Page 106 of Arrogant Puck

“I don’t know.” She wipes her face with the back of her hand. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Don’t leave.” The words come out broken, desperate. “I know I’m fucked up. I know I don’t deserve you. But don’t go back to California.”

“Why?” she whispers. “Give me one good reason why I should stay.”

For a moment, we just stare at each other across the wreckage of everything we’ve said. Her chest is heaving, tears still wet on her cheeks, and I can see the exact moment she starts to turn away from me.

I move faster than I think, crossing the space between us in two strides. My hands cup her face, thumbs brushing away her tears, and then my mouth crashes against hers.

She freezes for a heartbeat—just long enough for panic to spike through me—then her hands slam against my chest. But instead of pushing me away, her fingers curl into my shirt, dragging me closer with a desperation that matches my own.

The kiss is violent, hungry, all of this want and frustration and need poured into the connection of our mouths. She bites my bottom lip hard, and I groan into her mouth, the pain somehow making everything more real, more urgent.

I back her against the kitchen counter, my hands sliding down to grip her waist, lifting her until she’s sitting on the granite surface. She wraps her legs around me, pulling me between her thighs, and the feel of her against me makes something snap in my chest.

“I’m so mad at you,” she breathes against my mouth, but her hands are already pulling my shirt off with shaking fingers.

“Good,” I growl, my mouth moving to her neck. “Be mad. Just don’t fucking leave.”

Her nails rake down my back under my shirt, marking me in a way that makes my vision blur. When I capture her mouth again, her tongue slides against mine in a dance that’s more battle than kiss.

I can taste her anger, her frustration, her need—all of it mixing with my own until I can’t tell where I end and she begins. My hands tangle in her hair, tilting her head back so I can deepen the kiss, and she makes a sound that goes straight to my dick.

“This doesn’t fix anything,” she gasps when we break apart for air, but her legs tighten around my waist.

“I don’t care.” My voice is rough, broken. “I don’t fucking care about anything except this.”

I lift her off the counter, her legs still wrapped around me and carry her toward the living room. We stumble together, mouths fused, hands desperate and grasping. When the back of her legs hit the couch, I lay her down and cover her body with mine.

She looks up at me, her eyes dark and wild, her lips swollen. In this moment, with her hair spread across the cushions and her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath me, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Everything feels exactly as it should be.

Then she says, “I’m not fucking you.”

The words hit like ice water, shattering the moment so completely I feel the pieces cutting into my chest. I freeze above her, my hands still tangled in her hair, her legs still wrapped around my waist.

Is that all she thinks I want? After everything we just said, everything we just fought about, she thinks this is just me trying to get laid?

I stare into her eyes, searching for something—understanding, maybe, that this is more than physical need. “I’m not asking you to fuck. I’m kissing you.”

But even as I say it, her hands contradict her words, her fingers tracing along the waistband of my jeans with a touch that makes my breath catch. The mixed signals are driving me insane.

“I just needed to make that clear,” she says, but her voice wavers.

“It’s clear.” I lean down until my forehead touches hers, until we’re breathing the same air. “Now kiss me.”

Chapter 37

I lean up and kiss him, hating that he’s high. A reminder of the demons he’s trying to drown. Part of me wants to pull away, to protect myself from getting involved with someone who numbs his pain with drugs and alcohol. But a larger part of me wants to take away whatever’s hurting him so badly that he needs to escape from it.

I won’t sleep with him, though. Not like this. That would be rewarding the poor behavior, enabling the very thing that’s destroying him.

My hands find the hard planes of his stomach, fingers tracing along the ridges of muscle, feeling how his breath hitches under my touch. “Where are your pills?”

He pulls back slightly, confusion flickering across his features. “What?”

“Tell me where you hide your pills,” I say again, my voice steady.

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