Page 18 of Bullied Pretend Mate
When she swallows, I track the movement.
“Right,” she says, unable to meet my eye. “We’ll need to make marks. Neck only, and make sure they’re visible. We have to be careful to make sure they can fade.”
“Of course,” I say, though that’s not what I want to happen at all. “So, do you want to go first?”
Her eyes snap to mine for the first time, and it’s hard for me to keep my eyes from dropping to her chest, which is rising and falling rapidly. She’s wearing a little pink dress that I want to slip up and over her head, and now that she’s let her hair down around her shoulders, I can’t shake the thought of tangling my fingers up in it, tugging her head back, kissing her.
Just like I did that day in the alcove all those years ago. The first and only time I ever got to kiss her.
What I wouldn’t give to get just one more chance.
I remember this obsession from high school, but back then, it made me angry. Felt like something to run from, to hate about myself. My parents were pretty clear about me making the right kind of friends, and the first time I talked to Maeve in front of the other guys, they’d snickered, asking me if I had a “big girl” kink.
It was never an outright statement that they didn’t like her, but I got the message all the same. If I wanted to be in with the right group, stay friends with the future alpha supreme and a Cambias, I needed to put some distance between myself and Maeve.
During the ten years she was gone, I thought about her. Thought about that kiss. But it was nothing like this. It’s almost like Maeve’s scent, and having her near is reminding my body of what it’s like to yearn for her.
“Go first?” she asks, blinking. “You want to do it…right now?”
I shrug one shoulder. “Why not? When else are we going to do it? We’re already here.”
It’s taking everything in me to stay casual about this. To not be obvious about the fact that my hands are itching to touch her body, that my wolf is pushing up against the boundaries between the two of us.
Like a constant shove at my back that I have to fight against. Like we’re two magnets, and I have to set my feet to keep from automatically pulling in Maeve’s direction.
It occurs to me somewhere in the back of my mind that maybe Maeve is the reason other women haven’t been all that interesting to me. Sure, I’ve hooked up here and there, but it always left me feeling a bit hollow, aching for more.
And, in fact, I haven’t followed through on a single fling in more than a year.
“Okay,” she says, looking around. “I—I don’t have any bandages or anything—”
“Perks of the job,” I say, gesturing to my kit, which has a full first-aid set. I reach into the back, drawing it out and setting out the bandages and dressings.
“Perfect,” she says, but the word comes out dry.
“We don’t have to—”
“No,” she says, and I notice her hands are shaking. “I want to. But you should go first.”
Maybe it’s because she’s nervous, or because she’s not sure what she’s doing, but I don’t need to be told twice. I step forward, taking her head in my hands gently and tilting it, looking over her skin before I start to lower my mouth to her neck.
Chapter 9 - Maeve
This is happening
This is really happening.
All those nights I spent as a teenager, kicking my feet in bed, daydreaming about what it would be like to be with Felix Rana. I’d imagine him stalking into school, looking at me withthoseeyes, the ones he sometimes leveled at me, which were such a potent mix of hate and wanting, they took my breath away.
But in my daydreams, the same dark eyes held none of the disdain.
And he’d walk right through the cafeteria, come straight to my table, take my hand, and draw me to my feet. He’d pull me in close to him, put his hand on the small of my back, and kiss me in front of everyone there.
He’d lay a claim to me.
Felix would prove to the entire school that I wasn’t nothing, that I wasn’t a loser. That someone could love me, even with the way my body was different from theirs. Even though most of the skinny girls in that cafeteria had one worst nightmare—and that was to someday look like me.
Now, my heart beats in my throat as Felix lowers his mouth to my neck, his hot breath fanning out over my skin and sending a wave of chills cascading down my back and arms. It feels like the entire world tightens to a pinprick, just this moment right here, the two of us standing less than a foot apart.
