Page 12 of Kiln Me Softly

‘Are you just going to stay up here in the dark, then?’ he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

‘Depends if you’re staying here, too. If you couldn’t tell, I was actually trying to get away from everyone. Especially you.’

‘Or you could just have fun, Juni,’ he suggested drily. ‘Y’know, like most people came here to do.’

‘You didn’t look like you were having that much fun, yourself, but then, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re a hypocrite as well as a snob.

’ She put down the Cheddars finally, whirling to face him, to tell him that having fun was easier said than done, but when she realised how close he was, the air whooshed from her lungs, the words catching in her throat.

She leaned back against the windowsill, the cold pane of glass an extra, confusing sensation in an already teeming swarm of them.

As a fat woman of fairly average height, it wasn’t often that she felt small, dainty, but he towered over her like the Shard over the city, and she had to look up at him to really see him.

She gulped despite herself, her body pleading for friction, for something, as though she didn’t already feel more than enough. She could feel him there, pressing on her skin, even without him touching her. Her nipples tightened in her bra, heat burning in her core.

She shouldn’t have wanted him. She shouldn’t have wanted anybody when she was trying to combat sensory overload, but especially not him. It was the drink, she told herself, though she felt more sober than ever. It had to be the drink.

‘It doesn’t need to be like this between us,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t want it to be.’

‘Why does it matter?’ Her throat was dry, hoarse, and everything inside her clenched when his eyes scratched over her again, this time darkening to a near-black. She itched to know the answer, to know why he kept trying, to know why he was looking at her like he wanted to rip her clothes off.

And to know why she liked it.

‘I care about doing this project right,’ he said. ‘I care about not spending every waking hour fighting with you for the rest of the school year.’

‘Not everything in life is convenient.’ She tried to sneer, but her body was incapable of listening to her, especially when he closed the gap between them with a final step.

His toes nudged against hers, and he reached to brush a stray curl from her eye. ‘And you, Juniper Hodgson, are the least convenient person I know.’

Her lips parted. He was touching her, and she should have hated it, but instead, she could only try not to melt into him completely. When he leaned in to kiss her, she failed even at that.

His lips explored her tentatively, as though waiting for her to pull away. Nobody had kissed her like that before. She was too awkward, too forthright. People either treated her like the rough, abrupt woman she was, leaving nothing to the imagination, or were too put off to bother at all.

‘See? Not so hard to let go of all that anger, is it?’ he murmured against her lips, thumb tilting her chin so delicately she barely felt it. ‘All that fighting. You should have just told me you wanted me.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want you.’ The lie cracked in her throat, but she refused to admit that she was hopelessly attracted to the man she despised.

‘Then tell me to stop.’ His fingers curled at the nape of her neck, and she felt the touch bolt down her spine like lightning.

She couldn’t. With her thighs pressed tightly together, she couldn’t imagine him walking away now. She wanted to be touched, wanted to feel, for once, like she was a human. Like everybody else.

The hot breath fanning over her face centred her, put her back down on solid ground, but it also made her aware of every sensation she’d ever felt.

Every tickle of hair on her scalp, every pinprick of heat.

It pooled between her legs, scraped against her ribs, as the scent of that same cologne she’d been wrapped in all week mingled with mint and beer and salt.

What would he taste like?

What would he kiss her like, if he really, truly knew she wanted it?

The urge to find out drove her lips back to his.

She kissed him furiously, viciously, letting all of her spite bleed together with desire until she wasn’t sure how to tell the two apart.

It didn’t matter, all of it fuelling her actions: fingers curling into his shirt, teeth nipping down on his bottom lip.

He moaned, and she wondered if that meant he was at her mercy. If he might be the one to beg her for something. If only she could pull away for long enough to find out, but it was impossible when his heavy hands floated to her lower back, his stomach pressing against hers.

‘Fuck, Juni, I want…’ His words were jumbled and incomplete, fingers digging deep into the soft flesh around her hips.

She wanted, more now than before, and she didn’t have to ask when his mouth began to map her neck, collarbones, chest. He kissed her through the mesh of her shirt as though he couldn’t wait to devour her, as though no amount of layers could stop him, and she leaned back, body sparking in response.

She could only grip onto the windowsill, gasping when he frantically nudged her skirt up to her hips to reveal the simple black underwear beneath.

She was certain he’d find the fabric damp, but was too turned on, too furious, too everything , to feel embarrassed.

