18. Give the Asshole an Oscar #2
I can’t nod my head. Seven won’t let me, but it’s true. So I don’t move. But I do have her full attention for the first time in too long.
"There is no one like you. You're exciting.
You're fascinating. You're funny in a way that sneaks up and knocks me upside the head.
You move through this city like a deranged little squirrel, and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and you do it to help people.
Anybody. Strangers." I'm closer now. I can smell antiseptic and apples, and her.
"And you've never once treated me like a freak. And I...I don’t know how to handle that. "
Her lips quirk as her brows draw together.
"Seriously?" She jerks a thumb at the empty room.
"Everyone I love is a freak. Goldie, Cinder, Red, Kiki...
" She trails off, a sadness flickering in her expression before she pushes whatever is causing it away.
"You've been hanging in a hotspot that is full of so-called freaks, and you act like basic decency is a gift.
" Her eyes narrow up at me. "You really need to get over this idea that your powers are a curse.
Or that they make you less than. Because it's the only boring thing about you.
" She sticks a finger in my chest at that last part.
Everything in me goes quiet.
"That's it," I hear myself say. "That's exactly it. You say things like that, and it makes me want to..." My fingers dig harder into the wood.
"What?" The word escapes her in a breathless dare.
The air between us is thick and warm and smells like her. My hands stay on the bar because if they come off, I'll use them.
Nobody in my head says a word. Not even him.
I dip my head and kiss her.
Instead of punching me in the face and calling me an asshole like I expect, Snow releases a desperate little mewl. Her fists close in the front of my hoodie and she hauls me in closer.
We gasp against each other’s mouths with the same relief.
Fuck, it’s so good. I’d been replaying what happened in the Pumpkin Coach Club over and over in my mind with equal parts lust and shame multiple times a day.
My memory couldn’t do justice to the seductive slide of her perfect, full lips over mine.
Or the drugging effect her warm skin and taste have on me.
Everything falls away. The room. The others in my head, even me. There’s only Snow and the way she kisses with abandon and curiosity. As if she can find something new in my mouth each time. And somehow, she always does.
She nibbles on the corner of my lips, changes the angle of her tongue to mine, and each new discovery makes me wild.
The spray bottle hits the floor. I lift her by the backs of her thighs.
She wraps her legs around me, and we knock into a stool, a table, the arm of one of the big velvet couches she falls into.
She shoves at my chest, pushing me off even as she settles back into the seat.
Legs spread, knee-high stiletto boots raising her knees, she sits like an expectant queen.
She points in front of her legs. "Down, boy."
Not used to taking commands, I hesitate. But then I’m forced to my knees. For a moment, I think it’s Four or Five who overrode my control.
It was Seven.
The way she ordered us down. His hunger comes up under me, and I'm standing on it the way you stand on a boat. The knees weren't mine. The wanting is getting hard to sort, his from ours from mine.
He won't come out. He can never come out. Not after what he’s done.
But he’s so close, it’s almost like we’re both here together. And we want Snow.
Badly.
"Grovel." She hooks one knee-high boot over my shoulder, leather skirt riding up her thighs, and points down. "Properly."
I don't hesitate this time. My mouth lands on the inside of her knee, and the whole of us exhales. Twelve days without this skin. I work up her thigh slowly, one kiss at a time, and nobody in my head tells me to stop. Snow's fingers burrow into my hair.
I still remember sucking her off my finger, and my throat tightens with anticipation.
"Take it off," she demands, with a sharp tug on my hair.
I look up and realize what she means. I sit back on my heels and tug my hoodie over my head, my curls falling back into my eyes. I’m long overdue for a cut.
"The shirt too," she adds with the same command, but it’s a little breathier this time.
I pull it off. Gooseflesh sweeps down my arms, the bar's air conditioning finding every inch of me while her eyes do the same. She hums in approval, and I resume my previous position.
"Can I kiss you again?" I ask.
She raises an imperious brow, but I can tell underneath her cold exterior she is enjoying herself. "You may kiss here," she says, pointing to the side of her neck. So I stretch up and do just that. I kiss, and nibble, and drink her in.
She points lower to her clavicle. I move there and give it the same treatment.
She continues to point out more spots, and I follow her lead until I twist her cut-off tee up out of my way, shove her bra up, and close my mouth over her nipple.
My pulse has moved below my belt now, heavy and thick and beating against my zipper, and every point of her under my mouth feeds it.
We could never think straight, Six points out.
I ignore him and revel in the texture and taste of Snow until she pushes on my head. I understand what she wants and push her knees further apart.
For a second time, that dark hunger rises from the most forbidden place in all of us.
Is it me, or Seven who slides our hands under her perfect ass to the edge of her panties and peels them off? I’m not entirely sure who shoves them in our back pocket before taking hold of her thighs and pulling her to the edge of the couch.
A low growl emanates from inside me as I can smell her arousal, and I instantly want to rub all over her pussy until her desire coats my face.
I scrape the stubble of my cheek and chin over her before giving her a long, deep drag of my tongue. Soft. Bare. Wet.
"Fuck, Snow." More animalistic growls reverberate inside me.