Chapter Nineteen – Hawthorne
What’s on my mind, she asked. It should be simple. It should be nothing more than the feeling of annoyance for her coming in here and refusing to leave. Sure, she supposedly only came in here to offer me the bed for the night, but knowing her, there’s more to it.
And the look she’s currently giving me? The desire in them is hard to miss.
So, what’s on my mind? Something that shouldn’t be. Right now, I’m thinking about one of the comments she made in the beginning—something about sweeping everything off my desk and taking her against it.
Not once have I ever had a thought like that before. It shouldn’t even cross my mind.
It does, though. That thought doesn’t just cross my mind, but it lingers. That thought lingers in the forefront of my mind, so strong and so vivid it makes heat creep up to my cheeks. I stare at my hand on the desk, feeling odd, some type of way I’m unfamiliar with.
This is bad. This is so, so bad. Royal was one thing, but me? I can’t fall for her charm, too. I’d be the biggest hypocrite around.
Granted, all of her explanations as to why it shouldn’t matter so much aren’t wrong… but at the same time, I can’t harp on the rules for everyone else and break them the next moment when I’m feeling painfully weak.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you what’s on my mind,” I whisper, slow in meeting her silvery stare.
Such a pretty stare it is, set in a pretty face. She’s more than just pretty, however. She’s… bold, brave, defiant, even. She’s not one to flinch from danger. Bloodthirsty in the same way we are, so is it really so outlandish that I would be drawn to her, too?
I want her. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anyone in my life, and I’m old enough now to know exactly what that means.
If we were to act on it, it wouldn’t be a one and done kind of thing.
It’s not what I’d want, not what I’d need.
If we crossed the line, I’d want to keep crossing it over and over again until I memorized every single inch on that body, the sounds she makes, and the way she feels against me, under me.
And then I’d want to remove the line completely, so that nothing could stand in our way.
Would the Benefactor be okay with something like that? I don’t know, I’ve never broached the subject with them, simply due to their rules for fraternizing outside of our trio. Seeing that Abby can’t leave, that she’s pretty much become part of our group… would they still demand we keep apart?
The Benefactor does have multiple teams across the country. It isn’t like we do everything ourselves. Would having a relationship truly get in the way of things? I don’t know, and I don’t like not knowing.
“You don’t have to tell me. I think I already know,” Abby says, inching closer to me for the second time. There was maybe about six inches between us before, but now? Now if I breathe deeply, I’ll feel her chest against mine. Or, rather, since she’s so short, I’d feel her chest against my stomach.
So I don’t breathe. Or I try not to. If I feel her against me, what little willpower I still have might fade.
Abby doesn’t get the no-breathing memo. She inhales a giant lungful of air, and in the process presses her chest against me. It begins a chain reaction, a domino effect I can’t stop.
She breathes in. Her chest touches me. I let out a low groan of a sound. And then… then Abby reaches for the collar of my shirt and tugs my top half down much like she did when she, Ezra, and Royal went out for the last target. But, unlike that time, she doesn’t settle for a kiss on the cheek.
Oh, no. Those lips of hers land somewhere else, and I find myself hunching over to meet them, no tug on my collar necessary.
Her mouth meets mine in a heated, needy kiss, and I instantly lose myself to it. Such soft, luscious lips, they threaten to swallow me whole, and frankly, if that’s what she wants to do—if she wants to devour me whole—then who the hell am I to stop her?
The hand that’s not on the desk moves instinctively, curling around her lower back. Though there’s already no space between our bodies, I hold her close. The absolute last thing I want is for her to pull away from me.
God, I’m falling. I can feel it. Falling, falling, falling faster and harder than ever. Everything in my life leading up to this moment is a blur, even my rage at the world for what I lost. Nothing matters, just like that, and at the same time, she’s the only thing that matters.
Her. Just her. Only her.
She moves, or maybe I do; either way, after a while, she’s between me and my desk, and the hand that stayed on the desk previously moves to her face, cupping her cheek before sweeping back into her hair and tangling in the multi-colored tendrils.
I lean against her, drinking her in, much more confident in my movements than I should be, considering how long it’s been and the fact that I really only have experience in the short and sweet that comes with being young.
