Oleander: A Great Expectations Reimagining

by Scarlett Drake

There was a moment, one strange, stretched-out moment, where I could do nothing but stare into the ice blue of his eyes. Then, at his mouth. And then back to his eyes again. It came from nowhere, but I felt it everywhere. The need to kiss him. I imagined the soft, wet pink inside of his mouth, the taste of his lips, the shape of his tongue. It was an onslaught of want. Loud and hot and violent. As my senses rushed back in, I felt something hard and warm between my legs. Whether he felt it too, and it’s what made him release me, I don’t know, but I practically threw myself backwards off him, staggering back into the desk. Caspien sat up on his elbows and stared at me, his own breathing quick and his eyes alight with something dangerous. He was looking at me as though seeing me for the first time. As though, for the first time, I interested him. But it was a dangerous sort of interest –the sort he might give a bug he’d trapped under a glass.