Chapter 24 Clarke
Clarke
Something was palpably different between Leith and me as he led me through the gym and out the door. The ground we’d been walking on for the past month and a half was shifting beneath our feet. The world we’d built together was tilting, and even though I should be scared, I wasn’t.
I wasn’t scared when Leith pressed my back against the passenger door of his truck. I wasn’t scared when I felt his mouth on my neck or when his hand trailed from the small of my back to the back of my thigh and pulled it up around him. I wasn’t scared at all. I was ready.
“Clarke,” he breathed into the side of my neck. “I want to break the rules. Can we…please?” His voice broke on the last word as he begged. I wanted more.
“No,” I said. “Not yet.”
Leith pulled back from where his mouth had been attached between my neck and collarbone. His eyes were desperate and wild as he searched my face. His shoulders moved up and down with his breath. Satisfaction bloomed in my chest, and I felt a smile stretch my lips.
Sometimes, when I was with Leith, I didn’t know what came over me.
I just felt…light. Maybe not completely carefree, but the closest to free I have ever felt.
He made it easy to forget everything else, especially that this was fake.
When I was lucid enough to remember that, I knew I wouldn’t get out of this thing with Leith unscathed.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to care…I ached to be uninhibited for just a little bit.
“You are trying to kill me,” he groaned. “And I think I like it.”
Well, that made two of us.
“Tell you what. I’ll let you break the rules”—Leith immediately went for my mouth, but I stopped him with a hand on his chest—“if you show me you can be good.”
“Fuck.” He swallowed. “I’m obsessed with you,” he said quietly—more to himself than me, I think.
“Show me,” I said again. I pushed up on my tiptoes until my mouth was centimeters from his. “And I’ll let you break the rules.”
“God,” he said and then put his mouth back on my neck.
His hands were all over me—like he couldn’t decide where he wanted them.
“Get in the truck.” He popped the door open behind me and scooped me onto the seat.
He cupped my face in one of his hands as he dragged his thumb across my bottom lip. “Do you want me to show you here?”
“My house,” I said.
“Done.” He nodded. He covered my whole mouth with his thumb before kissing it—like the stage kiss we had to do in the ninth grade when we performed a scene from Romeo and Juliet. The memory came roaring into my head like a freight train. I hadn’t thought about that in a very long time.
“That feels like cheating,” I breathed. His mouth moved to my jaw, to my ear.
“The rule is no kissing on the mouth.” His voice was low in my ear. “Did my mouth touch yours?”
“No, but—”
“No buts,” he cut me off. “Now, do you want me to take you home, or do you want to stay in this parking lot discussing technicalities?” In response, I unwrapped my legs from his middle and positioned myself correctly in the truck—even put my seatbelt on for good measure. “That’s what I thought.”
As soon as he closed the door and headed for the driver’s side, though, I unbuckled my seatbelt and slid across the bench seat, so I was right next to him when he got in. “Naughty girl,” he muttered when I slid my hand over his thigh.
“I only said you had to be good—not me.”
“And thank fuck for that.” The truck roared to life, and Leith whipped us out of the parking spot and onto the road in record time. “Come here,” he said and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I moved my hand up his thigh, over his hip, up his abdomen, across his chest and back again.
“Are you trying to make me crash this truck?” he breathed.
“That would put a damper on the evening, wouldn’t it?” I said and kissed the side of his neck. The steering wheel jerked when my lips touched his skin, and I reveled in the power I seemed to have over him. I’d never felt like this before.
“Cool it,” Leith said. His voice was strained. “I really really would rather not die before I got to touch you again.”
The speed limit through town was thirty miles an hour, and there were signs on the road that said Slow Down Through Town, since everybody was partial to speeding. Leith was no exception right now. When I looked at his speedometer, he was pushing fifty-five.
He tightened his arm around me when he turned the corner down my road. Good thing, too, because if he didn’t, I might’ve flown to the other side of the truck, and I didn’t want to leave his side.
“Almost there.” My lips were on his neck again, and his head fell back a little before his spine went ramrod straight.
“Focus, Leith,” he muttered to himself. I’d never seen him so worked up—so flustered. I liked it. A lot. I barely registered that he’d pulled his truck into my driveway, but Leith was on the move. He opened the driver’s-side door, hopped out, and pulled me out with him.
