YA Crush Tourney Incentive

OMG. You guys. YOU GUYS! You did it! You got a 100 vote gap. Not that I ever doubted the awesomeness that is you guys. Like I said before, win or lose, you guys are amazing and I thank you. So does Aiden. So does Daemon.

So here is an extended cut of the car scene in Pure. Some of it may sound familiar, obviously. I actually rewrote it, because I felt that the Aiden I knew wouldn't have let it progress to this point, even if he wanted to. So the scene got pared back and what it is now is what you currently see in Pure. 

Please remember that this is an unedited version. Hope you enjoy!

            Aiden glanced over at me, his lips parting. The intensity is gaze, the hunger I saw in his eyes, left me a bit dizzy. His chest rose sharply.

            “Thank you,” I said, my voice sounding thick. “For doing all of this for me.”

             “You don’t need to thank me.”

            “When am I ever supposed to thank you?”

            “When I do something truly worth you thanking me for,” Aiden responded.

            Those words struck a deep chord in me, and I don’t know who moved first. Who leaned over the center console, who was the first to cross the invisible line between us? Who broke the rules first? Aiden? Me? All I did know was that we both moved. Aiden’s hands were around my face, and mine fell to his chest. To where his heart beat as fast as mine, and in an instant, our lips met.

            This kiss was nothing like the first one we shared. It left us both breathless by its raw intensity. There wasn’t a moment of hesitation or indecision. There was just want and need and a thousand other powerful, crazy things.  His lips scorched mine, his hands dropping to my shoulders, sliding down my arms.  My skin burned under my sweater, but oh, this was so much more than just a kiss. It was the way he touched the deepest parts of me. My heart and soul would never be the same. It was nearly overwhelming to realize something as powerful as that and it brought a sense of urgency that pushed me into the unknown.

            Suddenly, I wasn’t close enough.

            Without breaking contact, I started to rise, and Aiden seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because he gripped my waist, pulling me over the center and into his lap. Vaguely, I thanked the makers of the Hummer for the ingenuity behind making it such a roomy vehicle and for tinting the windows.

            Aiden’s fingers pressed fire into my spine, and all thought fled. Urgency burned between us, deepening the kiss. A rich ache blossomed, spreading out of control. I pressed closer and one of his hands snaked down my hip and over my thigh. We kind of got lost in one another at that point. Someone, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t me, hit the control on the seat. However I couldn’t be sure of that. My hands were everywhere. So were Aiden’s.

But my body was flat against his, so I really didn’t care how the seat ended up the way it did. His lips left me spinning, gasping for air. I couldn’t get enough him. My hips moved toward him, my hands slid to his shoulders, down his arms, and under his shirt.  The feel of his skin against mine was practically my undoing—or his.  A button came undone and then another. Things spiraled madly. Everywhere he touched, my skin burned and my soul sung.

            And even though I felt like I would come apart at any second, this was so much more than a physical thing. Desperation clung to the edge of each kiss, to the way our bodies moved and pressed together. So tightly I could feel his heart thundering. And in the midst of all these glorious sensations, I realized something so important, so powerful.

            Aiden could tell me anything at this point. He could fight what lay between us night and day. He could speak only in lies from here on out. Aiden could even say he regretted what was happening. It didn’t matter.

            I would always, always know differently.

            Even if space separated us, or a dozen rules were imposed to keep us apart, and we could never be together, I would always know.

            Aiden jerked back as far as he could in the seat, which really wasn’t very far at all.  “Alex . . .” he breathed, voice ragged and thick. He trailed a finger over the bottom of my lip, around the faint scar. “Stop—we have to stop. I have to stop.”

            I didn’t want to stop. Like ever.  Capturing his hand, I pulled it from my lips and pressed my mouth against his again. He didn’t resist me at first. No. Aiden wanted this as badly as I did. I could tell by the way he moved, by the way his hands clenched my hips. Again, his heart pounded against mine, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. But he wretched his lips away from mine all too quickly, and this time, he held me back.

            “I have to stop now,” he said again, breathing heavily. “If I don’t, I’ll never be able to stop. I’ll never be able to let you go if we do this.”

            “Then don’t let me go,” I reasoned, reaching out and cupping his face. I brushed my thumbs over the smooth lines of his face. The rational part of my brain—the little part that dealt in logic, knew this was coming. The other part, full of hope and so much more, just didn’t want to let it all go yet.

            He caught my hands, lowering to his chest. Aiden held them against his heart. “Not like this. You deserve so much more than this to be your —”

            “I don’t care if it’s here or on the moon. Aiden, please—”

            Aiden moved so fast, I didn’t have a chance to react. His hand moved up my back and sunk deep into my hair. He sort of cradled me to him, and when he spoke again, I felt his breath stir my hair. “It’s not that I don’t want this, Alex. I do. More than even you do.”

            Somehow I doubted that. Because every part of me still wanted to.

***

The rest is what you see in Pure. Hope you enjoyed!