Page 12 of Demon
“Don’t look much like a boy scout to me,” she grumbled, but she swung a leg out of the car, anyway.
Fury winked at me from over the top of the roof.
*****
Her arms wrapped tightly round my stomach all the way home. Hanging on like a vice for fear she might fall off, or maybe to cause me pain. I couldn’t be sure. Reluctantly, she’d given me her address, and we’d had a separate argument about that too. I pulled into the sleepy Gateshead street of run down terraces. The road was riddled with potholes, and I did my best to avoid as many as I could. At some point, there had been a continuous brick wall running along the front of the properties, giving it some protection from the street and the road. Now though, some of it was completely missing whilst the parts that had survived were littered with weeds and the occasional small tree trying desperately for purchase in the rubble.
The properties were old, spanning three or four floors in some cases. Once plush Victorian townhouses now calved up into houses of multiple occupation from greedy landlords packing as many people in as possible. It was ghetto like.
The house before hers had an old armchair sitting outside the bay window, mottled with moss and surrounded by black bin bags. The fabric was faded and ripped, left out in the elements for too long. The entire street was a shithole. I hadn’t expected this to be where she lived. Student halls maybe, in a swanky apartment with a group of girls. But then, what did I know of her?
“This you?” I asked, turning the engine off as I pulled up alongside the door.
“Yeah.” She offered no more.
“Err, nice place.”
“I’ve lived in worse.”
“Really?”
Ciara wriggled, pushing away from me till she could swing her leg over the back of the bike. And then I was joining her on the cracked pavement at the side of the road. She passed back Fury’s spare helmet, her eyes catching mine and something poised on her lips.
“Thanks for the ride back,” she muttered, clearly hating the words coming out of her mouth.
“Pass your phone.”
“Why?” she looked at me suspiciously, defiance firing in the back of those deep brown eyes.
She was stunning when she was pissed off. Her lips pushed together in a pout, challenging, her chin tipped upwards, egging me on.
“So, you can ring me when you need a lift back in a few hours.”
Ciara hesitated. I couldn’t tell what was going on in her head, but I suspected there was a struggle. She wanted to defy me, to not comply. But she needed her car more. And so she handed over her phone.
I typed my number in, saving it and then pressing the call button.
“What are you doing that for?”
“So that I have your number, too.”
I didn’t think her eyes could darken anymore, but they had, and now the anger on her face looked almost murderous, and something about it made me smile.
“I need to let you know if something comes up.”
It didn’t quell the thunder in her eyes. And now I was enthralled. She plucked her phone from my hand and turned away from me, walking up the four broken steps to her front door. And for some fucking unknown reason, I followed her.
“What do you want, Demon?” she asked, not even turning to face me.
“Just making sure you get in OK.”
“Pretty sure I can safely walk the last three feet to the door alone.” She reached forward, pushing the key into the clunky lock.
“Looks like a shithole round here, darl’. Can’t be too careful.”
She whizzed around, her eyes on fire, irritated and angry all in one. They say ‘if looks could kill’; and that one would have disembowelled me, for sure. I took the last step, and now, one step below her, we were face to face, lips to lips. I should have walked away, turned around and got the hell out of there. But I didn’t.
My arm shot out before I’d really had the chance to think, scooping around her back and yanking her to me. And this time, there was no distance between our lips as I pressed mine onto hers. I expected her to wriggle away. To step back and slap me. But her tongue darted out to meet mine. It wasn’t delicate, or sensual, or even desperately sexual. It was angry and chaotic. A show of power, fast and dominant. Neither of us backing down. Just like the first time I’d kissed her when she’d truly pissed me off.
