Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
“Don’t.” I interrupt. “Don’t say that word.”
He leans away from the window, the sunlight casting a beam of light on half his face, like an angel shot an arrow straight from heaven, and it strips me bare of everything I thought I knew.
“Why?” he asks. “Does the thought scare you as much as it scares me?” His tongue darts out. “After all the filthy, fucked-up, delicious fucking shit we did, does the thought of losing what we have ruin you?”
I swallow down the lump in my throat, wondering if there was ever a world out there where we could’ve been lovers instead.
Still, he turns and steps closer and closer while I back away into the door, leaving no place left to go as he traps me between his arms.
“Deny it all you want, but we can both feel the electric current between us,” he says, inching so close I can almost taste his futile rage. “Can you even resist?”
“I should’ve …” I mutter.
A devilish smirk forms on his face. “You should’ve run when you had the chance.”
“I don’t want to run anymore,” I murmur.
His lips graze mine. “But you make it feel so damn good to chase you.”
When his lips finally connect, it doesn’t even register with me anymore that I’m supposed to hate him, that he’s made me his toy, that he’s tried to destroy my life all for the sake of needing me. Because I can’t resist the way he kisses me with so much raw passion that it takes my breath away.
His mouth encloses mine, his sultry tongue prying open my lips until it twists around mine, and he moans into me, causing goose bumps to spread all over. He pushes me against the door, pressing his hard-on into me while licking the roof of my mouth with that pierced tongue.
And a part of me almost wants to give in. Give in to the moment, fuck all my worries away.
But I don’t want to use him.
I push him off me and look him in the eyes, searching for answers I no longer have.
I thought I understood myself, that I knew exactly what I wanted and needed in this world to survive, but slowly, that steadfast part of me realizes I may have been wrong.
“Kiss me,” he says. “Kiss me, Crystal. Do you even want it as much as I do?”
When I lean in, he leans back, tempting, twisting the narrative until I’m chasing his lips instead, and the smile that cracks on his face makes me want to slap him.
Suddenly, he grips my wrists and shoves me up against the door, his half-mast hazel eyes so striking it’s hard to look away. “Make me believe it.”
With a taunting gaze, he hovers close again, and I slam my lips right back on his.
He kisses me back with just as much fervor, claiming my mouth like it’s the only thing keeping him from jumping off a goddamn cliff, and it feels powerful. Daunting. Wrecking.
To the point where I claw my way out of his grip and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer into me so our two broken souls meld into one.
Caleb
I could no longer stop myself. I had to kiss those beautiful perky lips even though I know I’m sucking the life out of her like a goddamn soul-stealing demon from hell.
But I don’t care anymore.
I need that spark, that little ounce of happiness I siphon out of her every time our lips collide.
It’s the only thing that’s keeping me breathing.
Keeping me sane.
The thought of her ruins me.
Destroys every inch of my sanity until I can no longer think straight, and I hate her for it.
I hate how much she’s weaved her way into my life without a thought as to how easily she makes everyone around her fall for her. How easily she makes us all crave to poison her innocence.
But I hate most of all that it’s driven a wedge between Ares and me. The only man who’s ever understood me. The only man who’s ever cared enough to be there for me.
I wanted him, and then he wanted her, so I had to make her pay.
But along the way, I fell.
I fell so hard my lungs began to crack, and the only way I could suck in the oxygen was when I was with her.
God …
God can’t help me now.
I kiss her so hard it makes the tears in my soul dry up as I pour every ounce of my sadness into her. She can take it. She knows what it feels like to need something so desperately you feel like you can’t live without it. What it is to grieve without grieving, to live like a shadow of oneself, to haunt the world, searching for your own goddamn soul.
She’s seen death with her own damn eyes.