Riot Rules (Crooked Sinners)

by Callie Hart

Wren closes the eye he opened, throwing his arm back over his face; he’s totally unmoved by my little dig. Fitz, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same kind of poker face my friend does. His cheeks color. He sweeps a hand back through his hair in an action that might appear casual to the rest of the class but looks agitated as fuck to me.

The claws are coming out, are they? Poor bastard does not like that I’m giving him a hard time. Likely, he’s afraid of what he thinks I know, and he’s trying to bully me into behaving myself. Well, I’m not one to be cowed. Maybe it’s about time Wesley Fitzpatrick figures that out.

Ooh. Passive aggressive? Ill-advised, friend. Ill-advised.

The fake English accent she parrots is offensive. For starters, it’s a cockney accent, which sounds nothing at all like the BBC accent my father had drilled into me when I was a child. Going off Mara’s impression, she doesn’t know the difference between a distant member of the royal family and an extra in the cast of fucking ‘Oliver.’ I’ve never given her existence a moment’s thought before, but I do now…and I decide very quickly that I wouldn’t piss on her even if she was on fire. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself with a hep-infected dildo, Bancroft?” I enunciate to make sure she can understand me through my thick fucking English accent.

More oh-my-gods follow. A couple of ‘that’s-sexual-harrassment!’s and ‘what a sick thing to say!’s are thrown in for good measure. The guys just laugh and elbow each other, catcalling and hurling balled up pieces of paper at Mara.

“Savage, Lovett. Fucking savage!” “Yeah, that was fucking savage.” Fitz sighs dramatically. “Alright, your Lordship. I’m a liberal guy most of the time but come on. That was a little much. You should apologize to Mara.” “Thank you for the offer, but I think I’ll decline.” Fitz looks surprised. “No apology?” I shake my head. “Nope.”

“Congratulations. You are now the recipient of the first official detention I’ve had to issue all year. I hope you’re proud of your accomplishment.” I accept the piece of paper, bowing with a flourish. “I’m fucking ecstatic.”

“What an asshole. Can you believe he said that to me? And what the fuck was Wren doing, anyway? He just sat there, smiling like a madman. He should have knocked him out or something. That’s what any normal guy would have done.” Lunch is almost over, and Mara’s still ranting about Dash telling her to go fuck herself with a hep-infected dildo.

I sip on my O.J. wishing with all my might that she’ll change the subject but knowing for sure that she won’t. “Wren isn’t normal though, is he? That’s the point. None of them are fucking normal. Dash is rude as hell and thinks he can say whatever the hell he feels like. So, yeah.” I nod for emphasis. “Yeah, I can believe he said that to you. Because he’s a shit. And Wren is a shit. And Pax is a shit.”

“Pax what?” Pres’s eyes are wide as she sits down next to Mara. You’d think she’d have had her fill of Pax Davis after the way he spoke to her at that party, but nope. She’s just as besotted with him now as she ever was. Even overhearing his name in the academy dining hall has her ears pricked and her pupils dilated.

Presley’s cheeks color. “My mom’s in town. She took me to the doctors and…” She’s crimson. “She put me on the pill. She hacked into my email account and read some of the fanfic I’ve been sending to my friend back home.” I say, “Fanfic?” Mara says, “The pill?” Presley looks like she’s about to die of embarrassment. “Okay. Yeah. So what? I write fanfic. It’s not like I publish it online or anything. The only person that reads it is Sarah, and she’d never show it to anyone.” “You’re skipping the part where your mom put you on birth control, Pres,” Mara repeats. “Why’s that such a big deal? You’re both on the pill.” “We are, you’re right. But I have a lot of sex, and Carrie’s periods were all jacked up. Why would you need to go on the pill because of some story you wrote?”

For all her experience and street-smarts, Mara can be a little dense sometimes. “Because the story was full of sex,” I say. “Graphic sex. And Pres’ mom doesn’t want her only daughter getting knocked up at high school. And…oh…oh no. Presley. What’s your fanfic about? Tell me it doesn’t star a guy named Pax?” “No,” she says haughtily. “His name, if you must know, is Dax, and the whole story is completely unrelated to my life here at Wolf Hall.” If this is how she sounded when she tried to sell this lie to her mother, it’s no wonder she’s now on birth control. Mara’s eyes dance with mischief. She leans closer to Pres conspiratorially. “What color is the girl’s hair in this story of yours, you little tramp?”

