Page 5 of Ticket to the Stars: Part Two

I’d almost kissed him that morning, just to see what the big deal was.

“It feels like it sometimes,” I whispered. Now that I wasn’t sure what he was staring at—my chin or my mouth, I grew self-conscious, and I found myself running my tongue over my lower lip to wet it.

The way Deacon inhaled sharply when I did made me think he was indeed staring at my lips and not my chin.

“I wanted to,” he admitted, sluggish in lifting his eyes up to mine. “I really wanted to, believe me. Hating you would make everything so much easier, but it’s like you’re impossible to hate, and I… I hate that.”

He was using the word hate a lot, but it didn’t sound bad, what he was saying. It almost sounded like he was admitting to liking me, and that was what he hated. I could live with that.

“I hate that Priest and Bishop are out there fighting over you,” he whispered. He lifted his hands to my wrists, drawing his hands up my arms in a slow, drawn-out gesture that made goosebumps rise on my skin—skin that was now hot for a whole different reason. “I hate that, when they’re trying to make each other jealous, they’re also makingmejealous.”

“Jealous of…” I could hardly get the words out. “Of what?”

“Jealous because I don’t know what your lips feel like,” he murmured. The hands slowly drawing up my arms snaked around my neck, and I gasped when I felt them curling around it. Not hard, but tight enough to feel when I swallowed, tight enough to tell me that Deacon meant every single word. Possessive, firm… dominant.

Was it wrong to be a little turned on by this?

Deacon’s face neared mine as his tall frame bent. He wasn’t as tall as Priest, but he had an inch or two on Bishop, and many more on me. His nose grazed mine, and the nearness of our faces allowed me to feel his hot breath onmy skin. I was frozen, unable to move. How in the world did we end up in this position? I’d only come in here to apologize to him.

“Jealous because I want to know what it’s like to kiss you.” Deacon’s voice took on a low, mesmerizing tone, and my eyelids fluttered shut as a response, my body’s way of reacting to the combination of his voice and the way he currently held onto my neck.

I couldn’t think of anything smart to say. No witty retorts or replies ready on my tongue.

But, as it turned out, it was a good thing I didn’t have anything to say, because I wouldn’t have had the chance to speak, anyway.

Deacon’s mouth lowered to mine, his lips pressing against mine as they ignited a fire deep within my soul. My heart skipped a beat when I realized he was kissing me, and though I’d already melted the moment he’d wrapped his hands around my neck, I found myself melting into him yet again.

Deacon’s kiss was firm and demanding, almost harsh in the way his mouth commanded mine. A little rough, but given everything I knew about him, it’s what I’d come to expect from him.

Okay, so maybe it was a good thing my first kiss wasn’t with him. I wouldn’t have known what to do. Now, now I knew exactly how to kiss him back, to return the eagerness and the desperate hunger back to him.

Oh, God. I was in so much trouble here, with these three. So, so much trouble.

I moaned into the kiss, and Deacon responded by walking me backwards and pushing me against the nearest wall. His body pressed against mine, pinning me in place—as if I’d try to escape. As if there was an escape from this particular throat-grabbing kiss.

Some of his damp hair fell, grazing my cheeks as his mouth became intimately acquainted with mine. Deacon took charge in a way I never expected, and I also could never have guessed how hot I’d find it.

These guys were driving me crazy. One hundred and ten percent crazy. I wasn’t supposed to like any of them like this, and I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to kiss them all. I wasn’t trying to live up to the expectation my sister had set on me by telling me to date all three of them. That wasn’t what I wanted.

Was it?

As Deacon kissed me harder, his hands never left my neck. The way they curled around my throat, so snug and possessive, made wires in me cross. I couldn’t think straight. I never wanted this to stop.

I wanted more, I realized.

I wanted so much more than kissing.

Chapter Three – Deacon

What the fuck was I doing? How did we end up like this? I tried to take a step back and think, to replay the conversation Angel and I had after I’d stepped out of the bathroom and saw her in my room, but my body wouldn’t listen, and neither would my mind. The only thing I could think about was how badly I needed this, needed her, and the only thing I could do was pin her against the wall and ravage those lips until they were bruised.

Priest and Bishop got to kiss her; why shouldn’t I? Why did I have to be the one to hold back when they couldn’t be bothered?

I wanted to hate this girl. I wanted to dislike her from the first moment I saw her, but something about her bigblue eyes told me it would be impossible, that hating her would be a fruitless endeavor, a waste of time.

And it was. The biggest waste of time ever, because this was what we could’ve been doing this whole time.

Fuck, her lips were soft. Soft and supple, lush enough to nibble and suck on. The kind of lips that were easy to get lost in. The kind you never wanted to stop kissing, lips that were so delicious and addicting they led you to crave other things.

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