I shake my head.
“It will always be you,” he whispers against my skin and brushes a kiss over my lips. “You’re a necessity to me.”
My tongue flicks out, tasting mint. Kohen is the only constant I’ve had my entire life. Whether he was sick or injured, he’d always be waiting for me by the tree on my route home. Kohen walked inside my bare house, met my mother, saw me high, saw me hungover, saw me over every other man but him. I’ve hit him, screamed at him, framed him, did things I know would hurt him, and he’s still here.
Two endless pools of gold stare back at me, molten and hypnotizing as his warm hand slips up my skirt and toys with the line of my panties before pushing two fingers into me.
I curse and grab onto his leather jacket. When he pushes his hips against me, I don’t move away. When he unbuttons my shirt, baringmy plain black bra to him, my hand falls to the hard dent in his pants, making him hiss against my skin.
I’m not going to ruin him; he’s going to destroy me. It was foolish to think there was any version of this story where I’d emerge the victor. I think if I were to die right now, I might be lowered to the ground with a smile on my face.
Knowing all this, like the pain that will follow once it ends and the hole that will grow bigger in my heart, I still unbuckle his pants.
Any control I’ve ever thought I had was an illusion; at least right now, I’m not trying to fool myself. With the fire warming my back and the sirens a distant tune, I give in to what my body wants so badly.
His dick is just as big as the first time I saw him without his pants, and it seems even more daunting when it’s in my hands. My name comes out of him like the embodiment of yearning at the first stroke. I only manage three more before he throws off his jacket, picks me up, and wraps my legs around his waist, using the window behind me for support.
Pushing my panties aside, he slowly brings me down on him, stretching me out to the point of pain. We both curse as he breaches my entrance, and my muscles tighten to try and keep him out. A whimper comes out instead of a moan, and he kisses me in a way I hate. With just the press of his lips, every single wall I’ve built comes crashing down, sending shockwaves all through me.
“It hurts,” I whisper, not sure whether I’m talking about the gnawing ache in my core from taking him, or the soul-deep torture of admission.
“I know. I’ve got you.” His harsh breaths fan my heated skin. “Just a little more. I’m right here.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, hating the way his words tear through my defenses. He’s seen me when no one else has.
Kohen’s lips meet mine in a searing kiss. He moves, and I move with him, screaming at myself to stop but knowing I never will. It’s not like I know what’s good for me.
Inch by inch, I take a little more of him until I’m so full, it’s dizzying. Just as he lowers me to the hilt, he breaks the kiss, piercing me with his gaze as he whispers against my lips, “At the beginning, middle, and end, you’re the only one I’ll ever want. You’re mine, Blaze.”
“Don’t.” My voice cracks.
If he keeps saying that, I’ll never find it in me to hate him the way I used to. In the end, even that was a lie because did I ever really hate him? He annoyed me with his incessantness, and sometimes I hated the words that came out of his mouth, and all the shit he pulled when we were kids. But none of those things ever caused me the type of pain that my own family caused. Maybe it wasn’t hatred for Kohen that I felt, but hatred at life in general.
There are so many reasons why none of this can happen. I’m going down, and I don’t think I want to take Kohen down with me. Not when he’s looking at me the same way he looks at fire whenever he plays with his lighter. Not when he’s holding on to me like he will never let go.
I’m bad news—the worst kind there is. My grandfather knows it, everyone around here knows it, so why can’t he see it too? Why is he torturing me by giving me the thing I always wanted when I’ve already accepted I’ll never have it?
A tear falls, and he wipes it away before I can pretend it never happened, pulling his hips away just a fraction, only to push backinto me. “I’m yours, Thief. I’m never going to stop wanting you.”
“Stop talking,” I beg, digging my nails into the back of his neck like a desperate prayer that he might listen.
Kohen keeps grinding his hips into me, going incrementally faster. “I’ve seen every single part of you. All the broken parts—even the parts you hate, and I’m still going to stay.”
“Shut up.” The roles have reversed. Now, I’m the one pleading for him to stop saying words that will hurt.
“I don’t want to be your enemy. I don’t want to be your friend. There’s only one way this ends.” Sex is intimate and raw, but it doesn’t strip me bare like the feeling of being understood.
He doesn’t let me drop my head against the crook of his shoulder or hide from every intensified part of him. So I have no choice but to look back at him and know this is it for me. Nothing will ever compare to this moment. Every thrust, every heartbeat, every word that comes out of his mouth, and mostly,him.
“For you? I’ll burn it all.”
How he’s looking at me is enough to push my head against the window to get away.
There’s a fire blazing at my back, but his stare is on me. I hold the eyes of a pyromaniac. How dangerous is it to be chosen over flames?
This isn’t power; it’s a one-way path to destruction. Kohen looks at me like he’s taking the first hit of his favorite drug. He’s heavy-lidded with eager eyes that’ve been swallowed by an abyss of black, knowing he would have crawled over glass for a taste of the thing he’s been hungry for his whole life.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.”