Before I could get my feet under me, he threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I let out a shocked laugh. “Where are your keys?” he said.
“Shit,” I said. I had been so distracted that I forgot I’d left my keys in my truck in the high school parking lot because I didn’t have a purse. “The spare is on top of the doorframe.”
“That’s pretty obvious and unsafe,” Leith said. “But I’ll worry about that tomorrow.” I felt him reach for the top of the doorframe and feel for the key, then unlock the door. He locked it again after he shut it. “Hey, Pearl,” he said. “Which door is your room?”
“Door to the right of the fridge,” I said. When Leith got past the couch, I saw Pearl. The old girl didn’t even lift her head at me being carried through the house.
“Bad guard dog,” I said. “But I love you anyway.”
“She knows she doesn’t have to protect you from me.” Leith opened my bedroom door, and I had never been more grateful that I was a weekly resetting, bed-making, laundry-sorting type of woman.
Before I knew it, my back was on my bed, and Leith was on me—peppering me with kisses everywhere but my mouth—doing exactly what he was told.
“Why do you have so many pillows?” he asked against my throat while he put one arm around my waist and moved me up the bed. “And there are so many ruffles.”
“I like my bed to be like…a luxury experience,” I said.
“I’ll show you a luxury experience.”
I wanted to make fun of him for what had to be, without a doubt, the stupidest thing he ever said, but I didn’t have a chance because Leith was kissing me again.
I knotted the fingers of one of my hands in his hair as his mouth made its way up and down my neck and across my collarbones.
Leith held my other one and put it above my head.
He used his other hand to push my dress up my thighs.
“How far do you want to go tonight?” Leith asked as he kissed his way over my chest and down to my stomach.
“I-I don’t know,” I admitted. “That feels like a big question…” with an even bigger answer.
“Okay,” Leith said and stood at the end of my bed.
“I’ll start smaller, then.” He slipped out of his suit jacket, took off his tie, unbuttoned the first few buttons on his shirt, and started to roll the sleeves of his button-down up to his forearms. He had his eyes on me the whole time, and I felt it from my head to my toes.
“Can I take these off?” he asked, gesturing toward my feet. I nodded, and Leith went to work gently undoing the ankle straps on my heels at the same time he stepped out of his own shoes. Something about this part felt more intimate than anything else.
“Can I go down on you again?”
“That’s starting small?” I laughed.
“I started with the shoes,” he replied. “And compared to what I want to do to you and with you, yes.”
“Oh,” I said dumbly, and one side of Leith’s mouth tipped up, as he waited for my answer. “Y-yes,” I said. “I want that.”
“Good,” Leith said and crawled back up my body like my perfect predator. “I do too.” His hand skated up my thigh, dragging my dress higher with it until he hit the holster I’d had the flask in. “This was fucking devious, Clarke.” He pulled it down my leg and threw it on the floor.
“I didn’t want to carry my purse.” Which was only half true.
“I think you did it on purpose,” Leith said as his hand made its way back up my leg again.
That’s all he’d done to me in the past five minutes, and I already felt like I was going to explode.
His hand went higher this time, until it was cupping my hip under my dress, and then Leith’s mouth was at my jaw.
His hand was roaming—like it was searching for something.
“Clarke”—Leith nipped at my neck—“are you not wearing any underwear?”
“I didn’t want underwear lines,” I said.
“You always have an explanation, don’t you?” Leith said. His breath was hot on my skin. “And it’s never the one I want.”
“What do you mean?”
“Figure it out,” he replied and moved his way back down my body until he settled between my legs. I moved my gaze to the ceiling—where the stars were. I was suddenly nervous. I felt my body tense up for the first time tonight.
“Look at me, honey,” Leith said softly but firmly.
“Stay here with me. Please.” It took a lot to tear my eyes away from my ceiling and follow Leith’s voice.
I had always depended on my lucky stars when I felt overwhelmed.
But maybe I could depend on Leith too. When our gazes locked together, Leith lowered his mouth to my center. I gasped at the contact.
I saw him smile for a second before he turned his focus solely on the task at hand.
His licks were languid, like he was savoring the taste of me.
My back arched as he picked up his pace, but not enough.
He stayed steady. I rocked my hips into his mouth, but he held me in place with his hand that was wrapped around my thigh.
I felt the pad of his tongue press down on my clit, and I jerked. “Fuck,” I moaned.