Page 41 of Rage

I stopped in my tracks, shame drowning me all of a sudden. Here I was, grappling in the arms of a stranger, someone who’d broken into my house, someone who had disarmed me like it was nothing, and I was getting hot and bothered and enjoying the way he moaned when I rubbed my ass on him like some kind of cat in heat.

What the hell was wrong with me?

“P-please,” I begged, feeling tears burn the corners of my eyes. “Please just let me go.”

He spun me around so fast it left me reeling to catch up. I was still in his arms, but now, both of them were wrapped around me, less tight than before, a look of concern on his face.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Those eyes had me spilling my secrets like I was thirteen and he was my diary.Damn him.“No.”

His brows furrowed. “You don’t have to be scared.”

I almost stuck my nose in the air in offense. “I’mnot.”

“Good,” he said, that smile eating up his face again as he lifted me from the floor and set me on the top of my dresser, putting him at eye level with my tits. “Because I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time.”

His hands reached up and cradled my face, dragging me down to him with a groan. At first, I stayed entirely still, waiting for him to let me go, but as my brain remembered what it was like to be kissed by Arkady Accetta, I realized with a start that Iknew this man before me, really knew him, and everything up to now had been nothing but a carefully-crafted lie. One I’d played right into, allowed myself to be gaslit into, just like all those stupid girls I’d been so afraid of becoming in college.

My lips parted against his, and I whispered a plea. For the first time in a long time, the world felt right.He said nothing, his tongue slipping between my teeth to tease mine, setting me a-fucking-flame. The world stopped for a moment in time, and I forgot about everything outside of this kiss, the way he felt so familiar yet so foreign, my heart constricting as I realized I’d lied to myself, buried the truth I knew to be real, for the last?—

“As much as I’d like to continue kissing you, Tara,” he muttered as he kissed his way down the side of my jaw. His hands were on my hips now, holding me steady as he worked his way to my collarbone. “We don’t have the time.”

As my head rolled back, my eyes drifting closed as his lips brushed against the hollow of the base of my throat, I moaned, a hand reaching out to tangle in his hair, holding his head against me, refusing to let this dream, this fantasy, end so soon.

“Please,” I begged, not even sure about my own name anymore. “Please, don’t?—”

“Don’t what?” he groaned, his left hand moving around to slide down the outside of my thigh. “You make stopping really hard, you know that?”

I peeked an eye open, glancing at the clock on the wall. “He wo–fuck,he won’t be back for another hour at least.”

“I won’t need an hour,” he snarled, his voice muffled against my skin. “I only needed ten seconds to make you see me. Another ten, and I’ll have you seeing stars.”

Promises, promises.I hadn’t had an orgasm caused by a man in years. I doubted the newly-resurfaced ghost of my past would have better luck?—

“Oh!”

His fingers slid up through the mid-thigh hole in the front of my jeans and zinged straight for the source, grazing the fabric of my panties as I arched into his touch and damn near came off the bureau in shock.

His eyes flared with surprise and feral heat, that cocky smile creeping back across his face. “You’re so wet already. Tell me something, Tara—when was the last time you didn’t have to giveyourselfan orgasm?”

I blinked, trying desperately to think back and finding nothing but disappointment in my past. Had there truly not been once when a man had made me come? Had Arkady never?—

His fingers shoved themselves around my panties and delved into my dripping cunt, the sound of tearing denim accompanying my mewls of pleasure and his groan of anticipation like a beautiful, forbidden melody.

“I—I don’t know,” I admitted, grinding against him like a whore. “Fuck, I—never,” I finally admitted, whining as he tugged his fingers out of me, desperate for him to touch me again.

I knew it was wrong. I’d been in a monogamous relationship with Arkady since?—

Well, technically, I hadn’t been. I’d been in a relationship with someonepretendingto be Arkady. Was it really cheating if the man I was cheatingwithwas the one I thought I was cheatingon?

“Who is he?” I asked as he tugged my legs around his waist, his fingers trailing back up my body and down each arm like the wind’s caress on a summer day.

“My twin, Antony,” he admitted, putting my arms around his neck. “Hold on, bookworm.”

In a flash, he picked me up from the dresser and carried me over to the bed, where we fell in a tangled heap of limbs. My legs still wrapped around him, his arms bracketing me on either side of my head. This was my dream come true—falling into bed withthe inescapable, enticing, sexy-as-sin coed I’d lusted after my whole college career.

“Oh my god,” I whispered, wholly mortified and utterly devastated in the same breath.

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