by Callie Hart
“And…”
“And maybe it’s none of my business if you’re a masochist, love. Maybe I’ll just give you what you want, too. Let the chips fall where they may.”
“What…what does that mean?”
He leans in and brushes my mouth with his lips. Somehow, he’s gotten so close that his chest is flush with mine. There’s still a hair’s breadth of space between us—enough that my nipples graze his chest whenever either of us breathe. Every time it happens, I feel like I might die.
“It means you win, Carrie. I give in. You’ve got me. No takebacks. Whatever fucking madness happens next…you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The kiss is vertigo and adrenaline, mint and chaos. His mouth crashes down on mine, claiming me. I’m cut adrift from reality. Just like the first night on the hood of Pax’s car, Dash explores my mouth so ferociously that I lose all motor function. My limbs quit on me. The inner narrative that was chattering away in the background of my mind, reminding me of Alderman’s rules, warning me to be careful, falls deathly silent. Dash banishes all thought the moment he palms my breast through my night shirt and rolls my nipple between his fingers.
“I want to see,” he rumbles. There’s no question. No command. Just this statement. He tells me what he wants and waits for me to comply. He’s made himself perfectly clear, and this is part of our newly forged deal, right? We both get what we want, no matter what. I unbutton the long black silk shirt I wore to bed, my fingers working numbly at the buttons, but Dash can’t wait that long. I only get the first two undone before he stoops down, sliding the thin material off my shoulder, exposes me and takes my hard nipple into his mouth.
“Oh…holy….shit!” Electricity volleys up and down my spine, my back bowing. Dash destroys me with his mouth, flicking his tongue over the swollen, tight bud, grasping the swell of my flesh in his hands as he holds me still, sucking and licking at me until a prickling heat begins to build in my legs. When he looks up at me and our eyes lock, his mouth open, his tongue trailing around my areole, I let out a needy, desperate whimper that makes Dash’s pupils shrink down to pinpricks.
“Does that turn you on, sweetheart? Does that make you wet?”
Hearing any guy say that, hovering over your nipple with his hands on your body, would make a girl feel faint. But Dash? 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 that I can’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 and grab 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 to taking what 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? I will prove 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. I am going 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 fucking beautiful. 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’ve never been the one to stand on my tiptoes and place my lips against his. 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 even could be like this. I dip my tongue into his mouth, and his breathing comes quicke
r, 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. Really hard. The head of his dick is a blushed shade of pale pink. There are no gross, bulging veins in sight. It’s so thick; I doubt I’d be able to close my hand around it.
Oh my god, I’m going to have to touch it.
Oh my god, I want to touch it.
I did not see that coming. I want him, though. I want him so fucking badly and I cannot wait another second.
He must be thinking the same thing. I jump into his arms at the same time he presses us forward to the bed. There’s no time for foreplay. His hands are on me, rough and firm, and I answer in kind. My body responds to him so perfectly. We fit together so easily. When he positions himself over me, my legs are already parting, making room for him, wrapping around his waist, pulling him forward. He kisses me, groaning when my breasts crush up against his chest.
“Are you on the pill?” he pants.
I nod.
He thrusts, driving his hips up, and I feel him for a split second, the head of his rock-solid cock pressing against my pussy. The next moment he’s inside me, and…oh my god. Oh my fucking god!
The pain is like lightning.
I tense, arms and legs locking, body as stiff as a board. Dash pulls back, a harrowed expression on his face. “No,” he says.
“What?”
“Tell me you did not just let me do that. Tell me you aren’t a fucking virgin.”
Heat rises in my cheeks, though it’s unlikely he sees my deep blush in the darkness. I’m still in pain. He’s frozen solid, still on top of me, still inside me. I can feel myself stretching to accommodate him but it’s a gradual thing, and the burn between my legs brings tears to my eyes. He throbs inside me, involuntarily, I think, and he tries to pull away, but I grab him, locking my legs tighter around his waist. “Well, I’m not now, am I? Not anymore.” I laugh breathlessly, trying to make light of the situation, but Dash isn’t laughing. His face is serious, his forehead furrowed, his brows pinched together.
“You should have said something.” His voice is controlled, but he’s shaking. I can feel his heart hammering away beneath his ribcage again, just like the night of the party, sitting on top of the Charger. “You shouldn’t—I shouldn’t—” he says, correcting himself, but I cut him off.
“Don’t. Please don’t. Just kiss me, for god’s sake. You’re making it weird.”
“Carrie. This is not how you’re supposed to lose your fucking virginity!”
“Don’t I get to choose how I lose it?”
“No! Not if you fucking choose me! Only a mad—”
Enough. I grab him by the back of the head, and I kiss him. He’s wrong. It is up to me, and I did choose him. That’s all there is to it. I’m surprised that he’s so upset about what’s just happened. I would have figured that taking a girl’s virginity would have been a badge of honor for a member of Riot House, but the way Dash is behaving, you’d think I tricked him into a promise of marriage or something.
