A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(42)

I look down, and there’s the firm, heavy proof of his response.

Fuck. Me. I slump against the door, lust coiled so tightly in my belly that it almost hurts.

“Oh, Saint,” I murmur. “Was that because you wanted to be me? Or Rebecca?”

“I don’t know,” he says helplessly. “I always thought I wanted to be both, but then when I saw Auden's face—”

And here he cuts himself off for good, refusing to say more.

“Saint . . .” I try to nudge, but he seals his lips closed, looking like he wants to punch himself for even uttering Auden’s name aloud. The little metal ball underneath his lip is pulled tight enough that it dents the soft skin there, and I can’t stop staring at it. I can’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to take that little ball between my teeth and tug.

In an ideal world, I’d be spanked again for taking such a liberty, but alas . . .

“I want to kiss you,” I blurt out and his eyes widen, then darken even more as his eyes dip to my mouth. “I’m sorry and I know that’s a strange thing to say, but I just had to tell you—”

His lips are hard against mine before I can even speak another word.

The kiss is desperate, grasping, gasping, with tongues and teeth, and everywhere touching, everywhere my fingers digging into Saint’s arms while his hands clutch and fist at my skirt. I can smell him, and he smells like Thornchapel too, except smoky and crisp somehow, the way a fire smells burning against a cold night.

The kiss is like fire too, consuming, roaring, volcanic. I feel wild, unstable—and Saint is even wilder than I feel, cupping my ass and shoving me up against the door, pinning me there as he plunders my mouth with vicious, fitful frenzy. His lip piercing digs insistently into my lip, and I want to die it feels so good, I want to worship it and write poems to it, and every time he moves his mouth, I feel its delicious little path over my lips; I chase after it with my tongue.

I circle my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, and the pain of my sore bottom against his palms is like heaven as we kiss and arch together, his erection finding just the spot to grind against, his chest pressing hard against my swollen breasts. I can’t breathe, I don’t want to breathe, and with my hurting ass and the rough, cold door behind me, I have such a perfect balance of pleasure and pain that I know I could come from this. My thwarted orgasm from earlier is tightening and tightening, it’s beckoning me, it’s begging me, and I’m ready to follow, I’m so very ready—

Saint breaks our kiss, our faces still so close that our noses nearly touch, and he blinks a few times, as if he’s not sure where he is or what he’s doing. I try to pull him back, I want more, more, more, but he sets me down and takes a big step back, his hands balled into fists and his expression anguished. When he meets my confused stare, he looks at me like I’ve accused him of something.

But I haven’t, I’m not, I don’t understand—

“This can’t—” his voice breaks and he looks away, swallowing. “This can’t happen. We can’t happen. Do you understand?”

“No, I don’t fucking understand,” I say, my not understanding slowly giving way to hurt, humiliated anger. “I don’t know what to think at all right now.”

He sucks his lower lip into his mouth, toying with the barbell. He looks miserable.

It would be so easy right now to whip him with my words and scourge him with all the bitter rejection I feel. And I want to, really want to, even though I’ve never been a whipper—never before St. Sebastian at least. I also want to plead, to coax, to chase him away from we can't happen.

I want him to be mine. Or I want to deny him the right to ever call me his.

I want to heal him and I want to hurt him.

All because of one broken kiss.

I take a deep breath, I remember who I want to be. That I want to believe the best of people, that I want to be honest and resilient—not someone who doesn’t listen, not some discourteous, feral sub girl who lashes out with hurt pride.

And if that’s who I want to be, then I owe Saint what he’s asked for. My understanding.

“I like you,” I say finally. “I like you a lot. Not just because we were kids once, but because I’m intrigued by the man you are now. I’m . . . I don’t even know how to describe it without sounding trite, but I’m drawn to you, St. Sebastian. I’m coded to you somehow, like every part of me just responds to every part of you. But it’s okay if it’s not reciprocated, if you don’t feel the same way, because sometimes that’s just what happens, and I promise to honor that.”

Saint looks angry and pained at turns—he pivots to face the far end of the hall, like he needs to see something other than me while he thinks, and then he pivots back. “It’s reciprocated, Proserpina,” he says in a low, tight voice. “It’s very, very reciprocated. But there are other things to consider. Auden—”

“—is not going to fire me,” I interrupt, completely and utterly done with this excuse. “I know you’ve had your differences, but that’s not something he’d do.”

Saint’s voice is still tight when he says, “There’s more to Auden than you think. He can be incredibly cruel when he likes.”

“Is that truly it? You’re worried I’ll be fired if we fuck?”