Page 64 of Hero & Villain
“You’d been kissed, but you’d never grabbed a man by the front of his shirt and pulled him into you, taking his mouth like you were dying for it.”
I hissed and turned the blade so it almost broke the skin. “Fine. If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll just kill you now.”
“Go ahead. Since I’m such a criminal mastermind, setting you up like that, I deserve to die.” His hands slid up my legs over my flannel PJs, his touch electrifying in spite of the thick fabric.
“Stop it! You can’t seduce me now that I know what you are.”
He smiled, dark and dangerous. “Do all you villains sleep in flannel pajamas?”
“They’re black.”
“And the puppy slippers, are they part of your villainy wardrobe as well?”
His hands kept sliding up, over hips and then higher up my sides. He’d try to take the knife. Good. His throat would be bloody before he knew what was happening.
“It isn’t the wardrobe that makes the villain; otherwise, you’d be the comic relief in your pink pants.”
He wasn’t wearing pink right now, no, he was wearing a black suit with a black button-up and pink tie. Just as I’d expected, he was a paragon of perfection in a tux. “You like my pink pants.”
“Shut up. You can’t seduce me.” But maybe he could. Maybe I wasn’t much of a villain after all.
His voice was low, as delicious as Straw’s C string. “You think that’s what I’m doing? You’re the one on my lap in her sexy lingerie. It would be unnatural not to have a purely physical reaction.” He felt so good and looked so good in his suit. Why did he have to feel so perfect? For a split-second, I lost my edge, and like a proper villain, he took advantage of my weakness.
A little snick was all I needed to hear to realize that he had a knife against my ribs in the exact location that would do the most damage to my heart if he punched up. It would take some force, but he had the muscle and training to do it.
“You’re despicable,” I seethed.
“And you like me almost as much as I like you. I’ve been waiting for you to stab me ever since the year you came to the three hundred for your birthday, when Tom told me how well you use knives.”
“I never stabbed Tom.”
“At the Three-Hundred, you stabbed a man and sent him to the hospital. You don’t remember?”
“There are a lot of men and a lot of hospitals. Some men love hospitals. I personally would never go to one but?—”
He kissed me, cutting me off with soft lips that carried sweetness and chocolate. He was gentle, soft, sweet, but also insistent. His kiss spread through me like sunshine and bubble-gum ice-cream. I held him tight, barely noticing that we were moving, that he was carrying me somewhere. The man could multi-task.
My back came against a wall, anchoring me while he held me, his lips soft then hard, making me want more connection, more of him.
He froze in the middle of that kiss, as suddenly as he’d started. He slowly pulled away from me, at least my face, but my legs were around his waist, and they weren’t letting go. Also, my stolen knife was still at his throat, but I’d completely forgotten about that. It was lucky that I hadn’t slit his throat when I got lost in his sweet kiss.
He gave me a curious frown. “Miss Delavigne, what viscous liquid just dripped on my hand? Come to think of it, your pajamas are rather damp. Has it been raining?”
“Only sparks.” I caught his lips and bit almost hard enough to break the supple, taut skin, but not quite.
He kissed me again, not quite as frantically, but his hands were running over me. I didn’t hate him touching me; in fact, I almost liked it. Fine, I loved his hands on me, because it wasn’tas if he was groping particular pieces of me, but like he wanted to rub down all of me until I was a contented puppy.
He broke the grip of my legs, spun me around, and pressed me to the wall, fingers circling my right wrist while he grasped my left arm in his strong hands. I hissed as that strong hand put so much pressure on my arm, but it was probably a good idea to stop the bleeding. “Who hurt you?” His voice was low, ice-cold, so dangerous it made me shiver, or maybe that was his warm breath on my ear.
He was holding me against the wall, demonstrating his strength and my weakness. I should probably kick him between the legs, but he was too close, and I liked him that way. “That’s none of your concern.”
He kissed my ear, slow, sweet, tickling kisses until I was hyperventilating and more awake than I’d ever been in my life. He was so warm, so strong, more essential to me than air. “Should I use a truth serum on you? Where did you go with Jezebel? Who stabbed you?” He brushed my ear with his nose, sending a shiver through me.
“Shot. It barely grazed me.” A flesh wound didn’t matter. I tried to turn so I could pull him closer, but he held me still, hand still applying pressure to the wound.
“You like me so much,” he murmured.
“I’d like to stab you,” I said, but I was still struggling to turn so that I could kiss him properly, hold him tight, and forget about every other thing.
