Broken Empire A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance - Callie Rose Page 0,69
same time, but I tightened my grip, kneeling on the seat to give myself more leverage. Then I did the only thing I could think of to do.
I kissed him.
I kissed him the way he’d kissed me after I had told him the truth about my father, about how I’d been hurt too.
I kissed him to make him believe me, to pour my feelings directly into his soul.
I kissed him as if that could heal him—and even though I knew it couldn’t, I had to fucking try.
His body went stiff for a second, and I could feel him struggling not to give in, not to let anything good penetrate the blackness wrapped around him. Not to accept the light I was offering.
Then his lips pressed hard against mine, and before I knew what was happening, he was scooting his seat back as far as it would go and hauling me across the console into his lap. My knees ended up on either side of his hips, digging into the seam of the seat as I wedged into the small space between him and the steering wheel.
It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but comfort was the furthest thing from my mind as Cole deepened our kiss, crushing my body against his with his massive arms.
My hands ran through his hair, which had grown back to its usual cut of short on the sides and long on top, mussing up the blue-black strands. As our lips moved together in a consuming, deep, endless kiss, I ran my fingers over his shoulders, down his chest, and along his sides. He winced slightly as I moved over the ribs on the left side, and I jerked back, breaking the kiss.
There was barely room for me to lean away from him, but I pulled back far enough to slip my fingers under the hem of his dark t-shirt, sliding it up past the cut lines of his abs to reveal the dark red bruise blooming through the tattoos on his side.
I was a connoisseur of bruises by now, and judging from the color of the mark, I was pretty sure his dad had hit him more than once, going for the same spot over and over. I moved to touch it lightly, but Cole caught my wrist in a tight grip, keeping me from brushing my fingers over the mark. The expression on his face was almost ashamed, as if he’d rather cut out that part of his skin than let me see the damage he carried.
Tugging my hand free of his hold, I met his gaze evenly and reached for the bunched up hem of his t-shirt instead. He let me pull it over his head, our movements awkward in the confined space of the car.
I didn’t see any other bruises, so I ran my hands over all the places he wasn’t hurt, and as I touched him, I watched Cole’s eyelids droop like he was drugged.
We were pressed so tightly together that I could feel every bit of his body’s reaction to me, feel him getting hard between my legs. A thrill of desire and fear ran through me as I claimed his mouth again and moved against that hardness, unable to stop myself.
This wasn’t the first time I had kissed Cole, but it was the first time I felt totally in control of it. There was an intensity to the attraction that bubbled between us that made every kiss feel a little like standing outside in the middle of a hurricane, daring nature to sweep me up and carry me away.
That same consuming, overwhelming need still infused the connection between our lips, but now it felt like I was riding the storm instead of being buffeted by it.
Like I was the storm.
Cole grunted, bucking his hips up against mine, and I dragged my lips away from his long enough to mutter, “Back seat.”
He nodded, helping me crawl off his body and between the seats to the back. Seeming to realize there was no fucking way he’d fit if he took the same route, Cole shoved open the driver’s side door and wrenched the back door open, ducking his head to peer down at me sprawled across the leather seat. Then he slid inside, slamming the door behind him. I blinked at him, taking in the thick, tattooed muscles of his chest and shoulders, watching them bunch and contract as he crawled up to hover his body over mine.