Page 30 of Lords of Misrule
“Is it fucked up now?” she asks.
“Is what fucked up?”
“I don’t know. A chance of something between us. I thought there was one, at one point. Before Rowan…” she trails off, her fingers smoothing over the tattered edge of the old shirt she’s holding.
“Rowan doesn’t change anything.”
She turns and looks at me, doubt coloring her face.
“I fucked your best friend in front of you.”
“And it was hot as fuck.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“No. You and Rowan have your thing. We have ours.” I run my fingers over her chin. “And I see the way you look at me.”
“Stuff with Rowan, it’s not the same. It’s… I don’t know. A power struggle I guess that apparently ends with us fucking it out if we don’t fight.” Her palm presses against my chest. “With you. It’s something else entirely… It scares me honestly.”
“Scares me sometimes too,” I whisper, kissing her as she leans into me.
“Let’s go to your room?” She looks around like Rowan might return at any minute, and I take her hand to reassure her, leading her back to my room.
When we step in, she looks around, smirking at the purple sheets and the purple walls.
“Favorite color or just a phase?” She grins.
“Favorite color.”
“Mine too,” she agrees absently as she picks up the mask I had on earlier in the evening, the same one we wore the night of the attempted robbery. Her fingers run over the ridges of the mask, her smirk refusing to fade.
“Something amusing you?”
“You looked hot in this mask. When I saw it was you... It uh… did things for me.”
“The mask?”
“Yes.” Color rises to her cheeks and her lashes darken her eyes as she puts it back on the dresser.
“Would it do things for you again if I wore it one night?” I ask curiously.
“I think I would like that.”
“It can be arranged.” It’s my turn to smirk at her.
“Can it?” She reaches for my shirt, grabbing a handful of it, and pulls close to me.
“Yeah. I just need to think of what my equivalent is.”
“Oh, a trade then?” She looks up at me.
“Yeah, something like that,” I mumble because I’m too distracted by the way she’s looking at me right now to think straight. The smell of her shampoo and the feel of her so close to me. Alone with me in this room where I’ve thought about her a half dozen times this week alone.
I reach down and grab her, pulling her feet up off the floor and depositing her on my bed. She lays back. Her violet hair fans out across the bed, blending in with the sheets where it falls on the parts that lay unmade. I climb up onto the bed with her, my hand running up under the tee she has on. Her skin is so soft, and I feel the way her muscles contract in the wake of my touch.
“I hated seeing you with those girls.”
“I hated staying away from you.”
