"I can't do this to you. Please don't do this to me. You have no idea how hard this is to fight. I want you so badly I can't stand it. I love you, Aria. Please don't make this any harder on me."
Please tell me he really said that!
Electrically charged tingles crawled through me, igniting every ounce of emotion in me and stirring me to life. My breath left me for a second as my mind searched to see if I had really just heard that. His eyes held mine, pleading and begging for contradicting things. He loved me, wanted me, but he also wanted me to stop.
"I love you, too. I have for a long time."
I wasn't stopping. I couldn't. I knew we were soul mates. I couldn't breathe without him. I needed him like air. I couldn't be without him another moment. He was desire, passion, happiness... He was everything I needed, and I wasn't backing down this time. I was giving myself to him to love. I was taking him to love. I wasn't walking away until he was mine.
"If you love me, don't do this to me," he pleaded, his voice going out. "I don't have enough strength left to fight this for the both of us anymore."
"Who asked you to fight for me?" I asked, keeping my voice soft.
I continued my gentle kisses around his chest and neck, working my way back up to his mouth.
"Aria, please. This is so hard not to give in to," he begged.
"Then give in," I whispered back, still pressing myself tightly against his body.
I sat up in his lap, moving my legs around his waist and poising my lips to be millimeters from his. My body was begging him to make the first move. I was on fire for him, and I was going to be relentless in my attempts. The more he resisted, the more I fought to tempt him. It worked.
His hands were suddenly in my hair. Then one hand slid down my back bringing me with him as he dropped back to the bed. He grabbed me at my right thigh and slid me up, making everything inside me come to boil.
This was it. It was happening - my first kiss with my first and only love. He still had one hand on the back of my neck and he pulled me down to his face. It was so much better than I had ever imagined it would be; the perfect ending to a horribly traumatic day. The intensity of how badly we wanted each other was overwhelmingly breathtaking.
His lips felt like velvet as they crushed against mine, pushing me into a place of fantasy. I felt the fireworks erupting powerfully in our mouths. I felt his heart pounding under my body. I felt his hands pulling me as close as they could. I felt alive and on fire.
His tongue explored my mouth and with it came a stronger heat. It was almost too much.
He was mine. All I had to do was wait until my transformation to prove it. I knew the dark ones were still looking for me, but in that moment, I didn't care. The only thing I cared about was the fire surging through me, burning out of control. All I cared about was being with him, and I finally could be… for now.
The delicious heat kept getting stronger, to the point I couldn't catch my breath at all. Suddenly, it was burning me from the inside out. An excruciating, unrelenting, merciless inferno.
What started as a cloud of euphoria became a shadow of darkness as my sounds of pleasure turned into a bloodcurdling scream.
End of book one.