“Do you want this fucked-up mouth on you, Tulip?”

“Yes,” I whisper, heat firing through my body at the frankness of him. At this moment, I want his fucked-up mouth all over me. “I’d like to know if…if it’s still good for me.”

He stares down at me, the air thickening between us. “You’re treading on thin ice…” But his actions don’t align with his words. He’s sliding his hand into my hair and palming my scalp. His breathing intensifies when his lips hover over mine. “Tulip—”

Before I chicken out—or he does—I arch my neck and press my mouth to his, giving his scar my attention first, pressing small, lingering kisses to that indentation before parting my lips and sliding them across his in delicate strokes.

Seconds pass as I kiss him and he just stands there, until finally, he groans and wraps his hands around my nape, angling my head to get deeper. He murmurs my name, his lips hesitant then changing as I nip at him, tugging on the bottom one. His strong arms tighten around me, taking control of us, his tongue tangling with mine, caressing, our breaths mingling. His fingers scrape across my scalp as if he wants to get closer, to inhale me.

The heat of his mouth, the urgency of it sends waves of fire to my lower body, and I kiss him harder. Desire thrums through me, and it feels like I’m discovering a secret within him, kicking at his hidden layers, searching for the real Knox.

“Tulip,” he groans when we stop to breathe.

“Don’t stop, please.” It feels too good. Kissing him is like I’ve spent a day in the sunshine, and when night comes, the stars will only shine for me.

“I want to kiss you, I want to…” His mouth takes mine again, hungrily, with a ferocity that makes me want to crawl inside him for more, so much more.

“Am I doing it right?” He presses his open mouth to my neck and sucks on the tender skin, his teeth dragging.

“God, yes.” My hands slide up to rub his shoulders, tugging at his shirt, wishing it would magically disappear. I ease under his jersey and explore him, his six-pack, the rippling muscles of his chest.

“You’re shaking,” I say, recalling how he trembled outside Vandy.

“I’m scared.”

“Am I the first girl you’ve kissed in a long time, like really kissed?”

He nods. “But that isn’t why I’m scared. I’ve always wanted to kiss you, Tulip.”

He comes back to my lips and takes them again, his tongue declaring dominance and ownership. Kissing him is like freefalling into a hot fire, and maybe I should be afraid of this, but I crave the way his chest burns against mine, the way it ignites every atom inside me. He tastes like spearmint and sex and everything I want—

He breaks us apart, his eyes gunmetal hot, his sensuous, wicked mouth swollen.

“Fuck.” His chest heaves. “You’re too much. You taste so good—” He takes my mouth again, his hands everywhere, in my hair, on my neck, grazing over my pebbled nipples before landing on my hips. “Tell me to stop, please, Tulip, tell me, tell me…”

My skin throbs and I kiss him back with intensity. “Can’t.”

“Tulip,” he whispers, moving us until I’m against the wall and he’s hovering in front of me, his lips back on mine. “You…drive…me…insane,” he gasps out in between kisses. My hands cup his ass, and my pelvis swivels against his, aching for that tent in his pants. He mutters a curse and lifts me up so my legs can curl around him. I lock them around his waist as he dips his head and places his lips on the rise of my breasts. His teeth tug at the erect nipple underneath, sucking and biting through my thin shirt and bra.

“You’re so hard to stay away from,” he murmurs, coming back to my lips and taking them again.

Sighing in his mouth, I rub against him while sweet friction eats at me, pulsing through my body. I’ve been scared before this, worried part of me would never want a guy again. The nuns made me attend a few therapy sessions after that night, and I recall the doctor telling me to expect anxiety when I had a sexual relationship, but right now, all I feel is need and want and desire and hunger—for him.

“Am I going too fast, Tulip? Am I?” he says raggedly as his hand slides under my skirt and traces the waistband of my panties.

“I dare you,” I say.

“Tulip,” he groans and slips his hand inside, brushing his fingers through my wetness with feather-light strokes while I shudder. He tugs on my hair, arching my neck back as he stares down at me, desire swirling in his eyes. “I want to hear you come. I want my name on your lips when you do, so bad, so fucking bad…” His breath hitches while his finger dips inside me and moves in and out.

“Never…I never have…”

“You will,” he growls as his thumb finds the upper part of my mound, teasing me with a hesitant touch, making me breathless as I arch to get more, just more. With his face flushed, he takes deep gulps of air, his eyes heavy and low. We’re moving fast, so fast, as he gets into a rhythm, working his fingers, circling and dancing and touching and—

Tingles skate over my spine, pressure building and building, until I’m gasping and clutching his shoulders.

“So sweet, so sweet,” he says in my ear, and the scent of his cologne, sunshine and sea, the feel of his quivering chest under my hands—all those sensations sharpen to a laser focus until I explode into a million shards of lightning, my body clenching around him as I call out his name, writhing against his hand.

I float down, lazily and softly, as he kisses me.

Dimly, I’m aware of more sounds around us, other than our breathing. Voices grow louder, students filling up the auditorium.

Knox tenses next to me, trying to get his breathing under control. “Fuck. There’s a class coming in.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Chorus probably.”

He lets me slide down from him and I realize my clothes are barely even out of place, top still buttoned up, my skirt draping over my thighs. There’s a damp spot on my shirt, but I can put my blazer over it.

I glance up at him, taking in the bulge in his pants, the tight expression on his face. A tendril of unease washes over me. “What’s wrong?”

He licks his lips, tearing his gaze off of me. “We can’t do this.”

My chest squeezes. “Why?”

He takes a step away from me, avoiding my eyes. “Stop asking me questions I can’t answer.”

Some of those old insecurities come crawling right back, slicing through me and going straight to my head. I remind myself of his coldness for the past two days.

“Am I not good enough? Not up to your standards? Afraid of what your friends might say? Not bleacher-worthy?” I don’t mean that last part, because I don’t want to be that girl, but he’s distancing himself. Again.

And if there’s one shred of anything I have left after that night in the woods, it’s my pride. Hell, if anything, I should be the one pushing the Shark away.

I’ve opened myself up and he’s the one retreating?

Can’t also means no, and he’s said it very clearly.

He closes his eyes briefly and looks as if he might say something, but he doesn’t, and sometimes when people don’t speak, they say everything, don’t they?