Page 89 of Bitten & Burned
“To convince you that you are beautiful. Precious. A treasure to behold. A radiant oasis in the dark desert of life. Have I?”
“Nope,” I said with a grin.
“Harsh,” he replied. “Gods, woman.”
“I’m not saying I don’t like to hear it, I’m just saying…”
“Just saying what?”
“Look, I’m not someone who needs to hear she’s beautiful to know it’s true. I’m well aware that hereditary features have been very kind to me. I look like my mother, and my mother was a gorgeous woman. However, I haven’t brushed my hair in two days. I haven’t made any kind of effort to sand down my rough edges. It falls flat when you say things about my appearance when I know, full well, I’m not radiant today. I’m capable of radiance. I’m just… not… today.”
“Noted…” Anton said. “But for the record, you possess great beauty. Regardless of how polished you are. Radiance is all about perspective. Do you think a star ever stops shining to wonder how bright it is?”
I handed him my empty tea cup. “Never thought about it,” I said. “Care to guess what Iamthinking about?”
“Hmm,” Anton said, trailing off as if deep in thought. “Wouldn’t have something to do with how devastatingly handsome your current companion is, would it?”
I grinned. “Nope. I was thinking… how much I hate your hair.”
“…What?”
“Let me explain… I hate your hair because of how perfect it is.”
“That’s not better…besides,that’swhat you hate? On a list of all the things I could come up with, this wasn’t on it.”
I grinned. “Yeah, well…” I reached over to tousle the hair on his head, which infuriatingly landed exactly where it had started. “See? I can’t mess it up. Rage-inducing.”
“Rage-inducing…” Anton echoed.
“Quite.”
“Well, you too could have rage-inducing hair if you only took a hundred years to perfect your hair routine.”
“A hundred years? Gods. That’s a long time to worry about something made from dead skin cells that grows out of your head.”
“Well, suffice it to say, I had the time to spare,” he teased.
“Apparently,” I murmured, smirking when he looked at me.
“You… are trouble, Rowena Marlowe.”
Trouble. That was what they all thought of me in some way, wasn’t it? Trouble, complication, chaos. And yet, here he was—eyes glinting, smile sharp, like trouble was exactly what he wanted.
“Please,” I grinned as I stepped away from the railing. “I’ve scarcely begun. There’s only more trouble to come.”
“Well, if you’d let me finish…” he said, voice low, amused… dangerous. “I said: Youaretrouble, Rowena Marlowe—” Hestepped forward, slow and deliberate, “—but I’m a godsdamned catastrophe.”
“Is that a warning?” I asked, grinning slightly.
“A dare,” he replied, moving in closer.
His scent seemed amplified in the cool breeze—bergamot, burnt sugar, teakwood, salt. It curled around me, decadent enough to make my mouth water.
I inhaled sharply when he slid his arms around my waist, pulling me to his front possessively. He stopped short of kissing me, his nose hovering so close it nearly brushed mine.
My breath came shallow, scarce. As if I’d forgotten how to do it.
“What’s the dare?” I whispered, wanting like hell to close the scant distance between us.
