Chapter 364/The Picasso of Pain
Chapter 366
Jake’s point of view
Panic jolted through me, and I desperately tried to mask it with a forced, empty chuckle. "Me? Jealous over you? No... haha. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right? That’s physically impossible."
"Right. I totally believe you," she sighed, entirely bored. "Now get the hell out of my room and let me read in peace without your constant bothering."
I took two heavy steps closer to the bed, my stubbornness flaring. "What the hell are you even reading? Show me the book."
"It’s none of your business," she snapped, aggressively hiding it behind her back. "Get out.
I leaned my massive torso straight over her on the mattress, completely pinning her beneath my shadow. With a lightning-fast, sudden movement, I aggressively ripped the book straight out of her hand. She bolted upright, her fingers tightly locking around my wrist as anger flushed her face. "Jake... give the goddamn book back to me right now! Stop being pathetic!"
"And what if I don’t give it back?" I mocked with a childish, provoking smirk. "What the hell are you going to do about it?"
"Jake... stop this childish, desperate playing around," she ordered, her tone turning dead serious.
I lifted my hand high in the air, holding the book entirely out of her reach as I leaned my torso back with total confidence. "Come on... take it from my hand if you’re actually capable."
Her eyes ignited with a dangerous fire. "You know damn well that I can take it."
"Go ahead... I want to see you try with my own two eyes. Show me your skills." I stared down at her with a mocking smile, fully expecting her to jump around like an idiot to reach my hand, or violently throw her weight over me to tear it away.
But that beautiful, unhinged witch completely paralyzed my brain and shattered my composure with what she did next.
She smoothly pushed herself up onto the tip of her toes. Her small, burning hands firmly clamped around my jawline and my face, and she violently drove her cherry lips straight against mine in a crushing, frantic, and scalding kiss that entirely robbed the oxygen from my lungs and blasted my consciousness into absolute oblivion.
The rapid, frantic thudding of my heart violently accelerated in a split second, and my hand still raised high in the air froze solid for a succession of agonizing moments under the sheer weight of the shock.
The absolute, scalding depth of that unexpected kiss was so intense it completely evaporated every single coherent thought from my skull, leaving my lungs entirely starved of oxygen. Her sudden, predatory urge to possess me completely paralyzed my ability to function for a heavy beat.
But I wasn’t the kind of man who would ever flinch or retreat in the face of her aggressive momentum. Driven by a raw, overbearing instinct, my fingers uncoiled, carelessly dropping the book onto the plush mattress cover below us. My broad palm aggressively clamped around her slender waist, hauling her toward my bare chest with a crushing force until there wasn’t a single millimeter of space left between our bodies.
I locked my lips over hers with a dark, violent passion, instantly twisting that surprise ambush into a ruthless battle for dominance between us. I poured every ounce of the blinding rage, deep-seated malice, and suffocating lust that had been tearing through my insides for the past several hours directly into her mouth.
Damn her. She was my absolute torment and my highest ecstasy wrapped into one, and that sharp, mocking scent of lavender wafting from her skin was driving my sanity straight into hell.
Suddenly, her small, sharp teeth bit down brutally into my bottom lip, cutting through the skin. The sharp spike of agony made me aggressively yank my head back, my breath hitching as I panted heavily. I raised a trembling finger to my mouth, wiping away a small bead of blood that had begun to bloom at the corner of my lips.
She locked her green eyes onto mine, her gaze gleaming with a breathtaking, wicked triumph.
A smug, rebellious smirk carved its way across her cherry lips as she casually scooped the book off the mattress, lightly dusting off the cover with a flick of her wrist. Sinking back onto the bed, she crossed her legs with a stone-cold indifference and delivered a low, dangerous hiss:
"I already told you... I can always take what’s mine in my own way, Jake. Now, do me a favor get the hell out of here and shut the door quietly behind you."
I dragged the back of my hand roughly across the corner of my mouth, my burning gaze permanently locked onto her infuriating face.
That playful, mocking smirk carved into her cherry lips was violently pushing me straight over the edge of my sanity. Damn her. She knew with a terrifying, calculated precision exactly how to play with my frayed nerves, and exactly how to yank the rug out from under my boots in a single godgoddamn second.
I took a heavy step forward, slamming my massive torso back down into her space until my face was hovering inches from hers.
The sharp, mocking aroma of lavender radiating from her soft strands invaded my senses all over again. I narrowed my eyes into lethal slits, dropping my voice into a low, dangerous hiss. "You really think you won’t pay for this round just because you got what you wanted so easily, Julie?"
Not a single eyelash flickered on her face. Instead, she casually lifted the book in her hand, fixing her cold green pupils deep into mine with an absolute, suffocating indifference. "The evidence is resting right in front of your eyes, Jake... the book is in my hands. So, yeah. I won."
I ground my teeth with absolute fury, ignoring the sharp, throbbing pulse radiating through my lower lip where her teeth had sliced me open. I wanted nothing more than to aggressively rip that goddamn book out of her fingers and shred it to pieces right in front of her face, or attack her lips all over again to teach her a brutal, forced lesson in total submission.
But before I could move, a sudden, aggressive pounding on the front door violently shattered the suffocating tension coiled between us.