Walk the Edge (Thunder Road, #2)(77)

My heart stops beating and I freeze. “What changed your mind?”

Breanna’s silent and I count between her inhales and exhales. Each second that passes becomes excruciatingly longer. When I’m about to bust out of my own skin, she says, “I couldn’t stay away.”

“Why?”

“What if I said I don’t know what love is?” she asks like she’s testing out the words. “That I’ve read about it—in textbooks and psychology books and in novels, but it’s not something I can pin down the meaning of. Like, I know I love my parents and my brothers and sisters and Addison, but that’s what is expected and all I’ve known. It’s always been a part of me, and then there’s meeting you...”

She drifts off. I loved my mother. Loved my father. Loved Olivia, Oz, Chevy, Violet and this club. Then there was meeting Breanna and the emotion of being around her is nothing like that definition of love. This is heartbreaking and consuming and addictive. It’s terrifying and peaceful, crazy and serene. It’s a million things in one brief moment and it’s something I don’t understand and never want to live without.

“I’d say I don’t know what it is, either. But if I had to guess, it would be like when I’m with you.”

Breanna does what hardly any other person can do—she stares straight into my eyes without hesitation. “Yeah, it would be that for me, too.”

She loves me. That damn smile that I never knew was a part of me spreads across my face and I love the answering one she has for me. I burrow my fingers into her hair. “Kiss me.”

Worry shadows her expression. “But you’re hurt. Your arm and your side and there are cuts and brui—”

“If you don’t lean your body this way and kiss me, Breanna, I’m going to roll you underneath me and threaten to tear open my wounds so I can kiss you. Your choice.”

She purses her lips as if she’s annoyed, but she slips closer. Her hand claims my stomach, her knee brushes against mine and that tempting mouth is only a few centimeters away. “Your logic completely sucks.”

“Nothing logical about it. This is all instinct.” I grab her hips and drag her across until she’s straddling me. I fight the urge to laugh at the shock washing over her face. Eyes wide. Mouth rounded into an O. Her skirt gathers around her thighs and she’s settled exactly where I’ve pictured her being.

“You really are bad.” She adjusts to her new position and I’m about to lose my mind with the sensations that movement brings.

“Just now figuring that out?”

“Maybe.”

Doubt it. She’s smart. The girl has had my number since we met, but damn if she hasn’t fallen for me anyhow. “Are you going to make me repeat my request?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I’m not sure if you know, but I have this nasty habit of forgetting things...”

I tangle our fingers, pull her to me and take her lips with mine. Our mouths open and our tongues dance. Asking and giving, possessing and relenting.

My hand is along her back, drawing up her sweater and tank, and when Breanna shifts, granting me permission, I have the material up and over her head. We’re close to skin against skin and my mind becomes a whirlwind. She’s heat, softness, curves and sighs. Hair that’s like silk, kisses that cause earthquakes and she has a sweet scent that drives me insane.

A flick of my fingers, a clasp undone and the gentle pressure of all of Breanna is too much to bear. Our bodies move, my lips are on her neck, my hands are memorizing, and Breanna whispers in my ear, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

There’s no pain. Only a building heat and an impending rush. I shake my head to calm her fears and reclaim her mouth. The momentum grows and she presses closer to me as I press closer to her. It’s fast and out of control and there’s a light pain in my right arm, but I shove all that away as I grip her hips, encouraging this rhythm to pick up speed.

She’s kissing me and I’m kissing her, then she turns her head as she gasps and shifts so that we’re no longer in sync. Both of us are struggling for air and my body pulses with the need to continue. Breanna sits up, still straddling me, and looks down with wild and apologetic eyes. “I’m sorry...it’s just a little...”

“Fast,” I finish for her. “It’s okay. Don’t apologize. Never apologize.”

I rub my eyes and scrub a hand over my face to try to ease the blood now pounding in my head, then encourage Breanna to lie next to me.

Her body becomes pliant and she settles against my side again. This time her arm and leg drape over me. My fingers knot in her hair and I kiss her lips several times. Each of the kisses soft. Each of them a promise that this moment is forever burned in my brain.

She’s my girl now and I’ll do anything for her at any time. I’m in love with her.

Breanna snatches her bra, tank and sweater and I do my best to school my expression so she can’t tell how I’m admiring the view or of how I find her innocence cute when she slips the tank and sweater over her head and then clumsily puts on her bra underneath them.

Before me, she’d only kissed a boy and she’s in my territory now. We visited new areas and I want her to trust me enough to return to those places with me.

“Are you tired?” she asks. “Do you want me to leave?”