Defiant Princess (Boys of Oak Park Prep #2) - Callie Rose Page 0,57

my heart had been opened, and I didn’t know how to shut it again.

Elijah opened my fist slowly, turning it over so he could plant kisses across the plane of my palm. When he moved up to my wrist, a small noise fell from my mouth, and he glanced up at me, his gaze questioning. But I didn’t stop him, and I didn’t pull away.

Because this didn’t hurt.

It felt good.

And after every shitty thing that’d happened over the past year, the feel of Elijah’s lips on my skin was like sipping a glass of water after a thousand days in the desert.

He pushed up the sleeve of my hoodie a little and worked his way higher, over my forearm. When he glanced up again, I didn’t hesitate. I pulled out of his grasp long enough to unzip the black jacket and shrug it off, and as soon as I tossed it aside, Elijah took my hand again. Now my entire arm was bare, and he didn’t waste the opportunity, trailing his mouth over the inside of my wrist and up my forearm, making goose bumps rise on my skin.

When he scooted forward to the edge of the couch, I matched his movement, perching on the edge of the coffee table as our legs brushed against each other’s. His lips found my shoulder, then my neck, and now the fire in my skin was spreading deeper, so deep inside me that it warmed me from the inside out.

He kissed along my jaw, and I tilted my head to give him better access, struggling to keep my eyes open. My eyelids drooped as sensation overwhelmed me, pulling me under like a drug.

“Does that feel good?” he whispered, and I nodded without speaking.

It felt better than good.

It was like the antidote to everything bad in the world.

And maybe it was a lie. Maybe it was another manipulation, another trick. Maybe all his words of apology had been empty and meaningless.

But Elijah had given me pain.

He owed me pleasure.

His lips traced the other side of my jaw, the shell of my ear, the curve of my cheekbone. I squirmed in my seat, another low noise sounding in my throat, as my breath came faster. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry, as if he could do this—would do this—forever unless I told him to stop.

I didn’t want him to stop though. I wanted…

As his lips moved over my cheek, I turned my head suddenly, capturing his mouth with mine. He jerked in surprise then responded, kissing me back, opening his mouth when my tongue demanded entry and sliding his tongue over mine.

I could taste a hint of coppery blood on his lips, but beneath that was a taste that was all Elijah—addicting and complex. I scooted even closer to him, and when I ran out of coffee table, he wrapped his arms around me, helping me crawl onto his lap.

Our lips didn’t part, and as I settled on top of him, our bodies pressed flush together. I could feel him hardening beneath me, and the press of that hardness at the apex of my thighs was like a promise of something exquisitely sweet. So I moved against it, making him groan into my mouth, as my hands found their way into his hair. The light brown strands were already mussed from his fight earlier, but I ruined them even more, sliding my fingers between them and running my fingernails over his scalp.

He shuddered beneath me, and I could feel his chest rising and falling fast against mine.

I didn’t feel pain anymore.

For this moment, there was just our breaths, our lips moving together, our hands grasping and stroking.

There was just pleasure.

I didn’t have to like Elijah, or even forgive him, to like this.

We rocked against each other, chasing the good sensations even through the barriers of clothing between us, as we kissed like we were the first two people in the world to have discovered it.

My clit throbbed every time he pressed his hips up into me, and the muscles of my core clenched around nothing. As if they were seeking something.

Suddenly, Elijah shifted his grip on me, lifting and turning me before laying me down on my back across the cushions of the couch. He settled between my legs, and the weight of him there made me clamp my thighs around him. He broke our kiss and drew back to look down at me, his battered face softer than it had been before,