Chapter 50
LIVELY
It was a good thing that I was already seated, because my legs were nothing but sacks chocked full of jelly, barely capable of holding me upright.
Every nerve ending in my body felt like it was firing all at once, like I was a live wire soaked in gasoline and set ablaze by the four impossible words she'd just thrown at me.
“I love you. I’m saying that I love you, fuckface.”
There was no way any of this was real. No fucking way.
My chest constricted, breath hitching as my mind desperately tried to reject it, to rationalize it away.
This had to be a dream. It had to be. A heartbreak-induced fever dream cooked up by the sick corners of my brain that had finally snapped under the weight of having to let her go—
"I tried to keep hating you. I tried so fucking hard, but it…didn't make sense anymore. I’ve spent so long thinking that feelings…and opening up to another person…made me weak. And it’s true that I don’t know what to do with them…
these feelings you’ve woken in me, so…" I watched her swallow.
"So, I want you to have them. I want you… to accept them. Would you?"
My breath caught in my throat. “I want you…to accept them.”
Wh-What was she…? Was she really …?
“Did you hear everything I just said?” Her voice broke through the fog in my head—too real, too warm, her hands cupping my cheeks, grounding me with the searing heat of her touch.
Her thumbs stroked along my jaw, igniting a tremor that shot down my spine and straight into my cock, which was already stirring against the constraint of my pants, thick and heavy with want.
Total misplacement of priorities, I knew that, but I couldn’t stop my body’s reactions.
And that was why I nodded, but it was mechanical, dumb, the action of a man whose brain had detached entirely from the rest of his body. There was nothing coherent left in me. I was free-falling .
“Yeah,” I croaked, voice so distant I barely recognized it. It felt as if I was floating above my own body, watching this play out from somewhere outside myself—or maybe deep within myself, so far down that the world felt muffled and unreal.
The words came unbidden, raw and helpless. “I’ve always wanted to hear you say that,” I confessed, like I was drunk on her, or high, or both. Yeah, it was probably both. “But even if this is a dream, I... I don’t know if I should let myself be happy about it.”
A pause. A sharp intake of her breath. “What?”
My fingers curled into tight fists in my lap.
“You know, it was me. In freshman year,” I started, rambling about the first shit that came to mind, “when the guys in our year started to avoid you. I did that. Some bastard football player was bragging to other guys that he could… bag the cold hockey chick’,” that was a way milder phrase than the bastard had used, “and I wasn’t gonna let that fly.
So I handed him a folded list of every scout who owed my father favors, and said, ‘ They’ll never know your name if you even breathe near her again.
’ Everyone else seemed to get the message. ”
What the fuck are you doing right now? My brain was yelling at me.
For good reason too. Because why the hell was I trying to push her away right now ?
Why was I bringing up stupid shit at this point in time?
All she wanted was for me to accept her feelings!
God, somebody shut me the fuck up right now—
My mouth was still running, though. “I was ready to let you go, you know. This time for real. I guess…I guess, this time I’m the one who has to be the coward here.
I didn’t…want you to meet my family…like that , and I guess I’m scared you’ll see that I’m really not worth the effort.
I…I think I’m going to keep waiting for you to figure out that I'm nothing but a loser. That I—”
A sharp, unexpected sting burst across my lower lip. It took me a beat to register the pressure, the flare of pain, before I realized: she bit me .
Hailey Baleman just fucking bit me.
“Ow! What the—?”
Her teeth released me, but her fingers stayed where they were, gripping my jaw tight in that commanding gesture that made my heart stutter. Those brown eyes were tinted with frost as she stared me down.
“Shut the hell up and kiss me, fuckface.”
My heart detonated. Those were the words that hit me harder than anything ever had. Because, yeah, that was definitely something she could say.
Her gaze bore into me, like she was daring me to move, to act. And, shit, I wanted to, but I…I was half afraid that if I moved, everything would shatter like glass, and I’d realize I’d been hallucinating it all—
“Or are you…are you going to reject me again?” Her voice was low, but I could hear the vulnerability underneath it, and I immediately knew that she was talking about that night at Blackwater Bay. The night that’d led her to believe that I’d rejected her .
