Painful Reminders

Chapter Twenty-One: Sunshine

I felt giddy. My entire body seemed to buzz with electricity as I stood beside Cassian. The driver-side door of the black Camaro was open and waiting for him to dive through if his experiment failed miserably and I bounced anxiously on my heels, clutching his hand tightly in my own as we waited. "Are you sure about this?" I whispered uncertainly.

Though we weren't exactly standing on the edge of a highway, the street we were parked on the edge of was hardly dead. Every couple of minutes a car would fly by us, occasionally earning us suspicious looks from the occupants inside of them. On the other side of the road was an open field with what looked like corn just shy of knee-high. To our backs was a wall of stone with a handful of wildflowers and vines clinging desperately to the cracks and crevices. I could see the sun creeping up over the horizon and shot Cassian a worried look. "This will work."

"We could try it closer to safety," I huffed, far from convinced. "Seems like an unnecessary risk. But what would I know?"

"Relax."

I snorted, "Coming from the man with the biggest stick up his—"

"Would you like me to distract you?"

I bit my lip, giving him the side-eye as I considered. "I mean I don't see how you'd manage—"

Before I could say another word, he'd moved from beside me and was pressing me back against the car. His hand had dropped from mine and slid smoothly up beneath my hem to curve around my hip and press into my lower back. The electricity I'd felt only moments before rippled tenfold through my body and I swore there was no oxygen. He stared down at me, a hungry look in his eyes. "We were interrupted before."

I swallowed, my gaze dropping unwillingly to his lips before I forced myself to look back up. I hated that I wanted it just as badly as he did. "We aren't friends."

"I'm not interested in being friends with you."

"This changes nothing between us." It couldn't.

He dipped his head low, his lips brushing against my own when he replied. "This changes everything." Then he was kissing me, and I knew he was right.

***

She was taking over my thoughts. I couldn't even sleep without her invading my dreams. She tasted like vanilla and honey, and she kissed me back with the same blind need I felt for her. Amya had one hand in my hair, her fingers holding on tightly while her other hand crept into the collar of my shirt as she pressed herself more firmly against me.

Pulling my mouth from hers, I began trailing kisses along her jawline and down her throat, my efforts rewarded with a sound somewhere between a purr and a moan. Tilting her head to the side, allowing me more access. "I really hate you," she gasped out, her grip on me tightening. "You have no right being this good at this."

I smirked against her skin, nipping lightly at the base of her throat before tugging down the collar of her shirt and lavishing her breast with just as much attention. "Careful, or we'll finish this right here."

"Mmmmm, remind me why I don't want that?" she moaned out, arching into me, her eyes squeezed tightly shut in pleasure.

I was having trouble remembering myself. One of my hands moved down toward her ass and I lifted her up. Completely in agreement with it, she wrapped her legs tightly around my waist and pulled my face to hers. "If you let go of me, I'll kill you where you stand," she warned, biting my lip hard enough to draw blood and fusing her mouth once more to mine.