Page 54 of Pray for Scars
Maverick.
My hands tighten around her as I walk to Maverick’s house, but she doesn’t say anything, her body limp over my shoulder.
I wonder if Jeremiah’s hands have been all over her. If that’s where she ran to.
“You come to settle a score?” I ask her as I walk through the gate to the grey stone house with black shutters, looking like Dracula lives inside. Maverick is weird as fuck.
“I’m a Rain,” she says quietly. So quietly I can barely hear her.
No, you’re not, I think. But I don’t say anything. I don’t really want her to know that yet. I don’t want to give her another reason to get closer to her brother.
I open the screen door, keep it nudged open with my hip. I press my thumb to Maverick’s lock, it blinks green, and then I duck inside the house, setting Sid down, slamming the door behind me.
She’s staring at me, those pale grey eyes hard, full of anger. She’s wearing black jeans, a hoodie not much different than mine. She barely comes to my shoulders, and even though I know she’s tough as nails, I’m not really ready to see her break. Instead, I want to grab her. Press her to me. Hide her from this fucked up world. Get inside her head and destroy all of those horrible memories she doesn’t ever wanna talk about.
Her eyes are shining, her mouth pressed into a line. She’s angry.
She’s wearing combat boots and I wouldn’t expect her to be in anything else. Her lips are a rosy pink, but paler than usual with the cold. Or maybe the anger. Maybe, if I’m lucky, the fear.
She’s so fucking beautiful, I can’t believe the world chewed her up and spit her out like it did. That doesn’t happen so often, to beautiful people. Or maybe it does, and I’m just too much of a prick to notice, because the Unsaints don’t get chewed up.
But Sid…
She could fucking swallow me whole.
“What’s wrong?” I demand. “You fucking sneak over to my house after you ran from me, try to fuck my best friend again. What the fuck do you have to be mad about?” I can barely breathe with the sight of her, as usual, and that, along with how I found her and Mav, make the anger fucking boil in my veins.
I know it isn’t fair.
I know she probably heard me with O. But that didn’t mean shit.
She cocks her head, hands in her pockets.
“I’m going to kill you, Lucifer Malikov.” She says those seven words so calmly, almost sweetly, and for a second I’m reminded of Cain and his brutal indifference. “I’m going to fucking kill you, and all of your friends.”
I smile at her. “Please do.” I run a hand through my hair as she stares at me, impassive. “Please, for the love of Satan, put me out of my fucking misery.”
She just shakes her head, unamused. “There’ll be nothing left of you for anyone to identify your beautiful, broken body.”
I raise a brow. “You think I’m beautiful?”
She huffs a laugh, and it feels like a small victory. She steps toward me, withdraws her hand from her pocket. I take a step toward her, and she flinches, but doesn’t falter.
Then she traces my lips with her finger, and I feel like my blood might fucking ignite at her touch.
“You’re breathtaking, Lucifer,” she whispers, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I take another step toward her without even knowing I’m doing it. It’s as if my body craves hers. Just like my heart does.
“You almost had me, you know?” she asks me, hand trailing down my chin, to my neck. “I almost fell for you.”
I swallow, and her eyes go to my throat. “No, you didn’t.”
She smiles. “I did, Lucifer. But the thing is,” she steps closer, hand going to the back of my neck. She presses me toward her, until our bodies are flush. My cock is throbbing at her nearness and it takes everything in me to keep my hands down by my sides and not take her right here, right now, in the foyer of Maverick’s goddamn house. “The thing is,” she says again, standing on tiptoe, her breath against my skin, “I don’t fuck with boys who fuck me over.”
I want to argue that point, considering I’m sure she ran right into Jeremiah’s arms, but she presses her lips to my skin, and I shiver under her touch, the thought obliterated.
“You didn’t find me, did you?” She pauses.“You hunted me.”Her tongue licks its way to the hollow of my throat, and I’m frozen under her touch, my erection pressing against her stomach. “And just now, who were you fucking?”
I want to shove her against this wall, make her scream for me. Make her forget everything else, all this fucked-up shit, the fact that we don’t have much time left. The fact that if I was merciful, I’d kill her now and go right after her, to the depths of hell if I had to.
