Her breathing fast and getting faster, I tilted her head back, deepening the kiss, her taste so sweet I had to fight back moans.
Slightly feverish, I kept deepening the kiss even further (further and further) until I felt her do a tiny jump—not exactly a bad thing, especially because it came with a cute little happy purr. Still, she jumped.
“Relax,” I whispered with a soft laugh, my calloused palms sliding down her shivering arms, no way was I going to let her go now. My mouth was seduced by hers. It couldn’t get enough.
I lowered my mouth back down on hers, full-on kissing, though for a tiny while I tried my hardest to keep them softer and less passionate. The feel of her pounding heart was too much for me now though. So was the tiny purring noises she kept making. With a low growl I pulled her even closer to me. My hands tangled in her soft hair, tantalized by her hot, moist mouth.
The funny thing was, I knew her kisses would be like this to me. And taste like this—the sweetest, most delicious taste in the world. I couldn’t get enough.
I was devouring her mouth.
I kissed her deeper and deeper, my tongue exploring her tongue and delicious hot mouth like there was no tomorrow. And—to my shock—she let me. Heat flowed over my skin, and through my grateful heart as I took all she was willing to give. Okay, it was just kisses. Innocent. But her hot mouth against mine had me on fire.
I knew it would be like this. The moment I held her hand in the school hallway that day and she looked at me all starry eyed. I knew her kisses would thrill me like they were and her heart would beat for me just like it was doing. And I dug it. So much. So much that when Mrs. Finkle stomped into her classroom from the side-door, I didn’t stop kissing my cookie girl.
Not until the lady’s loud, obnoxious voice made Ally jump a mile in the air.
Mrs. Finkle huffed impatiently. “I’m going to give you two exactly one second to clear out of my classroom. Then I’m handing out detention slips.”
I, of course, wouldn’t have stopped kissing for that. But Ally looked red-faced and horrified. Of course that could have had something to do with the fact she had a boyfriend—yet she’d been purring in my mouth.
CHAPTER 13
When Ally and I scrambled out of Mrs. Finkle’s classroom, Ally looked unsteady. And wobbly. I held out my hand to steady her. “You going to be okay?”
She looked like she was going to keel over—not from guilt or anything. More like she was in a dizzy daze. I was feeling it too—but I was way more used to kissing than her.
Still, our kiss—there was no denying it—there had been sparks. And no way were other girls going to be able to do it for me now. Unfortunately, I’d kind of already known that. The moment I had smelled Ally, she was mine. Like I was secretly a werewolf or something. She’d been imprinted on me. I was hers. She was mine. Whether she knew it or not. And unfortunately, she didn’t seem to know it.
Since she belonged to a mouthy punk and everything—Poser.
So when wild Willa came sauntering by with a sexy smile, purring out, “Hi Griffin.”
I reluctantly let go of Ally.
“Hey Willa,” I said, doing my best to smile, even as my eyes kept cutting to Ally to make sure she wasn’t falling over or anything.
Or having second thoughts.
I mean, if she wanted to dump her boyfriend, I was here. Waiting. Hoping.
But she was turning red—and looking sick.
Nope, that didn’t look like love.
It looked like regret.
I leaned into her again. “Your boyfriend’s off the hook,” I whispered to her, but I don’t think she heard me. She was still lost in her own world. Regret can do that to you. But so can a good kiss. And she’d had both.
Willa’s eyes squinted between me and Ally—like why was I standing so close to Goody-goody Grange?
Inwardly I groaned. I took a quick step away from Ally. I didn’t want her to get tangled in rumors. Not ones about me. The girl was doing her boyfriend a favor—that was it. I’d feel like a wad if she got damaged for it. I sort of felt like one anyway, though. It was just supposed to be fun—the kiss. But she had a boyfriend. I really hadn’t thought about it that way before. I’d just thought it’d be fun to kiss Poser’s girlfriend—kind of get a jab at him, since I wasn’t going to get to take an actual swing.
But I didn’t want to take a swing at Ally. That was so not my intent. I hoped she knew that—but I doubted it.
