My heart picked up, my mouth parted, and my breath came out in pants. He had purposely cornered me on the opposite side of the truck, my back against the seat, my arm pressed against the door.
He stared down at me, licking his lips, studying my face with…a passion that made me weak.
Lower, I clenched, and then sucked in a breath of air.
He leaned closer and my eyes automatically closed. The intake of breath left me in a slow, soft stream. The tip of his sharp nose came to my chest, the hollow of my throat, and he breathed in as he glided up to the edge of my chin, until he came down, just to move to the frantic pulse in my neck.
It mimicked the heart beating in my chest, thrumming in my ears, drowning out all other sounds.
It would have seemed that this was a sensual move, but it was more than that.Possessive.Having the ability to feel him put me at an advantage. I had seen how most people reacted to him. They didn’t knowhowto take him, so they couldn’t read him. He gave nothing away, unless he wanted to. It was different for me. For the most part, he couldn’t hide from me, which meant that I felt him on a different level.
When he spoke, he spoke to the pulse in my neck. “No one touches you, Scarlett Rose,” he murmured, his breath washing over my chilled skin in soft, warm exhales. “Mine.”
“First and last,” I breathed, unable to stop the truth from spilling from my mouth. Something I longed to believe in, to hold close and callall minefor the rest of my life.
In response to this, he bit me hard enough that my hands came up, finding his shoulders, and my nails dug into his skin. I hissed out a breath, a shot of lightning racing between my legs, stronger this time—it hadn’t really faded from earlier, the pulse—and a noise that didn’t seem to come from a human being came from my mouth.
With him, this way, the word “inhibition” held no meaning. He made me feel the same way hewas—animalistic.
“Answer me,” he demanded, about to set his teeth against tender skin again.
I hadanswered him, without prompting. But “first and last” were not the words he demanded to hear. One word.
“Yes,” I breathed. “Yes.”Oh God, yes!
Instead of the sharpness of his teeth, his tongue trailed over the spot he had bitten, slow and warm, until he ventured further up, tracing the shape of my mouth, before his lips met mine and he kissed me, deep, long and languorous, his tongue sweet against mine, thumbs stroking over the soft fabric of my top, over my nipples.
Whimpering—that’s what came from me.
After he had broken the kiss, the touch, I sat immobilized, unable to move. He had stolen my breath—no, everything—and had yet to give it back. I doubted that he ever would.
“Enough,” he said, starting to drive again. “For now.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Scarlett
The concert fell on Mitch’s birthday, which he wasn’t all too pleased about. We all gave him an out, if he wanted to take it, but he refused, deciding instead to make the night even more memorable. Being a nuisance. This behavior continued after we arrived at the train tracks.
“My ears…” he screeched. “They’re bleeeeeding!” He slapped his hands over his ears before laughing his sandpaper laugh. “All that puss music was like water torture to the eardrums. Now this,thisis what you call legit music.”
He gave two birds to the sky and started to sing “Highway to Hell” with the stereo somewhere in the distance. Then he turned to Violet and me. “What do you say, Violet? I’m getting there.” He winked.
Mitch had been extra taunting tonight, especially toward Violet, almost to the point of manic. I didn’t like the way he openly appraised her, then would smile a slow melting smile, or the fact that he wouldn’t stop making obnoxious comments—about the Gin Blossoms concert, about the crowd being too chill (he almost started a mash pit), and about his date—Penny.
She had gone to collect her friends, and since she wasn’t around to take some of the heat, it all seemed to be directed at Violet.
“Grow up, Peter Pan,” Violet muttered, not meeting his eyes.
The hot and serious look Mitch gave Violet when she called him Peter Pan made me entwine our arms together, pulling her closer. The Polaroid camera strapped around her wrist swung like a pendulum.
I hadn’t seen much of Violet because of my dance schedule, teaching the toddlers, Maggie Beautiful, and my own schoolwork. Not to mention all of the time I had been spending with Brando. She had been spending a lot of time on the school newspaper and our final yearbook.
Since she wanted to shake things up a bit, she picked seven seniors who all had different paths ahead of them, and she was doing in-depth articles about each. I was one of the seven. Hence why she carried around her camera at all times. Her spare time was spent with Mick.
The beautiful thing about Violet and me was that our friendship was not built on co-dependency. We could go weeks without hanging out and then pick up just where we had left off like no time had passed between us. There were times where I had traveled the world for months on end. We had boxes of letters and trinkets we had sent each other during our time apart.
In all the ways that counted, Violet had become my sister.
