Chapter 12 #2
Tell me where you are, Abel.
Now.
He sends those texts back to back, before I even have a chance to respond, and my stomach flips with excitement. This is so fucked… so fucked.
But so good.
With a grin, I send Peris my location, and shove my phone back in my pocket, vowing not to look at it again, even if it goes off.
I want to be surprised when he shows up. If he shows up. Because there’s no telling what Peris is going to do… but who am I kidding? Of course, he’s coming. Give myself a little more excitement, even though it already feels like my heart is about to burst right out of my chest.
I’m playing with fire, and I know I’m gonna get burnt.
But at least I know I love the sensation.
I’m on my fifth drink by the time I feel hands wrap around my throat, and I don’t need to turn around to know whose they are. They ache so fucking good, there’s only one person they could be.
“You’re bruised,” he rasps against the side of my throat, fingers tugging at my choker.
“‘Cause of you,” I say as I lean back into his hot, hard body.
“Good. You reek of tequila,” he adds as an afterthought.
I snort. “I should. M’really drunk.”
“Are you?” he dips down to whisper into my ear, and I shiver as his lips graze the shell of my pierced ear.
“Mhm.”
“Hard to believe you’re really here right now…” Peris says against me, and I swallow the lump that has formed in my throat at his soft sincerity.
“I know what you mean.”
“You don’t have any right,” he sneers, and I scoff loudly and push away from him. Peris stumbles back but manages to bracket me in against the bar, so I can’t get very far away from him. I only manage to spin around before I’m pushed back against the bar and his front is plastered against me.
“I have all the right.”
“You’re the one who ran away from me,” he snarls, top lip curled and gold nose ring glinting in the multicolored lights that flash from the stage, and if he weren’t so close, I don’t think I’d be able to hear him at all.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I breathe out the truth. A truth I’ve been withholding, and I don’t mean to let it out, but I can’t help it. He’s so close, and he smells so good, and fuck, I’ve missed you.
“You don’t get to miss me,” he snaps, and it makes me realize I said it aloud. “And you did have a choice. You could’ve come to me. To Ma. But you didn’t.”
That makes me see red. “You couldn’t have saved me!” I shout in his face, and Peris rears back, eyes wide with shock. “I didn’t need saving,” I snarl, my voice low and dangerous. “I’m tired of you and everyone else fucking thinking that.”
“Oh, yeah?” Peris says, his shock gone and replaced with something cocky just like that, and trepidation sinks deep into my gut.
I swallow and try to take a step back, but I bump into the bar, and that makes him chuckle.
He dips down until his mouth is against my ear, face pressed flush against my heated one.
My heart is hammering away until I’m sure it’s going to beat right out of my chest.
“If you didn’t need saving, then why have you always played the damsel?”
“Excuse me?” I rear back—or try to—but Peris has a grip on my hair, keeping my head pinned exactly where he wants it.
“Playing on Ma’s emotions. Mine. Hell, even Gabe’s. That’s how fucking far you’ve gone, and you wanna try and play me, baby?” He rasps the words in my ear, and I shiver when I feel his tongue flick out to trace along my skin. The contrast is insane. Hot and cold and wet.
“Well, let me tell you something.”
“What’s that?” I rasp, fighting against the aching beat of my heart as it thunders away up into my throat, choking me.
“I’m not the same boy you left, Abel. You killed him when you disappeared. Who I am now is someone you don’t want, so remember that.” His voice is steely, and it sends shivers down my spine.
I straighten automatically, muscles tensing.
“Why would I need to remember—” Lips slam down on mine, and I gasp against them.
Peris’s mouth is hot and demanding and so fucking good.
I almost forgot how good he is, but no… it’s just as perfect as I remembered.
And it’s insane that he’s kissing me right now.
In the middle of a bar, where anyone can see—where they are looking.
I gasp against him and lift on my tiptoes to wrap my arms around his shoulders and yank him closer.
Peris grunts into my mouth and falls into me.
My back jars against the bar top, but I couldn’t give two shits less as he grabs onto my hips and presses me that much closer to him.
So close it feels like we’re going bleed into one another, and it’s perfect.
A moan is ripped from my throat when Peris sinks his teeth into my lip and bites until a small twinge makes me jerk, and then, a coppery tang fills my mouth.
I pull back slightly and meet his hazy gaze in the dim lighting.
It’s so loud, I can’t hear anything other than the ruckus of music and the sound of my heart hammering in my ears, but I don’t need to because the way Peris is looking at me is all I need.
“Hey, take that shit somewhere else!” the bartender shouts, and we both startle further apart. Our eyes connect, and what I see in his golden-green eyes is something I knew I’d been missing for years but never thought I’d have again.
Peris…
Just Peris.
I ache for him in a way I never thought I could ache. It burns deep inside, and so, when he grabs my hand and yanks me away from the bar, I follow him, stumbling along as he drags me where it is he’s dragging me because I’ll follow him wherever, always.
I’m that pathetic.