Page 39 of The Knight

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"Took you long enough." Blake gives me a scorching once over, his eyes narrowed, as I walk towards him. "What were you doing, picking boogers out of your nose? Nevermind, I don't want to know—as long as you got what we came here for."

He sounds just as irritated and hostile as ever, but underneath it is something new, or at least something I've never paid attention to before. It turns out that while he was getting angry and resentful towards me, he was also feeling something else: worry about my safety. And it's that worry more than anything that makes him give me another once over with his eyes, which are narrowed in anxiety as much as anything else.

"I'm fine," I tell him. "Not a scratch on me."

"I didn't ask if you were okay."

"Didn't you?" I pitch my voice up into a singsong, teasing tone, taking another step towards him until we're close enough that the fog of our breath on the air mingles together. "You've been standing out here this whole time. Waiting for me. Watching to make sure I get back in one piece."

"Because if you don't, we won't..." His eyes flick down to my mouth, then back to my eyes again, and he swallows. There's something crazed in the back of his gaze, feral and impossible to deny. "I don't care what happens to you."

"Sure." I've never been more confident that a boy is lying to me than I am right here, right now, standing toe to toe with him. "And I don't want you to kiss me right now."

His eyes flick behind me, then back to my face, then to the air above my head. In a strangled voice he says, "You don't?"

Instead of telling him it's a lie, I close the distance between us until our mouths are a breath away. Eyes still open, I look up into his deep brown gaze, which is conflicted in every way imaginable.

Quietly, he murmurs, "What about the others?"

"What about them?"

"What if..."

"Are they here right now?" I ask, my mouth nearly brushing his. "Last time I checked it's just you and me."

"Oh, fuck."

Grabbing the back of my neck with one hand and my waist with the other, he crushes me against him all at once, every drop of his lust pouring out of him as he bends my body against his and seals our mouths together. The kiss is scorching from head to toe, every inch of us touching. I can feel his arousal grow as he deepens the kiss, tongue and lips hungry, desperately getting as close to me as he can.

My body responds to him, my thighs parting to let his knee press between them, heat flaring in my abdomen. I feel reckless and wild as I realize that my body, and mine alone, is turning the statue that is Blake Lee into a living creature of flesh and blood with roaming fingers and a hungry mouth.

He's electric, alive, pouring his lust and hunger into me. His mouth is a greedy thing. I curl my fingers around his neck and press my hips to his. My nipples brush against my bra as he grabs me and pulls me close. I can feel his fingers dip beneath my jacket and flirt against the warmth of my skin at the edge of my shirt, cold rushing in and prickling goosebumps rising everywhere he touches.

I moan into his mouth.

His erection bumps, clumsily, against my hip.

Then the camera lens digs into my rib cage, and I remember all at once why we're here together. Awareness floods me, along with regret and shame, even though I know I would do it again. Kissing Blake Lee is a mistake I'd make a thousand times—especially because, as I pull back from him, he pants wildly, trying to bring us close again. There's no rush of power quite like the rush I get from seeing the raw desperation on his face.

He'd take me anywhere, do anything, just for more of my touch. Watching him shudder and struggle to pull himself together, running a hand through his hair and wincing as he tries to sort out his suddenly tight pants, I feel a rush of power. This feels better than any revenge I could have imagined—especially because the thought of Blake on his knees in front of me, mouth being put to good use, is a thrill of its own, one I never dared to imagine before.

There are girls in countries all across the world who would stab someone to experience what I just did. Girls who dream of the taste of him on their lips, musk and fresh mint as I wipe my hand across my mouth, so warm I could take my jacket off and feel nothing.

In a hollow, ragged voice, Blake says, "That was..."

"A kiss." I clear my throat, hearing the burr in my throat and blushing at how wanton I sound. My lips are raw and sensitive where we kissed, his unexpected stubble like a rash around my mouth that tells every secret. "It's just a kiss. No one has to know."

"Right." His eyes dart all around us like a wild animal. Impulsively, he says, "If no one has to know, we could do it again."

I can't stop myself from smirking, part happy girl with an incredible, impossible crush—the kind of feeling I never thought I'd have at all, much less towards a boy like this—and part a creature of revenge, watching one of my targets fall in the most powerful, unexpected way.

There is no Blake Lee, one of the boys who tried to ruin my brother, left anymore. All I see before me is a boy who would do anything for me, anything at all. Just to have my lips on his.

It can't last.

But knowing it's mine is enough to make me happy for a brief, delirious moment, as I revel in the fact that I've finally won.

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