“It’s red. Whatever! Stop laughing! Red hair is far more common than you think!” “I want to read this outrageous work of smut,” Mara declares. “No. No way. Absolutely not.” Pres shakes her head so violently that she nearly shakes herself right out of her seat. “Mom made me delete the emails anyway. They’re gone now.” “I’m not as gullible as your mom, friend. You fish that shit out of the trash folder this instant.” “No!” Poor Presley. Since freshman year, we’ve been strongarmed and coerced into giving Mara whatever Mara wants, and doing whatever Mara wants. It’s admirable that she’s sticking up for herself and saying no this time, but I’m also wondering how long it’ll last. When Mara sets her sights on something, she’s like a dog with a bone; she won’t give up. “Excuse me.” I look up and my breath saws out of me. My smile disappears. Wren Jacobi is standing next to our table with a takeaway coffee cup in his hand and he’s looking right at me. My tongue feels like it’s made of sandpaper. His eyes are an unsettling ...

She throws herself back into her chair. “Is that so? Where do I come from, then? Why am I here? Are my parents military?” “None of that’s relevant.” “Why not?” Her voice is three octaves too high; the people at the table next to us are looking. “Because you’ve made your intentions perfectly clear.” He points his coffee cup at her. “You want me to fuck you. You want my dick in your mouth and my fingers in your pussy. That’s all I need to know about you.” Her jaw hits the floor for the second time today. This time, my jaw joins hers. Pres stares down at her food, her neck and chest turning a splotchy red. “What the…?” Mara gasps.

Presley clears her throat. “This might not be the best time to bring this up…but I gotta say, I always feel so invisible when this kind of shit goes down.”

Dashiell’s back is to me. His head bobs up and down to a beat that only he can hear; I see the small white AirPods in his ears—strictly prohibited—as I approach the table, breathing a sigh of relief that he can’t hear my approach. My heart’s beating so hard that he must feel the thunder of it shaking the ground beneath his feet, though. I’ve really got to get a handle on the insane physical reaction he triggers in me—I can’t have myself falling to pieces every time I’m within twenty feet of the guy.

“Good luck with that. I’ve been struggling to focus even half of my attention on anything since two thousand and ten.” As if to prove his point, he glances back at his book, wrinkling his nose. “Did you know that the Danes have no word for please? Weird, right? Begs the question, how would I ask you to leave me the hell alone right now if we, by some inexplicable twist of fate, found ourselves to be Danish.” God, I am going to fucking kill him. “You are literally the most frustrating person I’ve ever come across, you know that? One second you have your tongue in my mouth, and the next—” “That word is overused way too much.” “What? What the hell are you—”

“Literally. The word ‘literally’ gets used in the most inappropriate ways. Oh my god, you are lid-er-ally the worst,” he pantomimes in his best valley girl accent. “Whoever they are, they aren’t the worst. Hitler was the worst. Or Stalin. Ninety percent of the time, there’s a way more accurate term that should be used. People are so hyperbolic—” “I’m not being hyperbolic, Dash. You are literally the most frustrating person I’ve ever met. Now shut your mouth.” He’s so stunned that he grants me my wish and his mouth snaps closed. I lean toward him across the corner of the table, trying to keep a steady hand on my anger. If I’m not careful, I’m going to wind up shouting in here and causing the exact kind of tomfoolery that’ll make Mrs. Lambeth blow steam from her ears. “I had a run-in with Wren Jacobi in the dining hall this afternoon.” Dash sits up straight, his eyes narrowing. Well, well, well. Looks like I have at least eighty percent of his attention. That’ll suffice. “He was acting really weird. He ignored Mara, but guess what? He had a bunch of questions for me. Strange. Can you think why that might be?” Alderman hates sarcasm. He says it’s the lowest form of wit. He’s tried to train me out of it over the years, but he hasn’t had much luck. If he were here right now, he’d roll his eyes so hard he’d pull a freaking muscle. Dashiell closes his book and sits back in his seat. “What did he want to know?” Even, steady, and completely devoid of emotion: the question is calmly...

“You and I both know the words ‘harmless’ and ‘Wren Jacobi’ do not go hand-in-hand. Not when he’s got something in his head. He must want to know about my shit for a reason. Don’t you guys talk about this stuff? What does he want?”