I’m not so young anymore.
Everything that happens next happens in a blur, a foggy, desperate haze.
Our lips never pull apart, and yet, somehow, she ends up on my desk, her back curved in a sensual arch as she wraps her arms around my neck.
She spreads her legs, and my body fits between her thighs like I was always meant to be there.
She moans into the kiss, breathing life into me in a way no one else can. Her heat fills me, fuels me, and every logical thought in my head—the thoughts that would normally make me step back and put distance between us—are gone, and I fear they might never return.
How the hell could they, when I now know how her mouth feels against mine? How her body feels when it curves against me, her chest heaving? It’s a recipe for disaster. A beautiful, wicked disaster.
I don’t know how long we’re like that, with her on my desk and me bent over her, but it certainly feels like a while, and at the same time, not nearly long enough.
She pulls her mouth off mine, panting as she slowly lifts her eyelids and gazes up at me.
She does not lower her arms from around my neck or shove me out from between her legs.
She is, to put it lightly, utterly at ease in the position she’s in, and with how solidly her arms wrap around my neck, I’d say she isn’t about to let me leave.
Not that I would, but I should. I should duck out of these arms and forget all about this.
I find my voice, but when I finally speak, I don’t really sound like myself. “This is dangerous.”
“Is it?” she shoots back, arching a brow at me as she bites her bottom lip. “Or are you just afraid that it’s not?” The way she hangs on me, how she gazes up at me… it’s as if I’m the only thing she sees, the only person in her whole universe.
I’m not, though.
“What about Royal?” I ask, even though I shouldn’t care about the answer at all.
“What about him? He doesn’t own me. You know that, and I don’t think Royal would ever say he did.” A full, luscious, devious as hell grin tugs on her lips when she adds, “Besides, you three already share everything, don’t you? What’s one more thing?”
I’d never call her a thing, never view her as simply a body to be used. To do so would go against everything we stand for. That said, I understand what she means, and I am feeling ridiculously weak, so weak I can’t argue with her.
We do share everything in this house. Sharing a person, sharing Abby, would be new, however. I don’t know if it’s something we could do, something that Royal would be okay with. Right now, it’s hard for me to think about her with Royal when I want her all to myself.
Possible future infighting over Abby is something we will have to avoid, but that’s a problem for our future selves. Right now, there is only one thing on my mind, and that is the woman currently sitting on my desk, with her thighs wrapped around my midsection.
“I can want Royal,” Abby tells me, “and you at the same time. We’re all consenting adults here, aren’t we? That’s the only thing that matters. Come on, Hawthorne, don’t leave me now. I’m all worked up, ready to go, and I’m pretty sure you are, too.”
I was so focused on the kiss, on the way her body felt against mine, that I neglected to realize how my own body was responding to hers.
Yes, the desire in me is stifling, and that desire led to one thing: a hard cock nestled in my slacks.
How on earth I could have not noticed before is beyond me, but now that attention is called to it, that ache in my lower half is unmistakable.
My hands drop to her outer thighs, running along them slowly, measuredly. As I take my time in touching her, I bring something else up, something important: “I don’t have anything here, and I wouldn’t trust myself to—” My face burns with heat. “—pull out in time.”
Something like that might come with loads of practice, but with how badly I want her and how long it’s been, there is simply no way I could time it just right and pull out before I erupt.
“You don’t have to worry about that. I’m covered for another two years, at least. By then, I’m hoping you guys will trust me enough to leave the house.” Abby shrugs. “Let’s just say I don’t know what’ll happen to an IUD that’s left in for too long, but I imagine it’s not good.”
So she’s on birth control. It is a good thing for me, for Royal, but at the same time, I can’t help but imagine her with other men.
With how hazy everything is, the logical part of me—the part of me that would grasp that she might’ve only gotten one so she didn’t have to worry about periods or anything like that—doesn’t make an appearance.
Silly as it is, I’m jealous over men that might not exist.
She runs one of her hands down my chest, and I catch my breath when that hand dips lower than my belt. “Come on, I know you want to. It’s obvious.” As she says that, she rubs her hand over the bulge in my pants, and I can’t help but groan in response.