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This feral, carnal, predator of a boy who fights as good as he dances, who is as kind as he is cruel, who mystifies me and keeps me constantly knocked off balance.
“You’re in a shell, even if you don’t want to admit it.”
His voice is a rough whisper, those beguiling eyes of his trapping mine.
“So what do you want to do about it in the next six weeks?”
The buzzing is stronger now, like I’m a live wire that’s fallen and is popping and cracking on the ground. It doesn’t help that his energy adds to it, a wild, untamable violence that dares me to do what I want for once.
I want to be wild and untamable like him, if only for six weeks.
“Just fun?” I ask, somehow managing to speak around the knot in my throat.
“Whatever kind you want.”
Our mouths are a teasing inch apart, breath soft and mingling.
Closing my eyes, I feel him all around me, this kinetic, extravagant force that steals my ability to think.
What do I want?
Him?
Them?
All of it and nothing at all?
Six weeks to pretend that I’m not trapped.
Six weeks to take for myself all the parts of my life I don’t want to give to Mason.
I open my eyes and become lost in an amber stare that will always represent chaos and freedom.
“Nobody will know?” I whisper.
The tip of his tongue drags across the crease of his lips, and I watch that movement before locking my gaze with his again.
“Nobody will talk about it,” he answers, his voice barely disrupting the silence of my indecision. “I’ll make sure of that.”
I think that’s good enough for me.
Damn it.
Every girl gets to be crazy at one point in her life, right?
Reaching forward with shaky hands, I grab the sides of his jacket and shove it off his shoulders. The material slips down Ezra’s arms as his eyes hold mine, his body moving slowly to help me strip the jacket away entirely.
I have no idea what I’m doing, but I know if I think too much, I’ll convince myself to stop. Which is why I don’t think. I just keep going.
Ezra watches me while I struggle to unbutton his shirt with fumbling fingers, an enigmatic stare that doesn’t rush me along or attempt to guide my decision.
He’s letting me call the shots, and I think that if he didn’t remain still, I’d stop, only because I’m so skittish right now.
Working my way down, I tug the hem of his shirt out from where it’s tucked and finish unbuttoning it.
There’s another quick second of hesitancy before I thinkfuck itand press my palms against the heat of his chest to shove the shirt from his shoulders as well.
Once he wriggles the shirt away entirely to let it fall to the floor, I pause to see the extent of damage to his body.