AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her chest continues to heave once she’s finished speaking, and I close the distance between us until I’m pressed up against her, my chest touching hers. She tips her head back to look at me, and her eyes tell me that she’s just as confused about this as I am.
“You asked me why I’m here, and this—you in this exact moment—is why. I don’t understand it, a part of me hates it, but I saw you that day on my boat. I saw the side of you that you don’t show people, and I’m here for that Penelope. I’m here because you need to be saved, and I need to save you.” Leaning down, I kiss her, slamming my lips against hers and demanding she kiss me back. She doesn’t push me away, doesn’t fight me as I slide my tongue into her mouth. Her movements are slow and uncertain, but her fingers clutch at the back of my neck, holding me to her and telling me without words that she wants this as much as I do.
After a second, we find our rhythm, and the kiss becomes a game of give and take. She gives me everything, and I greedily take it and demand more. Tangling my fingers in her hair, I turn her so I can deepen the kiss, and she melts against me. The more control I exert over her, the more relaxed she becomes.
Both of us are breathless, my dick is rock-hard, and she’s grinding her pussy against the thigh I pushed between her legs, but this kiss doesn’t feel like a prelude to sex, it’s not the tease that will lead to more. I don’t really know what it is, but in this moment with my Princess in my arms, hate doesn’t matter, who she is doesn’t matter, my prejudice and her behavior don’t matter.
Izzy once told me that who you are in the quiet moments is the real you, and right now, in the silence of this hotel room, Penelope Rhodes, my Princess, is mine, and that’s all that matters.
14
PENELOPE
I didn’t know kissing like this was real. Hawthorn has kissed me more than once, but it never felt like this. We’ve definitely been in much more explicit situations, but for me, this kiss is the most intimate thing I’ve ever experienced.
Hawthorn and I are enemies, or we were. I’m not sure whose side I’m on anymore or even where the lines are drawn, but regardless, we aren’t allies. Yet my lips are twisted with his, his tongue is in my mouth, his thigh is grinding against my soaked sex, and I don’t care who’s side he’s on or what war we’re engaged in, I just want more.
Nothing good can come from this, but for the very first time, he’s kissing me in spite of who he is, in spite of who I am, and what our circumstances are. He’s kissing me because he wants to, and I’m kissing him because I just don’t seem to be able to help myself.
In his arms it feels like nothing else in the world exists. All I can smell is his clean, fresh cotton scent, and all I can hear are the sounds of my own gasps and moans.
Heat is pooling in my stomach, but I don’t want this to become sex. Sex with him is amazing, but each time we’ve done it, I’ve felt like I’ve lost a piece of myself, but I never took anything from him. This kiss is more, or at least it feels like more. Maybe I just want it to be more.
As quickly as it started, the kiss is over and Hawthorn releases me, looking at me strangely for a second like he has no idea what the hell to do, before he throws open the door and leaves.
Slumping down onto the bed, I exhale, confused and frustrated and needy. I’m needy for him. For his touch, for his kisses, for the way when he’s around, I don’t feel like the worst person in the world.
A sharp rap at the door startles me, and I jump up from the bed and dart across the room. My heart leaps excitedly in my chest as hope becomes a swarm of butterflies in my stomach because he came back.
Fumbling with the handle, I open the door, my lips parted, ready to smile. Only it’s not Hawthorn, it’s room service: a uniformed hotel worker with a wheeled cart piled with silver-lidded plates. The food that Hawthorn ordered, that I can’t eat.
A weight settles on my chest, right over the spot where my heart is, but I refuse to allow it to be my heart that’s hurting. I’m not stupid enough to allow a boy to hurt me. That was one of the first lessons that my mom taught me. “Never allow yourself to care about any of these boys, Penelope. None of them care about you, only the size of your bank account.”
Swallowing down the nausea that burns the back of my throat, I step aside and allow the server to come into the room and arrange the food onto the dresser, the only available surface in this box of a room. Signing the bill, I add a tip and then close the door behind him as he leaves.
Staring at all the plates of food that Hawthorn ordered, I have the sudden urge to fling them across the room. He left, he just left. I shouldn’t care, but I do. This boy was my first kiss, my first touch, my first everything. I’m still not sure if he took or I gave, but it doesn’t really matter either way.
But it does matter because as I stand here alone, staring at the food he ordered for us to share, it’s impossible for me to pretend that I don’t care anymore. I do care. I care far too much, and I have no idea what to do with that.
My cell beeps, and I turn away from the pile of room service and reach for my phone, tapping at my screen and seeing a message from him. A fresh bout of hope surges to life inside of me until I read the single word he sent me.
Hawthorn
Eat.
A broken, feral gurgle of laughter bursts from my throat, and I clap my palm over my mouth to stifle the awful sound while I type out a reply.
Me
Fuck you, Hawthorn.
His reply is instantaneous and just as frustrating.
Hawthorn
Eat.
Me
