Page 40 of Temptation
I didn’t want to give him more ammunition. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he still affected me.
“Keep lying to yourself, Ash. Keep lying because I will never belong to you.” My voice was breathless even to my own ears, and I cleared my throat, trying to calm down my nerves.
“Liar,” he whispered into my ear. “The only liar in this room is you. Your mind might hate me, but your body needs me. Your heart belongs to me, just like mine,” he took my hand and pressed it against his chest, “belongs to you.”
I closed my eyes, fighting the tears rushing to the surface. A steadythump-thump-thumpagainst my palm shouldn’t have made me feel like this, but it did. I hated him, but I wanted him alive. I didn’t want him to touch me, but I also wanted him to devour me.
He increased the pressure on my throat, slowly cutting off the air supply, controlling my breathing.
“Are you a liar, Moonshine?” He pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Or are you just a sinner, afraid of her own wants and needs?”
Both. I was both.
I was a sinner of the worst kind. I was the person who lied to herself more than she lied to other people, because I never wanted to look deep inside. My demons danced around the edges of my sanity, asking me to let them in, begging me to let them play with Ash’s insanity, because only insane people could want each other like the two of us did.
“Ash,” I moaned when he pressed against my throat again, and I spread my legs, letting him in. Agonizingly slowly, he ground against me, rubbing all the right spots, playing with my determination not to let him in.
Because once I did, there would be no going back.
“Ash… Please.”
“Please, what?” He bit down on the valley between my neck and my shoulder, and my eyes shuttered closed. “Use your words, Skylar. You said you don’t belong to me, but you lied, didn’t you? You’re such a pretty liar, baby. Such a pretty, pretty liar. I can’t wait to devour you. I can’t wait to show you who you always belonged to, because ever since I saw your picture, a part of me knew you would be mine.”
“W-What?”
“I knew about you a lot longer than you knew about me.” He bit my lower lip, pulling it toward him. Pain should’ve stopped my traitorous thoughts, my traitorous body, but instead, it only ignited the inferno within me. “And I hated you so fucking much. Not because you were a Blackwood, but because my dick got hard just thinking about these plump lips.” He pressed his lips against mine as if to prove a point. “And then I met you, and I still hated everything about you, because you made me feel. You with your fucked-up mind and broken pieces that somehow fit with my own. I hated you. I didn’t want to steer from the path they set for me, but I did. I did it for you, and I would do it a million times more because you’re worth it.”
I shook my head, unable to look at him. I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want him to give me reasons to love him even more.
“That night when you broke down, when you came back from the hospital, I thought I was going to die then and there, because my heart couldn’t stand to see you in pain. But I couldn’t tell you the truth, Moonshine,” he whispered. “I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to look at me with hate. I didn’t want you to be hurt because these people… You said it yourself. They’re monsters. I wanted to get you out of this fucking town, but I was too late. Too fucking late to save you from their clutches.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I mumbled. “Please don’t lie to me.” I broke down with a sob, and then another, and another, until the only thing holding me up was him and his body.
“I’m not lying.” He pushed my hair behind my ears, still holding his hand around my throat. “But I don’t have a way to show you it’s true. I can’t open my chest to show you my heart because trust me—you’re there. You’re inside my veins. You’re in my fucking bloodstream. I tried to exorcise you from my veins, but it hurt too much. It was as if my soul was being split in two when you left me in that library, and I never knew that kind of pain. You ripped my heart apart that day. You think I don’t love you? Skylar,” he murmured against my lips. “Open your eyes. Come on,” he urged. “Open them.” I obliged, getting slammed by the intensity of his own. “I would die for you, darling. I would kill for you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make sure that you’re safe and happy, even if it’s far away from me.”
“Please… Stop.”
“I’m not going to touch you now. I’m not going to give you my body when that’s the only thing you want from me now.”
He stepped backward, letting me go. I almost fell to the floor without his strength to hold me up.
“I’m not going to give you what you want this time. That oblivion you were chasing with those fucking drugs last night… I’m not going to be just another drug for you. I don’t want to be something you’re using to forget.” He took a hold of my hand, gripping it between his own. “I want to be your everything, and until you’re ready for that, we’re not doing anything.”
“W-What?” I stammered. He couldn’t be serious.
“I want you to beg for me, Moonshine.” He smiled. “And you will. And when you do beg, you will let me do all the filthy things I have in my mind, and you’re going to love them.”
“But… I… You can’t—”
A knock on the door cut us off, and even though I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t.
The door banged open, slamming into the wall behind, leaving an indentation from the force. Rowan’s blond head popped in and he grinned, seeing us standing against each other.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I think we should talk now. I don’t want them to find us here.”
Them?“Who?” I asked.
“The Order.” He rolled his eyes. “Just get out. I also don’t want to see Dylan’s name popping up on the screen of my phone again. Answer your damn phone, Sky, otherwise he will come find you.”
