Page 33 of Escape from the Green

"Amy..."

"It's a yes or no question," I told him, feeling his hand tighten in my hair. "Just a kiss," I specified.

At least, that was all I was planning on.

"Okay," he agreed, eyes going smaller still as his breathing went unsteady beneath me.

I lowered down to him in what felt like slow motion, every part of me feeling over sensitive, poised for the moment.

It was a small thing, surely, to most.

To me, kept cloistered, kept as pure as possible for my mother's personal gain, it felt big. Huge.

My lips pressed to his, a shiver moving through my insides to find his lips firm, foreign, yet welcome.

I fumbled.

Or, at least, it felt like I fumbled, like I had no idea what I was doing.

But Drake's hand twisted in my hair, his lips parted, coaxing mine, demanding more.

A low, throaty sound escaped me, making his body shift, turning, pressing me back into the mattress, his body half moving over mine, crushing into me.

My leg rose up, wrapping around his lower back, pulling him against me, shuddering hard when I felt his hardness pressing against my inner thigh, so so close to where my body was begging for the contact, begging for things long denied it.

My hips ground upward as a low, throaty moan escaped me, the sound seeming to shatter something between us, making Drake pull away hard, pressing up on his hands, putting space between our bodies.

"Just a kiss, Amy," he reminded me, voice rough with his jagged breathing.

"It's not enough," I told him, hands grabbing for the lapels of the robe, dragging him back downward.

His forehead pressed into mine as his air rushed out of his chest. "I don't have too much control left here, honey. Please don't push it."

There was a vulnerability in his voice, something raw and sweet that somehow managed to let me think through the desire clouding my brain, burning my body.

"Sorry," I mumbled, hand moving up to run through his short hair.

His eyes opened, brows drawn low over their dark depths. "Don't apologize. Do you have any idea how lucky someone like me is to get to have you want him?

"Someone like you?"

"A prisoner. Someone who has been broken day in and day out for more time than he even knows consciously."

"You didn't choose to be a prisoner, Drake. That isn't who you are. You're... you're a legend come to life," I told him, not understanding the insecurity within him, but hating my parents all the more for embedding it there. "I think I'm the lucky one. I mean who else in all The Green could claim she got to kiss a Draca?" I asked, smiling a little when his eyes lost the sadness, found warmth instead.

On the nightstand, the phone started screaming, making Drake shock back, eyes wide.

"Our wake-up call," I explained to him, reaching for the phone, pulling it up to my ear.

"Wake-up call," the chipper woman at the front desk declared.

"I appreciate it," I told her, hanging up. "We set it up so we didn't miss check-out," I reminded him as he fell onto his back, hand resting on the hard outlines of muscles in his abdomen where the robe had opened.

"Right," he agreed. "It's time to leave," he added, sounding resigned.

I guess the same feeling settled inside me as well as I sat back against the headboard. "I will walk you back to the veil," I offered.

"No."