I push, my shoes digging into the carpet as I grunt with the effort.
“Let me in, Harlow,” Ian says. He still doesn’t sound winded.
“What are you?” I squeak. “Do you even require oxygen?”
He is laughing as I am sent backward. I groan as a footboard bites into the back of my calf. A little dizzy and my blood oxygen level dipping low, I eye Molly’s bed, praying for her to appear with a blowtorch or maybe a bayonet. I could definitely—well, maybe—kick Ian Beckett’s ass with a bayonet.
He doesn’t smile as he shuts the door behind him. There’s no triumph in his gaze, only inevitability like he knew we would end up here all along. He locks the door.
Then, to my surprise, he’s at my desk, touching my things. He fingers my desk calendar, a gift from my mom that features puppies dressed as humans. A husky wearing a firefighter’s hat is this week’s star.
Ian picks up a framed picture of my parents, William, and me at the Grand Canyon taken three years ago when both William and I were gangly and gap-toothed. I want to snatch it out of his hands and hide it against my chest. I don’t care that he sees me pre-braces. I care that he sees the girl I was—the real me—before the world cruelly set fire to my life and left me to sift through the ruins.
This is too intimate, too invasive. I stagger to my bed, letting my book bag fall to the floor alongside the library book I accidentally stole. I collapse, greeted by a face full of comforter. For a long moment, I do absolutely nothing. Once I catch my breath, I roll over, sit up, and point at the door.
“Get out,” I say, my voice thankfully steady.
Ian looks over his shoulder at me and raises an eyebrow. The left side of his mouth twitches before he carefully sets the photograph down, turns on his heel, and stalks toward me.
“Did you really think that would work, Stormy?” he asks, cocking his head.
I shrug. Did my room shrink? Or did his ego just grow even bigger?
“You are worse than my shadow,” I grumble, eyeing the wall straight-ahead, “always following me.”
He sits down beside me, and I don’t know if it’s body wash or cologne or what, but I want to slap away the scent that lingers on his skin. He doesn’t deserve to smell so delicious.
He snakes an arm around me and tugs me closer. I attempt to elbow him in the side, but he deflects it easily, staring at me as he plays with my hair.
“If you don’t get out, I will scream,” I mutter.
He tucks the black lock at my temple behind my ear. “No, you won’t. You want me here, just like I want to be here.”
Just like that, he calls me out on my bullshit.
I snap my head so fast, it’s a miracle our skulls don’t collide, but I shouldn’t have done that because he’s oh-so-close and now my gaze keeps falling to his decadent mouth.
The smartass in me is pissed she just exercised for this boy…man…god.
“Something inside you is broken,” I bite back. “I feel bad for you. You should be institutionalized. You should be locked away and never allowed in public. They should put you in a lab and study you.”
Ian grins and severs his gaze from my hair to look at me.
“Such a naughty mouth for such a nice girl.” His tongue darts out to trace the seam of his lips before he rests his forehead against mine and closes his eyes. I should stop him because all I feel is his warmth. “I meant what I said, Harlow. You are mine, and I am yours. I don’t know why you’re having such a hard time accepting it.”
He’s arrogant!
He’s infuriating!
He’s…He’s…mine.
The stair marathon must have messed with my brain. With a growl of frustration, I break us apart and lunge for his beautiful throat. He sees it coming, but not before my hands nearly reach their goal.
“Stormy,” Ian warns, the word gravelly and low.
Screw him and his beautiful face! Warmth crackles like lightning across my already flaming cheeks as I rear back to try again.
Screw him for confusing me!
“Stormy…”
Screw him for making me choose!
This time, I land my blow, two palms hard to his chest. The blow sends him rocking back. I don’t know if I’m going to try to shove him out of my dorm or get him out of the way so I can flee myself, but I don’t have the chance to do either.
He is fast, climbing over me and trapping my wrists above my head in one large palm. On his free forearm, he holds himself up, but everything below his belly is flush against me.
He pins me to the bed, and I am a caged animal, desperate for freedom.
I squirm beneath him. Everything about him is hard against my soft. My hair is in my face, tickling my nose, but all I smell is him. All I feel is him. All I taste is the promise of the cinnamon bubblegum that lingers on his breath.
I wiggle and writhe. I punch and slap and kick and grunt. Yet he remains. A minute...five? Ten? I finally stop, exhaustion melting my bones.
Ian stares down at me, and I am lost in melting pots of silver and stone. Something in the air between us ignites, and I feel the sting of it all the way to the throbbing pulse between my legs.
His mouth collides with mine, and I realize too late, I am not and never was the one caged. He’s just broken free of whatever prison he put himself in.
He kisses me like he’s trying to devour me, which is appropriate because I feel totally chewed up at the moment.
I can’t remember why I am supposed to hate him.
I can’t think.
I can only be.
He tastes of sin and cinnamon, and I want to bathe in the