“No!” I gasped, the word punched from my lungs with embarrassing eagerness, but dignity was a luxury I could no longer afford. Not now. Not when everything, including the chance to have her lips on mine again, literally hinged on my next words.
How could I reject her, after last night? I might have told her no that one time, but it hadn’t been because I hadn’t wanted to kiss her. I’d wanted it so bad. Bad enough that I’d taken it without asking. And even now, I still wanted to .
“I…I’m not.” The words were pathetic, but I didn’t give a damn right now. “I do want to kiss you.”
And I watched her lips curve as she leaned in. “Then kiss me, Lively Summers.” She said, and her words were steel bars of command. This time, there was no grief-induced desperation clouding her judgment, no tears blurring her vision. Just clarity, crystalline and terrifying in its purity.
She was stone cold sober right now. And she wanted this. She loved me . Hailey Baleman loved me .
A sound escaped my throat. Part sob. Part laugh. My hands shook as I lifted them, reverent as I touched her cheeks. Her lashes fluttered, breath hitching. Her warmth radiated through me like sunlight through ice.
That was all it took.
I surged forward, hands tangling in her hair, fingers clutching her jaw, and crashed my mouth onto hers. It wasn’t the soft, tentative kiss I’d dreamed of a thousand times. God, I wanted that. But there was no space for gentle here—not with how starved we were for this. For each other.
The kiss was brutal. Messy. Really fucking desperate .
Years of tension condensed into a ticking time bomb over the last few weeks and it all detonated between our lips.
Our teeth clicked together, lips bruising with our desperation.
Her moan poured into me, low and desperate, vibrating against my tongue as I devoured her like a drowning man clawing for air.
Desperate to prove to myself that this was real.
Her hands clawed into my hair, nails scraping my scalp, tugging me impossibly closer as her lips parted wider, inviting me deeper.
Unable to resist, my tongue swept into her mouth, tasting her—tasting everything I’d been denied.
Heat and something so purely, devastatingly Hailey that it short-circuited my entire nervous system.
When she bit my lower lip again; gentler this time but still with enough force to make me groan, I felt something fundamental shift inside my chest. Every fantasy I'd harbored, every desperate late-night moment when I'd wondered what her mouth would feel like, paled in comparison to this reality.
She shifted, straddling my lap fully, grinding her hips down. The molten press of her against the rigid line of my cock made my whole body jolt, a strangled sound tearing from my throat.
“You…” I choked out, the word dissolving into a breathless groan, as I caught and held her gaze. The heat in her eyes stole my breath, because I saw the truth in them: that she was just as wrecked with this want as I was.
Hailey Baleman, the same ice queen whose lips turned down at the sight of me with that look that never failed to turn me the fuck on, was trembling against me. Turned on. Devastatingly turned on. She loved me, and now, she even wanted me . And I wanted to give her all of me.
Hailey didn’t say anything. She just held my gaze and rolled her hips against my crotch, the movement bold and demanding. I groaned into her mouth, hips arching up reflexively, desperate for more friction, more of her. Always more .
“Fuck, Hailey,” I rasped against her lips, my hands snapping down to grip her hips in a desperate attempt to keep her still. “Wait. Wait. You have to let me say it back.”
Hailey’s breath scorched against my lips as she hovered barely an inch from my face and she said, “What?”
“That I love you. I love you, Hailey Baleman,” I said then, and it felt as if my heart was swelling two sizes too big for my ribcage. “I love you, too.”
She smiled. A crooked, soft thing that damn near undid me. “I know,” she said, almost flippant. Almost , because there was no denying the soft reverence edging her tone when she said it.
At that cheeky comment, I chuckled against her lips, unable to resist stroking my tongue against her mouth. “We’re really doing everything backwards.” I said.
“Hm?” A distracted sound.
“This is our first… actual kiss, you know.” I moaned. I mean, we both were fully on the same page for this one. “It’s supposed to be…you know, romantic . But…” I trailed off, my brain glitching from the feel of her kiss against my jaw.
“What?” There was an edge to her tone now, but I couldn’t tell if it was amusement…or impatience.
“Maybe we should take it slow,” I said, my breaths blowing against her lips, “Make this tender—”
Hailey’s fingers tightened in my hair, pulling from the roots and I grunted, my cock twitching again within the confines of my boxers.
