I drew myself up until I was sitting, leaning back on my hands. “I don’t know what you want from me. First I’m supposed to be with Silas. Then we thought I might have to be Nathan’s girlfriend. Now you say we should switch and I should be with you. With Kota’s mom, I’m dating him. With your Uncle I’m with Luke. You ask me if I want you, and then tell me you think it’s a bad idea.”
“We’ve been trying to make it easier on you,” North said. “The whole fucking set up is to keep your ass out of trouble.”
“I don’t even know what that means. What am I supposed to do? What do you want from me?”
North growled in a way that at first scared me, startling me out of my hyper rampage. He bolted forward, grasping me by the hips and pushing me until I was flat on my back against the bed. My thighs split, making room for his hips to wedge between them. He sank down until he was hovering over me.
His lips met my skin at the corner of my mouth. He kissed me again down closer to my chin, and started a trail of kisses along my jaw. I gasped, my hands drifting up until my arms encircled his neck. My fingers weaved their way through the hair at the back of his head. My breath caught, my body reacting and I felt nearly paralyzed. I didn’t want to move, scared to death that he’d stop.
“Why are we like this?” He breathed against my skin, then planted another kiss along my jaw. “Even when I’m pissed off at you, I want to kiss the shit out of you.”
“North,” I whispered, suddenly unable to think of anything to say. I clung to him, desperate.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, his lips making a trail along my jaw, sparking up my skin with every touch. His mouth parted, until his teeth grazed against my earlobe. His hand held the side of my face, encouraging me to tilt my head to expose more of my neck to him. “Baby, don’t let me.”
I didn't want him to stop. Kota had said he couldn’t. I’d seen the way Luke, and Nathan, and even Victor hesitated. Whatever Academy rule prevented them from doing whatever it was they really wanted, I secretly hated. I thought if I could get anyone to break the rules, to show me exactly what they weren’t allowed to do with me, North would be the one.
The darkness made it easier to find my courage. I leaned up, planting my lips against his cheek, close to his ear. I did what he did. I opened my mouth a little, running my lower teeth across the soft flesh just under his jawline. The coarse hair his jaw dragged against my lips. I moved my head a little, wanting to kiss his skin again, when his head tilted.
At first I thought he was trying to pull away. In a desperate move, I gripped at him, trying to pull him back in. My mouth was open. He lowered himself again.
My teeth met with his neck and I bit.
The next growl that erupted from his lips didn’t scare me. A thrill crept up my spine. I didn’t know what I’d done. Confusion set in and I released him.
“How did you do that?” North’s voice was guttural and low against my neck. “Fuck, Baby...”
“Did it hurt?” I asked.
“No.” His breath heated against my neck. “Do it again.”
I hesitated at first, but my need to do what he so desperately wanted overtook me. I kissed at his neck, trying to find the right spot. I opened my mouth, my teeth met with his skin and I bit.
“Harder,” he seethed.
I sank my teeth in, enough to make indentations, but not enough to break the skin.
North’s hips surged forward, grinding into my body. The edge of his hip bone clashed against mine. His hands found my sides, grasping, releasing and gripping me again. He moaned harshly against my neck.
I released him, afraid to do it for too long.
North relaxed, nearly laying on top of me, his mouth planted against my shoulder at the crook near my neck and his breath fell heavily against me. “Holy ... fucking shit.”
“North?” I called softly, unsure. I was sure I’d hurt him.
He nuzzled my neck. “I can’t believe... you... god.” His mouth parted, he planted a heavy kiss, sucking in part of the skin at my neck. He pressed his teeth against it.
I tensed at first, absolutely sure he was going to bite me back and more than sure that it was going to hurt. I remembered when I was younger and Marie and I had scuffled as kids over a toy and she’d bitten my arm.
North’s teeth sank into my skin.
It was like tiny fireworks sparking from the edge of every single indentation he was making. The fireworks lit up, spreading to every inch of my body and exploding against my skin. My body surged, grinding up against his involuntarily. I couldn’t stop until my groin was pressing against his thigh, pulled by a force inside of me that I’d never known existed. Every last bit of my skin surged, tingling. My breath had stopped. My heart had stopped. My mind forgot everything.
When he released my neck, my rigid body slowly settled back against the bed. My eyes popped open wide and I was staring up at North, shocked, dazzled. My heart started up again with a fury. My lungs sucked in air. I realized I’d been gripping the back of his neck, nails digging in. I released him.
He backed his head away from my neck. His lips found my cheek. “You okay, Baby?” he breathed.
