Chapter Twenty-Two
Evan
Molly kisses me like she’s on the verge of self-immolation, hungry and reckless, desperate to cauterize every wound and need in both of us with the destructive clarity of friction and heat.
There’s no tenderness at first — she’s all sharp edges and challenge, her mouth pressed hard against mine as if we’re fighting for who gets to be the last one breathing.
The taste of her is a wildfire: wine and smoke, something bracing that reminds me this is Molly, always barreling full speed toward danger even when the real threat is her own heart.
She bites my lower lip, then drags her tongue across it in a rough apology, and I can’t do anything but surge into her, hands at her hips, pulling her so tight against me it aches.
I want her to feel how much I need this, need her.
Her body slams into mine, her fingers scorched and greedy as they climb my spine, and I realize she’s trembling — not from fear, but from the effort of holding herself together.
The tension in her runs all the way through me; I’m buzzing, alive, like my veins are full of gunpowder and if she lets go, I’ll explode.
I cup the back of her head, fisting my fingers in her hair, and kiss her deep enough to make my chest hurt.
There’s no play here, no slow dance — just the abrupt collision of two people who’ve been circling this for so long they’re out of patience, out of excuses.
This is exactly how I wanted it, the way she never lets herself be the first to break.
But then she does.
She makes a sound — low in her throat, half-moan, half-growl — and it’s so raw it slices through every defense I thought I had.
It’s the sound of someone taking what they swore they’d never allow themselves, and it shames me for the lies I’m still holding in my mouth.
She’s close enough now that if I whispered any of it — about June, about Midnight, about the ticking clock on everything — she’d hear, and maybe forgive, or maybe kill me on the spot. Either way, she’d know the truth.
She kisses me harder, and now her hands are under my shirt, nails scraping at my back, and I’m losing track of what’s pain and what’s pleasure. I drag my tongue over her teeth, wanting her to taste the honesty I’m aching to say out loud.
“Molly,” I moan against her mouth.
Her hands fist tight in my shirt. “Don’t say a damn thing,” she rasps, voice shredded and uneven. But it’s not a threat. It’s a plea, and I know it because I feel the same way: don’t make me stop, don’t make me think, don’t let this dissolve into a conversation we’ll regret in the morning.
I let go of her hair and bring my palm to her chin, tilting her face so I can see every ember in her eyes.
They’re luminous and furious, but what really gets me is the shimmer beneath the rage — that scared brightness that says she’s still got a heart, even after all the years she’s spent trying to kill it.
“I see you,” I say, and the words come out rough, almost reverent.
She glares. “Don’t talk.”
“Yeah?” I let my thumb trace the line of her jaw, slow enough that she can stop me if she wants. “You gonna stop me?” I say it like a challenge, but what I mean is: please don’t.
“Yes.” She’s not convincing, not even a little. “I will stab you.”
I grin, because she’s always got teeth. “With what? A fork?”
“I have options,” she snaps, but her breath catches when I dip my head and kiss the corner of her mouth, then her throat. “I keep a Ka-Bar in a sheath by the coffeemaker.”
Her hands shove at my chest with half-hearted force, and I catch her wrists and pin them behind her back. She goes still. Not from fear. Not freezing. Testing.
“What is it?” I ask, low. “Is something wrong?”
She stares at me, her pupils blown wide, and shakes her head. “Don’t you dare get soft on me now.”
“I’m anything but soft right now,” I growl, and she feels it: my hips pressed against her, my hands on her wrists, my mouth at her ear. The line works; she shudders, and her whole body seems to lean into mine.
“Prove it,” she whispers, then bites my shoulder like punctuation.
So I do. I kiss her again — harder this time, rough enough to leave a mark, and she whimpers, the sound so honest it nearly undoes me.
She’s letting herself be vulnerable, if only for these seconds, and I know what it costs her.
My chest feels too tight, and it’s not just want.
It’s something like awe, like fury, like I’ve been given something precious and I don’t deserve it.
Her name leaves my mouth without my permission, softer this time, and when her lips part, I know she hears it, too, that she believes that I mean it.
That I love her. And I see in her eyes that same flash of fear again, but stronger, that scared, loving part of her echoing that unspoken truth.
I see it and I feel it; it’s in the way her whole body melts against mine, her legs slipping between mine, her hands clenching in the fabric at my back.
That’s the moment everything inside me changes.