I was too distracted by his chest and his stomach to pay much attention to his forearms, but I can’t stop staring at them now. What’s fucking wrong with me? All this time, I’ve been so careful, been so diligent not to screw up and let anything slip, but Wren Jacobi’s about to uncover my biggest, most damning secret, and I’m sitting here marveling at Dash’s forearms? I’m sick. I’m depraved. I’m categorically, absolutely, positively boned. If I can’t get my shit together, my whole life is going to unravel, and it won’t be some majestic, impressive unraveling. It’ll be one solitary thread, fraying and snapping in a really stupid way. The cops will drag me back to Grove Hill quicker than you can yell, ‘homicide.’ I’ll have plenty of time to think about Dash’s corded, strong forearms after that, when I’m in jail for the murder of a skeevy fucking heroin dealer. Regroup, Carina. For fuck’s sake, get a handle on your shit, girl.

He has said this over and over, but this is the first time that it actually stings. The posturing and arrogance is missing. There is only the soft, shifting color of his eyes as the light hits his irises through the windows to his right. The color reminds me of the sea—so changeable, bright and crystalline one second, dark and moody the next. I’ve harbored such anger toward him the past couple of weeks, that this sudden shift in…everything…is making my head spin. I can’t breathe around it. I can’t get out from underneath it. He has me trapped.

“I’m not saying that because I don’t—” He rips his gaze away. “Seems like all I do is warn you how badly you’re gonna get hurt if you don’t give me a wide berth, Mendoza. But no matter how shitty I am to you, you don’t seem to be paying any fucking attention. Why is that? I’m trying to save you—” “Stop.” He looks back at me. His eyes shutter. “Stop trying to save me, for fuck’s sake. Just… I want you to be real with me. That’s all I’ve wanted from the beginning. Everything’s a front with you. An argument. A game. A lie. I’m so sick of it. I just want the truth. I just want…I just want you.” I blush furiously, because the truth of that statement is so overwhelming and terrifying that I want to run and hide from it. I want to back-peddle and explain that I don’t want him. Not like that. What I meant to say was that I just want some sincerity from him, and a glimpse at who he really is. Nothing more. Nothing less. I stop myself from stumbling awkwardly through that bare faced lie only because I saw how hypocritical I would be if I were to say it. I do want him like that. And if I can’t be real or honest with him, at least on this one small thing, then what right do I have to sit here and ream him out for not giving me the same courtesy? Dashiell’s eyes bore into mine for a long time. It’s as though we’re coming to some silent agreement but there are still things that need to be ironed out. The muscle in his jaw feathers, a muscle popping in his temple. He just sits there, so ...

“My father is the biggest piece of shit to walk the face of this planet. He’s a duke—” “Wait. But you’re a lord?” “The sons of dukes are lords until their fathers die and they inherit the title. That’s not the important part. My father is a fucking duke. Do you have any idea what kind of pressure that puts on a person? He has my whole future planned out for me. Once I’m done at Wolf Hall, I’ll be banished to Oxford, where I’ll have to study politics and world economics just like he did. Then I’ll have to become a cabinet minister, just like he did, too. Have you ever heard the term, you can’t pour from an empty cup, Carrie?” I’m not sure where he’s going with this. “Yes?” “My parents’ cups were empty before I was even born. My mother had a sister, Penny. She was really beautiful. She was my father’s first wife, and he loved her so much. They were married for seven years but then she got sick and died. My father married my mum because they both thought it would make them feel better somehow. It didn’t. Their hearts were still broken. It didn’t make anything better. So they figured, I know, let’s have a kid! That’ll solve all our problems.” He laughs bitterly. “I come along, on New Year’s Day, their miracle baby. And guess what? Do I take after him? No. Do I look like her?” He shakes his head. “I’m born, and through no fault of my own, through some fucking shitty genetic lottery, I wind up looking exactly like her. Fucking Penny. The aunt I never even knew. It’s uncanny, it ...

“I made it up, then?” He glowers at me. “My aunt isn’t dead? My parents aren’t assholes?” “Oh, I’m sure your parents are assholes. You had to learn how to be an absolute dick from someone, and you’re so good at it, Dash. You must have perfected that skill at a very early age. I believe your aunt’s dead, too. But you feel things, Dash. You hurt. You want. You need. You care.” At this last statement, he recoils away from me like he’s just been stung. It must have hurt pretty bad from the way he starts slinging his books into his bag. “Goddamnit, Mendoza. You really talk some shit. Sit here and ruminate on all of your fantasies until Monday morning for all I care. Detention’s over and I have somewhere to be. I’m out.”

