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Chapter forty-nine

Forest

H e’s leaning onto one of the brick walls of the alleyway, his hand dragging up his shirt, wiping at his face. His torso is exposed for a moment, and I take a second to appreciate his body. His head is cocked while he watches me observe him. I sense thoughts of me swirling around in his mind. The alcohol aids in weakening his mental walls against me. He thinks of how my smile curves my lips perfectly and the places his hands have explored my body. He moves closer to me and lets out a nervous laugh. His hands move across his abdomen, dropping his shirt before pointing to me with a frown.

“Are you just going to parade men in front of me all night?” he questions, his voice rough and sinister.

I touch the portion of my neck Xavier had made his, feeling Fallan’s hateful thoughts toward him intensify.

Taking another step, liquid courage envelopes my body.

“You want to talk about parading someone around? What was that little display with that woman? Or Valerie before that? All you’ve done is show off other women and torture me in the process,” I say, nudging my hand hard into his chest. He stays still, his eyes lowered as he watches me.

“You're the tortured one?” he scoffs, shaking his head angrily. “Clearly, you haven't been listening.”

“Just a distraction,” I mock, throwing up my quotations. “Should I add 'tortured' under the list of labels you’ve forced on us?” I question, his mouth pulling into a drunken smirk.

“They didn’t mean anything to me, Forest. I needed something to dull the pain,” Fallan mutters, his hand grabbing my hip. “He thinks you're his,'' Fallan continues, his hand dipping beneath my shirt, exploring the warm skin underneath. “He thinks he can satisfy you,” he continues, my heart pounding as he backs me into the brick wall. “He thinks that you could love him,” Fallan whispers, his lips pressed against the side of my face, his fingers moving farther up my body.

“I'm not entertaining any more stolen touches, only for you to just push me away,” I mutter, biting my cheek to avoid giving in to the pleasure the feeling of his hands on my skin is bringing me.

“Then tell me what you want, Little Dove.” His lips move from the side of my face to my front, his thumbs trailing along my upper rib cage, brushing against the lace overlay of my bra. “Do you want me to admit how much I crave you? How much I crave only you?” he questions, my breath shuddering, feeling his hands move closer to my breasts.

“You don't know what it’s like to hear you gasp every time I kiss your skin,” he starts, his lips finding the sensitive points on my neck. “You don't know what it's like to see your smile curve up for everyone but me and wonder why I can’t have it too,” he continues, my body aching to feel more of him. He has me sprawled against the wall, my body entirely controlled by his hand. “You don't know how much I wanted to hurt you to get back at your father for what he did to me, but then I realized who you were. That girl from the bonfire who made me smile for the first time in months,” he says, my legs aching as his hand finally finds my breast. He slips his thumb beneath the lace and gently passes over the tender skin of each nipple. I can’t hide the shake in my breath, biting my lip to stop myself from telling him to tear away everything I wear. “You were there during my test. We bled from the same blade and hid from the same monsters.'' My mind races to the moments we shared, even just as children.

“I could never forget that,” I whisper, my arms wrapping around his neck. “Even if they tried to make me,” I finish, my lip wobbly.

“Tell me to back away,” he starts, his hands grabbing the back of my thighs, pulling them up and around his waist. “Call me a pig,'' he continues, my thighs clenching tighter around his waist. “Call me every name you can think of,'' he pushes, his nose inches away from my own. “Be disgusted by me, please. Say anything so I won't do it.'' Our hearts race. “Tell me to stop.”

The connection between us buzzes. There are no more walls between us.

“Call me a privileged elite,” I whisper. “Tell me you hate my kind and loathe our existence.”

“I do loathe their existence,” he starts. “But not yours.”

My core heats each time my center brushes against him.

“I dream of your existence, Forest.” His voice is filled with longing. “You were my morning, noon, and night, and it all was ripped away in an instant. Now, I just want to fucking tear your clothes off in front of him and show him that you will never be his.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“Hate you?” he questions, his head shaking. “Forest, I’m in love with you,” he says, my heart bursting wide open as he says the words.

I slam my lips into his, finally giving in to this desire. His hands grab me harder, his teeth biting at my bottom lip before returning my kiss feverishly. My soft moans of pleasure are captured by his mouth. His arms are locked underneath me, seating me more fully against his cock. Running his tongue along my bottom lip, he slips it into my mouth, both of us fighting for some form of dominance. Grasping his curls, I deepen the kiss as I send him images of every way I want him to take me. He groans into the kiss, our marks burning with pleasure. I feel the cord of our connection snapping into place, solidifying in ways it hadn’t before.

Each of his thoughts has become my own; our souls no longer in two.

I finally break the kiss for air, feeling the rise and fall of his chest from heavy breathing. Both of us are a tangle of hunger and lust. Grasping his face, I run my thumbs along his cheeks, taking in his swollen lips and dilated pupils.

“It's not a one-sided feeling,” I whisper, his mouth curling into a grin.

“Tell me it's a bad idea to take you somewhere more private,” he says against my ear, his arms still wrapped around my body.

Never has the silence between us felt so right.