Deleted scene #5
I bite his bottom lip because softness is unacceptable, and Easton pulls back just enough for his breath to drag over my mouth.
His eyes are darker than they were a minute ago, the porch light catching where my lipstick stains his lower lip like evidence of a bad decision I’m fully prepared to repeat.
I start to smile because smiling is safer than panting but he wants no part of a respite.
“Fuck that,” he mutters, voice rough enough to ruin my balance. “I need more.”
Then his mouth is on mine again, heavier this time, deeper, like the first kiss only woke up something hungry and now he’s done pretending he can starve.
His hand stays firm at the back of my neck while his other arm hooks around my waist, and before I can decide whether I’m stepping back or pulling him closer, he lifts me, the decision already belonged to him.
My ass hits the railing, cold metal biting the backs of my thighs, and my legs wrap around him on instinct. Easton moves into the space putting himself exactly where we both want him.
His hips press between my knees, his mouth keeps mine where he wants it, and with one hand still holding my neck, he kisses me until the party inside the house turns into nothing but muffled noise and my name feels dangerously close to becoming something I’d let him say again.
He tastes like bourbon and mint and I feel my restraint finally cracking.
He kisses like he wants to learn every sexually explicit thought I have and pull it to the edge of his mouth, and I fucking let him.
And this is why you have rules, Aura.
I pull back hard enough to get air, my hand still twisted in his shirt, my chest rising too fast. “East.”
His name comes out wrong—not a sound I make for men I plan to forget.
Easton’s thumb moves once against the side of my neck, and his eyes drop to my mouth like he’s already bargaining with himself not to take it again. “Yeah?”
“I have rules.”
The words should give me my power back. They usually do.
Men hear rules and either get annoyed, which makes them easy to discard, or eager, which makes them easy to manage.
Easton does neither. His gaze lifts to mine, and the look he gives me is so steady, so focused, that I feel the weight of every rule in my mouth before I even say them.
“Tell me,” he says, voice low, “after I get this need to taste your mouth calmed the fuck down.”
Then he kisses me again, harder and I let him because the rules are still there.
I can feel them waiting behind my teeth, sharp and necessary and mine and going nowhere.
I can be pissed at my weakness later—right now I just want him and his mouth on me, his hand at the back of my neck, and for once, control isn’t about keeping a man out but about choosing the one who knows what to do when I let him in to take it.
Dammit, Aura—this is regret by tomorrow morning.
Sure is.
I tell myself and then I kiss him back twice as reckless and just as necessary.
His mouth is a problem I’m choosing not to solve.
His hands are another—one still curved around the back of my neck, the other now sliding from my waist to the small of my back, holding me steady against the railing while his hips settle more firmly between my thighs.
The thin sequins of my dress are nothing against the rough denim of his jeans, and every shift, every deliberate press, sends a shock of heat straight through me.
I can feel him, hard and insistent, and the part of me that’s supposed to be calculating the exit strategy just… shuts right the fuck up.
Easton kisses like he’s mapping territory, only less old-world explorer with a god complex and more dangerous boy with a mouth that makes every inch of me feel discovered, claimed, and humiliatingly willing.
There’s no hesitation, no exploratory softness as if he needs to learn me.
He takes my lower lip between his, sucks gently, then deepens the kiss before I can catch my breath.
His tongue slides against mine, and a low, rough sound vibrates in his chest. I answer it with one of my own, my fingers tightening in his hair, pulling just enough to make him groan against my mouth.
“Fuck, Aura,” he breathes, tearing his lips from mine to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses along my jaw, down the column of my throat.
His teeth scrape over my pulse point, and my back arches off the railing, pressing my chest against his.
The sequins scratch at the cotton of his shirt, a tiny, frantic sound in the quiet dark of the porch.
“You talk too much,” I gasp, tilting my head to give him better access. My rules are screaming in the back of my skull, but they’re drowned out by the feel of his mouth on my skin, the solid weight of him between my legs, the sheer want that’s turning my bones to liquid.
“You like it,” he murmurs against my collarbone, his hand sliding from my back to my hip, his thumb digging into the sensitive dip just above the bone. “You like knowing I’m not just grabbing. You like that I’m thinking about it.”
“I’d like it more if you stopped thinking.”
He laughs, a dark, husky sound that vibrates through me.
Then his mouth is back on mine, swallowing my next retort.
This kiss is different—less about conquest, more about consumption.
He licks into my mouth like he’s starving, and I meet him stroke for stroke, my own hunger a sharp, clawing thing I can no longer pretend is casual.
My legs tighten around his waist, my heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him closer until there’s no space left, until the only thing separating us is two layers of fabric that feel as thin as tissue paper.
His hand leaves my hip, slides up my side, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast through the dress.
I freeze for a half-second, the old panic—‘grab your tits for me, Aura…tell me you love how I get you wet, Aura’— memories of that night flaring bright and hot.
He pauses, his mouth still moving against mine, his thumb making slow, maddening circles just beneath the curve.
A question. A fucking question, when every other man would have just taken the answer he assumed was his.
I break the kiss, breathing ragged. “Do it or don’t.”
His eyes are black in the low light, his pupils blown wide. “Tell me.”
“You know the answer.”
“I want to hear it.”
“Easton.”
“Say it.” His thumb strokes again, higher this time, grazing the stiff peak of my nipple through the sequins. A jolt of pure, undiluted pleasure arcs through me, and a choked sound escapes my throat. “Say you want my hands on you.”
It’s a trap. A beautiful, delicious trap.
If I say it, I give him a piece of the control I guard like a fortress.
If I don’t, he’ll keep doing that thing with his thumb until I come apart on this porch railing without him ever touching me properly.
He’s boxing me in with decency, and it’s the most infuriating, hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.
He leans forward until his lips are at my ear, his voice is a low, venomous whisper. “Touch me like you mean it, or I’ll find someone inside who will.”
“Touch me then, but do not say my name or I bounce.”
His reaction is instantaneous. A growl rips from his throat, and his hand closes over my breast, finally, fully.
The sequins bite into his palm, but his grip is firm, possessive, his thumb finding my nipple and rubbing it into a tight, aching point.
My head falls back against the post of the railing with a soft thud.
“That’s better.” he rasps, his mouth on my throat again.
“It’s a start.”
He nips at my skin, not hard enough to mark, but enough to make me gasp.
His other hand leaves my neck, slides down my arm, then grips my thigh where it’s wrapped around him.
He squeezes, a firm, grounding pressure, then his fingers trail higher, under the hem of my dress.
The cool night air hits my skin, followed by the scorching heat of his palm on my bare thigh.
My breath hitches. The world narrows to the rough wood of the railing at my back, the distant pulse of bass from the house, and the feel of Easton’s hand inching higher. His fingertips brush the lace edge of my underwear, and my entire body tenses.
He stops. Of course he stops. His forehead drops to my shoulder, his breathing harsh in my ear. “Aura.”
“What?” It comes out a challenge, but it wavers when he says my name and that flash of panic hits me.
“This is where you tell me the rules.”
He’s right, this is the line—my line. The point of no return that isn’t about kissing, or groping over clothes, but about skin on skin, about intentions made physical and undeniable.
My mind scrambles for the script. No names.
No naked bodies. No promises. No feelings.
No proof… No lights, but the porch is well lit.
But looking at him, feeling the tremble in his hand where it rests high on my thigh, hearing the ragged edge in his voice—it doesn’t feel like just anything. It feels like a cliff, and I’m tired of being the only one afraid to jump.