Page 42 of Riot Rules
Hearing any guy say that, hovering over your nipple with his hands on your body, would make a girl feel faint. ButDash?God, hearing him say it with his accent, and that rough, possessive edge in his voice? It’s cripplingly sexy.
“Wasn’t rhetorical, love,” he growls. “Tell me.” He works fast, taking care of the buttons I forgot about a second ago. “Are you wet for me? If I slide my fingers between your legs right now, what am I gonna find?”
“I—I don’t know.”
He narrows his eyes, straightening up to his full height. With a sweep of his hands, he brushes the nightshirt off my shoulders for good, sending the flimsy material floating to the floor. I’m now officially naked, and Dash is still fully dressed in his hoody, black jeans and sneakers. He tips is head curiously to one side, doing a magnificent job of not looking down at my body. “You don’t know what’s going on in between your legs right now, Mendoza?” he asks. “I know what’s going on in my pants. Just in case you’re wondering. No, no, no.” He crooks a finger under my chin, angling my head back so thatIcan’t look down. “You wanna find out, you use your hands.”
Threat. Challenge. Taunt. Whatever this is, it brings a savage smile to his face and makes me break out in a cold sweat. He wants me to just reach out andgrab his dick?Plenty of girls at Wolf Hall would break their necks in their haste to do just that. The things I’ve heard in the girls’ locker room, not just about the Riot House boys but about Dashiell specifically, have been graphic enough to make a sailor blush. But I’m not like them. I never have been. I wear what I want, and I say what I want, but when it comes totakingwhat I want, I’m a coward of the highest order.
“Would it help if I closed my eyes?” Dash whispers.
He’s playing with me. This is some sort of test. He doesn’t think I’m up to this? Iwillprove him wrong. But maybe…
I meet his gaze, resenting the fact that I’m about to do this. “Yes.”
The boy who has never shown me any mercy before does me this one act of kindness. His eyelids flutter closed, his lashes fanning out against his cheeks, so long and much darker than the ashy blond of his head hair. His hands twitch at his sides as he waits for me to do something. I’m going to unfasten his jeans. Iamgoing to…but the sight of him standing like this in front of me with his eyes closed affects me in a way I didn’t expect.
He's so fuckingbeautiful. There’s a coldness to Dash that never thaws. He can give a girl frostbite from twenty paces with one scathing look. The arrogant way he holds himself, and the sheer level of disinterest he emits is intimidating as hell.
With his eyes closed, all of that goes away.
He doesn’t hold a title. He isn’t a creature to be terrified of, to run from, scared, with your heart beating out of your chest.
He’s just a boy.
His nose has been broken. Not badly. There’s a tiny kink in the bridge of it that tells a story, though. There’s a scar on his chin—a thin, white line running along the line of his jaw that can only be seen properly from this angle, while standing extra close, looking up at him.
He’s very still. His chest barely rises and falls with his breath. He waits patiently, completely at ease, until I reach up and touch my fingers to his cheek…and he flinches. I freeze, too scared and too stubborn to withdraw. “What, it’s okay for me to touch your dick but not your face?”
Matching lines take shape between his eyebrows. He irons them out, but I’ve already seen them for what they were: discomfort.
“You don’t like that?”
He swallows. “It’s just…intimate.”
“You think me doing that is more intimate than touching your dick?”
“Absolutely.”
“You realize how fucked up that is, right?”
“People usually wanna touch my dick way more than they wanna touch my face. But if you wanna poke my forehead, have at it.”
“I don’t want to poke your fore—” I shake my head. “Never mind.” It’s amazing how easily he can bait me, even when he’s trying to oblige me. He still hasn’t opened his eyes. Frustrated and even more stubborn now, I touch my fingers to his cheek again, ready for his reaction this time. There’s no flinch, though. No reaction at all. He stands there, still as a marble statue, while I trace my fingers over his features, one at a time. His strong jaw; his cheekbones; his nose; over each eyebrow. He huffs out a sharp breath when I gently stroke the scar on his chin, and I can’t tell if he’s laughing or irritated. I move on, using a featherlight touch to map out the shell of his ear.
Copying his action earlier, I press my fingers to his mouth, and the soft swell of his lips has my heart skipping all over the place. I kiss him. I’ve daydreamed about kissing this boy for over two years, but those fantasies have never played out like this.I’venever been the one to stand onmytiptoes and place my lips againsthis. That would have been too bold. Crazy. Insane. Stupid. It doesn’t feel that way when I do it, though. It feels natural, like I have every right to be claiming a kiss from the hottest guy in existence.
Dash huffs again. It’s much easier to figure out what he’s thinking this time; he reaches up and places his palms against my cheeks, cradling my face in his hands. His lips move against mine, and this is a totally brand-new type of kiss. Thus far, we’ve kept our eyes open, watching each other, too wary to let each other out of our sights. Our exchanges have been aggressive, a push and pull for power. But Dash’s eyes are already closed now. He lets out a sigh of resignation that makes me shiver. He’s gentle with me. There’s no urgency. No fight.
The kiss is a surrender.
I close my eyes and fall into him, startled by the turn that this has taken. I didn’t know. I had no idea he evencouldbe like this. I dip my tongue into his mouth, and his breathing comes quicker, one of his hands moving to hold the back of my neck, the other sliding down my arm, brushing my side until he’s holding onto me by my hip. He kisses me back, claiming my mouth, still very much commanding me, but he’s careful. He holds me like I’ll break or vanish in a puff of thin air and he’ll be left holding nothing but the memory of me.
“Fuck. Jesus Christ, Carrie.” He draws back, taking a deep breath. I have to gasp for one, too. We stand together, his arms around me, my hands against his chest, and a moment passes between us that I know I’ll replay and obsessively overanalyze until I give myself a migraine later. He looks into my eyes, rests his forehead against mine, and says, “Fuck this. You’re right. No more games. No more bullshit. We’re doing this.”
A flurry of movement. Hands ripping at his clothes, both his and mine. The hoody hits the floor. He toes off his sneakers, swearing as he tries to maintain his balance, which is shockingly endearing, and then he’s tearing his jeans down his legs and his underwear joins his discarded clothes. We’re both naked, then, and breathing hard. I wait for him to order me to my knees so he can slide his dick into my mouth—just seems like something he would do—but no. He greedily takes me in, and the restraint he showed before is long gone. I do the same, chewing on my lip as I take in the full picture—the broad, strong shoulders; his defined chest and stomach; the cut vee that trails down between his legs; all six foot three of him in all his glory. He looks like a bronzed god.
Jesus, his cock…I’ve never seen one in person before. I’ve watched porn, but the ones I’ve seen on the internet have all been veiny and frightening—monstrous appendages, twitching like they have a mind of their own. Dash’s cock looks nothing like that. He’s hard.Reallyhard. The head of his dick is a blushed shade of pale pink. There are no gross, bulging veins in sight. It’s sothick; I doubt I’d be able to close my hand around it.
