Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 159976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
I glide my fingers over her hands and up her arms, but I feel the bracelet she always wears and trace the snake wrapped around the hourglass. I can almost make out its fangs as I hold her eyes.
“I like it when you bite me,” I tell her. “With your teeth…and your words.”
“I couldn’t stop myself anymore.”
“Why?”
She leans up and takes my face in one hand, nearly grazing my lips with hers. “Because sometimes two wrongs make a right, Clay.” She breathes hard. “Because venom works slowly but surely and I was so tired of not fighting for my life. And because one of the ingredients in anti-venom is venom, and sometimes you need poison to counteract the poison.”
“And if the anti-venom doesn’t work?” I tease.
She plays with my skirt. “Isn’t it?”
I smile. Oh, yes, it is. She pushed back, and I’m not at all unhappy about where she pushed me to.
She drops back again, her eyes zoning in on me bare and open as I dry fuck her, and I thrust my hips, still slow but deeper and deeper. Her hands trail over my ass and up my skirt to my stomach before steeling on the joint between my hip and thigh. Her thumb rubs circles on my clit as she bends her knees just slightly and stretches her legs behind me.
Can she feel it? Even with her clothes on? I want to get the hell out of here, but I don’t want to stop.
I roll and roll, battering my hips into her until her nails pierce my skin, and I wince at the pain but love it, too.
She grabs the back of my neck and pulls me in, growling in a whisper over my mouth, “It’s not over between us until I’m wearing something you can really ride.”
A shiver shoots down my spine, and she doesn’t have to elaborate.
“After that, you can go fuck a guy,” she taunts. “But you and I will know nothing is better than this.”
I kiss her, her confidence tasting possessive, and I like it.
Nothing is better than this.
I groan. “I… Oh, God, I… Liv—”
But a blaring sound hits my ears, and I startle. Liv sits up, hands still on my hips as tingles and heat rock through me.
What? I wince at the sound.
It’s a horn. Outside. It goes and goes. Blaring. Constant. What is that?
“Liv?” I ask.
But worry hits her eyes. “Shit.” She doesn’t look at me. “Baby, get dressed.”
I ALMOST REACH for Clay’s hand, but I stop myself. Swinging the door open, I bolt out of the room, making sure she’s behind me, and we run down the staircase, hearing a commotion of chatter, laughing, and squealing as the horn screams into the night outside.
Clay straightens her clothes and fixes her hair. “What is that?”
“It’s the old storm siren.”
“It’s still operating?”
Obviously. I peer out the window as we descend, seeing waves rising high and crashing onto the beach. Darts of rain spear the windows, the staircase now empty as everyone evacuates, not so much because people are scared, but because rain means the canal floods and a lot of rain means the tracks close in case a train needs to break schedule to get out of Dodge.
Anyone from St. Carmen needs to get home now or they’re here all night.
Bodies pour out of the lighthouse, running to cars, and Clay and I stop, looking around. Dallas, Trace, and Iron came with me, and I look past the lightkeeper’s house, down the dirt road running parallel to the beach, seeing my brother’s truck.
“Oh my God,” Clay breathes out, covering her head, rain plastering our clothes to us.
I turn to her, wondering if we’re saying goodbye now, but then I decide for her. “Get in my brother’s truck.”
She’s staying.
I walk and she better fucking follow.
We both run and then stop, cut off by the crowd running in every direction as they bump into each other and slip on the ground. Headlights light up the night, engines peel off, kicking up the inch of rain that’s accumulated already, and I see Dallas and Iron making their way for the truck.
But then I hear someone scream, “I don’t care!”
Krisjen stands opposite her shitty boyfriend, throwing her phone and then her arms, getting in his face and challenging him.
“I couldn’t care less!” she goes on.
He advances on her, the back door of his car open and a couple of guys from our school inside.
“Post them!” Krisjen tells him, the rain making her white crop top see-through as her hair hangs in her face. “Post the videos and my texts and everything! Fuck it all! I don’t care!”
He grabs her hair, and I jerk to attention. What the hell?
“Liv, come on!” I hear Iron at my side.
But I ignore him, seeing Clay head over to her friend ahead of me. “Milo!” she warns.