Page 27 of Serpentine Valentine

Her mouth was soft, so soft. Plump lips parted for warm breath, and for a moment, it was just that, just breathing into each other. And then she took control, sealing us together and gliding her tongue between my lips, past my teeth.

She tasted like Earl Grey tea and peppermint. Delicious.

But it was more than that.

It was the way she slid that hand on my throat around to the nape of my neck, sinking her fingers into my hair to tug me into the position she liked best to plunder my mouth.

It was the way her knee surged between both of mine, nudging against my groin with a firm pressure that made sparks explode behind my eyes.

It was the way she pressed my body between her body and the books like something precious to be preserved forever.

No man had ever kissed me like this.

It was like she’d been born to kiss me or that she’d been kissing me for years.

I never wanted her to stop.

So when she finally pulled back, eyes so black, lips and cheeks flushed darkly pink, I embarrassed myself with a whimper. My hand clutched at her waist, at the front of her black dress shirt, crumpled in my fist.

“Well?” Lex demanded, almost combatively.

Suddenly, the hold we had on each other didn’t feel sexual or romantic. It felt like a fight, like one wrong step away from war.

I knew I shouldn’t say it. They were fighting words, igniting words, and I had no idea what we were even fighting against or fighting for. Even if we were fighting together or against each other.

But I couldn’t stop myself from whispering the honest truth.

“Like Earl Grey and peppermint.”

Her smile was so small I would havemissed it if I wasn’t close enough to count her eyelashes. A soft curl of one side of her ripe plum-colored mouth.

“That bravery will earn you a secret.” She swayed toward me again, and I held my breath, heart thumping so madly in my chest I thought I might die if she didn’t kiss me. But she didn’t. Instead, her lips brushed the shell of my ear as she whispered, “Now that I’ve tasted your skin and your mouth, I won’t stop until I know what you taste like between those beautiful thunder thighs.”

“We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.”

––Tennessee Williams

Luna

Lex leftme slumped against the bookcase after that dangerous whispered promise. It took me too long to find starch for my soft bones and peel myself off the spines. Even then, my head swam, and my pulse beat too hard between my thighs. I wondered idly if I’d ever be able to smell the scent of books again without getting wet.

Of course, that made me think of Pierce.

Myboyfriend.

I braced myself on the table in the library and stared at my reflection in the mirrored windows. My hair was a glowing nimbus of pink-orange light around my head, its usual mess of overly thick, cowlicked chaos. But the rest of my face was not usual, not fixed in an expression I recognized. Flushed cheeks made my eyes bright, and my lips were swollen, the same dark pink as the teeth marks on the side of my neck.

Irrationally, I thought those rectangular indents would make for a pretty tattoo.

But I didn’t have tattoos, and before seeing those snakes twisting up Lex’s leg, I’d never even considered them sexy.

I collected my things in a daze and left the library, but the cold air of the dark September night doused me like ice water. My return to sanity wasn’t smooth. I felt the turbulence in my lungs, and I had to lean against the black trunk of a tree cutting through the commons to lose my dinner in the bushes.

My skin was cold and clammy, but I felt feverish inside.

I felt like I was coming undone.

Who was that? That girl who kissed a girl.