“Rae,” he growls into my ear. My body hums for him, impending ecstasy simmering through my veins.
“Yes,” I moan. “You feel so good, Sy.” My voice is thick and breathless and alien even to my own ears.
“You’re mine, Rae,” he breathes, a wrinkle of determination caught between his dark brows. “Always have been,” he adds on a particularly powerful thrust. He pauses, searching my face in the reflection in the mirror.
Before I even realize it I’m nodding my head and murmuring a throaty, “Yes.” At that, Sylas loses control, his pelvis slapping hard against my ass with each plunge he takes. His strong fingers dig into one hipbone just as his other hand reaches around the front of me. His rough fingers stroke my most sensitive spot with a gentleness that belies the brute he is. Ginger but firm ministrations encourage the gathering firestorm in my stomach. Something akin to nearing the top of a roller coaster’s big drop is evoked in me. It’s like the distinct metallic clinking of each move, ascending inch by inch higher and higher still.
Then comes the magnificent drop.
My stomach bends and seems to explode as my breathing halts completely, my lungs ache, my eyes water, my mouth rounds, my cheeks burn as I fall and fall and fall completely apart. My flesh quakes violently. Spasms that reverberate through my bones work Sylas’ remarkable cock, urging him toward his own release. I can’t breathe for the longest moment, my vision dims and then all at once I break the surface of my ecstasy, gasping for precious sips of oxygen. My eyes are glued to our reflection in the mirror. I watch him drive forward several more times, his fingers digging roughly into the flesh of both my hips as though he thinks I could vanish. Then his penetrating molten gaze locks with mine in the mirror and his jaw locks, his breath hisses through his teeth. “Mine,” he growls with such passion that I feel its echo transcend through him and into me as he meets his release, spilling himself into me.
“Don’t you want to return to this? Don’t you want to come home? To me?” he asks hoarsely.
It wouldn’t be the first time—and it won’t be the last—that I wished in vain with every molecule of my being that I could return to Sylas Broussard.
But in vain is precisely what my wish is because nothing, not even Sylas can change the hideous truth and the fact that I could never be his again. We are tainted. Our paths in life are meant to remain on different courses, even if he doesn’t realize it. Even if I wish with all that I am for different.
Raegan
17 years old…
Enough is enough. I can’t handle this weird, vacant space in my life that used to be brimming with Sylas. He’s like dark matter. He’s everywhere and nowhere all at once. He touches and fills up everything, even the bits you can’t see. He’s a tattoo on my skin inscribed in invisible ink. No one else can see it, but I do. I more than see his presence, I feel him there. Every little edge of my life is territory that Sylas has planted a flag showcasing his insignia on.
It’s been a week. I have spent an entire week drowning in all consuming misery, self-doubt and awkwardness at school. Nothing fits. Nothing is right. It’s all turned on its head without him.
The rumor mill is alive and well at Palmetto Grove High School. The first couple of days people at school just kind of cautioned a glance my way, their eyes quietly forming their opinion on why Sylas and I were no longer an item. Once the marinating phase wrapped up the rumors began to swirl like fog along the highway. But one thing was certain. I hadn’t spoken a word of it to anyone and I had to assume Sylas hadn’t either because of all the rumors, none of them held the truth. I’ve tiptoed through school, doing my best to seem focused on my academics and nothing more but the uncomfortable void in my world has gotten the best of me. I have officially had enough.
“Maybe…” I speculate, mumbling to myself as I merge onto the two-lane state highway toward his house. “Maybe… maybe I wait to go to college or something. Maybe I could do online classes that way I can move wherever he is. Maybe we just do this thing long distance. I mean… argh!” I grumble slamming my palm against the leather sheathed steering wheel. My brain is rolling like a numbered ball in a bingo cage and I can’t seem to iron out what the solution is. I know I have to try and I had better do it quick because the drive is little more than a six-minute trip from my house to his. I don’t want to change everything about my life or my plans to accommodate his military aspirations but I could try. Maybe he will never get deployed to some godforsaken war. We could take it a day at a time and see where things land. It was all I had to offer him and maybe he’d slam the door in my face and maybe I deserve it for breaking up with him so brashly but I’ll just go talk to him. I could and would compromise for him—if that’s what he wants—if I am still what he wants.
“Don’t walk, run, run, run on down to Buck Davis Ford Motorplex while inventory is still high and prices are low! Go, go, go!” The obnoxiously loud man screaming through the radio grates on my tattered nerves. While I wait at the light only two blocks from Sy’s house, I jab my finger at the radio on my dash. I cycle through every pre-programmed station finding nothing that doesn’t make me more frustrated so I flick the knob, powering it off all together. I take a deep breath and lean back into my seat.
Get it together, Rae. It’s just Sy. He’s your best friend. You’ve seen him naked for crying out loud! Just going to talk it out. That’s the adult thing to do.
I puff out a lungful of air and focus my attention on the light but my eyes land on a familiar Jeep across the intersection. I gasp seeing him there directly across from me. The moment the surprise dissipates I realize he’s tossed his head back with laughter and so does his passenger. Brooklyn Jones. Apparently whatever she’s said to him has been incredibly funny because I can tell he’s doing the belly laugh thing he does when he’s really laughing hard. It’s this sort of wheezy, breathless sounding chuckle that is impossibly infectious. He has an excellent belly laugh and I hate that she’s privilege to it right at this fucking moment. She’s smiling broadly looking over at him with obvious flirtation, her hand up on his shoulder rises, touching his cheek adoringly. The jealous bitch in me wants to march across the road and rip her right out of my seat and roll her into the intersection. That’s my spot beside him in his Jeep and she’s a manipulative, rotten bitch! The light switches to green and I immediately put on my indicator and turn right, leading away from Sy and all my plans for mending what we’d both screwed up.
Chapter 20
Sylas
The thing people say when you’re really in a predicament comes to mind. “In for a dime, in for a dollar.” I may as well be in for the whole goddamned bank account because… damn it all to hell, Rae still has me wrapped around her perfect little finger.
This clawing anxiety in my chest has me feeling like I’m racing against a clock I can’t see and fighting a concealed enemy dressed in plain clothes. Rae is here, but she’s holding back. I can sense everything she won’t say. It teases at my awareness like a dream I can’t quite recall the details of but I am sure it took place.