Page 27 of Wicked Bonds (Serpentine Academy #1)

Twenty-Five

Drake

When she wakes the windows have frosted over.

She blinks hard, shakes her head, and for a second I wonder if she’ll forget I’m here. But then she sees me. Still beside her, exactly as she left me. I haven’t moved. I haven’t even tried.

“I fell asleep.” She rubs her eyes. “You stayed,” she says. Her voice is rough with sleep.

“I said I would.”

We sit in silence.. She just sits there, knees pulled to her chest, shivering from more than just the cold.

I want to touch her. I want to reach out and cup her cheek, or brush the hair from her face, but I don’t.

I’m not sure if she wants me to touch her.

Not sure if she wants me like that. What if she uses her magic to blast me across the veil and back?

Last time it took days to reassemble all my scattered parts.

But then, she does it for me.

She closes the distance between us. Her skin is warm, radiating life, and for a second I can almost forget what I am. My senses explode, with her heartbeat in my ears, the taste of her breath on my lips, the smell of her shampoo and all the secret things living girls have about them.

She leans in, and I meet her halfway.

We’re kissing. Her tongue is inside my mouth and for a strange minute I panic thinking I’m transparent and that’s going to look really bizarre, but I also don’t care, and then…

and then I realize I’m solid. I’m real. I’m flesh.

Every kiss draws me closer to solid ground, Rose’s magic coaxing me into a body that shouldn’t exist.

Rose pulls back and looks at me. “How?”

“You,” I say simply. Because it must be. She’s the only kind of magic that could make a ghost real enough to be able to feel and touch and kiss. I’m not going to overthink this or waste this opportunity, so I kiss her again.

And again.

And for a really long time.

She breaks away, panting. “You taste like snow,” she says, and then shakes her head. “No, that’s not right. You taste like winter air. Like when you run outside and the cold hits the back of your throat.”

I’m so dizzy I can barely reply. “You taste alive,” I say.

She grins. “Does that turn you on, ghost boy?”

“Yes,” I say, because there’s no point in pretending otherwise.

She bites her lip, and I can tell she’s thinking about something reckless. “Will it work?” she asks.

I tilt my head. “Will what work?”

“This.” She puts her hand on my chest, right over where my heart should be. I can feel her magic. “If we wanted to… if I wanted you, would it work?”

She’s blushing. Rose never blushes.

Before this moment I would have said it was impossible. But a lot of impossible things have happened since she got here. “It might,” I say. “But it’s never happened before.”

She studies me for a long moment. “So I’d be like, your first.”

I nod, arching an eyebrow.

And then she’s climbing into my lap, straddling me like I’m the last horse out of hell.

I expect to lose the illusion of solidity, but it doesn’t happen.

It occurs to me that it’s not actually an illusion, because I really am the epitome of flesh and blood right now. It’s her magic, or maybe it’s just her.

I don’t know. I don’t care.

She kisses me again, harder this time, hands in my hair and nails digging into my scalp. Every nerve in my body is desperate to feel more, like a man in the desert dying for water. I want to drink in all of this and all of her, let it fill me up, feel it forever.

She grinds against me, hips moving with the awkward urgency of someone who’s determined to figure it out on the fly. I can feel the heat of her through her jeans, the damp press of her cunt against the now very real, very solid bulge of my own body. I was never this hard when I was alive.

She fumbles with my shirt, which is the shirt I was wearing the day I died, and the fabric comes away in her hands like she’s tearing off the past. She kisses down my neck, biting at the line of my jaw, and everywhere she touches I turn to fire.

I try to return the favor, tugging at her clothes, but my hands shake too much.

She helps me, pulling her t-shirt over her head, tossing it aside.

She’s not wearing a bra, and her breasts are perfect.

Not showgirl-perfect, not magazine-perfect, just perfect for her.

Full and topped with pink nipples that harden instantly in the chill.

I want to taste them, so I do. I dip my head and take one in my mouth, rolling it between my tongue and teeth. I’m almost overwhelmed by the sensation. It’s been so long since I could taste, and I want to devour her whole. She moans, loud and unrestrained, like she doesn’t care who hears.

She pushes her hands down my back, fingers trailing the line of my spine, and every touch makes me more solid, more real. I feel her hands on my hips, sliding under the waistband of my trousers, pulling them down just enough to free my cock.

She stares at it, eyes wide. “Jesus,” she says.

I laugh, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

She grins. “Don’t be.”

She wraps her hand around me, and I almost lose it right there. But I hold on, barely.

“You want this?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

She shimmies out of her own jeans awkwardly, leaving her panties on. They’re black, with tiny white ghosts printed on them, and the sight nearly undoes me. She notices my reaction, laughs, and peels them off, tossing them in my face.

I catch them, inhale. Unbelievably good.

She straddles me again, positioning herself over my cock. I can feel the heat of her, the slick wetness, and I want to push inside, but I wait. I want her to want it.

She lowers herself slowly, and when I slide inside, it’s like the world I’ve known ends. Every memory, every regret, all the unfinished business disappears. There’s only her, and the way she fits around me, warm and tight and wet.

She rides me, slow at first, then faster, her hands on my shoulders for balance. Her head tips back, hair falling like a curtain down her spine. She’s beautiful, wild, reckless. I try to match her rhythm, but I’m already close.

She senses it, tightens around me, and the way she looks at me, feral and triumphant and a little bit scared, pushes me over the edge. I come, harder than I thought possible, and she follows, shuddering and crying out my name.

For a second, I think I might die all over again. Maybe I do.

We collapse together, and her body is warm against mine, and for the first time since I died, I don’t feel cold at all.

We lie there for a long time, catching our breath. She strokes my hair, fingers gentle and slow.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“I’m more than okay.”

She laughs, soft and sleepy. “Good.”

She pulls her jacket over us, curling into my side. Her hand rests on my chest, right over my heart.

I want to say something profound, something to mark this moment, but all I can think of is how lucky I am.

So I say nothing, and just hold her close.

Because as soon as she leaves I’ll go back to being a ghost.