Because this isn’t supposed to be real.
She isn’t supposed to feel like this — warm and stubborn and alive in my arms, like the world makes sense when she’s here and furious and wanting and scared.
But then, right as I’m about to lose myself in her, I hear it: Midnight’s voice, cold and surgical, reminding me what happens if I get soft. If I fuck up. If I let myself love her.
Poison crawls up my throat.
Molly runs her tongue along my lips like she can taste my hesitation, and her eyes narrow.
“Where’d you go?” she demands, and her voice is knife-sharp, but the hand she puts on my chest is trembling.
I force a smirk to hide the sick fear inside me. “Nowhere.”
“Liar,” she says instantly.
I open my mouth, to say what, I don’t know, but she yanks me back to her, and this time her kiss is all desperation, no strategy, like she’s trying to wring the truth out of my tongue.
“Don’t get weird on me,” she hisses. “If you’re going to do this, do it. If you’re not —”
“I am,” I cut in. No matter what comes after, I want her. I want all of her. Now.
I grip her waist and lift her bodily, like she’s nothing, and she yelps, more startled than scared. I carry her to the bedroom, and she clamps onto my shoulders, nails digging in, face wild and alive.
“You’re insane,” she says.
“Yeah,” I breathe, “you already knew that.”
She laughs once, breathless, and it breaks into a gasp when I set her on the bed and follow her down, my mouth finding hers again. Her hands go to my face like she’s holding on. Like she’s making sure I’m real.
“Tell me what you want,” I murmur against her lips.
She stares up at me for half a second — guarded, defiant, always — then her chin lifts.
“I want you to stop thinking,” she says.
“Okay.”
“And I want you to…” She cuts herself off, cheeks flushing as if she hates needing words. “Just… don’t make me be the brave one every time.”
Something hot and protective surges through me so hard it’s almost pain.
“I’ve got you,” I say, and it comes out like a vow.
Her eyes flicker. “Don’t say things like that.”
“I mean it.”
She swallows, and for a second the room is too quiet — only our breathing, the soft rustle of sheets, the hum of the world outside her apartment. Then she reaches for me again, impatient now, pulling me down like she’s done running.
So I give in.
Completely.
I kiss her until she’s shaking and clinging, until her mouth softens from anger into need.
I map every inch of her with my hands like I’m learning a language I should’ve known years ago.
Her legs hook around me, dragging me closer, and she makes a broken sound that detonates my restraint.
I grab her tank top, and she shifts, letting me lift it.
Seconds later, her leggings slide down, and I release a moan as I look across her bare body.
She's all freckles and sharp angles, lean muscle under pale skin that's flushed from her chest to her cheeks.
There's a scar on her hip I've never noticed before — thin, old, silver in the low light — and I want to ask about it, but I know better.
Instead, I press my mouth to it, gentle, reverent, and feel her whole body tense and then release, like I've touched something she forgot she was guarding.
"Evan," she breathes, and there's a warning in it, but also permission.
I work my way up, kissing the ridge of her ribs, the soft skin beneath her breast, the hollow of her throat where her pulse hammers fast enough to match mine.
She arches into me, fingers raking through my hair, pulling hard enough to sting.
I don't mind. The pain keeps me honest — keeps me here, in this room, in this moment, instead of spiraling into the dark where Midnight's threats live.
She tugs at my shirt, and I pull back long enough to yank it over my head. Her eyes drop to my chest, my stomach, lust burning within them.
Her voice comes out slow. Unsure. Gentle. “I want all of you. And I want you to fuck me. Slow. I want to feel it. Can we do that?”
The question undoes me.
Not the words themselves — though they're enough to make my blood sing — but the way she says them. Slow. Unsure. Gentle. Three things Molly Rogers never lets herself be, and she's handing them to me like a gift she expects me to drop.
I lower myself over her, bracing on my forearms, and press my forehead to hers. My breath is ragged, and I don't try to hide it. "Yeah," I say, and my voice sounds like it's been dragged over gravel. "We can do that."
Her eyes search mine, looking for the catch, the joke, the retreat. When she doesn't find one, something behind her expression cracks open — not broken, just... unlocked. She nods once, barely a movement, and her hand comes up to rest against my cheek. Her palm is calloused and warm and shaking.
I turn my face into it and press my lips to the center of her hand. She inhales sharply, as if I've touched a nerve she didn't know was exposed.