I don’t want to leave, though. To most of the students at Wolf Hall, the academy’s walls feel like they’re closing in on them. The place can feel like a prison, perched on its vantage point at the top of our little mountain. Not for me, though. This place has been my sanctuary for the past three years. My home. I decided a long time ago that I would only leave if my very life depended on it. And it might come to that if Wren doesn’t mind his own business.

I do not talk about my family. Not to anyone. The boys know my father’s a cunt. They’ve met him in person, and it’s pretty easy to deduce that little detail in the flesh. Actually, it’s impossible to ignore. They know he emails me constantly about my grades, or a million other things that he’s pissed off about, and they know that I get worked up over his bullshit. They don’t know anything about my dead aunt, or the fact that both my mother and my father not-so-secretly hate each other. Hate me. Hate everything about the world, now that Penny’s not in it. I overheard my old man telling my mother that he likes to daydream sometimes that it was her who died, and he was still married to Penny. He’d followed that doozy up with the revelation that it was easy to make believe that I was Penny’s son because I had her eyes, and her face-shape, and the same nose, but that I always ruined the illusion when I opened my mouth to speak because my personality was weak, like hers. The boys don’t know any of that. I’m furious that Carina knows now, but when I opened my mouth, I couldn’t force it closed again. After successfully avoiding Pax and Wren all night, I get so high, I pass out face-down on the sofa in my room and wake up hours later with a ballpoint pen digging into my cheek. I cranked the thermostat right down when I came in earlier and now my bedroom’s as cold as the grave. I’m in my boxers, shivering uncontrollably, still fucking high as shit, it’s one in the morning and I’m so...

I’m in New Hampshire. There’s a girl that I like sleeping in her room on top of the mountain. I—whoa. Man, life hits weird sometimes. I’m the heir to a fucking estate in England. How weird is that?

“Then…he’s at the gazebo.” With our English teacher. Doing something stupid. With a guy neither of us like. It’s all implied, and all confirmed when Pax nods.

The loud, grinding metal music churns on as he sits down heavily in a swivel chair and holds out the clippers to me. “No need to get fancy. Just make sure it’s all the same length. And I swear to fucking god,” he growls over his shoulder, “if you poke me in the back with your fucking hard-on, I will snap your dick off and feed it to the crows.” “Don’t worry. My dick has retracted all the way into my body,” I say sarcastically. “Being around you has a very sobering effect on a guy.”

Pax picks up an Xbox controller, throwing himself down on what I thought was a mountain of clothes but turns out to be a sofa underneath a mountain of clothes.

This is the deepest conversation I’ve had with Pax. Ever. We’ve lived together for nearly three years now and we’ve baited each other, taken the piss out of each other, wailed on each other, fought, and then fought some more for the hell of it. We’ve never really talked, though. Surprisingly, it isn’t all that awkward. “I think he’s being an idiot, too. But he hasn’t told us what he’s up to, so it’s not like we can say anything.” “’Course we can. We can sit that fucker down and have an intervention,” Pax points out. “Oh yeah?” I take out the sniper that was about to kill Pax in the game. “And what would you do if we sat you down and confronted you about a secret you’d been keeping? Not just any secret. A secret like this.” He snorts. “I’d knock both of your front teeth out.” “Exactly.” “Fair.”

“This isn’t about the fact that it’s a guy,” he says. He’s firm about this. He says it clear and loud, so that I can hear him over the surging music and the rattle of gunfire. “I don’t care about that. I just want to make that clear. I’m not a fucking homophobe. I just don’t like him.”

Pax is a hard person. Angry. Standoffish. Prone to aggression. He gets mad at the drop of a hat and has firm, aggressive opinions on a lot of things, but I never for one second thought he would be weird about Wren being with a dude. That never even occurred to me. I’m stoked that he’s of the same mind as me where Fitz is concerned, though. It’s a relief to know that I’m not on my own there. “Wren can screw RuPaul if it makes him happy. Fitz is bad news, though. No two ways about it. He just…” “Creeps you the fuck out?” “Yeah.” “So then…what?” I think about it for a while. Doesn’t take me long to come up with an answer. “We send him a warning. We make sure he understands that there’ll be consequences if he fucks with our friend. Come on. Put some clothes on, heathen.” Pax pauses the game. “What, right now?” “Yeah. Now. We’ve got work to do.” Pax grins like a pirate.

