Page 65 of Make Them Cry
“Hi,” I echo, and then a small, savage part of me adds, “You’re an idiot.”
His mouth tilts, wounded and fond. “I know.”
“For the record,” I say, because I need a tether, “part of me always wanted it to be you.”
Something breaks in his face—like a storm passing over water, like sun hitting glass.
“I told you not to trust me,” he says. “I meant it.”
“And I told you to stop deciding for me.” I take his wrist and place his palm flat against my sternum. My heart trips under his hand, unhelpfully obvious. “This is mine. You don’t get to pick who I give it to.”
“River,” he whispers, reverent and wrecked all at once.
“Say it again.”
“River.”
His hand flexes. My breath stutters. The hunger that’s been living under my fear raises its head, sleek and sure. “Kiss me,” I say, and I don’t care if it’s a bad idea, because every other idea hurts.
He hesitates for exactly one heartbeat—long enough to be a gentleman, short enough to be honest—then hemoves.
He doesn’t brush or test. Hetakes—mouth on mine with a relief that feels like oxygen after a blackout, mouth open on a gasp that turns into a growl when I fist both hands in his hoodie and pull. He tastes like mint and heat and the hard edge of restraint snapping.
I open for him and he makes a sound I feel in my knees. His other hand comes up, cupping my jaw like it’s precious, like I’m something he’s been promising himself and finally allowed to touch. He kisses like hunger and apology and an argument he plans to win without speaking.
We stumble backward until my hips hit the table. He lifts me onto it like I weigh nothing, like I’m a problem he intends to solve with both hands. I wrap my legs around his waist and he hisses into my mouth, laugh-broken, like losing control is the first good mistake he’s made in years.
“Tell me to stop,” he says against my lips, the words shivering through the heat.
“I won’t.”
“Tell me anyway,” he insists, forehead pressed to mine, breathing hard, like consent is the only air he wants. “Say it so I know you can.”
“Stop,” I whisper. He freezes, every muscle held. Power hums through my skin.
“Start,” I whisper, and he does. God, he does.
His mouth maps my jaw, my throat, the soft place below my ear he seems to have known before he ever put his mouth there. His stubble scrapes a burn I’ll wear like a secret tomorrow. I tug his hoodie up and his shirt goes with it. Skin meets my palms—hot, smooth over hard—and the noise he makes is helpless and grateful and filthy.
“River,” he says again, like he can’t stop saying it. His hands slide under my hoodie and find my waist, my ribs, the swell of breath I can’t steady. He doesn’t rush. He learns. He listens. He waits for the hitch that sounds like yes and when he hears it he answers with his mouth.
I drag his mask the rest of the way off and toss it somewhere stupid. “I hate this thing.”
“I know,” he laughs, and the laugh gets lost because I bite his lower lip, gentle, and he swears, gentle, and our gentles turn into something less and more.
“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs into my skin.
“You,” I say, too fast to be coy. “Just—you.”
He snakes a hand down my yoga pants, past the waistband of my panties, until he’sthere.Right there. Yes.
“You’re soaked for me. I knew you would be,” Gage whispers.
“You’ve thought about this?” I ask him, eyes wide.
He gazes into my eyes, a pained expression there. “I always think about you, River. I have for years.”
Years?
