Page 107 of Reckless
This kiss feels like making up for lost time. Like every moment our bodies pressed together while our lips kept their distance. Every moment tension twined around us, yet we broke away.
Kissing him on the rooftop was intended to hurt him, to show him the extent of my loathing. Hatred coated the lips that met his, and anger enticed me to do it.
Our kiss in the sewer was initiated by impending death, spurred by panic. It was rushed and impulsive—everything that this moment is not.
This tastes like longing. It is passion parting my lips, desire deepening the kiss.
He takes his time doing exactly what he begged to do—breathe me in. A hand runs down my neck while the other explores the curve of my bare waist. He slows the kiss when my fingers curl into his hair before running over the length of his shoulders, feeling scars flecking his skin.
There is a certain reverence in his kiss, a gentleness in the way he holds my face. I’ve never felt such delicate passion.
Rain is pelting us now, soaking my hair and dripping from my nose. He kisses me harder despite it all, as though remembering how he hadn’t the first time we were caught in the rain, outside the palace. I wrap my legs tighter around him, pulling him close enough to feel his heart hammering against his chest.
I sigh against his mouth when his tongue meets mine. That has him greedily tugging me hard against him with a calloused hand. The kiss grows impatient and demanding and desperate in the way that desire typically is.
His teeth pull at my bottom lip. Not with anger or loathing like I had atop that roof, but with wanting. The action sets my body ablaze, spreading fire through every vein. My mouth moves in time with his, matching every swipe of his tongue, every move of his lips.
His fingers are in my sopping hair, running down my neck—
Thunder claps above us.
Perhaps it intended to cheer us on, but instead, it tears us apart.
I’m breathing heavy, blinking in the streaming rain at him doing the same.
I squint up at the sky crowded with ominous clouds, occasionally broken by a strike of lightening. Loosening my legs from his hips, I clear my throat and force myself to find his eyes. He studies me for a long moment, lifting a hand to wipe a droplet of water from the tip of my nose. “You’re shaking,” he says, barely loud enough for me to hear over the storm.
I swallow. “I’m cold.” His lips twitch at that. My fingers trace the swirling Ilya symbol tattooed on his chest. “Your heart is pounding.”
“That tends to happen when you touch me, yes.”
My eyes flick up to find a dimple peeking out at me. The twitch of his lips tempts me to press my own against them, but I manage to restrain as reality sets in.
Pretend. Distraction. Weakness.
All words to describe what shouldn’t have just happened.
He gently grabs my wrist to guide it behind his neck, doing the same with the other. “What are you doing?” I ask hesitantly.
He steps deeper into the water, turning us in a slow circle. “Youtell me, Little Psychic.” I roll my eyes at him while he flashes a smile.
His next words mirror the ones whispered after placing me atop his feet to dance beside the firelight. “Let me swim for the both of us.”
CHAPTER 39Paedyn
I’m soaked to the bone by the time Kai lifts me onto the edge of the pool.
The rain is falling harder now, stinging my eyes and slapping my skin. Kai pulls himself onto the grass beside me, his hair a damp mess over his forehead. He sprawls out on his back, shutting his eyes against the persistent rain.
When I move to stand, he wraps an arm around my waist to pull me down beside him. I gasp before laughing as I roll my head toward him in the wet grass. Peace pulls at his features, softens his lips into a slight smile.
He looks like relief.
I doubt he’s ever felt so free. There isn’t a soul besides mine and those surrounding us who knows where he is. And there is a certain comfort in being willingly lost, hidden from life itself.
We lie there for a long while, basking in nature’s shower. At some point, his hand finds mine. He loosely interlocks our fingers, an action that is somehow more intimate than our time spent in thepool, as though he’s content to silently exist beside me.
A bright crack of lightning has me sitting up, eyes flying open. I look behind us to the soaking pack sitting in the damp grass and quickly stand to my feet.
