Page 180 of Vile Boys

Both of us?

Caleb’s Adam’s apple rises and falls. “But Ares always gets what he wants. That is a fact.”

I shake my head. “He hasn’t gotten me.”

“Hasn’t he?”

I swallow, trying to keep my mind from spinning.

“When he plays with you, doesn’t it make your heart throb and your head dizzy?” he says, biting his bottom lip, drawing in his piercing. “When you hate so deeply, doesn’t it make you loathe the very thought of loving someone?”

“Yes, but—” I choke on my own words.

Because I understand what he’s trying to tell me now …

That my own feelings for Ares mirror Caleb’s for me.

Oh God.

I can’t breathe.

“Your mother got in the way. So I did what I did best. Destroy,” he says, his voice gritty, unhinged. “Destroy every happy thought, every good emotion, every inch of your goddamn angelic soul just so I could tell myself I didn’t desire it more than anything. Because how could I possibly desire someone who’s supposed to become my step—”

“Don’t.” I interrupt. “Don’t say that word.”

He leans away from the window, the sunlight casting a beam of light on half his face, like an angel shot an arrow straight fromheaven, and it strips me bare of everything I thought I knew.

“Why?” he asks. “Does the thought scare you as much as it scares me?” His tongue darts out. “After all the filthy, fucked-up, delicious fucking shit we did, does the thought of losing what we have ruin you?”

I swallow down the lump in my throat, wondering if there was ever a world out there where we could’ve been lovers instead.

Still, he turns and steps closer and closer while I back away into the door, leaving no place left to go as he traps me between his arms.

“Deny it all you want, but we can both feel the electric current between us,” he says, inching so close I can almost taste his futile rage. “Can you even resist?”

“I should’ve …” I mutter.

A devilish smirk forms on his face. “You should’ve run when you had the chance.”

“I don’t want to run anymore,” I murmur.

His lips graze mine. “But you make it feel so damn good to chase you.”

When his lips finally connect, it doesn’t even register with me anymore that I’m supposed to hate him, that he’s made me his toy, that he’s tried to destroy my life all for the sake of needing me. Because I can’t resist the way he kisses me with so much raw passion that it takes my breath away.

His mouth encloses mine, his sultry tongue prying open my lips until it twists around mine, and he moans into me, causing goose bumps to spread all over. He pushes me against the door, pressing his hard-on into me while licking the roof of my mouth with that pierced tongue.

And a part of me almost wants to give in. Give in to the moment, fuck all my worries away.

But I don’t want to use him.

I push him off me and look him in the eyes, searching for answers I no longer have.

I thought I understood myself, that I knew exactly what I wanted and needed in this world to survive, but slowly, that steadfast part of me realizes I may have been wrong.

“Kiss me,” he says. “Kiss me, Crystal. Do you even want it as much as I do?”

When I lean in, he leans back, tempting, twisting the narrativeuntil I’m chasing his lips instead, and the smile that cracks on his face makes me want to slap him.

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