Still, I grabbed on to Willa, leading her away from innocent Ally.
“Come on, Willa. I’ll let you watch my hockey practice, since I’m in such a good mood. In fact, I’m in such a good mood, I’m not even going to beat up anyone.”
I said that loud enough so Ally could hear, though she still seemed out of it. Willa wasn’t though. She had the attention of a hawk. Apparently.
As I lead her away from Ally, she kept looking back at Cookie Girl anyway. “Isn’t that Aiden Hank’s girlfriend? What were you doing with her? Why’s she all red like that? She looks like you’ve been kissing her.”
Oh man.
“I’m going to kiss you, Willa,” I warned as a distraction.
“Yeah, yeah. Promises, promises,” she said with a challenging smile, apparently forgetting all about Ally as her eyes glittered with eagerness. “I thought you never kiss a girl twice.”
“Watch me,” I murmured, pulling her close, lowering my lips down on hers—and being sorely disappointed.
I was a werewolf. And Willa wasn’t my mate.
My mate smelled like cookies.
CHAPTER 14
Okay, the werewolf feeling lasted about three days. It would have lasted longer—years—but what was the use? Ally wasn’t feeling it.
She was Poser’s.
No matter how much she dug my kiss—and I promise you, she was into it, dazed long after it—still, she was Poser’s. Not mine.
I figured I had to face it. After all, following that day we kissed she wouldn’t even glance at me if I looked at her. It was like she wished she hadn’t kissed me. And I figured she wished she didn’t.
I was slime.
So, though it hurt my heart, I let her have her way.
The kiss never happened … but I didn’t beat up her boyfriend. And I didn’t let anyone else slug him out either. He had no idea he was the luckiest guy on the planet.
But man, I did.
CHAPTER 15
The next time I kissed Ally, I didn’t force her into it. Not exactly. We were at a party. I was kind of shocked to see her there. Ally is not a party girl. She’s a church girl. Everybody knows that. But there she was—at a weekend hockey party at this chick Fauna’s house.
Seeing Ally walk in, I ran a hand over my face and watched her through narrowed eyes, for a moment oblivious to my friends, and their telling me how much this lady that works at the ice rink wants me. (It’s pretty much just talk. I think the lady’s married. She just likes the way I use my stick … she’s a hockey fan.)
In any case, from across the room, I watched Ally. I figured Poser dragged her to the party. I mean, I already knew Ally was a good little girlfriend. After all, she had kissed a scary guy to save her boyfriend’s face. So, of course she would let the loser punk drag her to somewhere she didn’t want to go. Somewhere she obviously didn’t feel comfortable at.
She kept hiding behind Aiden, like she thought everyone at the party was like me—big scary guys. And I guess most of them were. Not only that, they were drunk. Ally shouldn’t have been here.
I tried not watching her, though. I mean, it messed with my heart. She was so nice. The way she held Poser’s hand, smiling at him even when he kept looking at Fauna. I could see she was hurting.
Fauna has all kinds of curves, and she’d been throwing them Poser’s way at practices lately. Fauna’s a hockey cheerleader—and recently her cheers were for Poser. (Fauna gets around. We’d all enjoyed her private cheers at one time or another. Though really, I hadn’t enjoyed mine th
at much. I might have mentioned: I like nice girls. Fauna doesn’t really fall into that category—which is why she was chasing another girl’s boyfriend: Ally’s.)
But like I said, I tried not to watch it—the train wreck. After all, Poser wasn’t an idiot. (Okay, he was. Majorly. But I didn’t figure even he could be that dumb—to fall for Fauna when he had Ally.) Sure, I figured he was a little dazzled by Fauna’s attention. Enough to hurt Ally with his not-so-subtle peeks in Fauna’s direction every five seconds. But I didn’t figure the dope could be led away from Ally.
And he probably wouldn’t have—but Fauna is persuasive.
