Crack.
Her palm strikes my cheek, snapping my head to the side.Heat rushes through my skin, sharp pain.My jaw aches, but my arousal remains firm.I don’t bother hiding the smile curling at my lips.
She glares at me, fury burning across her face.Her chest rises and falls; her lips are parted perfectly.Those eyes flash with something fierce and unspoken.
She looks at me as if she wished it had left a scar.
And, fuck, part of me wishes it did too.Because then maybe I’d stop coming back for more.
“You do that again, I swear to God—”
“You’ll what?”I turn my face back to her with a grin that’s full of defiance.“Slap me harder?”
She doesn’t answer.Just ducks under my arm, quickly gathering her books from the floor with trembling hands.Her face is flushed, mouth pressed into a thin line, fury radiating off her in waves.She doesn’t say another word, simply rushes into the classroom before I can get another breath in.
I stay frozen for a beat, hand braced on the locker, cheek still stinging from the hit.And I grin because she’ll never forget that moment.
And neither will I.
The sting doesn’t fade.It stays on my skin.I touch it, feeling the throb beneath the surface.The kind of pain that reminds you that you’re alive.
Pain has never scared me.Not when it’s wrapped in flushed cheeks and trembling hands.Not when it’s delivered by a girl who looked me in the eye and meant it.The beautiful that burns.
She didn’t slap me because she hated it.
She hit me because she sensed it and was unsure how to handle everything passing between us in a moment.Her breath on my skin, the spark in her spine when I leaned in and said what I said.
She’s fierce under pressure.The girl who’d rather draw blood than admit she wants me.
But I felt it in the shake of her hand after she hit me and the heat still rolling off her skin.
That’s the part that’ll haunt her.
The breath she gave me.It was the look in her eyes that drew attention.The stutter in her chest when I told her what I’d do if she weren’t such a fucking saint.
It’ll keep running through her mind for days.
I hear footsteps and turn my head, seeing Lola and Aubrey walking down the hall.They say nothing to me; they already know who and what I am.What I do when I get bored.
I slide my hands back into my pockets and walk toward them, shoulders relaxed, heart still racing as if it’s caught in her orbit.
I head down the hallway, looking for noise, distraction, something easy.Maybe to find Jace or some girl who will give me that look that says she wants to be fucked and won’t expect more afterward.
Either option works.I’m not picky.
I notice how Aubrey glances at me as I pass.The way Lola nudges her, both of them sharp-eyed, reading me in a way that irritates me.
They know exactly what the fuck I’m doing down here.
It all relates to Sam.
And no matter who I find next, no matter whose lips are on me, whose nails dig into my shoulders, whose moans fill the silence—
I’ll be thinking of Sam’s name when I come.
The face I see when I close my eyes.
The reason I grip harder, fuck deeper, chasing something that only she could ever give me.
