Page 223 of Boys Who Taint

“But I killed you—”

She suddenly plants a finger on my lips, silencing me. But as her finger lingers, her eyes hover all across my face, as if she’s taking in every inch of my skin for the very first time.

“You never saw the way I looked at you,” she mutters. “You called me a firefly with brown hair … I dyed it red so you’d notice me.”

My index finger curls around her red hair as I tuck it behind her ear. Her eyes are like stars in the night sky, cascading down rain from above, and I would happily drown in them.

I wish I’d noticed her sooner. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to kiss the girl before our time ran out.

“You were always beautiful,” I say, choking up.

Her finger gently slides down my lip, but the simple touch is like a drug to my body that’s been starving for her for so long that it has forgotten what it was like. And when she slides it down my scorpion tattoo, goose bumps scatter far and wide on my skin.

“You ran away from me so many times before…” I say as my hands slowly snake their way up her back, electrifying my senses.

She places her hands on my chest near my shoulders, our eyes locked onto each other like we’ve never looked at each other before, and it strips me of every inch of my resolve.

“I was scared,” she says. “Scared of what would happen. Scared of ruining our friendship. Scared that you didn’t feel the same way about me.”

The heart I thought was long dead beats faster and faster as I press my palm into her back and close the distance between us, our faces mere inches away from each other. She’s beautiful. So fucking beautiful that it takes my breath away. All I’ve ever wanted, all I’ve ever needed, was her.

“Your family wants me dead, my family wants me as far away as possible from you …”

“Shh,” she whispers, still inching closer.

“But I can’t stand another day without you,” I whisper, sucking in the droplets of rain that fell from her cute button nose, and even the mere taste of something that touched her has me begging. “Please … Aspen …”

Her eyes slowly fall shut. “Kiss me.”

F-fuck.

Without a single regret, I slam my lips on hers, claiming that sweet little mouth as mine, as it should’ve been all along. My Firefly, my Aspen.

MINE.

Finally, she’s mine, all mine.

Mine.

Aspen

He kisses me so deeply,so passionately that I nearly melt into him. Never before has he kissed me like this, not even when I pressed my lips onto his in the forest. It was all a mind game, a tactic to make me hate him forever, and it nearly worked until now.

Because the longer his lips stay on mine, the less I ever want them to let go. And when his tongue probes the rim of my mouth, I let him in, willingly, knowing I’m about to spiral.

But this boy has twisted my heart into knots as badly as his tongue twists around mine. He’s possessive, overpowering, just like I remember from those nights my Ghost stalked into my life, and it plays with my mind. But when his fingers thread through my hair and a moan leaves his mouth, I still wrap my arms around his neck, kissing him even harder.

“Fuck …” he murmurs between kisses.

He’s barely able to pause, and I’m nearly out of breath, but his mouth is ravenous as if he’s pouring all of his pent-up desire for me into this one damning kiss.

And fuck … I would let it kill me.

His tongue is all over me, inside my mouth and out, licking the droplets of rain and water right off my skin as he devours me. And I whimper when he bites down on my neck until he leaves a mark.

“Stop me,” he growls, licking up the droplets of blood that rushed to the surface of my skin. “You have to stop me, Firefly, or I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll be begging to the gods above.”

But his filthy tongue is still all over my neck and clavicles, sucking and kissing like he’s worshipping my skin, and I can’t get enough. “No.”