Page 11 of First Verse

I lift my gaze. The brown speckles in his green eyes are black as pitch around giant pupils. His cheekbones are flushed, his brow furrowed like he’s in pain. I’ve never seen this look on his face—abject hunger, spiraling torment.

“I’m poison.” His gaze locks onto my mouth. “Sometimes I think you’re the antidote, but at the end of the day, I won’t risk infecting you. That’s why I push you away. Not because I don’t want you. As much as I need you, I have to save you from me.”

Emotions punch me, one after the other: surprise, elation, sadness, confusion, anger. “What the fuck? That’s such bullshit.”

His eyes flare. “Oh yeah? You think your pussy will banish all my demons?”

To my horror, my eyes begin to sting. “I’ve never asked you to have sex with me or be my boyfriend. The only thing I wanted was your respect.”

I push backward, but he moves faster. One of his hands sears my bare thigh while the other whips up to reclaim my hair. He surges against me, bringing our bodies flush. I gasp at the unmistakable feel of his erection at the juncture of my thighs. That painful ache only he incites unfolds in my center, and a small, helpless sound escapes me.

“This happens every time you walk in a room,” he grinds out. “Every time you open that pouty mouth or give me those glistening ‘fuck me’ eyes. You make me insane.Don’t you get it? The problem is Idorespect you. I respect your mind and talent more than anyone else on this planet does. You’resacredto me, Evangeline. But your body? That, I want to disrespect in the worst fucking ways.”

Fear and uncertainty shiver through me, amplifying the sensation between my legs. I want him to kiss me. Take me.Ruin me.

I want to run as fast and far as I can.

His piercing stare tells me he knows exactly what I’m feeling. He always knows—he stole the book of my unspoken language years ago and memorized every word.

The fingers on my thigh clench and unclench, and he makes a sound in his throat that arrows between my legs. My hips twitch forward, primal need overruling reason. His nostrils flare, lips thinning, but he stays unmoving. A pillar of rigid heat and tensed muscle.

“You’re wet for me, aren’t you?” His voice purrs beneath my skin. “I bet you’re always wet for me, just like I’m always hard for you.”

Beyond reason, I nod, my gaze falling to his lips. Full and flushed, glistening from frustrated bites and swipes of his tongue. Two inches separate our mouths—two inches to freedom or catastrophe. I don’t know which awaits us, and I’m starting not to care.

His frown deepens, his eyes narrowing to glittering slits. More fear pours through me, equaled only by my body’s rising demand.

I say his name—a plea for him to stop this. Or finish it.

“You have no idea the depraved shit I want to do to you,” he whispers harshly. “What if how I treat your body disgusts you? Would you get over it? Would we go back to partners while I use other girls as substitutes? Could you handle that? I don’t think you could.”

I can’t breathe. Can’t think. My greatest fantasy and worst nightmare are colliding, stripping me of denial. He’s right—I couldn’t handle that. And I was right last night—this is toxic.

But I don’t move as he releases my hair. I don’t stop him when he lifts my leg over his hip and nestles his hardness against my center. And when his hips swivel against mine, the friction makes me moan. He does it again and again. A tease and a threat I want him to make good on.

I want it all. I want him to fill me with his body like he fills me with his art.

“Open those fairy eyes,” he demands.

My lashes part but immediately want to shutter again when I see his face.Too much. He’s too much.Beautiful and savage. A provoked god of destruction.

His grip on my thigh tightens to the point of pain. “Did Eddie make you come when you fucked?”

“I…” Words fail me as his thrusts push me inexorably toward a sensory cliff’s edge. Only this feeling is a thousand times more powerful than anything I’ve felt with my fingers.

“Answer me.”

“We didn’t have sex,” I gasp out.

I must imagine it, but it feels like he grows even thicker, harder. He makes a noise between a gasp and a groan, and my legs begin to shake.

“Goddammit, Evangeline,” he hisses.

He stills and releases my thigh. Before I feel the loss, his fingers dive between my legs from behind, yanking aside my cotton shorts and the gusset of my bikini bottoms, exposing me completely. I whimper as calloused fingertips graze my slit before confidently delving deeper. A finger pushes inside me, the invasion not deep but still shocking. My body tenses in resistance as he pulls it out and sinks it back in. His hand begins to move as well. Back and forth. Circling. Slowly at first, then faster. Discomfort shifts to a sparkling, consuming pleasure.

The sound of my wetness brings a mortified flush to my face. I duck my head against his chest.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chants against my hair. “Tell me to stop.”

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