Page 35 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

And for the first time in eight years, the waves keeping me stagnant let up. I started to swim.

My eyes eased open. I pulled back, maintaining a blank expression as I swiped a loose knuckle over my lips. If I unfurled my fingers, he’d see how hard they were shaking. “Well, I can see why you chose the cricket.”

My brain started to assign a string of wishful, indulgent meanings to the glazed, dopey look Dominic was wearing. But I shoved them away.

We weren’t going down that path again.

Once was plenty.

“You taste like ashes,” I mused.

He frowned. First down at my mouth, then up at my eyes. Again, my brain started shouting, trying to tell me the shadows cast over his eyes meantthis, and the angle of his mouth meantthat.

It was all nonsense.

A trick of hormones.

“Ashes,” Dominic repeated slowly.

“A bit, yeah.” Maybe if I said it enough, I could trick my body into believing it. “Anyways, my turn. How many times over the last week have you?—”

“Chicken.”

He’d been holding back.

He’d been holding back a lot.

I almost wept when his searing tongue swiped over the flimsy seam of my lips. I was tempted. I was so, so,sotempted to open up for him. Every inch of me yearned to do it. It was a deep, feral craving, and I’d die if I didn’t give in to it.

Everything in my body—every muscle, every instinct and urge was slashing at my willpower, trying to break it down. I was drowning in the eye of the storm, my body engulfed in flames for a man who’d rather chew on a cricket than touch me.

We were playing a new game, and hell would have to freeze over before I let him have the win.

My teeth clenched. Dominic peeled away a half inch.

“Ashes, huh?”

“Like licking the morning aftermath of a bonfire,” I bit back quietly, shivering when our lips brushed, and again when his tongue caressed my bottom lip.

“And you taste like bullshit.”

I quirked a brow. “You think I’m lying?”

“I think you’re too calculating to admit hating something in a situation where it can so easily be used against you.”

“That’s giving someone who never consumes anything that doesn’t have the word ‘Housewives’ in the title alotof credit,” I argued.

He ignored that. “Truth to the power of your one and only reminder that if you’re caught lying, it’s an automatic forfeit: did you, or did you not, enjoy that kiss?”

“No,” I deadpanned, “I didn’t.” And he’d never be able to prove otherwise.

His eyes narrowed like my answer pissed him off. His lips tilted like it amused him.

“My turn,” I said. “What do you think you’ll enjoy most about intercourse when someone finally agrees to pity fuck you?”

“As with everything else, I imagine the lack of you in the equation will be my favorite part,” he bit back. “Preferred way to suck the life out of your victims?”

“The last guy I blew told me he saw god, so I’d say dick. Do you think blowjobs feel better for men who aren’t chronically flaccid?”