choking me beneath his close proximity, my thoughts trapped by memory, my lungs grasping at the air they needed to breathe.
Yet, all I understood was him.
In that moment, Callan and I were the same, two people trapped by a bitter past, two members of a family that drove us together before tearing us apart. And within it all were secrets that I couldn’t tell him, fears that I wouldn’t admit, questions that I wondered if ever could be answered.
None of that mattered.
Not then.
Not when his mouth brushed mine in a tease of his taste and tongue.
Not when his amber eyes blazed golden with the hatred we both felt.
Not when they crackled with the spark that had always drawn us together.
We punished each other just the same.
We watched each other without understanding why.
And even when I forced him to his knees and he forced me to mine, we somehow knew each other better than any person had known us in our lives.
We were both abandoned and abused, but in ways that made us enemies instead of lovers.
And now, in this moment, in this tiny amount of space within a universe that was far too large, we both gave in to a desire that was awful and wrong.
Awful because of the way we treated each other. Wrong because it didn’t matter. The body wants what it wants.
We fought each other while we touched. We released our burdens. We forgot the torment of the past and welcomed the torment of the present.
Manipulate him, Gretchen had said.
Obey him, his friend had demanded.
And while I told myself I was playing this game to earn his trust, that lie flew out the window when his mouth found mine and his taste flooded every part of me. That lie caught flame and burned to ash when his finger drove inside my body, and I felt for the first time the truth of his strength, the force of his desire, the temptation that had always existed between us because it was all too simple really.
When you can’t love, you hate. When you can’t have, you want. And when the truth is too painful to admit, you lie - just like we always had done.
We were the fine line between the two. We were darkness and light. Give and take. Opponents who only knew how to hurt each other because we were too afraid to stop for just one moment to admit that our lives were intertwined, but not in the way we wanted.
I hurt him when he wouldn’t fight back.
He hurt me to find revenge.
But this moment was the first time we felt right, like this is what we should have been all along.
I found forgiveness in the heat of his kiss, absolution in the brusqueness of his touch. I understood my hunger when I tasted his for the first time.
And it was violent.
So deliciously violent, his hands taking possession of me with such sensual cruelty that the air rushed from my lungs as his mouth released mine and his teeth ran down my neck to bite.
His hips drove my legs wider, his one finger becoming three, each thrust of his hand causing his forearm to flex, his thumb catching me in the one sacred place that he rubbed without concern for the things it would do to me.
My head fell back as his mouth explored my neck, a growl erupting from his chest when his path was blocked by the collar of my dress.
Two gritty words burst from his throat, and it was everything I was thinking when he had to stop. “Fucking hell...”
Callan pulled his hand from between my legs to run it up my back, the zipper in my dress torn apart with one hard tug, the fabric dragging down my body until he yanked it from my arms to pool around my waist. The dress never stood a chance, much like my bra that he ripped away without worry if I had another.
I should have cared, but I didn’t, not when his mouth closed over the tip of my breast and he sucked it in to bite.
A cry of pain burst from my lips, but it only made him chuckle, that dark sound left in place when his hands gripped my hips and he lifted me from the counter.
Back slamming against a wall, I was pinned by his body as he tore away the rest of my clothes, the fabric of his jeans rubbing between my legs with such frustrating friction that I let