Page 43 of Reaper
"Insufferable?" He shifts forward on the couch, leaning his elbows on his knees. The movement brings him closer, and I catch a hint of his scent—something warm and masculine that makes my pulse quicken. "That's a big word for someone who's been drinking."
"Fuck you, Reaper." The words come out sharper than I intended, but I don't take them back. "I can handle my alcohol just fine. And it isn’t a big fucking word for me. Listen, if you have a problem with me using big words because your tiny, antifreeze-drinking brain can’t handle it, that’s your deal."
"I'm sure you can handle a lot of things just fine." His voice drops lower, rougher, and there's something in it that makes my skin feel too tight. "Question is, what do you want to handle?"
The innuendo hits me like a physical blow, and I feel my face burn hotter. He’s teasing me in ways I can’t handle. And ways that I’m not sure he can handle, either. What kind of game are we playing? Why am I still playing it? Why don’t I want to stop? "You're disgusting."
"Am I?" He tilts his head, studying me with an intensity that makes me want to squirm in my chair. "Is that what you really think?”
The question hangs in the air between us, loaded with implications I don't want to examine. My grip tightens around the wine bottle, and I realize I'm breathing too fast. The heat in his voice, the way he's looking at me like he wants to devour me whole—it's making my head spin worse than the alcohol.
"Yes," I lie, lifting the bottle to my lips again. "Absolutely disgusting."
"Liar." The word comes out softly, almost gentle, and somehow that makes it worse. He leans back against the couch, never breaking eye contact. "You want to know what I think?"
"Not particularly." But I don't look away. I can't.
"I think you're scared." His voice drops to that dangerous register again, the one that makes my stomach clench. "I think you're sitting there trying to convince yourself you hate me while your body's telling you something completely different."
The audacity of it steals my breath. "You arrogant piece of—"
"Am I wrong?" He cuts me off, and there's a challenge in his eyes now, something that makes my pulse race for all the wrong reasons. "Because from where I'm sitting, you look like a woman who wants something she's afraid to take."
"Fuck you." The words come out breathless instead of angry, and I hate myself for it. I hate the way my skin feels like it's on fire, hate the way my heart is hammering against my ribs. "You don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. And you have no fucking right to speak to me like that. I should fucking kill you right now — ”
I stop. Because I know he’s fucking with me. He has to be. And besides, threatening to kill him is just giving him what he wants. I hate him. Fuck him. Fuck him for turning my worldupside down with his touch, with his eyes, with his smile, with everything he’s done for all the women at ‘Never Again’.
Fuck him.
I have to get out of here.
Because he is just watching me with those impossible, smiling, shining eyes, and if I stay for one second longer, it doesn’t matter that we both know we’re messing with the other — it is teasing, right? — something that cannot happen, will happen.
“Fuck you, I’m out,” I say, and I drain the last of the wine from my bottle and then lazily throw it at his head. It misses. Because I’m drunk and pissed and horny as hell. “I’m going to bed.”
Then I stand and march crookedly toward the bedroom.
It isn’t until I reach the bedroom door and look through that I freeze. My eyes take in the impossible. The unallowable. The holy-fuck-no-able.
“God fucking damn it,” I scream.
“What is it?” comes his voice from the living room.
I take some time to collect my voice and form an intelligible sentence from the constant stream of curse words flowing through my mind like a raging river. It takes me long enough that Reaper calls out again, all while I stare in mute rage at the scene in front of me, my heart throwing itself against my ribs like an out-of-control jackhammer.
“Adriana? What is it?”
Finally, I scream.
“There’s just one fucking bed.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Reaper
Teasing her was the only thing I could do to suppress the desires that have been burning inside me since the moment we touched outside the car after dealing with Mario. That moment when Adriana went from being a hot-as-hell angel of vengeance to a hot-as-hell angel of vengeance with a heart for protecting women like Roxanna and a wicked sense of justice for punishing men like Mario. Standing aside and watching her rip that piece of shit to shreds was the kind of justice that gets me hard, and all the walls I’ve built inside myself — all the memories of Vanessa that kept my growing feelings for Adriana at bay — crumbled.
I had to do something.