See, there was this game of “Three Minutes In Heaven” that took place a little later in the basement. Really the game is called “Seven Minutes In Heaven” but that was a little too long for everyone sitting around waiting for their turn to kiss in the closet. Thus was born: “Three Minutes In Heaven.” Due to limited attention spans—and a vote, which I didn’t partake in, because I wasn’t playing the game, or really even aware it was going on … until the bottle landed on Fauna and she got to choose her closet partner.
These were the words that came out of her mouth: “I want you” … and she said them to Poser.
I have to hand it to the guy, he looked uncomfortable.
All of our team was suddenly interested in the game. Big time. They started chanting, “Go for it!”
Poser cut his gaze to Ally, like wanting her permission, because he didn’t want to look whipped in front of the guys, since they were always teasing him that Ally had him whipped. (But we tease any guy that has a girlfriend about that. It wasn’t a reflection on Ally. I’m just kind of pointing that out, ’cause I, myself, would have enjoyed being whipped by Ally. [Sorry about the pun, but yeah it was intended—as a joke.])
Fauna grabbed Poser’s face all seductive-like, not letting him look to Ally anymore. Instead, she made him look up at her—Private Cheers—into her smoky, I want you eyes. “It’s just a game Aiden,” she purred. “Your girlfriend can handle it.”
Then she dragged Poser into the closet with her—though he didn’t put up much of a fight. The tool had a goofy grin on his face. Loser.
Ally watched him go into the closet like her heart had been ripped out of her chest and shoved in the closet with them.
Once the closet door shut, Ally looked like she was going to jump up and run out of the room—away from everyone’s stares and her boyfriend’s betrayal. But one of her friends quickly put their hand on her knee and whispered something in her ear. Something that made her settle back down in the spot she hadn’t actually moved from.
It didn’t take a genius to know what her friend must have said to her—that if Ally left the party, Fauna would get exactly what she wanted: Poser all to herself. It’s one thing to walk out on a guy—it’s another to give a girl you detest exactly what she wants.
The whole time Poser was in the closet, Ally sat with her arms wrapped around her stomach and her eyes downcast, biting down tense on her bottom lip, obviously trying to keep it from trembling. Her two friends—Jazz and Destiny (who I still didn’t know the names of at the time)—kept talking to her all soothing-like. But Ally couldn’t look at them, or at anything but the ground. Her focus was obviously on keeping her pooling eyes from spilling. She did a good job of it.
My heart kind of ached for her.
I wanted to go over to her and hold her hand or something for support. But I didn’t figure she wanted that. Or me. I mean, that was her boyfriend in there. Her boyfriend. Who she had tried to keep safe by kissing me—the most terrifying guy in the world. Apparently. (Bet she wished she had let me beat his face in now.)
Everyone kept trying to act like they weren’t watching her. I mean, everyone felt bad for her. The guys on the team had teased Poser, sure—but they hadn’t really expected him to go into the closet with Fauna. I mean, the little loser had a girlfriend. Who does that?—a poser. That’s who.
Anyway, everyone kept trying to go on with their conversations and let little Ally lick her wounds in peace. But when Poser came out of the closet, red faced and tussled haired; hurting, bleeding Ally did her best to put on a show for him—or probably it was more for Fauna. It was the I-Don’t-Care-Show, starring brave little Ally Grange. Suddenly, she talked and laughed with her friends as though she wasn’t dying inside—as though she was having an awesome time at this awesome party, and life couldn’t possibly be any more awesome. But I noticed she wouldn’t look at Poser. Poser noticed too.
The guy kept whispering to her, obviously trying to get her to forgive him. But we all hoped she wouldn’t. Especially me.
The punk was a loser.
He didn’t deserve her.
I knew I didn’t either—but hey, I never had her. And if I did, no way would I go into a closet with another girl. Ever. I’d hold on to her. Tight. I’d never let her go.
Funny thing was, right after that, the bottle landed on me. Meaning my turn to choose someone to go into the closet with.
But the thing was, like I said, I hadn’t been playing the game. I was just chilling with my friends, telling them about this massacre I’d seen on the ice-rink the night before. So, when the bottle landed on me, I didn’t give it much thought—I was in the middle of my gory story.