The white board gets it first. Pax destroys it with four powerful swings of the axe. The desk where Damiana sits goes next. A sofa. A shelf. Books cascade to the floor, loose sheets of paper fluttering free from their bindings. The chaos, and the destruction, and the madness…this is what I was fucking built for. I’ve been repressed by my mother, repressed by my father, repressed by the weight of the responsibility sitting on my shoulders. Repressed by this school. Repressed by Fitz. But this…this is who I truly am. Pax and I have this one thing in common. We were born to break things.

Fuck. “Shhhhhhit! I’m sorry, okay. Carrie, it’s okay. It’s me. Shhh. It’s Dash,” “I know who…you…are!” she growls. “Get…out of my…fucking…room!” I tighten my grip, pressing my forehead against her temple. “For the love of God, quit fighting me and shut the hell up. Hugh’s out there. If he finds me, I’m officially fucked.” She stills. Thank the stars, she fucking stills.

Well, fuck me dead if she doesn’t sound like she just woke up. Little Carina should be hitting Broadway with Mercy this year, if this performance is anything to go by.

Seething. Yeah, I’d say that was a pretty good way to describe how I’m feeling at this particular moment in time. I…could…fucking…kill…him. Mechanically, I cross the room, all eleven feet of space, and I grab my backpack from where it’s hanging on the hook behind the door. I fish his stupid AirPod out of the little zipper pocket on the front, slap it into his open palm, and then gesture to the door. “Alright, then. You got what you came for. Go.” If he smirks, I swear to god, I am going to lose my fucking mind. Lucky for him, his lips remain static, pressed into a flat line.

“I mean it. I go out there now and I’m not gonna make it five feet before he catches me. I’ll be shipped off back to Surrey before tomorrow night, and it’s April, Carrie. Have you been to the U.K. in April? It’s cold, wet and miserable. Are you really that cruel?”

“Oh, stop. I’m sick of hearing it. Your excuses get weaker and weaker by the day. I’m not some simpering little girl who’ll shatter into a million pieces the moment you decide you don’t want to spend time with her anymore. You have no idea what I’ve gone through or dealt with in this life. If you really, truly think that you’re going to be the thing that breaks me after I’ve survived everything else that’s already been thrown at me, then I actually feel bad for you.” Dash lets go of the doorknob. “Really?” I cross my arms in front of my chest, setting my jaw. Defiance rolls off me, bolstering my confidence. “Yes.”

“You think you’re stronger than me, Mendoza?” “Yes.” “You reckon you’re strong enough to handle whatever I can throw at you?” “Absolutely.” Am I fucking crazy? I should not be making claims like that. I’m strong because I’ve had to be. This isn’t the same thing. I don’t have to do any of this. I could walk away. He’s told me in no uncertain terms that I should, and what have I done? I’ve called him arrogant for it and done the exact opposite. I’ve run toward him at every turn. It’s the most masochistic, moronic behavior I’ve ever displayed in my life. “So you want me to be cruel, then?” he says. The timbre of his voice has taken on a whole new quality. Deep and rough, the rasp a physical caress, stroking down my back, brushing between my thighs, pressing a part of me there that makes my body hum. My thin nightshirt isn’t providing much in the way of heat, but it isn’t the chill on the air that’s making me shiver anymore. It’s the fierce look in his eyes, and the way the tip of his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m saying you can do whatever you want, Dash.” Lord, why is my voice wobbling so hard? “You can do anything you want. It won’t have any bearing on my life. None at all.” “You sure of that?” “Yes.” Lies, lies, and more lies. Would I even know the truth anymore? If it leapt up and slapped me in the face, would I even recognize it? Dash glares at me. His brows pinch together into a knot, the lines getting deeper, deeper, deeper…and then his forehead abruptly...

“If you’re not careful, I might think you’re nervous.” This thought seems to entertain him. “Do I, Carrie? Do I make your pulse race faster?” “My pulse is just fine, thanks.” “Is that so?” “Mm-hm.” The sound comes out in a strained squeak that isn’t fooling anybody. Dash plays along. “Okay. So, if I were to—” He removes his fingers from my mouth, trailing them along the line of my jaw, down the column of my throat.