“Hey, fuckface,” she grumbled against my mouth, breath hot, “I spent the better part of two years wanting to tear your throat out—”
“Yeah,” I gasped, a smile teasing the corners of my mouth, “Hot.”
I felt her own mouth curve in response. “Fucking pervert. You know nothing about us has ever been tender. So why the hell do you think we’re gonna start now?”
“I want to make this…good for you, Hailey,” I said, my words coming out almost on a near whine, and Hailey rolled her eyes at me.
Just the sight of that alone had my cock hardening even more, to the point of pain . And, shit, it felt so good . I was already leaking again, soaking a wet patch in the new pair I’d thrown on after I came like a goddamn schoolboy in her hand.
Her fingers tugged harder, breath sharp, voice dropping into a drawl that sent a full-body tremor rippling through me.
“Then let me fuck you.”
The words crashed into me like a sledgehammer to the chest. No hesitation. No mercy. Just Hailey being… Hailey . No-nonsense. Straightforward. Commanding.
And my brain fried. I was gone. Absolutely obliterated . My cock throbbed so hard it hurt, straining against the soaked fabric of my boxers. It felt like I’d already orgasmed.
“Holy shi— Hailey …” I gasped, but it was pretty fucking pointless. Because her mouth was already on mine again, swallowing the sound, owning it, owning me .
And it was even better than I’d ever dreamed . The air was thick with heat, with the suffocating, overwhelming, beautiful pressure of years of unspoken want finally spilling free.
My hands fumbled at her waist, half-tempted to take the lead, but her nails bit into my scalp, grounding me with a hissed, “Don’t.”
God. My breath shuddered out of me. “Hailey—”
“You said you wanted it to be good for me,” she rasped, teeth catching my lower lip, “so let’s do it my way. Let me take what’s mine.”
I groaned; long, low, utterly ravaged . My head fell back against the bed, exposing my throat instinctively.
I didn’t even realize I was doing it until her lips dragged down the line of my jaw, her teeth scraping possessively, even as her fingers curled around my cock through the slick mess of pre-cum that had thoroughly soaked my boxers.
“You’re so pathetic,” she chuckled and I shuddered.
Yes. Yes, I fucking was. But only for her. Only ever for her.
“Look how wet you are,” there was amusement in her voice as she said it and my eyes flew wide as I snapped my head forward to meet her eyes.
Those molten brown eyes were watching me, no doubt tracking the fresh bloom of heat spreading across my cheeks as the deliberate taunt of her words dug their claws into my mind.
Wet . She’d said I was ‘wet’...not hard . Shit, I’d always known I’d had a thing for Hailey Baleman humiliating me…but I hadn’t realized I had it this bad. Because, just hearing her say that to me made me want to cum again. I was barely managing to hold myself back.
“Hailey…” My voice broke on her name. My hands trembled against her hips, fingers twitching like they couldn’t decide if they wanted to grip or surrender.
“Yeah?” Her tone was pure provocation—razor sharp, cocky, but trembling underneath with the same wildfire that was tearing through me.
Her fingers tightened around the base of my cock, as if she could sense how close I already was to coming in her hand.
Again. “Looks like we’ve got a leaky faucet running down there. ”
Shit. Wait. Wait. I had to hold it together. I couldn’t come right now, not when she was yet to come at all.
“Hailey…” I tried again, but I honestly didn’t even know what I was going to say. Or what the hell I was begging for.
Hailey’s flushed face floated in and out of my passion hazed line of sight, a sexy domineering smirk on her lips. “Hm? You gonna beg?”
Oh God . What the—? How the hell did she just know what to say to get me—?
“Fuck,” the word cracked between my teeth like a kernel, my body flushing hot, “I might.”
That earned me a low, dark chuckle. Her lips ghosted over the shell of my ear, breath scorching. “Then do it. Say it.” Her fingers tightened once again around my cock. “ Beg .”
Sweet mercy .
I couldn’t resist her. More than anything, I wanted to do what she commanded. Hips bucking up helplessly, I humped into her hand. “Hailey… please —” My voice cracked on a whimper, a mangled wreck of a plea. “You promised to fuck me. Please fuck me.”