Dead Pretty - Samantha Towle Page 0,44

shoulder, revealed from my off-the-shoulder sweater.

One of his fingers hooks on the straps of my tank and bra, curling around, tugging me even closer.

My breasts crush up against his hard chest.

Then, our mouths go at it again. Fusing together.

The kiss goes from zero to sixty in less than a second.

My hands fumble for his jeans.

Jack grabs my hands, stopping me, pinning them and me back up against the door.

He kisses my neck, his tongue sliding down along my collarbone, leaving a hot trail of desire in its wake.

He releases my hands and takes hold of my braid. Winding it around his hand, he tugs me to his mouth, kissing me briefly but firmly.

Then, he pulls the tie from the end of my hair. His fingers make quick work of freeing it.

My eyes drift shut at the feel of his hands as they move over my head, my hair loose and flowing over my shoulders.

He fingers a lock of it. “This is the first time I’ve seen your hair down.” His voice is thick, laced with desire and some other unnamed emotion. “So fucking beautiful,” he rasps softly.

I can tell that he means what he says.

I know that even if nothing sexual happened with Jack and me tonight—well, aside from the fact that I might cry with frustration—I would know that he meant what he said in this moment.

And it causes an ache in my chest.

Because he hasn’t seen me.

Not all of me.

He doesn’t know the real me.

And if he did, he wouldn’t think that I was beautiful anymore.

I have scars.

Ugly scars that I can never get rid of.

On my skin.

And inside of my soul.

I’m damaged.

Physically and mentally.

I am not beautiful. But right now, I so desperately want to be. For him more than myself.

But I’ve seen the worst side of life, and I can never come back from that.

There is no happy ending for me.

But maybe I can have just this one moment with Jack.

This single moment of peace.

Where my mind is full of only him and the way he makes me feel.

Jack pulls my sweater over my head, leaving me in my tank.

He kisses me again, wrapping his arms around my waist, bringing my body back to his.

My hips are restless, shifting. I need to feel him against me. Inside me.

His hand moves lower to my ass. Grabbing hold, he yanks me against his erection, giving me the contact I so urgently need.

I hear a hot gasp and realize it came from me.

Jack sucks on my tongue, and I am putty in his hands.

He circles his hips against mine, and I moan into his mouth. My fingers slide into his hair, gripping the strands.

I’m stuck between a solid door and a rock-hard body, and there is nowhere else I want to be right now than here.

My hands roam, needing skin. I grapple with his sweater, tugging it up.

Jack gets the message, letting me go so he can pull it over his head in that sexy way that he does.

I admire him in the muted light. The hard lines of his chest. His hard-earned abs. The strip of dark hair that follows the sculpted V down into his jeans.

I reach for his jeans, wanting them off. I tug open the button. Dragging the zipper down, I slide my hand inside, desperate to touch him.

The part of him that I need inside me more than I need my next breath.

My fingers slide into the waistband of his underwear, seeking.

When my fingertips make contact with the head of his cock, Jack hisses a breath in between his teeth.

My fingers graze down the soft skin of his rock-hard shaft before curling around his cock and giving it a squeeze.

“Fuck,” Jack curses.

His hand grabs the back of my head, bringing me back to his mouth, and he kisses the hell out of me.

I start jacking him off, loving the low groans he makes into my mouth.

The kiss moves from hot to frantic in seconds.

His hands find my breasts, cupping them over my tank and bra beneath it.

My nipples pebble against the drag of the fabric of my bra as he runs his thumb over one of them.

The back of my head hits the wall. A sigh of pleasure escaping me.

“You like that?” His low voice makes me hot in all the right places.

“Yes,” I whisper.

The next thing I know, his hands take hold of the hem of my tank top, trying to lift it up, and that is when everything goes to hell in