He resists the kiss at first. His hesitancy fades when I pull myself up off the bed, crushing my breasts up against his chest, winding my fingers into his hair. I want to feel the warmth of him on my skin. I’m drunk on the smell of him. It might still be stinging like a bitch, but I’m relishing the feel of him inside me, hard and pulsing despite his horror. Kissing Dash is like drinking from a vial of poison. Each sip I take from him, each brush of my lips, each tentative sweep of my tongue, each savored taste of his mouth dooms me further. The more I take, the more I’ll suffer for it, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. It only took one taste to seal my fate; I might as well drink long and drink deep now.
I moan, the sound a winded plea, and the tensed muscles in Dash’s back relax. He lowers himself down an inch, his mouth slowly working against mine, the pressure of his lips firm and increasingly insistent. Dash’s teeth fasten around my bottom lip, and a bright snap of pain forces my eyes open. He stares down at me, lust and anger warring across his face, and he is both beautiful and terrifying.
“I should have gotten to choose, too, Mendoza.” His voice is low, spilling over with conflicting emotion. “That’s a responsibility I wouldn’t have entered into lightly. Not with you.”
Suddenly, I’m so aware of every point where my body meets his. My thighs flush against his sides. My arm brushing his. The palm of one hand on his back, the other at the base of his neck, my fingers in his hair. My breasts against his chest. Our hips locked in alignment, and the hardness of him swelling inside me. And it’s a lot. Holy hell, it’s a lot. I was so desperate to experience this before it was no longer on the table that I didn’t consider what it would actually be like. For him, or for me. And he’s right. He went into this blind, because I kept something really important from him, and…oh, shit. What the hell was I thinking?
“Fuck. I’m so sorry!” I try to roll out from underneath him, but that’s not possible. Dash is much bigger than me, so much heavier, and he’s resting just enough of his weight on me that I can’t go anywhere.
“Whoa. Slow down.” He props himself on an elbow and lifts his hand to my face. His fingertips almost meet my cheek. He stops, blowing out a frustrated breath, then rocks his head from side to side, like he’s trying to loosen a tight knot of tension in his neck. Oh my god. This is terrible. He’s freaking out. I just unwittingly tricked a guy into taking my V-card, and now he can’t even bring himself to touch me? I attempt another escape, trying to slide sideways out from under him, but—
“Carina. Hey, hey, hey, wait. Goddamnit, stop.” He catches hold of me, his thumb on my chin, his other fingers curled beneath my jaw, guiding my face up so that I have no choice but to look at him. “Am I hurting you?”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “No.”
“Okay. Then just relax for a second. I did not expect this. I’m just figuring out…” He looks up at the wall, frowning.
“How to get the hell out of here without hurting my feelings?” My laughter is weak.
“No.” He looks at me, and the frustration is still there, but there’s also something new, too. Something that looks a lot like concern. “I’m trying to figure out how to make this good for you, Mendoza. Jesus Christ. There’s no do-over on this. You only get one first time, and I’m the worst piece of shit in the world. I don’t wanna fuck it up for you.”
Oh. The dread that has been clenching around my heart eases a little. “You still want me then?”
He lets out a pained burst of laughter, shaking his head. “Fuck, Carrie.” He rolls his hips for the first time since he thrust himself inside me, though much gentler this time, and I gasp at the way my body rises up to meet him. I’m so fucking full of him. I had no idea it would be like this. My mind would never have conjured a sensation this bittersweet on its own. “What do you think?” he whispers into my neck. “You can feel it right? How hard I am? Of course I fucking want you. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my entire life. I wanna corrupt you so fucking bad, it hurts. It’s taking every ounce of strength I possess not to rail the living shit out of you. I want you breathless, shaking, and painted in my come.”
My blood turns to liquid napalm, roaring in my veins. This is what it feels like to want. This is what it feels like to burn. “Then do it. God, please.”
He sinks on top of me, growling, resting his forehead against my temple as he roughly palms my breast. I arch away from the bed, curving myself into him, cautiously rocking my hips against him, surprised when the pain fades a little with the motion. Dash pulls in a sharp breath, his back tensing again. “For the love of all things holy, stay fucking still,” he growls.
“But…”
“Move, and I won’t be able to stop myself. I’ll fuck you senseless and I won’t be gentle. I’ll fucking hate myself for it.”
I search for his mouth. Find it. He answers my kiss, his breath coming in fast as his tongue sweeps and tangles with mine. A question and an answer. The kiss feeds my soul and brings me to life. How did I not know I was sleeping until now? All of this time, I’ve been living my life in dull, fuzzy black and white, when it could have been this: blazing technicolor, crystal clear, brought into the sharpest focus, and all it would have taken was a kiss. His kiss.
Dash rocks against me, daring to go a little deeper, a sense of urgency taking over him, but he’s still holding back, I can tell. I don’t want him on a leash. I want him free and uncontained, and I’ll do anything to get my way.