She doesn't slow down. Doesn’t hesitate. Just keeps walking toward me with those devastating eyes locked on mine through the mask, and I'm rooted to the spot like she's cast some kind of spell. I lick my lips, trying to summon words—her name, a greeting, anything.
"Don't." Her voice cuts through the space between us, low and urgent and tinged with something that sounds dangerously close to desperation. She's closer now, close enough that I can see her chest rising and falling too quickly, like she's as terrified as I am. "Don't speak."
She stops directly in front of me, so close I can smell her perfume. My palms ache, and I flex my fingers at my sides to fight the urge to reach for her and close this impossible final distance, but I'm paralyzed by the weight of this moment, by the terrifying knowledge that once we cross this line, there's no going back.
"Don't ruin this." Her hand rises, fingertips ghosting along my jaw, her touch searing through me. Her thumb traces my lower lip, and I forget my own name. "Not yet."
Then she kisses me, and the world ends and begins in the same breath. Her mouth is soft and fierce and perfect, and she tastes like mint and something reckless, and I'm drowning in it, inher. My hands finally remember how to function, and I'm pulling her closer, one palm sliding to the small of her back while the other tangles in that golden braid, and she makes this small sound against my lips that destroys me completely.
Every argument we've ever had, every sharp word and sharper glance, every moment I've pretended to hate her while wanting exactly this…it all combusts into this kiss, into the way she's gripping my shirt like I might disappear, into the way I can feel her heartbeat racing against my chest, matching the frantic rhythm of my own. The kiss shifts and deepens.
What started as desperate and searching transforms into something raw, something that's been building between us for years of anonymous messages and charged glances across crowded rooms. Her fingers fist in my shirt, nails scraping against my chest through the thin fabric, and a groan tears from my throat before I can stop it.
She responds by pressing closer, eliminating every breath of space between us, and suddenly, gentle isn't enough. Careful isn't enough. The restraint I've been clinging to for years through every argument, every heated debate where I wanted to grab her face and kiss her silent, every night I've lain awake thinking about her…it all snaps like a frayed wire.
I walk her backward. Three steps. Four. Until her back hits the wall with a soft thud that makes her gasp against my mouth, and God, that sound. That perfect, breathless sound that I want to swallow, to taste, to hear again and again until it's branded into my memory. My hands are everywhere. One sliding up her ribcage, my thumb brushing the underside of her breast through her dress, the other gripping her hip hard enough to leave marks. She arches into me, all soft curves and yielding heat, and when she hooks one leg around my waist, I nearly lose my mind entirely.
"Yes," she breathes against my lips, breaking away just enough to gasp for air. "God, yes."
I lift her without thinking, pressing her fully against the wall, her thighs wrapping around my hips as I pin her there with the weight of my body. My mouth finds hers again, and the new angle makes us both moan, a harmony of want that echoes down the empty hallway. My mouth travels from her lips to her jaw, down the column of her throat, where I can feel her pulse hammering wildly beneath my tongue. She tastes like salt and perfume, and I want to devour every inch of her.
"I can't—" she rasps as my hips roll against hers, and I pause, chest heaving. Her head falls against the stone wall as she shakes it from side to side. "I can't think when you're…" She rotates her hips, pressing her hot core against my hardened length. Then her tongue dusts over her lips before adding, "I don't want to think. Please don't stop."
I pull back just enough to look at her, a question in my eyes even though I can't speak, won't speak, because she asked me not to, and there’s no way in hell I’m ruining this. Her lips are swollen, and the way she's looking at me through that mask, like I'm everything she's ever wanted and everything she's been afraid to reach for, makes my heart stutter. I want her, but I don't want to be her mistake, a regret.
Her fingers thread through my hair before she yanks my mouth back to hers, kissing me with a ferocity that makes my knees weak. Her tongue slides against mine, demanding and teasing and wrecking any semblance of control I have left. I press harder against the wall, against her, and she whimpers—actually whimpers—into my mouth, her body moving against mine with a rhythm that's threatening to kill me. The golden braid falls over her shoulder, and I wrap it around my fist, tugging gently until her head tilts back, exposing more of her perfect throat.
"More," she pants, her voice breaking. "I need…please, I need more."
My hand abandons her braid and slowly skates down her side as my eyes stay pinned on hers, giving her ample time to tell me to stop, to tell me this isn't what she wants. When I finally reach the soft skin on her upper thigh, her entire body shivers, and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth as my hand pushes the fabric of her dress higher, and my fingers dig into her soft flesh before reaching the fabric covering the place she wants me. The only place I want to be.
"Don't you dare back out now. Don't tell me you haven't imagined this after every late-night text, every time our eyes met across the hallway, every time you couldn't decide if you wanted to fight me or—" She breaks off with a gasp the second I give her exactly what she asked for, not because she begged but because, without saying so, she's just told me she knows exactly who I am,and she's still asking. She makes a sound of pure satisfaction as my thick digit slides all the way in. "You can't take it back now. Don't hold back," she pleads, her voice raw with need.
And I don't. I couldn't if I wanted to, because she's right. I've imagined this very moment countless nights after every text and even before, but none of those dreams could compare to this. To the way she feels wrapped around me, to the sounds she makes, to the fire burning through my veins with each ragged breath she takes.
I capture her mouth again, and she kisses me back with a ferocity that steals my breath. Her hands roam everywhere, my shoulders, my back, my chest, like she's trying to memorize every inch of me through touch alone. I'm so lost in her, her scent, her noises, her taste that I don't realize her hands have drifted to my belt. To undo it. I want more of her, but not here, not taken quickly in a hallway where anyone could see.
"Not like this," comes out quick, the gravel in my tone so thick I barely recognize my own voice. I'll give her this, but nothing more. If she wants me, she can have me, but it will be without a mask, where we're no longer hiding who we are from each other.
"I know who you are." Her eyes flick between mine as if those are the magic words.
"Good," I answer, laying my forehead to hers. "Say it when I make you come.” My voice is coarse and thick with desire as I slip in a second digit and capture her gasp with my mouth, pumping into her in long, hard strokes that make her forget about her other pleas.
Her hands desert my belt and glide around my hips, where her nails sink into my skin, making me harder still as my hard length envies my fingers. I want to throw her over my shoulder and take her back to my dorm, where I can peel off this dress and have her uninterrupted, mapping out every inch of her body,every spot that makes her tick until there isn't an inch my lips haven't touched. With every thought, my pace quickens, and I can feel her reaching her peak.
"I want to hear it," I rasp out against her sweet lips. "I want you to scream my name before you see the stars."
That's all it takes to send her spiraling, but it's not my name that comes tumbling from her sweet mouth. Instead, her words are stolen by a door slamming open at the far end.
"Asha," a familiar voice calls out. My head whips left, finding Hollis squeezing the bridge of his nose before facing away. "Shit. Asha, come on, we have to go."
"Give me a minute. I'm kind of in the middle of something." She tries to force levelness into her voice as her walls spasm around my fingers.
"I'm sorry, but we don't have a minute. It's your dad. There's been an accident. A car is waiting out front to take us to the airport."
Her breath catches as the color drains from her face and her whole body goes rigid against mine as terror floods through her. I slowly remove my hand and put her down, easing her dress back over her hips so no one can see when I feel her tremble so badly the fabric of her dress shivers.
She slides her mask up, and her lips part on a silent gasp she can't quite release before for her wild eyes find mine. "I'm sorry. I have to go." Her voice fractures. "He's all I have left."
