Page 60 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
Everything is second when it comes to Cali.
“Thank you, Gage. I just…I think I need some more time before I’m ready to invest in a relationship. I’m sorry.”
She’s considering it.
And even though it’s not the answer I would’ve liked, I’m more than happy to wait. “You don’t need to be sorry, Cali. I’m a patient man.”
“I really don’t deserve you,” she cries, flinging herself into my body and knocking me backward with the force, her small arms latched around my torso.
I bark out a chuckle. “I’mthe one who doesn’t deserveyou.”
She rears back in confusion. “What?”
My heart begins to hiccup, everything else coming to a standstill except forher. She’s a lightning strike in a chasm of deep onyx, beautiful to look at but dangerous to touch up close. Dangerous yet alluring. A once-in-a-lifetime kind of phenomenon.
“After all this time, you still don’t understand what you mean to me, do you?”
Cali blinks at me with those doe eyes of hers.
I take her hand and rest it over my heart, feeling it speed up drastically. I’m convinced my heart could distinguish her touch even if I lost my eyesight.
“My heart’s always this fucked up when you’re around. You make me so goddamn crazy that I can never think straight when it comes to you. You’re just…you’re perfect. So insanely perfect that you should come with a warning label.”
I want to say those three words. I want to say them so badly. I know she’s not ready to hear them, but the feelings I have for her will never change. Maybe it’s too early. Maybe this is all infatuation. Maybe I’m just a young idiot who’s fallen completely head over heels. I don’t care what it is. All I care about is clinging to this emotion for as long as I can.
She spares me a smile just bordering on toothy benevolence,and slowly, the light begins to rekindle inside her. “You can be really sweet when you aren’t being an ass,” she admits humorously.
Her hand drops from my chest, giving my poor heart a reprieve, and I bring her body closer to mine, my hands roving over the curve of her spine and the small dimples resting just above her butt. “See? I’m a changed man because of you.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“Oh, really?”
Cali lowers my hands until I grasp the bottom of her ass—which is more than bare and cheeky thanks to her scrap of a thong. “You’re still a dog, Gage Arlington,” she drawls in an erotic whisper, her breath mangling when I knead the plentiful fat there.
“Then fucking chain me up, Spitfire.”
For the first time, she’s the one who initiates the kiss, servicing every Cali-starved crevice of my body, her tongue rolling over mine in a slow, deliberate stroke. My fingers squeeze her ass cheeks so tightly that I’m a hundred percent certain I’m going to leave a red handprint behind. I groan into her mouth, feeling my erection harden like granite, and I’m gonna give myself two minutes before I tear through this flimsy costume and flash everyone in the nearby vicinity.
When she takes my bottom lip between her teeth, a cocktail of desire and oxytocin mixes with the unwise decision of a few too many drinks in my stomach.
“Cali, we can’t do this here.”
“You’re right,” she purrs. “We haven’t even danced yet.”
I freeze as the aridity in my mouth grows. “Wha?—”
I don’t even have time to construct a robust response before the lyric-less EDM music over the speakers changes into a pop anthem. The tempo has sped up, and thanks to numerous car rides with Fulton torturing me with hits from the 2000s, Iimmediately recognize the beginning notes of Britney Spears’ “I’m a Slave 4 U.” A giddy grin seizes Cali’s face, and before I can protest, she pulls me onto the dance floor.
The blood in my ears, however, overpowers my sensibility to evacuate the scene as quickly as possible. Remember when I said dancing was easy? I was wrong.So wrong.It’s harder than anything I’ve ever done before.
With lips full of innuendo and an arresting sway of her hips, she’s dancing in front of me, her plunging cleavage mashing against my chest thanks to the leverage of her heels. My hands settle on her butt as my fingers brush against the thin strip of fabric getting swallowed by her ass cheeks. It’d be so easy to slide these off her right now without anyone noticing, and the access makes heat swelter in my fattening cock.
I’ve never met a girl who can move like Cali, and I’m cherishing every fucking second of this dance. And then, as if she can sense just how insanely hungry my erection is for the slightest attention, she spins around so her back is flush with my chest.
Holy fuck.
She guides my arms to her waist, rolling her body in time to the music. Her hips move back and forth in a sultry way that makes me grip her curves even harder, and her butt jiggles each time it grinds against my dick.
