Chapter 5: Red Riding Hood
1225 Words
ELIAS
Pervert?
She was calling me a p*****t?
Somehow, that word hit harder than her slap. And mind you—this woman did not slap delicately. Despite her soft skin, she had quite a heavy hand. She continued to slap my chest, making me step back.
“I… ow—okay! Okay! “I lifted both hands in surrender. “It was a mistake on my part, but I didn’t mean it at all. Hey, stop hitting!”
Another thwack to my skull.
The third one made me catch her wrist. “Sorry, sorry,” I blurted, gripping lightly, carefully. “I’m really sorry.”
We froze.
For the first time since this disastrous encounter began, we were suddenly very, very close. That was when her scent hit me again. It was soft and sweet yet not overwhelming.
She smelled really nice.
Way too nice.
I felt my brain hiccup. My grip on her wrist loosened before I yanked it back.
What the hell?
I swallowed. My heart was beating annoyingly loud in my ears, loud enough that even I wanted to tell it to shut up. But that scent wrapped around me like it had fingers of its own, holding onto my collar.
I cleared my throat.
We were even closer now.
Close? That was actually the understatement of the damn year. We were practically sharing the same breath. I could feel her exhale brush against my chin.
Get a hold of yourself, Elias.
I blinked hard to try to sharpen her features. My vision was still blurred, but even so, something came through—the color of her eyes.
Green.
Not pale, not dull, but warm green. Bright enough to cut through the haze and slap me in the face.
Pretty.
A stupid word for someone like me to think. But it was the only one that formed with any coherence. Everything else in my mind was just fragments.
I still couldn’t see the rest of her face. The blur made everything soft around the edges, like she didn’t belong in the real world.
“f**k this vision,” I muttered under my breath, squinting harder to try and focus. It didn’t help. All it did was make my temples throb.
Just then, her scent intensified.
A rush of sweetness hit me square in the chest. A prickle ran down the back of my neck. My throat tightened, and suddenly it felt like the space between us shrank even though neither of us moved.
My breath hitched, and I had to steady myself before I did something stupid. But my body wasn’t listening. Every nerve leaned toward her, toward that scent, toward the heat radiating from her.
Why did it feel like I was being drawn in?
I tried to pull back, but then her face tilted, and suddenly her lips came into view.
Soft.
Plump.
Wet from the water droplets that splashed when she slapped my chest.
Time stopped.
I was already leaning in.
I didn’t think.
I didn’t breathe.
I just moved, pulled by something I didn’t understand and didn’t fight.
Before I knew it, I had placed my lips against hers.
She froze right under my touch and my mouth. For a split second, my brain actually returned to my skull, and I thought, s**t, I messed up, and that I should pull away.
However, she didn’t move.
She didn’t shove me or scream or smack me again. She just… stayed there. Her lips parted under mine, soft and unbelievably warm, and it was the kind of stillness that wasn’t fear but shock—like she wasn’t prepared for it, but she also wasn’t rejecting it.
Her breath hitched. I felt it.
She didn’t only smell sweet.
She tasted sweet, too.
She tasted fruit-like, but not anything obvious. On top of it, there was this faint creaminess that hit the back of my tongue like condensed milk.
I pulled away, my nose brushing hers, and a warmth shot through my spine. Her taste lingered on my bottom lip, so I licked it instinctively—just to confirm I wasn’t imagining it.
I wasn’t.
Holy s**t.
“Did you eat anything sweet?” I whispered.
She made a small sound. A tiny, choked, panicked little “Hnggh—”
I swear the ground could’ve cracked open under me, and I would not have noticed. That sound punched directly into my chest and whatever conscience I had left.
“f**k,” I muttered.
I grabbed her again, gently but firmly, and dove right back in. This time, I kissed her fervently.
Her lips opened under mine like instinct. She made a little noise again, and it was enough to send a hot jolt through my blood.
Was it because it had been a while?
Yeah. Probably.
When was the last time I’d kissed someone? Back in Elite? During that insane phase where I tried proving my “worthiness” by playing into the bullshit system?
I wasn’t innocent then.
I had my share.
More than my share, actually.
However, it felt like the first time again.
She was sweet in a way no one else had ever been.
Damn, oh damn.
I deepened the kiss without thinking. My hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, thumb grazing her skin, and she shivered.
She clearly didn’t know what she was doing.
She kissed like someone guessing the steps, messy and hesitant and adorable as hell. Still, she responded with soft, clumsy eagerness that nearly made me groan.
When I angled my head and slipped my tongue into her mouth, she jerked in surprise, and for a split second, she let me in.
Then her instincts finally woke up.
She pushed me away.
Hard.
I stumbled back, breathing unevenly, her taste still smeared across my lips. She slapped me, snapping me out of my reverie.
“Well,” I muttered, rubbing my cheek, “maybe I deserve that.”
Somehow, even when she just slapped me, my body didn’t ache anymore. Everything had burned away under adrenaline and heat.
She didn’t stay long enough for me to recover.
She spun so fast the water around us sloshed. One moment, she was just a blur of pale limbs; the next, she reached the edge of the stream and flew out of it. I watched as she grabbed something crumpled on the ground and pulled it around herself with frantic speed.
It was a cloak—a red one.
It looked like something straight out of those old storybooks. Who in the world still wore something like that?
She did, apparently.
And she made it look oddly… fitting.
She took off running fast.
“Wait!” I shouted, scrambling out of the stream. My balance was trash, my vision half useless, and the ground slippery, but I still tried to follow her. “Hey, wait!”
She turned her head just for a second. Just long enough for me to see the glare she shot me.
“You—” she sputtered, “you really are a p*****t!”
Then she bolted even faster.
I stopped chasing.
I stood there dripping, dazed, breathing hard, and placed a hand over my lips.
Her taste was still there.
“Knowing your name,” I murmured to no one, “would have been nice.”
- Writer
