These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

“Yes.”

His lips stretch up on one side, then in a mocking smirk, a first I’ve seen from him and so fucking amazing and sexy.

“And when I do all that, when I get my hands on your bouncy teenage ass and color it pink, it’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I whisper, my ass dragging up and down the tree in a rhythm.

A rhythm that is so obvious to him.

So noticeable and visible.

“You know why that is, Bronwyn? Why it’s going to fucking burn and sting when I touch you?”

“Why?”

He inches ever so closer then, his eyes boring into mine, his scent drugging my brain even more. “Because you’re a flower. A wallflower. And every inch of you is soft. Every inch of you is fragile and velvet. And I’m a thorn. Every inch of me is sharp and hard. And fucking angry. Because you make it so. You make me angry. You make me so fucking angry, Bronwyn, you push me so fucking much that I’ll spin you around, grab the back of your pretty little neck and pin you to that tree so you can’t get away. And then I’ll flip your pleated skirt up and smack that tight fucking ass so hard and so many times that your skin really will turn pink like in your goddamn dreams. As pink as your favorite pen. As pink as the roses you keep drawing on your thighs.

“As pink,” he says with clenched teeth, “as your plump teenage mouth. That will ask me to stop. You will ask me to stop. You’ll kick up a fuss, Bronwyn. You’ll throw a tantrum, squirm under my hands and try to get away, trust me. You’ll whine that I’m hurting you, that I’m being mean to you. And that you’ll tell all your friends. You’ll tell the principal even. About how Coach Thorne put his hands on you. About how cruel he is and how he made you cry. But I won’t stop, will I? Because you need it. Because I bet no one has spanked that ass before. Your ass is a virgin, yeah? No one has taught you a fucking lesson and so now it’s up to me. Now it’s up to me to smack that tight ass and make it hurt and teach you the ways of the world. Teach you what happens when instead of keeping your fucking mouth shut, you push and you push and you make a man motherfucking lose it.”

And I can’t help but touch him then.

I can’t help but put my hands on him, on his stomach that feels rock hard and ridged. Heated.

As heated as his eyes, as his sharp breaths.

“I’d never tell. I’d never ever tell anyone anything.” I fist his hoodie. “I’d never ever say a word about what you do to me and how you punish me because I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. For making you mad. For pushing you and making you angry. But you make me angry too. You make me so mad. And you do hurt me. You do. By thinking that I’d ever tell. That I’d ever open my mouth and gossip about what I saw just because I’m a teenager. Just because I’m a student here, you think I’d ruin your reputation. And you’re so sure of that that you’re ready to let me draw you. You’re ready to kiss me even. Even if you don’t want to. You’re —”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“What?”

He studies my agitated face for a second before replying, “You don’t know me. You’ve got no clue what I want or don’t want.”

“But you want her, don’t you?” I say, my breaths heaving, my fingers clutching his hoodie even more tightly as something sharp and hot pricks my heart.

Sharp as a thorn and hot as jealousy.

I am jealous.

So, so jealous. That he’s in love with someone else. Another woman. An older, sophisticated, beautiful woman, while I’m an eighteen-year-old wanna-be artist with ink-stained clothes and dirty fingers.

“I saw you,” I tell him, looking into his denim blue eyes. “A year ago. At the wedding party. At Helen’s wedding party. I was there too. I know you don’t remember any of that but y-you ran into me later that night and you…” I swallow. “You changed my life. You inspired me to go after my dreams. You’re the reason I took a stand. I drew that graffiti on my dad’s car but… that’s not important. What’s important is that I saw you. I saw how you looked at that party. So still and lifeless. So heartbroken. And God, I can’t imagine the pain you must’ve gone through. The pain you must still feel at watching Helen be married to someone else. And neither do I know your story. I don’t know what happened between you two. But what I saw yesterday and that note and… it’s not right.