Page 28 of The Reveal
He stays where he is, across that polished floor, with nothing of him in the glass at his back. I’ve never laid eyes on him before, I wish I never had, and yet I know two things immediately.
One, if he crooked one of those fingers at me, I would go to him. Without question. I can feel a hard pulse of soft heat between my legs at the very idea, and it shocks me. I’m not the sensitive twin. I’m notsensitive. I don’tfeelthings, and even if I do every now and again, it’s not likethis.
Even that night with Samuel wasn’tthis. It was a rush. It was exciting.
What it was not was this ...catastrophic longingthat I can feel pulse in my fingertips and the tops of my ears.
Two—and worse—he knows.
Ariel Skinner, king of all the vampires, knows exactly what effect he’s having on me.
I can see it in the way his eyes gleam.
I can feel the way that reverberates inside of me.
“You are not what I expected,” he says.
His voice washes over me, and it feels like singing. As if the sound of it is inside me, a chorus of the most beautiful sounds—
I frown at him. “Are you doing that? Stop doing that.”
Ariel’s head tilts slightly to one side. “What do you mean?”
I wave my hand near my head. “The voice thing. It’s annoying.”
“My apologies,” he murmurs, sardonically enough that it, too, feels like an unnecessary caress. “I would hate to beannoying.”
If that’s his normal voice, it’s not really better. It licks all around me like fire this time.
And by the time I manage to process that, or at least survive it, he’s right here in front of my face.
I didn’t see him move, either.
“Is that tiring?” I ask. “Popping around like that. Does it take extra energy? It looks like it would be exhausting.”
I’m babbling. Something I’m not sure I’ve done in years. In fact, the last time I can remember the urge was that night Samuel walked me home.
This is significantly more overwhelming.
Becauseheis something close to unfathomable.
Up close, I notice other things about the vampire king. Maybe I’m grasping for a handhold in the middle of the cyclone happening inside me. Maybe I’m desperate to humanize him when it’s clear that nothing about him is the least bit human.
I have no idea how he passed as one before.
There’s all of that astonishing male beauty, an immediate shock to the system. He’s perfect. Even the scars that I can see etched into his chest seem to gleam as golden as the rest of him, and if that’s not enough, he smells good.
I can see sweat on his body, but he doesn’t smell like a gross, sweaty man. There’s a hint of something like the sea. I don’t know how I know that’s what it is, having never been to the sea myself. When have I ever had the time to drive six hours round trip just to say I went to the coast? But I know it all the same. Mixed in with that is something that reminds me of rosemary. Maybe the slightest hint of eucalyptus, and beneath that, something warmer I can’t identify.
In my whole life, I have never had the slightest urge to move toward a sweating man andpress my face into his armpit. Yet I realize with a shock that, right now, that’s exactly what I want to do.
I want more than just to smell him, though. I want to nuzzle my face into him, and maybe lick him, too, so that I can—
What the fuck.
I frown at him. “You sent me a message. A handwritten message, delivered—not at all ominously—to my front door.”
Ariel is standing a little too close to me. Not in a threatening way. Or, anyway, it’s not immediately life threatening. Still, he shifts back a bit, and I can’t decide if I feel relieved or ... something perilously close toregretful.
