Page 52 of Broken Pieces
“You think I’ve been ignoring you,” he mutters at last, his voice rough.
“I don’t think,” I bite out. “I know.”
When he doesn’t answer, the silence gnaws at me until the words slip free.
“Don’t act like I imagined it,” I whisper.
His eyes snap to mine, blazing.
“I’m not,” he rasps. “I’m fucking trying, Skylar.”
“Trying what?”
His laugh is sharp and broken, scraping the air between us. “To keep my distance. To stop wanting you so bad I can’t fucking breathe.”
The rooftop tilts under me, my heart pounding hard enough to split my chest.
“Then don’t.”
The fight snaps in him and he surges forward, his mouth landing against mine.
The kiss is not cautious. It’s desperate. Hungry. Reckless.
His lips tear the air from my lungs, taking everything I thought I had left.
He kisses me as if he has been drowning, and I am the first breath he has had in years.
His hands are everywhere. Cupping my face, tangling in my hair, gripping hard enough to pin me to the roof. Heat pours through me, flooding fast, searing down to my bones.
Then he pulls back, abrupt and ragged, breath tearing from him in violent bursts.
I blink, reeling. “What—”
He sits hunched, chest heaving, jaw tight, as if holding himself together costs him everything.
“You don’t get it, Sky. You make me forget all the shit. Where I come from. What I am. What everyone sees when they look at me.”
“I don’t see what they see.”
His voice drops. “Then what do you see?”
I do not hesitate. “You.”
And I mean it.
I see him. The boy who sits alone at lunch because people are never safe. The boy who looks ready to break your jaw if you get too close, yet stays still when you lean into him. The boy who kissed me as if it mattered, then ran because he didn’t know how to stay.
He cannot hold my stare. His jaw flexes hard as he looks away, as if turning from me could hide the way my words cut into him.
I reach for him.
His hand snaps up, catching mine midair, stopping me cold. His grip is rough, his skin hot against mine, and for a breath it comes off less as rejection and more as a warning.
“Don’t pull away from me, Zane.”
His jaw locks. “Fuck. You’re gonna kill me.”His eyes close, head tipping back as if it physically hurts him to look at me. “You think I don’t fucking want you?” His voice cracks.
He drags my hand down until it lands on his hard cock against his jeans.
