Page 144 of The Casualty of Us
“Well, it’s true.” I laugh emptily. “I’m the oddity here, but you…you were made for it.” A harsh breath leaves me, and I immediately suck in another to get to the point. “He slammed into the side of Jack’s car for daring to get in his way of contacting me.” His face falls at that, and my throat tightens up with it, recognizing that it’s finally clicking for him now. “He’s made it very clear that he considers me his, so what do you think he would do to someone that wasactuallya threat to that?”
His brows shoot down sharply before he swallows. “I don’t care.”
Fuck. “Ido.”
“Do you?” His eyes narrow on mine, and it’s like a freaking hit to my chest. “Because there are times I swear you do, and then there are others…” My heart clenches up further with everyword, and even the little knot sitting in front of it gives a shiver as he shakes his head. “I just need to know you feel a fraction of the way I do, just a fraction, because I’m sitting here trying to figure out—”
“I do,” I cut in quickly. “I do, Hayes, I do.” A beat passes, and he drops his arms, leaving me hurrying before he can land one way or another. “There are times when this feels like the most real thing in my life.”
His eyes flare, voice immediately dropping to a rasp. “Freckles—”
“And I care if you end up dead because some psycho can’t get over a crush.”
His lips twitch like he’s holding something in right before he reaches a hand for mine, snagging a couple of my fingers and using them to pull me closer. Waiting until I’ve scooted my ass almost directly in front of him before lifting both of our hands to my cheek and breathing out with quiet reassurance, “I’m not going to die.”
“You don’t know that.” I give him a hard shake of my head. “Youcan’tknow that, just like I didn’t know—”
“Ophelia,” He drops his thumb to right under my chin, stilling me and insisting confidently. “I’m not going to die.”
I frown. “Why do you think that?”
“It just…” He trails off with a small shrug. “Doesn’t feel like the way my story is going to end.”
“It doesn’t feel like it?” I stare at him, repeating it back again to make sure I didn’t mishear. “It doesn’tfeellike it?” An incredulous snort leaves me. “You’re basing your life off of a freaking feel—”
“I’m basing it off of the pangolins.” His dimples flash, a bit of the usual mischief flickering back to life in the hazel that pulls at me hard. “Which is your own logic—”
“And that isat besta loose theoretical concept, not an actual—”
“Ophelia,” His thumb slips up to my bottom lip, voice dropping low as he demands. “Tell me something.” I hold perfectly still as his eyes move between mine a couple of times, sensing the shift. “Are you mine?”
The hazel stills on the blue with the question, and I suck in a sharp breath, holding it and trying to rip some truth of the universe from my own head before giving him the only one I find there. “Yes.”
Following the instinct and hoping that I didn’t just horribly miscalculate here.
“Only mine?” His thumb slides over the skin, something else working its way into the gold flecks to edge out the lingering moodiness there.
“Yes.” Because it’s all I want to see. His gaze lit up all pretty for me.
“Say it again.” And when he dips his thumb into my mouth with the order, I start to get it—that he needs some control here. That maybe he needs something to make him feel like I’m not about to just up and disappear. Be stolen away or go right over the edge without a second thought about him. Toss myself into the river like my namesake.
Just like his mom did to him in a way too.
She would’ve let them both drown in the flames and…
I can understand needing something to cling to when it all starts to close in.
So I bite the tip of his thumb, flicking my tongue against it and loving the way his pupils blow wide before dragging it through my teeth to answer. “I’m yours.”
“Then fuck the rest of it.” He exhales harshly, hand immediately dropping to join the other in reaching for the back of my ass and hauling me up on top of him. Ending withme straddling him as he leans back against the headboard and narrows his eyes at me in warning. “But either you handle Kyler, or I’ll take out a page in theTimesjust to announce it.” My stomach launches itself straight into a full-blown flutter at the blatant possession in his voice, and he squeezes my ass. “Deal with it your way, or I will deal with it mine.” Because apparently I wasn’t fast enough in my response for him, he pushes, “Understood?”
And because I can still feel some of the tension running through his body, I grin and give a little wiggle in his lap. “Yes, sir.”
Immediately being rewarded when that choked noise leaves him, his fingers pressing hard into my skin for a split second before he raises a hand to the front of my hoodie and grabs it. He lifts up and crashes his lips to mine with no hesitancy this time, bringing his thumb up to my chin and pulling it down to grant himself entry. Tongue immediately seeking mine as his other hand presses me down against him, and I gasp at the hardness there.
Stealing the air from his mouth as he slots himself against me and rolls his hips, hitting me just right and setting off about a week’s worth of pent-up frustration on my part. Every little touch and stolen moment not nearly enough all of the sudden.
It has me reaching for the bottom of my hoodie, something like urgency riding me and making me pull back enough to break the kiss before ripping it over my head. Only knowing that I want to feel more of him against me. Skin-to-skin.
