“No.” Riley relished the refusal, leaning forward so the tension from his grip grew even tighter as she closed the distance between them.
Clark pulled back from the kiss almost immediately, his eyes wide, shocked. He hadn’t thought she’d go through with it. Had assumed this, like so many of their interactions, was another game.
This time when he laughed, it was soft, dark. “You’ll be the death of me yet.”
The proclamation seemed to unlock something inside him. When he kissed her after, there was nothing tentative about it. He took her mouth like it belonged to him. Like all of her did.
His lips should have been poison with the way she went dizzy, pliant in an instant. Nothing should feel this good. Each press and slide of his tongue going straight between her thighs.
They kissed the way they did everything, a heady give-and-take.
Clark slid his free palm from her jaw slowly down her throat, the touch light, caressing, to rest between the wings of her collarbone. He sucked her bottom lip, bit the swollen curve. More than a little bit cruel.
I’ll pay for this, she thought, and, determined to get her money’s worth, closed her eyes against a shiver.
The scent of his skin, the warm weight of his hand on her chest, the way he held her hair. It was all terrible and exquisite.
“Riley.” Clark scraped his teeth against the hinge of her jaw. “Let me leave a mark.”
She nodded, the movement limited by his grip, ready to spread her legs just from the way he said her name.
He raked her from head to toe, assessing. “Where?”
Riley imagined her naked skin marked by imprints of his desire.
She was an agent of her own destruction. As reckless as he’d said.
“Anywhere.” She breathed hard in and out through her nose, feeling positively feral. “Anywhere you want.”
The most severe parts of his face—the slash of his dark brows, that hard mouth—pulled wicked with delight.
Riley expected him to go for her neck, to leave his first bruise where it would be most visible as a conquest, but Clark brought his lips to the meat of her shoulder instead and sucked, hot and hard on the tender skin.
“I can’t believe I’ve got you in my bed, bare beneath my clothes.” His voice was low and incredulous, something like starry-eyed delight underpinning the words.
“And?” Even though fighting for the upper hand seemed vaguely insincere at this point, Riley could at least make him work for it. “What do you plan to do with me?”
Clark reached between her legs and pressed the rough ridge of his knuckles against the thin inseam of his sweats. “Take you apart.”
Riley’s back arched. She brought her hands to his shoulders, biting her lip to silence a moan.
It wasn’t her fault. How dare he turn hair braiding into foreplay?
Clark let her rock back and forth against his fist, working her hips in tiny circles, seeking friction.
Riley wanted to come so bad she couldn’t see straight. She recognized every terrible instinct inside herself—to whimper, to mewl, to beg.
But she wouldn’t. She pressed herself harder against his hand, working her hips. If she had to get herself off, just like this, even, she would.
Clark watched her face. “I can’t believe you’re gonna make it this easy on me.”
Heat flooded her cheeks.
And, okay. No. Riley refused to be the only one unraveling. She yanked his sweater over her head with one hand, using the other to force him to sit back.
For a long moment he just looked at her, breathing hard through his nose.
Her nipples tightened under his gaze, so fast it almost hurt.
Clark swore as he moved to cup her breast, testing the weight in his palm. His thumb grazed her nipple, back and forth, maddeningly soft.
“I told you what I like,” Riley said, shivery and impatient. She wanted that spike of pain to clear her head, to give her back some sense of herself. Here, in his bed, where she felt so dangerously adrift.
He closed his thumb and index finger against the tip of each breast but didn’t apply any pressure, just held. “You did, didn’t you.”
Without changing his previous grip, he managed to pinch the bottom of her breast between his middle and index finger, hard enough to bruise.
Her head tipped back, her mouth falling open. The sensation was good, but not enough.
“Christ, you’re responsive,” he said, practically to himself.
Eyes closed, Riley panted, “Is that the best you’ve got?”
She opened her eyes to find his burning as he shifted his hold, applied pressure from a different angle. Sharper. More intense.
He kissed her neck softly as the pain bloomed. “You wish.”
She did make a noise then, something hysterical, caught between a laugh and a whine.
He thought she was a joke. Riley could picture him saying, You know, if you’d just give up this silly little curse business, I might take you out on a second date.
Her throat ached, her voice gone hoarse from holding back. “This doesn’t mean I like you.”
“You don’t have to like me.” Clark released her breast to smack between her spread legs. “You’re about to soak through the pants I just gave you.”
He tutted between his teeth.
Riley gasped. It could have been outrage. Wasn’t.
“Aren’t you?”
He did it again. Harder.
The sting was so good and not enough.
As always, Riley hated when he was right. “If you care so much—”
She moved to push the pants off, but Clark caught her wrists.
“Oh, no, sweetheart.” He guided Riley onto her back and crawled on top of her, his knees on the outside of her hips.
She looked up at him. At his wide-set eyes and slightly-too-big ears, features that rather than detracting from his beauty only served to enhance his allure—made him distinctly, humanly lovely. Why did a false endearment prick at her like nothing else? Because she’d never had a true one, probably never would.
“I’m not your sweetheart.” Holding Clark’s gaze felt like staring at the sun, risking permanent damage for the chance to know something brilliant.
“No.” His mouth was a harsh line as he brought his knee between hers, pushing the damp fabric of the sweats tighter against her. “But you’ll let me wreck you anyway, won’t you?”
Riley shuddered. She shouldn’t allow him this much, but he was giving her what she’d craved for so long. Since she knew what sex was, what it could be. He was right; having this, from him, was ruinous.
Clark pulled the lobe of her ear into the wet heat of his mouth, sucking, before nuzzling at her pulse point. “Let’s see exactly how much of a mess I can make of you.”
When he moved to kiss her lips, she turned at the last second, deciding he couldn’t have everything.
“You’re still mad?” He laughed helplessly against her neck. “Oh, that makes it even better.”
Riley’s blood boiled as she squirmed beneath him. A part of her she’d never indulge craved violence, wanted to shove her elbow up into his stupid smug face.
You could fuck someone and still loathe them. People did that all the time.