‘D’you know how gorgeous you are? Just the thought of touching you makes me hard,’ he confessed as his finger traced over the lace edge around her groin.

‘Then touch me,’ she pleaded, knotting her fingers in his hair. Her hips rocked, desperate to meet him, and there she found he was right. He was hard, the outline of his length tautening his denim jeans.

She couldn’t resist teasing him, dragging her palm up with just enough pressure to make him hiss. She jolted as his finger brushed her folds. ‘Do you want my fingers or my tongue?’

‘Both,’ she admitted, because she was nothing if not honest. It was clear there was no turning back now, and she was too hazy with want to find a reason to want to.

‘So impolite. Aren’t you going to say please?’ he asked, running his hands up her stomach to squeeze her breasts.

She shook her head, though her spine arched of its own accord. ‘Aren’t you going to hurry up before I change my mind?’

His chuckle vibrated through her, and he finally slipped a hand beyond her waistband. He was as good at teasing her as she was him, swirling a finger around her warm, wet heat – everywhere but the spot she needed him most.

‘Aiden,’ she whispered, teeth gritting. ‘If you don’t get on with it, I’ll do it myself.’

Another laugh, this one deep and sensual. ‘Well, we can’t have that.’

He sunk a finger inside her, and only then did his thumb finally toy with her swollen clit. She cried out when the cold metal of his ring sent unexpected darts of pleasure through her, and he covered her mouth with his free hand. ‘Shh. Don’t want people hearing you, do we?’

She couldn’t give a flying fuck about people hearing her in her present state, hips grinding as she sought more of him, more pressure, more pleasure.

She used him as her anchor, wrapping her arms around his sturdy shoulders and letting her nails scratch over his skin as he worked her in all the right places.

‘Fuck, Juniper,’ he cursed, parting her legs with his own when she tried to squeeze around him.

Lowering to his knees, he draped a leg over his shoulder to allow him deeper access.

His head tilted up to her, eyes gleaming as though he was looking up at something divine.

Awed, almost, but that couldn’t be right.

Still, he suckled on the marks and freckles patterning her inner thighs until she was terrified he wouldn’t have time to use his tongue, terrified she was already too close.

But then he rolled her underwear to her knees, tongue lapping a slow strip between her folds. ‘Like this?’

Juniper nodded, fingers curling in his hair as she closed her eyes.

‘I need you to say it, Juni. Tell me if this is okay. That you’re okay.’

It surprised her, this sudden cautiousness, enough that she felt less like she was dangling on the edge of the cliff and more like he was about to catch her as she stepped off a low ledge. She was safe. She could say no and he’d step away. Only she didn’t want to. ‘Yes. Yes, it’s more than okay.’

He inserted his fingers again, beckoning against her G-spot.

She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out, yanking at his hair until he matched her force both with his fingers and his tongue.

Right as her climax approached, dragged closer by the sounds of his frantic mouth against her wet pussy, a rustle outside left her jolting.

She nudged him away with her foot, losing her own balance in the process in an effort to pull down her skirt.

Just in time, because the door swung open to reveal Luc in the hallway, blinking slowly. ‘Gross,’ they said with perfect nonchalance, and then shut the door again.

‘ Shit , Aiden.’ Juniper tugged her underwear up, wincing when it hit her wet, pulsating core, before rearranging her crumpled skirt.

On the floor, Aiden looked like he’d just woken from a dream, dazed as a deer in headlights.

His stubble was slick with Juniper’s juices, which almost left her changing her mind and letting him ravish her again, but fuck, this wasn’t her.

She didn’t have sex in a near-stranger’s bedroom at a house party – with Aiden Twatface Whittaker of all people.

What had Luc seen? Too much, probably, considering her knickers had been tangled around her bloody ankles.

She felt empty without Aiden’s fingers inside her. Empty, unsatisfied, and maddened, but the humiliation overpowered even her writhing ache for release. She tried not to look at him as she assigned her boobs back to her admittedly flimsy bra, not even when he stood to touch her wrist.

‘Juni…’

‘This shouldn’t have happened. It didn’t happen, okay?’

‘Well, I think it did.’

‘Nope! Didn’t happen.’ She rushed out of the room before he could argue further, refusing to allow reality to set in.

Even if, when she got home later that night, the ghost of his mouth still lingered in all the wrong places, and she found her fingers much less satisfying than his.