Broken Empire A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance - Callie Rose Page 0,37

betrayal worse.

But it also made this moment better. As if some part of my heart, my body, my soul—or maybe all three—had always known this was meant to happen between us.

As if all the bullshit in between was just the obstacle course we’d had to run to reach this moment.

Chapter 11

God, please don’t stop.

I didn’t say the words out loud—I was sure of it—but Finn answered my prayer anyway.

He trailed his lips over my collarbone before working his way to my other ear, and even though I knew it was coming, the feel of his lips and teeth on my earlobe still made my body jump and pulled an involuntary sound from my throat. When he kissed me again, I swept my tongue into his mouth, trying to hike my legs higher so I could wrap them around his waist.

I didn’t have enough strength to manage it, so I gave up and settled for digging my fingers into the hard, sculpted muscles of his back through his soft t-shirt.

His body was pressed against mine, and I could feel his hardness nudging against my stomach, sending little thrills of desire and nerves through me. He groaned again, rocking his pelvis against me as he kissed me—

And then suddenly, he pulled away.

I almost fell off the barre—would have, if not for his steadying hands—as my body tried to chase his, unwilling to let go of the delicious contact between us. I was breathless and dazed, my chest rising and falling fast as I stared at him in confusion.

Why did he stop? Does he not like this? Does he not want it?

He stared at me for a moment, his own breath fast and uneven, and then he shook his head.

“Not here.”

As if that settled everything, he looped his arms under my thighs again, lifting me off the barre and carrying me toward the door. He released me with one hand briefly to grab the handle, then pulled the heavy door open and held it with his foot as he stepped outside. He glanced both ways down the hall before turning left, trying two doors before reaching one that opened when he pushed.

It was a supply closet.

The walls on each side of the small, narrow room were fronted by shelves covered in various sports equipment, and there was a tall chest of drawers in front of the shorter wall across from the door. Finn deposited me on that before turning back to turn the lock, and the heat blazing through my body cooled a bit as I glanced around the small, somewhat dingy space. I couldn’t see how on earth it was better than the dance studio had been.

“What…? Why?”

“I wanted someplace that was just ours.”

Finn turned back to face me, and the visible bulge in the front of his pants stoked the fire inside me back to life. My gaze caught on it for a second before I yanked my attention up to his face, finally absorbing his words.

When I did, my heart stuttered in my chest.

The first time I had seen Finn in the dance studio, he’d been getting a blowjob from another girl. That had been over a year go, and so much had happened since then, but the images still rose in my mind like snapshots preserved time.

Finn’s hand on the wall.

The look of ecstasy on his face.

The corded muscles of his neck.

The tension in his forearm.

The look on his face when he opened his eyes and saw me.

My stomach flipped one way and then the other, and my breath caught in my throat as the blond-haired boy stepped toward me. There was still lingering arousal at the memory, but disgust and anger too. And something else that I hadn’t been able to admit was there before—had been there from the very beginning.

Jealousy.

I didn’t want someone else to be with Finn. I didn’t want anyone else to make him look like that.

Just me.

Only me.

He watched me carefully as he continued forward, slipping into the space between my parted legs when he reached me and splaying his hands over my lower back.

“That room is ours in a lot of ways, Legs. But I don’t want anything to taint this. I don’t want you to imagine even for a second that I’m thinking of anyone but you.”

As he spoke, he dipped his head, brushing his lips over my shoulders. He kissed my unbroken skin and my damaged skin with the same sweet hunger, and I found my body arching into his touch,