Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
“Wet bed pillows, every night.” He smiles back, this one brightening his blue eyes.
“You can wet my bed pillows,” I offer.
He drinks me in. “Girl, I’ll wet more than your bed pillows.”
I grin, and not long after, the bartender delivers four lime-green shots. Donnelly sips it first, then nods to me like it’s drinkable. Then we down one apiece.
Oh wow. My cheeks pucker. “Tastes like a lemon-lime Jolly Rancher.”
“It’s vodka though. Good news, the bartender isn’t trying to kill us.”
I laugh and then I throw back the second shot. Donnelly barely sips his second as we start chatting about the sci-fi genre and TV shows like Beneath a Strong Sentiment and Battlestar Galactica. Either my buzz begins to take hold or simply being with Donnelly makes me feel floaty, but I am a sprightly, happy being.
I barely notice more people slipping into Thirsty Goose and shedding winter jackets and scarves. Soon, more tables are occupied by thirtysomethings, and men are shoulder-to-shoulder at the bar. No one seems to pay attention to us any more than I acknowledge them, but I yank at the strings of my hoodie, wondering if that’ll change.
“We may need a better disguise,” I say.
He takes a long drag. “What’ve you got in your bag?” he asks, and smoke leaves his lips while he surveys the rowdier group near the frosty windows. They’re arguing about football, yelling over one another just to shout, “fuck the Cowboys,” and then slamming back beers. Donnelly smiles like it’s a familiar scent in the nightlife air.
I’m digging through my backpack, pushing aside the diary. “Lots of highlighters.” I put a handful on the table. “…and this.” A jar of silver glitter, but the type found in craft stores, used for paintings and school projects, not makeup. “It must’ve been something she packed.” I didn’t really empty the contents of the backpack tonight, just added things I wanted.
I guess I never want to erase Original Luna. She’s not only in the diary, but she’s still within me. Somewhere.
Donnelly snuffs the cigarette in the empty shot glass. Then he squints to read the jar’s label. “Safe for skin unless it causes irritation.” He’s twisting off the lid, then sniffs it. “It’ll do.”
“Will you do me?” I ask while tugging off my hoodie. Only in a lime-green tank top, no bra.
Donnelly has turned to me, his foot on the booth’s seat, elbow on his knee as he dips his fingers in the glitter. “I’ll do you.” His eyes lift to mine. “Carefully.” His deep voice is more hushed, and his glittered fingers slide along my flushed cheek in a slow, sensual stroke. “Gently.”
I can’t look away from him. My breath shallows, and I nearly tremble as he thumbs glitter against my face. “What if I don’t want it gently?” I whisper.
Donnelly stares into me, and I wish my mind-reading powers kicked in right now. Without much pause, he draws glitter lines across the tops of my breasts, then ascends to my collar, tracing the bone that juts out. And then higher, to the tender nape of my neck. I shudder, almost letting out a moan.
He breathes, “Seems like you love gentle.”
“Then why do I fantasize about you grabbing me?” I ask and scoop out glitter from the jar. “Clutching me. Holding me. Hard.” I skate my glittery fingertips slowly down one side of his face. His blue eyes sink so deep into me, I’d almost believe this is the definition of making love if someone told me. “Not unkindly,” I say, and he shuts his eyes as I smear glitter over the lids, then down, closer to his lips. “But possessively. Like you’re the only one who’s ever supposed to touch me.”
He opens his eyes onto mine.
I’ve never wanted anyone to kiss me as much as I want Donnelly to, as far as I can remember. My heart rate speeds out of control—excitement it’ll happen and fear that it won’t are rolled into one nervous pit in my stomach.
His thumb brushes my eyebrows, then the bridge of my nose, painting me with glitter, and for a second, my aching breath is the only sound I hear.
Until he whispers, “You ever feel like you’re falling, it’ll be in my arms.” He speaks against the pit of my ear. “I belong inside you.” His fingers claw up into my hair, and our gazes devour before he crushes his lips against mine. I bow into him, my mind bursting with light. My glittery palms streak down his neck.
He’s kissing me. My body thrums. He’s making out with me. Not gently, not carefully, but passionately, as if he’s giving me his last breaths of oxygen so I’ll survive the next minute, the next second with him.
Holy shit.
Our tongues wrestle, and my hips grind forward. I forget we’re in a public bar. I forget everything except how much I love his lips on my lips and his aggressive clutch of my face. He’s not letting go. He won’t let go. I’m safe, protected, loved.