Page 113 of The Darkest Chase

“Dude, I tripped!” I snag his uniform pants and throw them at him before snatching my panties and hopping into them one clumsy foot at a time. “Hurry and get dressed. Right now!”

“Working on it.”

Liar.

Still smirking like Sex Lucifer, he fishes around on the floor until he finds his boxers and steps into them.

“Shame to put all this back on when all I want to do is rip it off you again.”

“…yeah?” I freeze with one leg in my jeans, just staring at him.

God help me, I smile, shimmying my jeans up around my hips before I reach for my bra. “I wouldn’t mind doing this again. Just don’t get too crazy about it.”

Oh, but that smirk turns cockier.

“Later then? After you’ve convinced the old man we were just having tea?”

I sigh, hating and loving the giddiness bubbling up inside me.

“Definitely later,” I whisper.

12

DARK SIDE (MICAH)

Idon’t recognize the man in the mirror.

It’s supposedly me, staring at myself as I shave after a shower, foaming my face up and slowly dragging the razor over my skin as I clean up for work.

But Micah Ainsley doesn’t kiss a woman like she’s something to cherish rather than break.

Neither is being gentle because as much as I want to mark her and make her scream, I want her to want that even more.

Neither is actually caring at all, instead of having a quick hookup and then parting ways.

The man who made love to Talia yesterday isn’t me.

Today, I don’t know who the fuck I am, when all I can see is a broken predator.

How does Talia Grey see a man capable of kindness?

And is it possible for someone else to believe something so hard that you start believing it, too?

No.

That old darkness is still there, hungry and ready to shatter her.

Ruin her.

Yet maybe I’m hoping there’s a part of her that can accept me for what I truly am, instead of the vampire lover from her dreams.

I swear, I can still taste her and feel her skin on my fingers.

It’s fucking distracting.

So much that as I’m shaving off the last bit of foam, I nick my jaw, raising a blood stripe on my skin like a carnelian flower against snow.

I stop, holding the blade against my face, staring at the scarlet drop sliding down my jaw to my neck.

---