Page 39 of Vipers & Roses

Taking a curl of hair from my ponytail. “Blond hair?”

He hesitates, watching me play with my hair. “Beautiful.”

My heart hammers in my chest as the spot between my legs is on fire, and I inspect his hands, wondering how they’d feel running over my naked, damp skin. “Height?”

Blake nods. “Nice. Long legs.”

“Not afraid of being strangled in your sleep?” I clown around to see if I can trip him up.

He replies with a breathy chuckle, and I can tell his mind has gone somewhere dirty, where there are only two players: me and him. “I couldn’t think of a better way to die.”

I drop my eyes down shyly, fearing where this conversation could go. I bite my lip before whispering, “Full lips?”

A grip of warmth seizes my chin as his thumb runs along my bottom lip, and I lift my eyes to meet his chocolate pools, which I intoxicate. We hold the gaze for a few seconds while my body trembles in anticipation, wondering what his next move will be.

“The girl on the park bench,” he whispers before leaning across the table and pressing his lips against mine, drawing a sigh from my hungry mouth as his hand remains cupping my cheek.

“Thief’s kiss,” I whisper as he pulls away, and something remarkable dances behind his eyes.

“Killer’s kiss,” he corrects me.

Nerves stumble through my body as I lick his taste off my lips. I liked that. I truly liked that. “You’re a killer as well as a thief?” I ask apprehensively. It makes sense since he works for Smiler, but being across the table from a contract killer is not exactly how I envisioned the day would go.

He takes a sip of beer and swallows while his eyes are glued to my face, examining every quiver of my eyelashes and every curve of my lips. Someone laughs by the bar, followed by a glass smashing, and my attention is diverted to see the commotion.

“I wasn’t talking about me,” Blake says softly.

19

It’s broad daylight, yet we’re kissing like thieves in the night. My body is pressed firmly against my car in Silver Bullet’s car park, and I can hear traffic droning, footsteps along the path, and muffled laughter coming from inside the bar. Blake’s mouth has claimed mine, his hands moving dangerously close to places a man hasn’t touched in too long. My skin shivers and burns as I’m consumed by his tongue, taste, and scent.

He pulls away, and I suck in air to help me breathe and calm my nerves. My lips are throbbing, my thighs are aching, and I’m sodden down below.

Desire is written all over his face as his eyes roam from my lips to my eyes and then to my breasts. He opens his mouth to speak, and my anxiety hits me quickly in my stomach, and I gasp in response to what I assume he’s about to say.

“I better go,” he mutters.

“What?” That’s the last thing I expected him to say. I assumed he would ask me back to his place or a hotel room or something, and I was preparing my nerves for his intentions.

He drops his head down again and kisses me on the lips. This time, it's a closed-mouth kiss, and I wonder if I’m being rejected. “Not now. Not yet.”

“Why?” I hate the desperate tone of my voice, so I clear my throat and snap coldly while flicking my hand at him to move further away from me. “Fine.”

He grunts a smile, entertained by my sudden irritableness. “I can feel in you,” he states quietly because people are nearby walking through the car park towards the bar’s entrance.

“Feel what?” I hiss, folding my arms in anger to create a boundary between me and him.

That smile vanishes, replaced with a seriousness I’ve only seen once. “Your scars.”

His comment flummoxes me, and my mouth gapes, unable to find the words to reply. I glance down at my bare forearms that once displayed the streaks from my fingernails whenever I fell into a pit of misery and self-hate. But my scars are internal now, so how can he feel them? My world crumbled as I thought I was fooling everyone into believing I was strong. I thought I was strong.

I turn away from him so he can’t see the hurt on my face from being rejected twice in four days. Does my breath stink? Do I kiss weirdly? Do I seem desperate? As I open my car door and climb inside, my world spins nauseatingly around me.

“Rae,” he calls after me and grabs the door handle, opening it before I lock it. “Stop.”

“No. I have to go,” I growl, feeling all sorts of anger and resentment. I’m a failure.

“Rae,” he crouches beside me so I can’t shut the door. “Rae, listen to me.”

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