Page 68 of Texts From My Exes
She thought I lied.
She thought I’d sold her out like every other asshole in her life.
But right now? I didn’t give a damn about contracts or cameras or any of it.
Because she was under me.
Because her lips were swollen from my kiss, her eyes blazing fire and fury and something darker I’d been craving for years.
Because I knew—knew—she wanted me just as much as I wanted her.
I wasn’t letting her go. Not tonight. Not ever.
Her chest rose hard against mine, defiant, daring me to back off. She didn’t understand—I couldn’t.
I hadn’t meant to kiss her in the classroom.
But here, now? With her teeth catching on my lip, her hands trembling between shoving and clinging?
Yeah. I meant every damn second of this.
Not then, that wasn’t planned at least, not like that.
But when she’d walked in and seen what I’d done—all the stupid little things no one else would ever notice, the neon sign, the neat rows of desks, the way I tried to make her chaos feel like order—her eyes had filled with tears. And I was gone.
I’d pulled her close and thought,later. Later I’d tell her she was mine. Later I’d tell her that every bad decision, every fake date, every sleepless night had led to this—to her.
Because right then, she needed to believe she wasn’t alone. She needed to feel safe, wanted, chosen.
So I kissed her.
And God help me, it nearly killed me not to say everything I’d been choking on for years. That she’d been it for me since the beginning. That no other girl mattered. That the line she thought we’d drawn in the sand had been washed away the second I laid eyes on her again.
But I held it back. Because it wasn’t the time.
Later, I promised myself. Later, when I could give her more than a kiss in the dark. Later, when I could rip out my heart and place it in her hands without cameras or contracts or anyone else watching.
Later.
Now, lying here with her pinned beneath me, lips swollen from my mouth, fire blazing in her eyes—I knew later was slipping through my fingers. And if I didn’t fight for her, if I didn’t stake my claim right now…
Someone else would.
And that, I couldn’t live with.
I pressed my mouth to her neck, lips brushing skin so hot it nearly burned me.
Her body talked louder than her mouth ever could.
The way her pulse hammered at her throat? I couldseeit, beating faster the closer I pressed.
The way her breath stuttered when my weight shifted? She wanted me heavier. She always did.
The way her hands trembled, caught between pushing me away and fisting in my shirt? She didn’t even realize she was pulling me closer.
I’d spent years learning Harper like a language no one else could speak. I knew the difference between her angry glare and her angry-but-about-to-give-in glare. I knew that the tilt of her chin meant challenge, but the catch of her lip meant surrender was a heartbeat away.
And God, the sounds. She didn’t even hear them, but I did—the little gasp when my thumb traced her jaw, the low whimper she tried to bury in her throat. She thought she was unreadable. She thought she could bluff.
