Page 57 of Hexed
I’m not sure where we’re headed, but after what just happened, I think I’d follow her anywhere.
“Anywhere” ends up being out of the basement of the Lair and up a narrow spiral staircase that leads to her studio apartment.
Right now, she’s in her bathroom with the door wide-open, standing in front of a small porcelain sink, gripping the edges, her hair draping over the sides of her face like a cloak while she regulates her breathing.
I say nothing, just lean against the doorframe with my arms crossed and watch her reflection, those dark irises swirling as she stares down at her hands.
“You okay?” I ask.
Her gaze flicks up to mine. “Yeah, fine. You just…weren’t supposed to see that.”
She turns on the faucet.
I take a step and then another one, putting our bodies so close that I can feel the adrenaline bleeding off her skin and sinking into mine.
Our eyes lock in the mirror.
“I’m glad I did,” I say.
She grins, those dimples of hers appearing and dotting the apples of her porcelain cheeks. “Why, so you can use it to blackmail me?”
What she’s saying isn’t wrong; itisbeneficial for me to know things like this about the underworld of the Kingstons, but her thinking that’s what I’ll do bothers me.
I move even closer, my heart kicking my chest when I brush against her.
Her breath hitches, and it pushes that phenomenal cleavage out in a way that has me biting back a curse, becausefuck.Slowly, I reach around her until she’s caged in by my frame, the energy between us dancing like tiny electric shocks along my body.
But I make sure not to touch her.
Ican’tkeep touching her. Not right now, not when I’m feeling like this.
Instead, my hands surround hers on the edge of the sink, my thumbs centimeters away from meeting her pinkies.
She looks down at them and shifts on her feet.
When she moves, her ass pushes into me, and I bite the inside of my cheek so hard, I taste blood. I exhale slowly, gritting my teeth so I don’t do something crazy like reach out and dig my fingers into the meat of her hips while I drop to my knees, rip off her skirt, and put my mouth on her cunt.
The visual alone…Christ.
Self-loathing mixes into the lust I’m feeling like a volatile cocktail; it’s an internal war where I’m both the savior and the villain.
I grab a hand towel from where it’s hanging on the wall, hyperaware of how she’s tracking my every movement. I swear it feels like she’s lighting me on fire, and it’s fucking torture because I can’t give in to the feeling, I don’twantto give into it…but I can’t pull away either.
Placing the cloth under the running water, I find myself wishing the tepid temperature would douse the fervor blanketing the air, but I know better than to assume it will. Instead, we just exist in this vortex of energy until it’s physically painful to keep my body from falling into hers, and I have to remind myself she’s more off-limits to me than any other woman in the world.
When I take the damp fabric and move it to her right hand, wiping away the specks of blood dotting her skin in slow, methodical motions, my stomach tightens with every pass.
“What are you doing?” Venesa asks in a hushed tone.
“Helping,” I reply, although my voice comes out so low and raspy, I’m not positive she hears me.
“You don’t have to?—”
“Shut up,” I snap, squeezing my eyes closed. “Just…stop talking.”
When I look at her again, she’s staring at me through the mirror, biting the lower corner of that plump red lip, and my heart jumps into my throat because fuck if I don’t want to know what that feels like—what ittasteslike to have her mouth beneath my teeth.
My hand shoots out and grips her hip as I spin her around.
