Page 41 of Bliss: Part 1
I spotted Ashby sitting with Rhys and a few others, guys and girls, all of them laughing and drinking like it was the best night of their lives. Bottles in hand, cheeks flushed, voices loud. Their energy was a world away from mine. Whatever high they were riding, I wasn’t catching it tonight.
Actually, the longer I stayed here, the more irritated I got.
I wanted to leave. I wanted to be alone with Bliss. She hadn’t said it out loud yet, but I knew she wanted that too. Something was holding her back, though. Maybe curiosity, maybe just a need to watch the chaos play out. She liked watching people, especially when they were acting ridiculous. And most of the people around us were doing exactly that. No one here would remember the things they did in the morning.
But Bliss and I? We’d remember everything. We weren’t drinking.
When another couple started going at it right next to us, kissing like the world was ending, Bliss and I glanced at each other with a look that said it all. The tension between us was rising again, the kind that had been simmering beneath the surface for a while now. It never really went away.
She reached for my hand and leaned in, resting her chin lightly on my shoulder. “Wanna go somewhere quieter?”
I looked down at her, reading her expression like a book. Her eyes were soft, but there was something behind them. Something charged. I could never say no to her when she looked at me like that.
“You sure you don’t just want to go home?” I asked quietly, offering her an even quieter place.
She shook her head. “Not just yet.”
There was something playful and daring in her voice, a spark in her eyes that told me exactly what she had in mind. She wanted privacy that still carried the thrill of being close to the noise, to the risk. The chance someone might see us. Might figure us out.
It excited her. And, honestly, it excited me too.
In the strangest, most messed-up way possible.
“Okay,” I said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze before leading her away, toward the trees. The further we went, the softer the sounds of the party became. We could still hear the voices and the distant thump of music, but we were out of sight now.
We soon stopped, and as she looked toward the party, I watched her closely, taking in her beauty in the moonlight. She looked so damn beautiful, and while it had been her wanting to come over here, it was me who took the first step.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed Bliss by the waist and backed her into the rough trunk of an old pine. My hands were firm but careful. Her breath hitched when her back met the bark, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t resist. She just looked up at me with that familiar glint in her eyes.
A glint that said she wanted this just as badly as I did.
I closed the space between us in a heartbeat, my mouth crashing into hers with a hunger I’d kept buried all night. Her soft gasp turned into a quiet moan as my lips parted hers and my tongue slid between them, deepening. She opened for me willingly, her mouth moving with mine in a slow rhythm that was so full of heat it nearly undid me.
Even though my body ached to devour her, I forced myself to keep the kiss gentle. I didn’t want to rush her. I wanted to feel her. Taste her.
Her hands fisted lightly in the front of my shirt, pulling me closer. I could feel the way her body melted into mine, her softness yielding to my frame as her head tilted to the side, giving me more access, silently telling me that she wanted more.
I gave it to her. I deepened the kiss more, slid one hand up her side to her ribcage, feeling the subtle tremble beneath her skin. My other hand stayed at her hip, holding her there like I never wanted her to move again.
“This what you wanted?” I murmured against her lips, my voice low, rough with need. I already knew the answer. I could feel it in the way she clung to me, in the way her body responded to every single touch.
“Yes,” she whispered breathlessly, her eyes fluttering open for a second before her lashes lowered again. Her body relaxed even more, molding into me like she’d been waiting for this moment all night.
God, she was beautiful like this. Cheeks flushed. Needy, yet calm. Not even the party noise in the distance could distract me from the way her breath ghosted across my lips or the way her fingers dragged lightly along the back of my neck.
I kissed her again. Her lips were soft, warm, so responsive to everything I gave her. She didn’t just kiss me back. She gaveherself to me in that kiss. Open, trusting, and completely unguarded.
I didn’t deserve that kind of surrender. But I took it anyway.
My hand slid beneath her shirt, finding the warm skin of her waist. She shivered at my touch, her muscles tensing, then softening again as I traced my thumb along her skin. I didn’t push further. Not yet. This was enough for now. Shit…this waseverything.
She pulled me closer, wrapping one arm around my shoulders as her other hand slipped up to cup the side of my jaw.
Her thumb brushed over my jawline, soft and slow.
We were lost in each other. So damn lost that we didn’t even notice someone approaching before it was too late to stop. We got caught, but for some strange reason, we didn’t push away from each other.
We broke the kiss as the footsteps came closer, and the clearing of someone’s throat made us turn our heads, still dizzy from the intensity of our intimacy.
