His gaze never left me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Something you’ve been carefully avoiding since I came home.” I turned to face him fully, fingers still resting on the locked door. I had no idea what I was doing, relying on my instincts, and it could damn well backfire on me, but Kreed was worth the risk. “You’ve been holding everything in, pretending you’re fine, pretending you don’t need me or anyone else. But you do need me. And God, Kreed, I need you too.”
“Kaylor.” He growled my name like it was both a desperate warning and a broken prayer.
I moved closer, erasing another foot of space between us. Close enough now to feel the heat radiating from his body, to smell the familiar scent of him mixed with fresh anger. “You need me to pull you out of your own head, out of that darkness you keep feeding like it’s the only thing keeping you alive. You’re the only one who can take away my pain, make me feel like myself again.” I reached up slowly, flattening my palms on his chest. “And I’m the only one who can take away yours.”
He lifted one hand as if to ward me off, to create distance, but it faltered as I ran my fingers up to his shoulders, looping themaround his neck. His hand dropped to his side like he’d forgotten what he meant to do with it. “Careful, little raven.”
I angled my head, studying him with the same intensity he usually directed at everyone else. My eyes ate up every inch of his face. “Do you not want me anymore? Am I too damaged now for you? They didn’t touch me.” I didn’t want to talk about what I’d been through, but I also needed Kreed to know I hadn’t been violated, not sexually.
That broke something fundamental in him. I saw it happen, the careful control he’d been maintaining shattered like glass. He swore under his breath. “Damaged? You think you’re somehow more broken than I am? That’s what you think?”
“Then what’s stopping you?” I whispered, closing the last bit of space between us so my chest pressed to his, and I could see his pupils dilate and watched his pulse hammer in his throat.
His fingers came to span my waist. I loved how big they were, how it seemed he could nearly circle my whole waist with them. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting you. That’s the problem.”
He couldn’t say something like that to me and expect me not to melt. Liquid heat pooled into my lower belly, a feeling I hadn’t been sure I’d ever have again but dreamed about. I’d come too damn close to never seeing him again. My fingers teased the hair at the nape of his neck. “I don’t see how wanting me is a problem, not when that same want lives in me.”
His eyes flared.
“Is your father still downstairs?” I asked, my gaze dropping to his lips. I desperately wanted to kiss him, to flip all his rage into desire.
His eyes darkened. “He left after our talk.”
It felt so damn good to have his warmth seeping into me. No matter how much mayhem found its way into my life, this thing between Kreed and me was the only thing that felt right. Sometimes the height difference between us was a curse. Like now, when he wasn’t meeting me halfway, when I was the one doing the pursuing. I lifted higher on my toes, bringing our lips close enoughthat they nearly touched. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, then you?—”
His mouth crashed into mine, hard, desperate, and absolutely wild, the kind of kiss that stole every coherent thought from my head and replaced it with pure heat. His hands came up to frame my face, fingers threading into my hair, angling my head exactly where he wanted it.
Yes.God, yes.This was what I needed, what I dreamed about. I never wanted Kreed to stop kissing me, and I didn’t want to waste time. I wanted to feel everything all at once.
My lips parted, inviting Kreed to take the kiss deeper, and he answered without hesitation, our tongues tangling together in a long-awaited greeting. I sighed into him, my body sinking farther against him, confident he would support us both because this kiss was going straight to my head…and other parts as well.
His taste filled my mouth, and the same thought looped in my head again and again.
Home. Home. Home.
I was home, and it wasn’t the house. It was Kreed. Wherever he was, that’s where I had to be. It might be slightly codependent or some shit like that, but it mattered little to me how a shrink might analyze my relationship with Kreed.
His fingers trailed down my spine, taking their sweet torturous time until they landed over my backside, squeezing as he deepened the kiss. I moaned into his mouth, wanting more. Of him. Of his mouth. Of his body. Of his taste. There wasn’t a single part of Kreed I didn’t desire.
“Touch me,” I begged, our lips parting just long enough for me to rasp the words. But they seemed to take him by surprise, and he pulled back, staring at me with lust-filled eyes. I could see him struggling, and before he decided this wasn’t a good idea, I grabbed the end of my hoodie and lifted it over my head, leaving me in a tight white T-shirt. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and my budding nipples poked through the material, drawing his gaze.
“You don’t play fair.” He took hold of my hips, and suddenly I was pressed into the wall, his body trapping me. My head was so wrapped up in him, in the sensations between us, that the world just spun, throwing off my equilibrium.
I loved the way the lines of his body molded perfectly with mine. He had this maddening lure, this ability to kiss me like he was an addiction I couldn’t live without. Giving in to the seduction, I nipped at his bottom lip, and he groaned, his hands moving to my backside once again, fingers flexing over my flesh as he lifted me so we were level. My ankles locked together behind him, my nipples brushing against his chest and instantly hardening.
He pulled back after a moment that felt simultaneously too long and not nearly long enough, just far enough to rasp against my lips, “Is this really what you want, little raven?”
Absolutely, without a doubt. “Yes.”
He stared at me, his breathing jagged and uneven. “You’re serious?”
“When it comes to you, I’m always serious,” I murmured, our breaths mingling. “I won’t break, Kreed. I’m not made of glass. Don’t hold back with me because you’re afraid.” I held his gaze, needing him to understand. “This—what we have—it’s the only thing that feels right anymore. The only thing that makes me feel normal, like I’m still myself when I’m with you.”
His lips quirked, those molten eyes staying on mine like liquid silver in the dim light. “You should’ve said so earlier. Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is to stay away from you?”
Carrying me with ease, he headed to the bed, and I took the opportunity since my lips were free to use them on other parts of his face. Like his scruffy cheeks, the side of his neck, and his ear. “I don’t know why you would ever stay away.”
