Page 59 of Boys Who Taint (Spine Ridge University #5)

Aspen

The time to fall is endless when you’re plummeting to your death.

Still, I hold on tight, coiling my fingers together behind his muscular back as we fall and fall into the abyss down below.

If I die today, I don’t regret my choice. I made it knowing full well I could lose my life. But when he spread his arms and leaned backward, I knew I couldn’t let him go alone.

I close my eyes and hold on tight, listening to his heartbeat for the final time.

A heartbeat I once used to hear so often I forgot what it sounded like.

Euphoria straight into the brain right before death takes over.

But our plunge doesn’t come with a giant crack of the bones, doesn’t split open my skull at the bottom of the rocks.

The cold hits my lungs first, and I gasp and suck in a bucket of water, heaving to get it all out again when I finally come up for air. We’re in the water, sloshing with the waves, right next to the rocks.

I’m … I’m alive.

And my hands are still firmly wrapped around his body.

We’re alive.

He’s right here, in my arms, looking at me like he’s seeing the same ghost that haunted me all this time. And I can’t look away from those dark eyes that swept me away.

Even if I should hate him.

Even if I should get my revenge.

Even if I should let him die just like my family desires.

I don’t want to.

I can’t.

I won’t.

I refuse to give up on Levi Torres.

Because somewhere deep down, that girl who once looked at him the way he now looks at me still loves him.

Levi

She’s right here in my arms, hovering in the same ocean, staring at me with those same ocean eyes, and it feels like I’m dreaming. Like I’ve died and gone to heaven, a place I don’t deserve to be. But if she’s here, I’m right where I want to be.

Suddenly, she punches me in the chest. “Fuck you!” She punches me again and again. “Just fuck you, Levi Torres!” I let her go on because it doesn’t matter anymore. I deserve every ounce of her rage.

I was prepared to end it all for her.

I was supposed to die.

And then she saved me.

“You.” Punch . “Don’t.” Punch . “Get.” Punch . “To.” Punch . “Fucking.” Punch . “Die!”

It doesn’t hurt, no matter how many times she punches me.

Her last punch is so weak that she stops trying as the tears begin to roll down her cheeks, and even when she’s crying, she’s still prettier than anything I’ve ever set my sights on.

My arms instinctively wrap around her as she slowly lays her head on my chest, right where she hit me.

“I can’t … I couldn’t let you …” she murmurs.

I shush her and hold her for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

Endless waves crash into the rocks, breaking the silence.

When she’s stopped crying, she leans away, still staring at me.

“You jumped me… to save me. Why?” I ask, still in shock. “I thought you hated me.”

“I did. I …” A blush spreads on her cheeks. “But I don’t want to hate you anymore.”

All I can look at are the droplets of water running down her face, across all those gorgeous freckles that I’ve wanted to kiss for so long.

“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.”

“Aspen!” he roars. “Say it. Say you don’t want me. Say you hate me. Goddammit, say it for your own fucking good.”

I shake my head as he lifts me onto his lap and buries his lips between my breasts.

“Please,” he says, still lavishing me with kisses. “Make me stop.”

“Don’t stop,” I say as he drags his lips all over my neck and back to my lips again, smothering me with a greed so vast it makes me dizzy.

“Fuck,” he groans, clutching my ass as he pulls me on top of him in the water, his hard-on poking me in the thigh.

He wades through the water, never taking his lips off mine as we slowly get back to shore, his kisses maddening as hell. But the moment we hit sand, he goes to his knees with me still in his arms, toppling us over until he’s right on top of me.

“You’ve asked for it now,” he groans, licking his way down my neck.

My wet shirt clings to my body, and he dips his fingers inside from the top, brushing his fingers across my sensitive nipples.

“F-fuck, I’ve wanted to touch you like this for so long,” he groans. “So fucking taut and perfect.”

RIP!

He tears my shirt from the top all the way to the bottom, ripping it to shreds. He grabs my hands and holds them above my head in a vise grip.

“What are you doing?”

He ties the torn shirt around my wrists, tying the knot tightly.

“You think I’m going to be gentle? You shouldn’t have saved me, Firefly. I’m still that same fucking monster who hunted you. Preyed on you. Used you until your knees caved in and your moans filled the fucking room.”

He leans in and licks my skin, and I shiver on the ground, but I don’t know if it’s from the cold or from the terror of what I’ve unleashed. The boy with the dark eyes always made it hard to look at him, and I never really understood it until now.

The infatuation runs so deep it scares even me. But now I’m even more distracted because of the way he just tied me up after kissing me senseless.

What is he going to do?

He leans up to look at me from above, taking his time, while I’m completely flustered.

“Too fucking gorgeous,” he murmurs. “Too easy to taint.”

My eyes flutter across his body, the thick muscles, and all the inches of skin covered in tats and scars from fights to defend himself from the people who wanted him dead. Even me.

Could I look past all the death and destruction?

Can I see the man inside the monster?

His hands slide down my body in exploration, lingering near my hardened nipples, as though he’s admiring me from an angle he’s never seen before, and it humbles me. Confuses me.

Who is this man?

Is he Levi or Ghost?

Those damning eyes connect with mine as he slowly lowers himself on top of me again, whispering into my ear. “You’re still scared of me, aren’t you?” He grins against my ear. “All that chasing and you still can’t get enough of the fear.” He nibbles on my earlobe. “But it’s me , baby.”

Baby. Exactly what Ghost always called me.

“I’m your ghost, your monster, the only one who knows about all your fucked-up cravings.”

His fingers slip down my body, pushing down my pants until I’m exposed to the elements, and when he dips inside, I gasp.

“You’re confused, so let me make it fucking easy for you. Close your eyes. Listen to my voice.” It’s the whispering. God, it’s that same fucking whispering from the auditorium and the Phantom House. “Do I remind you of someone?”

“Ghost …” I whisper back, delirious from the mere sound of him lulling me into submission.

“I told you to make me stop, but you wouldn’t listen, and I will punish you for it.”

Two fingers enter me, coaxing out the moans as he curls them up while fingering me.

“I know every fucking sweet spot and all the ways I can make you cry out for God. But he isn’t listening tonight, little slut. You’re all alone with your devil, and he’s going to make you beg for mercy.”