I tear myself from him and throw my hair back, trying to collect myself. “No, Devlin,” I say, hurling the words at him like missiles. “You can’t just kiss me and think it erases everything you just said. You can’t just—”
I don’t get to finish, because he grabs me and kisses me again, his mouth claiming mine with the force of a hungry tiger. His teeth clash with mine, and I taste blood, and I don’t care if it’s his or mine. I want this kiss, his kiss, to last forever. This is the only place where we’re good, and I don’t want to ruin it. My body welcomes the kiss, swooning with relief against him, my thirst quenched at last.
“No,” I say again, but this time, Devlin holds on tight when I try to break free. I struggle, yanking at my arms, but he holds fast. I lose my footing on the slippery dew and go down, and Devlin drops with me, rolling onto me and pinning my hands. My body awakens at the contact, and I writhe like a live wire, aching for the pleasure and pain of his brutality. I can’t tell if I’m trying to free myself or rub myself against him until he’s the one who breaks, until he can’t resist the temptation of my body under his any more than I can resist him.
“Crystal, would you—”
This time, I cut him off. “Let me go,” I bark, jerking my hands free. I buck under him, rolling us sideways. He grabs my hips, flipping us until I’m on top of him. I sit up, straddling his hips, and pull back. My hand blazes across his other cheek like lightning, and I relish the sting against my palm, the fury that storms his eyes and takes them over.
“You fucking bitch,” he says, snatching my hand before I can hit him again. He flips us back over, grinding me into the ground as his hips pin mine.
“You fucking bastard,” I snap back, my breath coming fast as I grab the front of his shirt and tear at it, pulling so hard the fabric tears down the middle. “I hate you.”
“Ditto,” Devlin growls, yanking my knee up around his hips again and grinding his hardness against me. I gasp, heat pulsing between my thighs as he pins me with his shoulders and reaches down for my pants. My feet find his hips, shoving his sweats down even as my hands brace against his shoulders to push him away. His breath is hot against my neck, sending a delicious shiver of weakness through me, and the smell of fresh sweat on his skin makes blood throb between my thighs.
“Wait.” I freeze as the cold air hits my heated skin, my panting breaths heavy in the damp night. “I—I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Devlin demands.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “I… Have my period.”
In answer, Devlin pulls my panties and pad aside and drives his hot, bare cock into me. I’m still sore from the last time, and though I’m wet and bleeding, he’s so big that it hurts almost as much as the first time when he pushes himself up on his palms and buries himself to the hilt inside me. I don’t care if it hurts. I want it to. I rip the front of his shirt further open, my nails raking down his bare chest and washboard abs. I want to hurt him, too.
“You’re so fucking wet you make me want to cum like a virgin right now,” he growls, drawing back and slamming into me a second time.
“Don’t you dare,” I hiss.
Devlin groans in response, jerking my knee up and driving into me with quick, angry thrusts. I scratch him again, and he grabs my hands and pins them to the ground, thrusting into me as I buck my hips. He uses the position to go even deeper, grinding his pelvic bone against me until I pant for more. He gives it to me, smashing into me over and over, fucking me into the ground.
I wrench my hands from his and wrap them around his iron biceps, digging my nails into his skin until I draw blood. Devlin grunts as I let out a soft cry with each punishing thrust, but I don’t let go, and he doesn’t relent. He slides his hands under me, gripping my ass with both hands to hold me still as he drives harder still, his chest crushing mine. I struggle to breathe, raking my nails down his back in protest.
Everything inside me is twisted inside out. I hate Devlin, but my body wants this, wants him. I’m fascinated by him, and terrified of him, and appalled by him, but my heart races his as our bodies crash and clash together. Pleasure takes me up, higher than I thought I could ever go. I try to hold back but I can’t help myself, and his name tears from my lips as I cum. Devlin’s wordless growl meets my cry as he grinds into me one final time, his heat spilling inside me and his fingers squeezing my thigh with bruising force as he braces his other palm on the ground.
We fall together in a sweaty, panting pile. A cool breeze washes over us, chilling the wetness on my belly, my thighs, the sheen of moisture covering every inch of me. My heart is hammering in my chest, and I can feel his beating out the same rhythm against mine, as if we are made from the same whole, formed as two pieces of one being by some invisible, cruel god.
At last, my senses begin to return, and I realize what we just did. What I just let happen. Again. Even after he said those things to me.
“Get off me,” I growl, shoving at him and struggling to free myself from under him. When he doesn’t move, I punch at his shoulders until he rolls away, cursing under his breath.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demands, sitting up and ripping what remains of his shirt off his muscular frame.
I jump to my feet, yanking my pants up, feeling the cold of my wet underwear hitting the heat between my thighs. Tears blur my vision, and I can’t begin to explain to this boy my frustrations and anger, my pain and brokenness. Only one word comes, so I blurt it out, hurling it at him like an ax. “You,” I spit out. “You’re my fucking problem, Devlin Darling.”
Without another word, I spin on my heels and run. I run across the lawn, past the lilac bushes with their lush green leaves that hide me once I’m beyond them. Shame burns through me, and fury, and so much emotion I can’t contain it. It leaks out my eyes, down my cheeks, splashing onto my hands as I clamp them over my mouth to stop the sob from echoing across the space between our houses. They seemed so close once, but now the space expands as I run, and every step seems to take my house further from me.
At last, I reach the steps. That’s when I make the mistake. That’s when I look back, and before I even realize I’m doing it, I halfway expect Devlin to be there. To be standing between the bushes. Or following. Or calling after me.
But he’s not there.
The lawn is empty except for my footprints in the dewy grass.
A sob catches in my throat, and it hurts to swallow it, but I do. I force my feet to move, to climb the stairs, one heavy step at a time. I force myself not to listen for his voice, for his footsteps that don’t come. I force myself to tiptoe quietly past King’s window, past Duke’s, to my own. I force myself to climb through, and close the window, and lock it, and pull the curtain.
And then I let myself break. I let myself fall to pieces. I collapse onto my bed, pulling my knees to my chest and stifling my uncontrollable sobs in a frilly pillow that no longer fits the girl who bought it. I cry until my chest is a hollow cavern, until my body feels like it will turn inside out to purge itself of the unbearable ache. I cry until I’m empty, and there’s nothing left inside me.
I’m not crying because he hurt me, or because the bruises on my thighs where he held me down are already blooming onto my skin. They do hurt, but I relish the pain. I press my own fingertips down on them, craving the ache. The ache of his touch, the proof that he’d been there. The proof that Devlin Darling was inside me, that he loved me for a moment, that he gave himself to me as fully as I gave myself to him.
I cry because I’m weak. Because I don’t want to crave his touch, but I do. Because I didn’t want to give in, but I did. Because I can’t help myself. When he touches me, I’m weak and helpless and broken, all the things a Dolce shouldn’t be.