Page 39 of Wild Obsession

“Yeah, it did. I had some stuff to deal with.”

“I’m so glad your therapy sessions worked out, but I don’t really care about your journey of self-acceptance or whatever this is.”

I try to jerk my arm free, but he tightens his grasp, his strength sending an unwelcome thrill through my chest like an electric shock.

“No,” he says. “You aren’t going to run away this time.”

“Please don’t tell me this is some teary confession. I thought we already did this part. It didn’t go well, remember?”

“I remember,” he says, his voice coming out like it scratched over sand paper along the way. “I’m not here for that.”

“Then I’m afraid we’re right back at the beginning,Freckles: What thehelldo you want?”

His eyes flicker with uncertainty, but a second later I’m sure I must have been seeing things because Tim smashes his mouth against mine, still gripping my arm, holding me in place so I can’t slip away. His lips pin me to the wall at my back, our positions so spectacularly reversed that I don’t even think to close my eyes as the kiss barrels into me.

He draws away after only a moment, gasping, but not letting go.

Shit, that was one hell of a kiss. I’m almost grateful for the hand on my arm. Otherwise I might stumble like a drunk from that.

I shake myself, trying to seem less off-balance than I am. Unfortunately, my body knows that mouth, that heat. It knows desire when it arrives on a silver platter. Usually, this would be the part where I drag him away to have some fun, but usually, “him” would be anyone but Tim. This is way more complicated than I like dealing with, way too tangled and confusing and bound up in things I don’t want to think about. Is he actually acting on desire or is this some weird lashing out thing?

“I told you,” I say, breathier than I’d like, “I can’t be your damn boyfriend. I don’t feel that way about you.”

“I’m not asking you to be my boyfriend.”

I don’t believe that. Not for a second. Tim is too soft inside, like a bonbon with a liquid center. One bite and you crack him right open, and I’ve had more than a bite.

“I can’t be anything good for you,” I say.

“Then don’t,” he says. “Be something bad for me.”

He goes to kiss me again, but this time I get my hands on his chest and stop him. “You’re being an idiot. You know I’ll only hurt you.”

“How about you let me decide how much I’m willing to get hurt, huh?”

He pushes again, and this time I let him. He scorches my mouth with another kiss, sucking on my bottom lip. When he tilts his head, I follow, letting him deepen the kiss into something almost too lascivious for the hallway. If someone were to walk up on us, they’d see a lot more than a sweet little peck on the mouth, but Christ, I can’t bring myself to stop it. I find myself clinging to Tim’s shirt instead, pulling him harder against me. He lets go of my arm at last, but there’s no real risk I’m running at this point. He wants to break himself against me? Fine. I can be his experiment, his mistake. That’s what I was for him in high school, after all, so why shouldn’t we pick right back up where we (disastrously) left off?

I’m going straight to hell for this, aren’t I?

Tim licks into my mouth, and I shiver, my defenses crumbling before his unleashed hunger. He’s always followed my lead in this, letting me push him around and take what I want, but tonight his hands paw at my waist, searching for the hem of my shirt so he can get under it. The second he reaches bare skin, weboth shudder, heat billowing between us. He doesn’t stop there. His hands roam greedily, feeling around me, rising upward, threatening the waist of my pants.

Somehow, I manage to push him away. Not far, just far enough that I can read the heat in his eyes and see the way his lips blush from that bruising, furious kiss. His hands linger on my body, holding my waist, and mine stay fisted in his shirt. I don’t know if I’m holding him close or holding myself steady.

“Fuck, Virgin, I’m going to ruin you,” I rasp.

Tim shivers in my hold, but he doesn’t back down.

“Then ruin me.”

Chapter Nineteen

Tim

A SWITCH FLIPS. KEANNEN shoves me away, then snatches my shirt to drag me stumbling after him toward the bathrooms across the hall. He doesn’t pause to check if there’s anyone inside. He slams the door open and drags us in regardless.

Before I have time to see more than a glimpse of linoleum and urinals, he’s on me.

My back hits cool tile as Keannen kisses me so hard our teeth clack. It’s not a great start to a kiss, but neither of us care. We don’t care that this is messy, that it’s ugly, that it’s definitely a horrible idea. Something in that hallway set us in motion like springs stretched to their limits and finally released. The frantic, wild energy has us bouncing into the walls of the bathroom, stumbling as we clutch at each other.I don’t know who’s in charge anymore. For a second, out in the hall, it almost felt like I was, but then Keannen pulled me in here and everything dissolved into chaos.

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