Page 102 of The Bronze Garza

“‘Cause I make it easy for you to.” He stops in front of me and holds the card up between us; not closer to himself or me, just dead in the middle.

I stare at it, but I don’t reach up to take it. Because I don’t really want it back. I wanthim. I want him to stop torturing me, stop making me wait.

The silence between us grows until it’s its own living form. Lust and indignation war with swords of fire inside me.

He lets the card slip from his fingers. It clatters on the hardwood floors.

I don’t pick it up.

His next move is so sudden I gasp. He grabs my hand and brings it to the front of his sweats. He’s hard.Sohard.

“Thisis not the problem,” he tells me, voice hoarse. He then lifts my hand to his chest, pressing it over his heart. “This is.”

A pocket of air catches in my throat, but I manage to breathe past it. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“What I feel in here, for you...” He shakes his head. “It scares the fuck out of me.”

Feeling thethud thud thudof his heart under my palm, I swallow around the thickness lodged in my throat. “And...what’s in there, for me?”

“Chaos. Madness. Greed.” His eyes flicker, then darken with something wild. “In my mind, I’ve already fucked you fifty different ways on every surface of this house.”

“Fucking me in your mind doesn’t benefit either of us,” I say miserably.

“But it’s safe.”

“It can still be safe.”

“How?”

I pull my hand away and let it fall to my side. The tight narrowing of his eyes tells me he doesn’t like that, but I don’t care. “I’m not expecting anything from you, Torin,” I say. “I’ve already convinced myself you don’t have a heart. I already know you hate that you want me. Just hate-fuck me and everything will be fine.”

“You think that’s how it works, huh?” he asks through a scoff.

“Isn’t it?”

He steps around me and goes to sit on the edge of the nightstand. “You asked me some time ago what consensual sex was like.”

“Yes, and...?”

“You were a virgin when—”

“Yes.”

“Then I can’t hate-fuck you, Lyra.”

I’m on the verge of ripping my own hair out. “Well just—just normal-fuck me then! Do with me what you did with all the other non-Lexis you slept with to keep your heart out of it.”

“Why?” he asks, voice dry.

“Why what?”

“Why do you want me to fuck you?”

“What do you meanwhy?” What a ridiculous and bizarre question. “Because l-look at you. I mean,lookat you. You’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Because you’re a jerk and an asshole. Because every time I’m near you my body sings to life. Because your eyes are moss and emerald and fire at the same time. Because you’re like a bronzegod. Because your voice melts me from the inside out. Because you turn me on in every possible—

He moves. Swift and smooth. Lifts me up and crashes his mouth to mine. Caught off-guard, I grip his biceps for stability, then kiss him back with a satisfying moan.

It feels as if I’ve just stumbled on a vat of water after wandering the Sahara for ages. With every clash of our tongues, a dryness in me is quenched, drip by drip.