Page 18 of All Saints: Pledge

“Fuck, this was a bad idea,” Kendall growls as he rolls his body against mine. Hatred and lust roll off of him, setting fire to my frazzled brain.

When he grinds into me again, I give a whimper. This is a noise I havenevermade in my life. It belongs on a porno. I’m one second away from begging for something—I’m not even sure what it is. I just want the universe to send me more of what I’m experiencing right now.

I drag my eyes up to Kendall’s. He’s watching my face hungrily. His eyes flare to life, burning like the fires of hell itself. “Have you ever done this with anyone else?” He rolls his hips against me, and his hands slide to my rib cage, bracketing me as his thumbs trace circles just under my breasts.

“No.” I gasp the word. I’m surprised I answer at all, or that I can form words.

With a groan, he leans down, his lips graze my neck. I lean my head to the side, unable to deny myself the sensation. It sends bolts of electricity through my entire body.

“What have you done? How far have you gone? Are you a virgin?” The line of questioning seems a bit forward, but I’mhaving a hard time fighting the compulsion to answer everything as he asks it.

“Kissing. Making out. That’s it. Kenny Cho in seventh grade, you in that closet, and this guy Chris from government class. At a dance. He felt me up, but it was awful. Nothing like…nothing like this. Yes, I’m a virgin.” This has gotten graphic in a hurry. I know I should be…fighting back. Arguing. Telling him he has no business asking me these things or….dearGod, sucking on my ear lobe. I groan and rub my body against his, up and down. I need to feel the fabric of his suit scraping my nipples, need sweet friction?—

Holyfuck. What is happening?

“Did you kiss that Dominic guy?”

“Almost.” I pant the word. Every little movement of his suit burns through my nipples and into my center. I want him closer. I want him to grind me against the stone at my back until my brain lights up with stars. The world is my oyster, and I want tofeeleverything Kendall has to offer.

Our movements are more frantic, our breathing erratic. Kendall’s grip on whatever shred of control he has is diminishing. “I shouldn’t be affected like this. I just took a sip but holyfuck, Helena. I have wanted to do this for so long. I havehated youfor making me want this.”

His hands come up and bury none-too-softly in my hair. Instead of crying out in pain, I suck in a breath of pleasure. It’s so muchsensation. Every nerve ending in my scalp is alive. With half-mad eyes, he angles my head back and stares down at me. “I hate that anyone else has kissed you.”

I suck in a breath.Thiscertainly is a change in feelings from four years of being iced out.

“Do you want me, Helena?”

I want to lie. I want to hurt him the way he’s hurt me. I want to tell him that the one kiss we shared in the closet is why all myother kisses have fallen flat. I want to give him anounceof the torment I’ve had, thinking I did something wrong. But I can’t. “I hate you,” I whisper instead. It’s a truth I never intended to say out loud.

His eyes glitter. “But do you want me?”

“Yes.” I’m shocked ashellthat I said it. That I want him. I’ve never even admitted thatto myself. The alarm bell is back, insistent in the back of my mind.

“Good.”

The night surrounds me, pressing in on us. His mouth crashes down on mine.

10

Unlike that time during Seven Minutes In Heaven, where his friends had lied and told him it was Clara in the closet, his lips don’t meet mine in a hesitant brush. They come down on mine like a branding iron.

Like he means to own every inch of me.

His kiss is so rough, I taste blood for a moment before his tongue sweeps into my mouth and I’m lost.

Thisis what I remember. This is what our kiss so quickly morphed into, that night four years ago. When he discovered I wasn’t Clara. That’s all he’d said after he pulled back after a first tentative brush. “You aren’t Clara.” I thought he’d leave the closet, but he didn’t. I’d just said “No,” and he’d kissed me like this. Zero to sixty. A dying man, grasping for a lifeline. I am the oxygen, the freedom, the illicit pleasure.

He kisses me with abandon, like this is the only moment in all of eternity that he’ll get to do this, and it’ssexy as hell. His lips punish mine. Anger. Want. Ownership. Reverence. Hatred.

He pushes me with his mouth and his tongue, insisting on surrender. But there is none. My body fights back as anger floodsmy system. I catch fire and burn for this—anger, hatred, and lust rolling through me. It’s all true. I hate him. I want him.

My arms wrap around his back, pulling him closer. He bites my lower lip, and I feel it like a zip line in my core. Everything is sensation. I’m swimming in a raging ocean without a lifeboat, my only companion a shark that likely means to eat me instead of saving me.

Breath hisses through my lips as his knee slides up between my legs and rocks against me. I balance on his leg, horrified and elated by what the contact of his knee on my clit does. Inevereven truly understood what romance novels meant, but I do now. Apparently, I just need a secluded English garden and a man who hates me.

“We should stop,” He growls into my ear. “I will be insomuch trouble if my father finds out. This belongs to someone else.” But even as he says this, his hands dip to my collarbone. And then lower, dragging his thumbs over my nipples.

“Oh my God,” he groans, as he dips his head to kiss my cleavage. “This. This is why I hate you. You made me want what I cannot have.”

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