I had no idea what just happened. Was that what it felt like when I’d bitten him? The power behind it was... I couldn’t describe it. Suddenly I remembered when Silas had slipped his fingers across my lower abdomen, causing feelings I hadn’t yet explored. The biting was more intense than that. “North,” I moaned, but my hands clutched his neck again, pulling him in.
His head dipped, and he growled against my neck again before his teeth sank in heavily. His bite reclaimed me. New skin. New marks. My body seized up against his, the feeling just as intense. It electrified my chest. Unrelenting. Every nerve came alive.
When his teeth released me, I moaned. A pitiful plea for mercy and yet begging for more all at once. The craving inside me was so intense, scary, overpowering.
North dropped his head again, ready to take another bite, but I rose up, afraid of the feelings he had caused surging through me, wanting a moment to collect myself before he did it again. The only thing I could think of was to bite back. I found the edge of his neck just below his ear and bit down.
North jerked his body down into mine. His hands grasped at my hips. He ground himself against me. A hardened length between his legs rubbed against my thigh. His stomach pressed against mine, pushing my body hard into the bed.
“Fuck, Sang.” He gasped, sucking in a heavy breath against my ear. When I released him, he jerked back, tumbled sideways until he was flat on his back beside me on the bed. He pressed a palm to his forehead, breathing heavily as he stared up at the ceiling. “Holy shit. Where did you learn that?”
“I didn’t,” I said. My hands fell over my chest, sliding up toward my neck, feeling the spots where he’d bitten. My body trembled at feeling his saliva still lingering on my skin, and the dense jolt of pain from touching the sore spots. “I didn’t know...”
He rolled over onto his side. His hands found mine covering my neck. “Does it hurt now?”
“No,” I said. While there was a pressure, the pain wasn’t horrible. I think I was scared of how I was feeling more. It didn’t hurt. It felt good. Biting my neck felt really good. “Did you feel that?”
“Is that what happens when Nathan bites your fingers?” he asked.
I shook my head. The first few times he bit my fingers, I felt something similar, but this was so beyond that. Nathan’s biting was a soft tickle compared. It wasn’t the same at all.
North raked his fingers through his hair. He found my hand, picked it up and brought it to his lips. “Do you still like me?” he asked against my palm.
“Yes,” I said, without hesitation. “Do you still like me?”
North let a breath out slowly against my palm. He released my hand to hold on to my waist. He bent over me, until his face hovered over mine.
I closed my eyes as the overwhelming feeling that he was about to kiss me su
rged through me. I was sure of it now. He’d bitten my neck. He liked me. He was going to show me with a kiss. My first real kiss would be with him and my heart raced, dazed with new sensations.
North’s nose brushed against mine as he dipped in close, but he stopped. At first, I thought maybe he was drawing it out. Part of me was wondering how to kiss and I was preoccupied with how to position my lips.
His face turned away. He captured my chin in his fingers, tilting my face to expose my neck. His lips kissed at the skin just under my jaw and he claimed my skin with a bite.
My hips gyrated up, my heart beat wildly. My hands looked for something to grasp, finding his chest. My nails dug in.
North moaned loud. His bite deepened as my grip hardened against his chest.
When he finally released me and my mind could focus, I was suddenly struck with the realization that he hadn’t kissed me. Disappointment surged through me, causing a sadness and yearning I hadn’t felt before. Kota hadn’t kissed me. Nathan hadn’t kissed me. When I thought about it, everyone had gotten close, not one had done it. North was right here, right in front of me. His lips and mouth were doing things around my face and neck, but he avoided my lips.
Through a desperate anger sweeping over me, I leaned up, finding a fresh spot at his neck and bit down. I wanted to hide my feelings and get rid of the emotion in my throat. I wanted to drive a kiss out of him somehow.
North growled, his hand grasping at my hip. I felt his body shudder. “Baby,” he moaned. “We need to stop.”
A tear caught at the corner of my eye, and I was grateful for the darkness that hid it. I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to quit until he kissed me. Maybe if I bit him enough, he’d do it.
When my hands gripped at his chest again, he released me, seizing my fingers and drawing them up to my mouth. He dropped his head, and I knew he was going to kiss me on the mouth but over my fingers.
Another wave of fresh anger swept through me. He couldn’t kiss me! How ridiculous. Something so simple, so elementary, so basic to any relationship. Karen had said once guys should do it first. I’d been waiting for them to do that and felt them get close but then they backed away, making me think something was wrong with me. Here he was biting me and he was going to play this game and avoid kissing me. He’d kissed me everywhere else, but not on the lips.
I groaned, tugging my hand away and pushed at his chest just to lift him out of range of kissing my lips.