw, keeping me from turning away.
“I want to see you,” he rasps, his breath hot against my skin. “I want to watch…” He pulls back just enough to look at me, his gaze intense, burning even in the near-darkness. His thumb begins to circle the head of my cock, slicking it with my own precum, and a jolt of electricity shoots through my system. “Do you enjoy it, Artie?”
I can only nod, again and again, like a broken toy.
I’m so completely, mind-bendingly aroused that words have abandoned me. He takes my frantic nods as permission and increases the pressure, his hand a piston of heat and friction.
He watches my face with an obsessive focus, his pupils blown so wide the blue is just a thin, startling ring around the black.He’s cataloging twitches of my mouth and every flutter of my eyelids like he’s memorizing my undoing.
My orgasm crashes over me without warning. It’s not like last time. It’s a full-body cataclysm, so intense a wave of fire floods my veins and my spine feels like it’s melting into liquid heat.
A strangled cry is torn from my throat as I come hard into his hand, my legs giving out completely.
He’s there to catch me, his body solid. He supports my weight, holding me up as my body shudders with the aftershocks.
He lowers his head and gently, almost clumsily, nudges my face with his own, like he doesn’t know any other way to express tenderness. His forehead bumps mine, then his cheek presses against my temple. The gesture is unexpectedly sweet and achingly sincere after the raw brutality of his touch, that a joyful, slightly hysterical laugh bubbles out of me.
I tilt my head up and kiss him. It’s a soft, messy kiss. He makes a strange sound in the back of his throat, a mix between a groan and a whimper.
