Him.
My hand slides to his throat and wraps around his chiseled jaw, my fingers digging into his smooth skin. Brandon’s eyes widen to a dark, hypnotizing blue, and he rewards me with another noise, low and fucking needy.
I slam my lips to his, devouring that sound and swallowing it deep inside me.
Fuck.
Fuck me.
Fucking fucker of all motherfucking fucks.
He tastes like sweet surrender, all wound up and ripe for the taking.
I can’t believe I didn’t do this sooner. I think I’ve found my new favorite drug in the form of his lips. I suck the lower one into my mouth, biting down on the cushion so he feels the pain as deep as I do.
Bran shakes against me, his fingers fisting in my shirt, and I’m not sure if he’s pulling me closer or pushing me away.
I don’t give a fuck.
Tonight, I’m taking what I should’ve stolen that night I met him at the initiation.
Whether his delusional brain likes it or not.
10
BRANDON
I’ve always prided myself on being in control.
Everything has gone according to a plan, a schedule and an end goal. Spontaneity and I fell out of each other’s favor years ago and I never reconciled that relationship.
And I was okay with it.
I am okay with it.
Losing control once threw my life in a loop of chaos and fucking destruction and I can’t do chaos.
Chaos is the source of all evil.
Chaos would push me over the edge I’ve been walking for as long as I can remember.
And yet, right now, I can hear the cracks in my wall. While small, their deafening sound resounds in my foggy head, and I watch with complete bewilderment as the control I’ve nursed for years collapses all around me.
Crashing, splintering, and leaving a Nikolai-shaped hole in the outer walls of my carefully curated self-preservation.
I’m trapped, ensnared, and being held captive. I can’t feel even a smidge of my autonomy or the logical thoughts that I usually wear like a badge.
There’s something else I do feel, though.
Or someone.
His bruising grip on my jaw keeps me in place as he strokes my lips with his, harsh and unforgiving.
Demanding.
He bites down on my lower lip, stretching the skin until pain explodes in the nerve endings, and my heart thumps, pushing and shoving itself against my rib cage.
I must be so hammered, because when he stabs his tongue against my lips, I don’t try to resist or force my mouth shut.
The scary thought is that I want to open.
My blood buzzes for it, my unorganized thoughts tune in for the mere possibility of it.
A feeling I’ve never experienced in my life.
The moment I part my lips hesitantly, Nikolai goes feral. His tongue swirls around mine, warring, plunging, and stripping me of the last smidge of control I have left.
A groan echoes in the air and I realize with depleted horror that it’s mine.
His fingers dig into my jaw and he growls deep in my mouth, causing me to shudder.
He tastes of lawless violence and forbidden temptation.
He tastes like my custom-made damnation.
My fingers glide up and I swear I mean to shove him away. Put him back in his place. Shout ‘How dare you touch me?’
But my hand wraps around his nape and I free fall headfirst into dangerous chaos, completely in the dark about what waits for me at the bottom.
My tongue curls around his and I fight him for control. For the sanity that he’s been stripping from me one layer at a time.
His hand drops from my collar and he slides it to my side, feeling and exploring my chest and back, and I can’t help the hiss that escapes when he bites down on my tongue.
It’s like being kissed by a savage—a vicious barbarian whose sole purpose is to drag out the worst in me.
My eyes flutter open and that’s when I realize I’ve had them closed since his lips claimed mine.
I blink up at him, watching his own closed eyes and feeling that pit grow at the bottom of my stomach.
Fuck.
Fuck me.
I’m not sober enough to resist, and, hell, I don’t think I’m only drunk on the alcohol. My nostrils flare and I inhale sharply, filling my lungs with his mint scent. It mixes and swirls with the taste of alcohol, cigarettes, and something else that’s entirely him.
Masculine and strange…
I want to think it’s bad strange, but I’m far from being revolted. If anything, I’ve never felt trapped in a pleasure haze like I am right now.
He slides his tongue out of my mouth and bites the corner of my lip, then whispers in hot, growly words, “Who’s a better kisser, baby? Clara or me?”