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

And I promise —”

That’s all I manage to get out.

Before he’s on me.

Before his body is crowding me against the wall and his arms are planted on either side of my head, making sure that I don’t go anywhere.

“Stop talking,” he says in a voice that’s even more abraded than before.

“W-what?”

The frowny groove between his brows grows deeper. “Fuck the letter. Fuck it.”

I agree.

So I crumple the letter in my fist and let it float to the floor before answering, “B-but you wanted me to read it and I was. I was doing it for you. I’m your wallflower.”

"Stop talking. Stop saying these things to me.”

“But I —”

“It isn’t working,” he growls. “This whole thing isn’t working. This whole idea was fucking bullshit. Making you read your pinky letters out loud, the letters you shouldn’t even be writing to me in the first place. It’s not making you understand that you shouldn’t talk to me this way.”

I press my body to him then. I press my chest to his harshly cut ribs and fist his t-shirt. “But I’m yours. And you’re the only person I want to talk to this way. And…”

I trail off because like Saturday he touches me again.

He takes his hands off the wall and buries them in my hair, messing up my neatly arranged braid in the process. He digs his fingers in my scalp and tugs my head back, his mouth so close to me.

As close as it was back in his house.

Actually no, even closer.

And my eyelids flutter at his proximity. They flutter at the fact that he’s touching me again and it’s glorious.

Even more so now than before, somehow.

But then something else happens that’s even more glorious.

Something that tips my world on its axis.

Because he picks me up.

Off the floor.

I don’t even know how that happened. Because one second his hands were messing up my braid, tugging my head back, and the next, they’re on my waist.

They’re squeezing my waist and he’s picking me up off the floor, my Mary Janes floating in the air before he plasters me to his body. But he doesn’t stop there. His hand goes down to my ass and he hauls me up even more.

So that my thighs are hooked around his slim waist and I’m trapped between him and the wall.

My hands go to his shoulders, where I fist his t-shirt and ask, panting, “What are you doing?”

“Putting my hands on you,” he growls, both his hands on my ass, squeezing and kneading the flesh over the skirt.

“Why?” I ask, not that I mind.

I’m just… flabbergasted at this turn of events.

Flabbergasted that my thighs are wrapped around his hips, where they can’t stop squeezing him. Where they can’t stop rejoicing in his hard muscles.

I can’t stop rejoicing in the fact that I’m plastered to him, to his body. To the lattice and network of his muscles.

“Because I’m going to teach you,” he says, his fingers digging into my ass.

I squirm. “Teach me what?”

He leans closer, his chest pushing against mine, scraping against my hard nipples. “The ways of the world. And what happens when you push a man to his limit.”

He finishes it with the tightest squeeze ever and I get it. I so get what he means – his words reminiscent of what he said to me at the tree weeks back – and I open my mouth to say something to him when he follows that squeeze with a smack.

On my ass.

A loud, lashing smack that rings in the room and that jiggles not only my ass but my entire body.

That makes me jump in his arms too.

Not to mention it makes me bite my lip. Hard. So hard.

Because it hurts.

It hurts.

And he knows it. He knows because he rumbles, “Hurts, yeah?”

I hate to say yes.

I hate to prove him right but I can’t hide it. It’s written on my face, in my grimace. So I jerk out, “Y-yes.”

His eyes turn mean as he says, “Well then, maybe this will get my message across. Maybe this will make you understand that you can’t say these things to me.”

No it won’t.

Nothing will get his message across because his message is bullshit. “It’s not —”

Another smack. That one not only steals my words but also makes me arch my back.

And makes me moan too.

“Remember what I told you Saturday?” he asks, his heated eyes roving over my features. “You’re not allowed to talk. You’re not allowed to say anything except what I tell you to.”

I push against his chest, breathing heavily. “You’re being mean.”

He shifts between my thighs then and God, God something happens.

Something delicious and amazing that turns the burn on my ass into something… sexy.

Into something needy and full of lust.

Because when he shifted, his ridged torso brushed against the perfect spot. Against my clit, and that just changes the whole game. And I didn’t even know that I could feel that right now.