“How about this?” He winds a strand of my hair around his finger. “From here on out, we make a deal?” “What kind of deal?” It’s a miracle that my voice doesn’t crack. “From here on out, you give me what I want, Mendoza.” “That sounds like…a very one-sided deal.” Breathe, damnit. Breathe. Dash actually smiles. “Well. I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said in the library, y’know. And…” “And…” “And maybe it’s none of my business if you’re a masochist, love. Maybe I’ll just give you what you want, too. Let the chips fall where they may.” “What…what does that mean?” He leans in and brushes my mouth with his lips. Somehow, he’s gotten so close that his chest is flush with mine. There’s still a hair’s breadth of space between us—enough that my nipples graze his chest whenever either of us breathe. Every time it happens, I feel like I might die. “It means you win, Carrie. I give in. You’ve got me. No takebacks. Whatever fucking madness happens next…you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Does that turn you on, sweetheart? Does that make you wet?” Hearing any guy say that, hovering over your nipple with his hands on your body, would make a girl feel faint. But Dash? God, hearing him say it with his accent, and that rough, possessive edge in his voice? It’s cripplingly sexy. “Wasn’t rhetorical, love,” he growls. “Tell me.” He works fast, taking care of the buttons I forgot about a second ago. “Are you wet for me? If I slide my fingers between your legs right now, what am I gonna find?” “I—I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what’s going on in between your legs right now, Mendoza?” he asks. “I know what’s going on in my pants. Just in case you’re wondering. No, no, no.” He crooks a finger under my chin, angling my head back so that I can’t look down. “You wanna find out, you use your hands.”

Threat. Challenge. Taunt. Whatever this is, it brings a savage smile to his face and makes me break out in a cold sweat. He wants me to just reach out and grab his dick? Plenty of girls at Wolf Hall would break their necks in their haste to do just that. The things I’ve heard in the girls’ locker room, not just about the Riot House boys but about Dashiell specifically, have been graphic enough to make a sailor blush. But I’m not like them. I never have been. I wear what I want, and I say what I want, but when it comes to taking what I want, I’m a coward of the highest order. “Would it help if I closed my eyes?” Dash whispers. He’s playing with me. This is some sort of test. He doesn’t think I’m up to this? I will prove him wrong. But maybe…

The boy who has never shown me any mercy before does me this one act of kindness. His eyelids flutter closed, his lashes fanning out against his cheeks, so long and much darker than the ashy blond of his head hair. His hands twitch at his sides as he waits for me to do something. I’m going to unfasten his jeans. I am going to…but the sight of him standing like this in front of me with his eyes closed affects me in a way I didn’t expect. He's so fucking beautiful. There’s a coldness to Dash that never thaws. He can give a girl frostbite from twenty paces with one scathing look. The arrogant way he holds himself, and the sheer level of disinterest he emits is intimidating as hell. With his eyes closed, all of that goes away. He doesn’t hold a title. He isn’t a creature to be terrified of, to run from, scared, with your heart beating out of your chest. He’s just a boy. His nose has been broken. Not badly. There’s a tiny kink in the bridge of it that tells a story, though. There’s a scar on his chin—a thin, white line running along the line of his jaw that can only be seen properly from this angle, while standing extra close, looking up at him.

“You don’t like that?” He swallows. “It’s just…intimate.” “You think me doing that is more intimate than touching your dick?” “Absolutely.” “You realize how fucked up that is, right?” “People usually wanna touch my dick way more than they wanna touch my face. But if you wanna poke my forehead, have at it.” “I don’t want to poke your fore—” I shake my head. “Never mind.” It’s amazing how easily he can bait me, even when he’s trying to oblige me. He still hasn’t opened his eyes. Frustrated and even more stubborn now, I touch my fingers to his cheek again, ready for his reaction this time. There’s no flinch, though. No reaction at all. He stands there, still as a marble statue, while I trace my fingers over his features, one at a time. His strong jaw; his cheekbones; his nose; over each eyebrow. He huffs out a sharp breath when I gently stroke the scar on his chin, and I can’t tell if he’s laughing or irritated. I move on, using a featherlight touch to map out the shell of his ear.

Copying his action earlier, I press my fingers to his mouth, and the soft swell of his lips has my heart skipping all over the place. I kiss him. I’ve daydreamed about kissing this boy for over two years, but those fantasies have never played out like this. I’ve never been the one to stand on my tiptoes and place my lips against his. That would have been too bold. Crazy. Insane. Stupid. It doesn’t feel that way when I do it, though. It feels natural, like I have every right to be claiming a kiss from the hottest guy in existence.

Our exchanges have been aggressive, a push and pull for power. But Dash’s eyes are already closed now. He lets out a sigh of resignation that makes me shiver. He’s gentle with me. There’s no urgency. No fight. The kiss is a surrender.