RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,80
a toy. I have no expectations of you. How can I when you’re constantly surprising me and throwing me off my fucking guard. If you let me—”
Panic flares in her eyes. She’s staring at my mouth again, complete terror radiating off her in waves. “Wren—”
“If you let me,” I repeat. “I’ll surprise you too. Just you wait and see.”
She closes her eyes, a single tear streaking down her cheek. Out of nowhere, it’s as though she’s coming apart in my hands. “Please. Please. Please,” she whispers.
Numbed all the way down to my bones, I let go of her, a bitter, acrid taste spreading across my tongue. I wasn’t trying to scare her. I wasn’t trying to break her. I—for fuck’s sake—I lean away, ready to do something monumental that I haven’t done in years—apologize—when she shakes her head and hurls herself forward, throwing herself at my chest. “Please,” she repeats. This time it sounds like she’s begging me to do something rather than to get the hell away from her. The desperation on her face makes my blood roar inside my head, clouding my vision and making my pulse soar.
“All right. Okay. I’ve got you.” She’s in my arms, then. I crush her to me so hard that even I can’t breathe. My lips meet hers, and the kiss is nothing like it was supposed to be. Yeah, I’ve planned this. With the same meticulous attention to detail I put into all of my actions. I was supposed to tease her, my mouth hovering over hers, my tongue skating over her swollen lower lips, my hands in her hair, making her breath come quick until she was frantic and couldn’t stand for there to be any space between us a second more. There’s no patience to this kiss, though. No teasing to be had by me or by her. Only need, and want, and a form of panic that kindles in us both and spreads like wildfire. How easily this could all end in disaster. How quickly I could lose myself, and how effortlessly I could break her.
I feel it in her, as she must feel it in me.
We’re both so afraid of the ending before we’ve even truly arrived at the beginning, but there’s nothing either of us can do to stop this thing now. It’s gained too much fucking steam, and neither of us know where the brakes are.
Elodie’s heart is racing; I can feel her pulse slamming up against my chest, and she’s so alive and vital and fucking real that I can’t actually believe that this is happening. She kisses me back, her hands reaching up and winding into my hair, and my blood turns to nitroglycerin in my veins. One small spark is all it will take and I’ll go up like a motherfucking H-bomb. She pulls back, nothing more than a split second to suck in a desperate breath, and my world splinters apart.
I was supposed to be puppeting this charade. There was an order in which this was all supposed to go, and at no point was I supposed to lose my goddamn mind.
When was the last time I felt something like this?
When have I ever felt something like this?
Elodie makes a soft, whimpering sound as she brings her lips back up to meet mine, her fingers grasping tightly onto a thick tangle of my hair, and everything stills and blurs.
She tastes like sunlight and honey.
She smells like the last time I can remember being fucking happy.
In my arms, her small frame feels like the most important, valuable thing I’ve ever held.
Ripping my mouth away, I duck down, kissing the column of her throat, burying myself in the crook of her neck, and she begins to shake so violently that I have to press my forehead against her cheek in order to stop myself from going further.
“Wren. Wren. Oh my god…” She pants my name, breathless, still arching her back and pressing herself up against me in a way that makes it very hard to think straight. “What the fuck are we doing? What is this?” she moans.
“I don’t know. I thought I did, but…” I shake my head, placing my hands so carefully on her hips that I can barely feel the material of her jeans against my palms. I pull back, putting some space between us.
We stare at each other, neither of us shifting an inch as we try to figure out what the fuck just happened.