Beauty in the Ashes

One minute I could see a glimmer of the guy he’d once been and the next a monster was in his place.

A smart girl would have turned tail and run far away. A smart girl would never speak to Caelan Gregory. A smart girl wouldn’t keep coming back for…nothing. He offered me nothing. We were nothing.

But I wasn’t smart.

I followed my heart.

And my stupid heart liked this crazy, moody, egotistical artist for some insane reason.

We were both lost in a sea of self-torment and anger, searching frantically for a buoy to hold ourselves up.

In that moment, I decided that’s what we were to each other.

A buoy.

God, I hoped neither of us let go, because I just might drown.

“What are you going to do?” I whispered, my breath caressing his lips.

“I don’t know,” he murmured, his thumb still making lazy strokes against my lips.

He may not know what he wanted, but I knew what I wanted.

I dropped Brutus and he went scampering away.

Before Caelan could react, one of my hands grasped his shirt in a tight fist and the other wrapped around his neck, pulling him close.

Our lips connected and it was like fireworks went off in my body.

This kiss was nothing like our first. With that kiss, Caelan had been trying to make a point.

There was no point to this—nothi

ng but pure unadulterated lust and passion colliding into a fiery explosion.

My whole being yearned for him in an uncontrollable act of defiance.

His mouth moved effortlessly against mine as if our lips were only ever supposed to touch each other’s.

His fingers dug painfully into my waist and I knew his mind was warring with whether or not he should push me away or pull me closer.

Closer, ultimately, won out.

He twisted his body so that my legs were against the bed, then he lowered me onto the bed as he hovered above—never, not once, breaking the kiss.

I clenched the short hairs at the back of his head, my fingers curling around them. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, a voice scolded me, telling me that this was wrong and I needed to stop. After all, I was making out with the cat stealer. But I told that voice to shut up. The moment I decided to pick up my life and move here was the moment I decided to throw reason and logic out the window. I wasn’t going to start thinking like a sane person now.

“You infuriate me,” he breathed, pulling his lips from mine and then raining kisses down my neck.

My body arched, aching for his touch and the pleasure it could bring. No man had ever made every cell in my body feel so alive.

His hand ventured lower, lifting the edge of my top. My breath stuttered as the button on my jeans popped and then his hand eased inside.

His fingers caressed the soft skin there before delving inside.

My gasp echoed around the apartment and my hands grasped onto anything to hold, settling on the curve of his upper arm.

His darkened eyes met mine momentarily. Before he looked away I saw confusion, lust, passion, and anger swirling in their depths.