“Just for tonight.” He tightened his arm, holding her even
closer, until her chest was pressed against his bare skin.
“You’re injured,” she breathed.
“This makes me feel better.” He spoke against her throat
and finished with a lick that made her head begin to spin.
Now would have been a really good time to untangle
herself.
His mouth closed over her pulse.
She tried to tell him this was a bad idea, but a soft sigh
came out instead. If his lips felt like this on her neck, she
wondered how they’d feel on her lips.
Her eyes closed, and her breath went shallow. She
shouldn’t think about Jacks’s lips on hers. And yet she
couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she could kiss Jacks here,
in the Hollow, in the one place curses couldn’t touch them.
The idea was painfully tempting. But even if Jacks’s kiss
couldn’t kill her here, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t ruin her in
other ways. “We shouldn’t do this,” she said.
“I’m just asking you to stay the night.” His lips left her
neck as he murmured, “You won’t even remember.”
Evangeline tensed in his arms. “What do you mean, I
won’t remember?”
“I mean … it’s just one night,” he said softly. “In the
morning, you can forget it. You can go back to pretending
you don’t like me, and I can pretend that I don’t care. But
for tonight, let me pretend you’re mine.”
She melted at the word mine. For a dizzying second, she
couldn’t think. She couldn’t bring herself to pull away, and
yet she couldn’t tell him she would stay.
“If it’s easier, you can pretend, too,” he whispered. “You
can pretend that I’m still Jacks of the Hollow and that you
want to be mine.” His mouth pressed against her throat
once more and slowly traced a blissful line up her neck, to
her ear. Then his teeth nipped her earlobe.
She gasped. The bite was sharp and a little painful, as if
he wanted to hold her and punish her, too. But he didn’t
have to punish her. This was already torture because she
wanted it so much. She wanted him to want her, even if he
was half-delirious in his wanting.
“I’m not delirious.” His voice was husky with something
like sleep, but when he looked down on her, his eyes were
clear and lucid.
vaporwave
yousharknotpass