Page 22 of That Girl is Trouble

Her eyes suddenly snap open, and she blows out the candle.

“What did you wish for?” I ask.

She plucks the cupcake from my hand and smirks. “Can’t tell you. Won’t come true otherwise. Wanna taste?” she asks, peeling the paper back. Her eyes twinkling with mirth, she fits half the cupcake into her mouth and bites down. Crumbs stick to her lip gloss, and white icing lines the corners of her mouth.

I chuckle. “I’m good, Kitty.”

Kat rolls her eyes, and before I can stop her, she digs her finger into the icing and wipes it on the tip of my nose.

Feigning a glare, I growl, “That was a mistake.”

“Yeah? What you gonna do?” she taunts as she takes a step back.

She goes in for a second hit, once again dipping her finger into the icing and coming at me, but I do what I do best—retaliate. Dodging her, I go for the box, sweeping my fingers through the icing of one of the cupcakes. I grab for her, but she slips from my grip, giggling as she sidesteps around my kitchen island.

“Way too slow. I expected better, Donovan,” she says, laughing. But as she teases, I gain ground and corner her against the back counter. This time when I grab for her, I don’t miss. She squeals as I pull her into my chest and move to rub the bright pink icing all over her face.

She catches my fingers in her mouth.

Jesus. Fucking. Fuck.

Her fucking mouth.

I freeze as she closes her lips around my two fingers, and then she locks eyes with me, halting all movement too. As if just realizing what she’s doing. Like the way the temperature in my kitchen just jumped ten degrees is registering with her. We’re touching. We shouldn’t be. She knows it and I know it. Because she belongs to Jesse. Because she’s seventeen. Because I can’t fuck her without Graves finding out, and the man would surely kill me if I ever laid a hand on her.

Fucking. Seventeen.

I should pull away, but I can’t move. I can’t seem to do the right thing. Most days I don’t bother doing what’s right, and today clearly isn’t any different.

Eyes on me, irises swimming with lust, she slides my fingers deeper into her mouth and sucks the pink icing off my skin. I let her. And then I let her do it again to clean up what’s left. And fuck me for what that’s doing to my dick right now.

When she releases my fingers, it’s with an obscene sucking noise, taunting me with ideas of other things I could do to that mouth, other noises I could pull from it. I tug her closer and drag my thumb over those lips, wiping up the white icing and the crumbs before pulling my thumb to my own mouth and finally having a taste—of the icing, of her.

“What flavour is that? Cherry?”

There’s a tremble in her hand as she runs it up my chest. Too close. Too fucking close. “Cherry Berry.”

“I like it. New favourite flavour, I think.”

Her breath hitches, dark eyes fixed on mine. “Yeah? Wanna taste?”

A dare. Taste me. You know you want to. And I almost do it. I almost nip those lips with my teeth and take her mouth exactly how I want.

It’s a goddamn blessing that Preacher walks in when he does. At the sound of the door to my apartment squeaking open, I jump back from Kat like she’s just burst into flames.

Preacher tilts his head, studying her, then me, the icing still on my nose. “Hey, Kitty,” he says. “Happy birthday.”

She smiles and skirts around me, making for the door. “Thanks, Preach. You comin’ to dinner tonight? Axe got cake.”

“Yeah, I know. Devil’s food. Cherry filling.”

“Oh, cherry. Axe’s favourite,” she says with a wink. “See you guys.”

When she’s gone, Preacher kicks the door closed and raises his brows, his forehead wrinkling in question.

I snag a paper towel from the counter and wipe the icing off my nose, then go back to my beer, hating myself for relishing the taste of cherries still hanging heavy on my lips. “Got something to say?”

“You want me to say something?”

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