Page 90 of Deathless & Divided

Damian’s mouth crashed down on hers, swallowing her words and gasp with his teeth and lips. The sweetest squeak of surprise echoed from Lily before she responded to the kiss and fisted his jacket in her hands. Her mouth tasted of cherries and salt as she kissed him back, tugging him closer. He kept her pinned in place, wanting to feel her mouth on his while he got himself reacquainted with the taste of her.

With every scrape of his teeth to her lips and every strike of his tongue, Damian felt like he owned this girl a little more. Like she was only his and that he was all she wanted. Just the way her body fitted into his and she never shied away from his touch and kiss, Damian knew … Lily DeLuca was two steps away from falling straight for him.

He didn’t mind.

Unfortunately, Damian could still see the tears in her eyes fighting to fall and her breathing hitched, telling him she was holding back sobs.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” Damian chanted, kissing along the line of Lily’s cheek bone. “When you cry, it makes me want to find the person who made you do it and shove my fist so far down their throat that I could rip their heart out and then force-feed them the organ. Seriously, it bothers me. Stop it, Lily.”

“I’m trying,” she mumbled as his lips ghosted over hers again. “You made me sad again by talking about your parents.”

Great. Now he was the reason for her tears.

Damian couldn’t handle this shit.

“I punched a kid in the face for you once,” he said, hoping that gained her attention enough to stop her crying.

Lily let him wipe away the wetness on her lashes. “When?”

“You had just turned seven. I wasn’t hanging around that much anymore and neither was Theo, really. We were doing … other things with Dino.” Damian shrugged, not wanting to go into all that. “Anyway, that left you to make new friends. Some idiot nine-year-old boy happened to be one of them. He made you run home crying over something. Dino was there when you told Ben what happened. He told Theo, your brother told me, and I hit the kid then next time I saw him.”

“That’s terrible,” Lily muttered.

“Learned his fucking lesson, I bet.”

Lily laughed, but another tear streaked down her cheek. Damian cussed under his breath at the sight, willing away her sadness.

“How can you laugh and cry at the same time?” Damian asked, overwhelmed by how affected this girl made him. He could not handle the awfulness welling in his gut because of her crying mess.

“Because I’m sad and happy.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does, too!”

“You sound like a child arguing with me like that,” Damian said, running his finger over her trembling bottom lip.

Lily gasped, hurt filling her gaze all over again.

“I was kidding, Lily!”

She didn’t look like she believed him for a second.

“I was,” he repeated.

“Still awful.”

“You’re still crying,” Damian pointed out.

“You haven’t made me stop yet, so you must not want to feel better. Remember?”

Sneaky little …

Damian kissed Lily again without warning, tugging her into his chest and turning them both so he could back her down the sidewalk. Their lips didn’t part once, not even when they stumbled off the sidewalk and Lily’s legs hit the hood of her Maserati. Unable to control the crazy desire thickening his blood, Damian ran his hands up Lily’s smooth legs and under her skirt. He could practically feel her heartbeat and blood rushing up to the surface of her skin under his touch. Every sound, every goosebump, and every inch of her was starting to imprint in Damian’s memory like a melody he couldn’t forget.

He didn’t really want to.

The way her tongue swept her bottom lip had his gaze narrowing in on her mouth all over again. He wanted to bite her lip until she begged him for more, so he did just that. The sharp, breathy whine Lily released shot straight down to his aching cock.