Total pages in book: 199
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
“W-what are you —”
“I always wanted to do that,” he rasps, taking my face in.
“D-do what?”
“Feel your pulse against my skin.”
I swallow against his grip. “I-I —”
He flexes his fingers, making me gasp. “Feel how hard your heart races when I’m around. How high your pulse would jump for me and your freckle right on top of it would dance, when I actually touched you.”
The answer to that is ‘extremely.’
Extremely hard and extremely high.
I bet he can feel that too.
How my body dances to his tune, and I want him to make it stop.
I want him to stop touching me like this.
“I don’t know what you’re doing but —”
His fingers flex around my throat once again. “You said it was your first kiss.”
I blink rapidly, feeling the pressure around my neck, freaked out and holy God, excited. “What?”
“That night,” he explains, darkness swirling in his eyes. “When I came to your dorm room.”
“I’m not sure why we’re —”
“You said it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever experienced.”
“L-Ledger, please. I —”
“Was it?”
My chest is heaving but I don’t think I’m getting any air in and I’m starting to feel faint. “Y-yes.”
“But then I turned it ugly,” he keeps going.
“You did.”
He rubs his thumb over my pulse then, over my freckle. His eyes rove over my face as if memorizing every little crevice and line, every little thing that makes me me.
“I may not be the hero of a romance novel. And I may not be able to turn back pages and rewrite our story. But I can do one thing.”
“What one thing?”
“I can make your second kiss even more beautiful than your first, Firefly.”
I jolt at him using my nickname.
And that’s probably the only reason why I don’t say anything, why I freeze and let him put his mouth on me.
His hot and warm and soft mouth.
His wet mouth.
And he’s giving me a kiss.
My second kiss.
And despite all the confusion, all the shock and all the reasons why this is a bad idea, I do think that it’s more beautiful than the first. I’m not sure why that is but it’s true.
Maybe because his lips are more urgent than they were thirteen months ago.
Which is saying something, because they were pretty fucking urgent back then too. They were pretty fucking dominating as well. It felt like he was finally giving in to something that he’d always wanted. Not to mention what I’d always wanted.
And yes, this one feels like that as well.
But there’s an added layer to it.
And I think it’s familiarity.
It’s the fact that he knows how to turn my head, at what angle, at what degree to go deep into my mouth with his tongue. It’s the fact that when his taste — cinnamon-y — explodes inside my mouth, it’s like taking a hit of your favorite drug. The drug that did take you places the very first time you tasted it but you were also afraid to chart an unknown territory.
You were afraid of your own reactions, your own feelings and moans and God, the way your own mouth sucked on it.
On his taste, his tongue, his mouth.
There is zero such fear now.
Zero such hesitation and fumbling.
And I don’t want to stop. I don’t ever, ever want to stop. Which is precisely why I should stop. Because this is the worst idea ever. Not only should we not be kissing each other but also we shouldn’t be doing it where we can get caught.
By my brother and his sister.
Who also have no idea about our history. Back when I was crazy about him, I didn’t want to tell Callie because I didn’t know if she’d be against it or what and I didn’t want to take that chance and potentially lose her. Plus she had her own problems with my brother and so I didn’t want to burden her with mine. And by the time I thought maybe I could tell her, she got pregnant and of course the non-relationship relationship I had with her brother had been over.
So yeah, bad freaking idea and I need to put the brakes on it right now.
I move away from him, or try to, and explain my reasons.
But when he doesn’t let me, I scratch and claw at his shoulders, at the side of his neck.
I struggle against him.
Against his hold on my neck, the fist of his other hand that I realize is in my hair, tilting my neck back so he has all the control over me. When even that doesn’t work, I bite him, his lower lip, and he groans, sucking in a breath, his fingers flexing on my body. And finally, I manage to break away from him.
With our foreheads mashed together, I pant, “Wh-what… We can’t. We… My brother… He can come back any second and —”