Page 67 of Texts From My Exes
“What happened totalking?” I hissed, shoving at his chest even as his weight pressed me deeper into the couch. “You’re on top of me making empty threats we both know you can’t cash. What is this, Ezra? You get a little taste of your best friend and now nobody else gets a bite?”
His jaw flexed, that dangerous tic I knew too well.
“We covered sharing in kindergarten,” I went on, words tumbling out, sharp and breathless. “You always liked playing fair. So what’s the reason, huh? You say you didn’t know the cameras were in there. And I’m assuming nobody’s watching us now. So tell me—are you just that horny and alone, my littleasexualfriend, or do you actually?—”
He slammed his mouth onto mine, biting my bottom lip so hard I gasped.
“Sometimes,” he growled against my mouth, his breath scorching, his eyes so dark they nearly swallowed me, “I ache to shut you up so bad it hurts worse than the raging erection I get every time you say my name.” I struggled against him. “Besides,”he rasped. “It’s too late now and I’m not leaving until you hear all of me, feel all of me, understand all of me, even if you reject me, publicly shame me and call me names, though let’s draw the line at nerd, still hurts.”
I froze for half a second, lips throbbing where he’d bitten me. Then I laughed, sharp and breathless, because of course I did. It was the totally wrong situation to do it in and I was freaking delirious!
“Oh, wow. That’s poetic, Ezra. Really. Shakespeare could never. You ache to shut me up? You get hard when I say your name? Should I start charging rent for all the times I’ve lived in your head?” I rolled my eyes. “What would it be? The one and only time someone played with your favorite toy?”
His hand fisted in the couch cushion beside my head, knuckles white. He was close enough I could taste the frustration pouring off him, feel the heat of his body pressing mine into the cushions.
“You want me to admit it?” His voice was low, rough, like it scraped up from somewhere he didn’t want me to see. His forehead brushed mine, deliberately, intimately. “Fine. I don’t want to share you. Not with Aaron. Not with anyone. Not even with your damn phone.”
My breath hitched, traitor lungs starving for more.
His eyes searched mine, reading me like the open book I never wanted to be, catching every flicker I couldn’t hide. “You wanted to know the reason? It’s not loneliness. It’s not sex. It’s you. It’s always been you. And I’m done pretending it isn’t.”
The room spun. My pulse jackhammered. My mouth opened, ready to fire off some quip, some wall, some anything?—
But his lips crashed into mine again, silencing me in the only way Ezra knew how.
“Get off me.” I shoved his chest, but it was like shoving a wall and my protest was weak, it was like what I knew I should saywith my mouth when my body was already trying to figure out ways to make my clothes evaporate.
He pinned my wrists above my head with one hand, the other braced by my hip. His mouth hovered over mine, his breath uneven.
“I’m not letting you go.” His voice was a growl, low and intimate, the kind that vibrated all the way down my spine.
“And you don’t want me to,” he went on, steady now, like he was peeling back every excuse I had left. “Because deep down—in the darkest, dirtiest parts of your mind—you want this. You’d take a little angry sex, a little fighting, biting—” He sank his teeth into my shoulder hard enough to make me gasp. “You wouldn’t even flinch if I drew blood. But you’d never say it out loud. Because what would people think?”
My chest heaved. My body betrayed me, arching toward him.
“But guess what?” His lips brushed my ear. “I’m your best friend. I know you. I know how your body’s panting for mine right now, how your heart’s rattling against your chest. I don’t kiss and tell, Harper. I don’t need to. Because I already know the darkest parts of you. And before this night is over, I’ll make every single one of them come true so hard you won’t walk straight for a week.”
He pulled back just enough for our eyes to lock, his mouth curved in a dangerous smile. “Now…are you going to play nice, or do I need to grab some rope?”
My breath hitched, a whimper clawing up my throat, one I bit down on before it escaped.
“Ezra—”
His mouth crashed onto mine, devouring, furious, desperate. My legs wrapped around his hips without permission, my nails dragging down his back. Every shove turned into a clutch, every protest drowned in a kiss that felt like it would incinerate the world around us.
And then—he stopped. Just like that. His forehead pressed against mine, breath ragged, eyes shut tight.
“God help me,” he whispered. “You undo me.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
EZRA
I didn’t call back because I used my one call for my attorney! It wasn’t because I was avoiding you! I was in jail! Call me, or at least let me say we were together October 7th at 6:05 am. I need an alibi.
—Trevor, who was eventually convicted of grand theft auto.