“I’m not playing,” I told everyone, ’cause when I glanced up from my friends I noticed the rest of the party was looking at me—waiting for me to pick someone to kiss or whatever.
But right after I said I wasn’t playing, I rethought my words really quick, the gears in my head turning. “Wait—I’m supposed to choose someone to take into the closet?”
My slow grin wasn’t subtle. Neither was my flickering gaze as it darted to Ally. “I want Poser’s girl.”
My teammates laughed, booming out loud Ohhhh!’s as though it was a slam. And Poser turned white as a ghost.
But I didn’t really pay attention to that stuff. My eyes were on Ally. Hadn’t left her since I said the words. When I first said them her eyes widened—like she was shocked. Only at the same time they also glinted with something else too, something like she was grateful.
My lips twitched slightly.
For a brief second, I swear, her eyes looked at me the same way they did that day I carried her books for her—all starry-eyed, like I was her hero. It stirred up my insides. The girl does kooky things to me. I’m not going to lie, she turns me to mush.
From my spot across the room, I stared at her, silent and slightly amused that I was in the middle of a game that involved a dark closet and a girl. I mean, what kind of game is that?
Breathing out a soft laugh, I watched Ally curiously, entertained that my pulse was thumping wild even though I knew she wouldn’t go into the closet with me.
Meanwhile, my friends were chanting, “Look out Poser!” and: “The Griff is hot for School Girl!”
Ally’s pretty eyes quickly darted away from me. No shock there. But then she jutted her chin at Poser, defiant-like.
When he had come out of the closet he had kept insisting to her that it wasn’t “his fault” that he’d been called into the closet.
Now her adorable chin inched upwards in defiance. She threw his words back at him with her soft voice hitching slightly, “It’s not my fault.”
Then she hopped to her feet.
Rock. On.
I watched that with raised eyebrows and a creeping grin.
A huge smile spread on my face. Without a word, I followed her into the closet.
I really hadn’t expected that—her to agree to me and her alone in a dark closet. But hey, the girl was full of surprises (like cute songs about me, even though she ran from me). I liked that…. And I liked the way I could smell her delicious cinnamon cookie scent as soon as I shut the closet door. (I’m such a werewolf.) It was like a little piece of heaven right there in the closet, and I hadn’t even gotten my lips on her yet. Not that I was exactly sure I was going to actually get to put my mouth on her again. I wasn’
t sure if this was all just her way to save face or what.
I didn’t mind being used by her that way if it was, though. Anything to slam that punk Poser was awesome with me. And helping Ally, that was a score too. Of course. So really, being here in the closet with her was a win-win. Though yeah, I was hoping I’d get to kiss her again too.
But I wasn’t counting on it. It seemed more likely she was probably going to start crying.
I braced myself for that—tears. ’Cause she’d looked like she was going to cry the whole time Poser had been in the closet with Fauna. And now she was alone (pretty much); in the dark.
I’d never had a girl cry on me before—except when she was drunk. And Ally wasn’t drunk. She didn’t drink. Any tears that came from her would be sincere—and remembered in the morning.
Oh-kay, no pressure. (Man.)
“Your boyfriend’s a wad,” I told her.
“Maybe not my boyfriend for long,” she sniffed.
Realllly?
She didn’t say it as a come-on. Of course. But I can hear what I want—I do it all of the time.
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
I could hear the hurt in her voice. Man, I wanted to pound Poser. She was the only reason he didn’t have a broken nose right now … yet he had broken her heart. I didn’t get junk like that. What did she see in the guy? Hailey had said he was “safe” but he didn’t seem “safe” to me. He was a heartless, insane punk. I mean, he hurt Ally. Ally. Who I pretty much worshipped. Ally, who would never hurt a soul. She would just make up a cute little song and play the piano and bake cookies. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body—yet that dirt-bag twerp hurt her. If he came anywhere near me tonight I was going to bash his face in—for Ally.
Her Kiss (Griffin) Page 5