Page 81 of Riot House
Wren pulls away, leaving me whimpering and so close to falling apart. I’m only left to suffer for a second, though. He settles between my legs, thrusting himself deep inside me in one swift, breathtaking movement, and my blood sings in my ears. It sounds like wind rushing past me as I stumble and fall, descending into a bottomless pit of madness.
“Wren! Oh, shit! I’m going to—I think I’m gonna—” Even now, with him on top of me, driving himself into me over and over again, biting down on my collar bone, lighting the inside of my head up with invisible fireworks, I can’t bring myself to admit that I’m about to come out loud.
Wren feels it, though. He claims my mouth so savagely that I probably would have come from the kiss alone. “Good girl. Good girl,” he whispers hoarsely. “Let it happen. Don’t fucking fight it.”
That’s all I need to hear. I release the tight leash I’ve been holding over myself, and my very soul shatters apart, stealing the oxygen out of my lungs, and my fractured thoughts right out of my head.
“WREN!” I shout his name, I know I do, but there’s no stopping it. I can’t help it. He locks himself around me, holding me tightly in his arms as he grinds himself against me, his cock filling me to the hilt. I come, shaking and trembling, lights flashing in my eyes, and he snarls into the crook of my neck.
“Steady,” he whispers. “Steady, steady, shhh, good girl. Hold on tight. I’m not done with you yet.”
He slows for a beat. Long enough to rain soft kisses down on my temple and the top of my head, gathering my hair and sweeping it out my face, stroking his fingers over my cheeks and my lips.
“Your fucking mouth, Elodie,” he moans. “The things I wanna do to yourmouth.”
He slips his fingers past my lips, pressing down on my tongue, and a low and terrible rumble works its way out of him, reverberating in my ear. “One of these days. God, just you fucking wait...”
He picks up the pace again, his hips grinding against mine, one of his hands palming my breasts and rolling my nipple, pinching so hard that I let out a sharp cry. I cling onto him, addicted to the shifting and bunching of the muscles in his back as they tense under my hands. In this moment, he is a force of fucking nature, more powerful and frightening than the lightning and thunder that split the air apart the night I met him in the gazebo.
He’s fierce and demanding, nipping at my mouth with his teeth.
His hands are rough, taking what they want from my body, bringing me closer and closer...
The smell of him, the heat of him, the weight of him, the very sound of him raging as he draws closer to his own climax...
I can’t get enough of him.
There’s nothing else for me to do but hold onto him tight and ride out the storm.
We come together, fingers tightening, teeth gouging, bodies tangled together, breath frantic, and it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever fucking experienced. The hectic flow of my blood begins to slow, my muscles easing one by one, relaxing as Wren sags on top of me, and we spend a second catching our breath. And then Wren does something unexpected.
He places his mouth on mine and kisses me with the utmost care. No tongue. No urgency. Just a gentle moment, where he kisses me, and the fucking world stands still.
I’ve had so many expectations of him in my head that this...I don’t know what to do withthis.
Because never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that Wren Jacobi could be gentle.
29
ELODIE
At the beginningof any new life in any new place, time passes infinitely slowly. Every small detail of your surroundings is interesting, or annoying, or beautiful or puzzling, and requires your full attention. But after a while, there are fewer and fewer new things to notice and everything becomes familiar. The same thing that’s happened at every other place I’ve ever lived happens at Wolf Hall, too. I know what to expect when I turn a corner. I know the shape of the trees outside my window, and even the shape of the trees in the distance at the far side of the academy’s boundary line, where the forest begins and reaches toward the horizon. I know the unique smell of the beeswax wood polish Jana, the academy’s seventy-year-old housekeeper, uses to hand polish the wood paneling every Wednesday. I know the hollow echo of voices that bounce around the high-ceiling hallways and classrooms whenever the bell rings. I know the honeyed quality of the light that pours in through the library windows, and I know the texture of the wooden desk beneath my fingertips in my French class.
Two weeks pass, and gradually Wolf Hall begins to feel like a home of sorts. And every opportunity we get, Wren and I meet in the library’s conveniently sound-proofed microfiche room—turns outthat’swhat was behind Wren’s secret hidden door—or the attic, and even in my room once or twice, when I knew for sure that Carina wasn’t going to barge in unannounced.
Wren’s ever himself, but I learn more and more of him every day; unexpected doors open to me, revealing something about him, details no one else knows, that I hoard to myself, the information more precious than gold or rubies.
He hates the texture of peanut butter in his mouth.
Whenever he smells the ocean, he thinks about losing one of his front teeth when he was eight.
He thinks the word sesquipedalian is the best word in the English language, which is ironic because it means ‘given to using long words,’—which he most certainly is.
He secretly loves dogs but won’t admit to loving anything if he doesn’t have to.
Birds intrigue him.
Sailing, swimming, and reading make him feel alive.
