Page 22 of Fanged Secrets
“Amara,” I said when she caught my eye. “What did you do?”
She froze mid-step like a deer caught in headlights. After a long moment of silence, she typed into her cell. “What are you talking about?”
I slowly got to my feet, stepping lightly over the blood stains toward her. Amara took a small step back, stretching out her arm as if to ward me off.
“Something went wrong tonight.” I spoke quietly, sounding my words slowly. “Someone knew something they shouldn’t have.”
Understanding dawned on her and her eyes widened. She shook her head slowly, then quickly, her curls swinging around her face while she frantically typed on her phone. “Whatever happened, I swear I had nothing to do with it. I told no one where you were going.”
I stalked toward her so quickly that she took another cautious step backward. Her back hit the wall and she jerked forward again, nearly colliding with me, before raising her chin to meet my gaze. She seemed to have gotten used to my unsettling way of moving, shifting from complete stillness to swift motion in the blink of an eye. But it was clear she was uneasy, despite the hard glint in her eyes.
“Really.” I glowered down at her, “You press me to give you information and the moment I do, my partner and I walk right into a trap? And you hadnothingto do with it?”
Amara scowled in response, squaring her shoulders like that made her look any less fragile. She stood before me in only a T-shirt, barefoot and shivering, her hair still frazzled like she’d just woken up. She glanced down to type into her phone again and held it up to my nose while the app spoke.
“I told no one. If you don’t believe me that’s fine, just get out of my face.”
She tried to push past me but I grabbed her wrist, stepping closer to her so that our bodies were touching. That faintshimmer of electricity tingled between us, spurred on by the brewing anger that had my blood rushing in my ears. This was what I had expected, this was what I had known all along. Amara was not here for me, no matter how much we opened up to each other. Iknewthat. But her betrayal still struck a nerve, and I cloaked that pinprick of pain with anger.
“Don’t lie to me,” I hissed.
Amara flinched when I leaned closer but her eyes remained cold and angry, burning with a fire of their own. She shoved at me with her free hand, and I caught that one too. When she struggled and groaned in frustration, I scooped both of her wrists in one hand, propelling her backward against the wall, and pinning her arms above her head.
Amara’s roar of anger was cut short when she found herself nose-to-nose with me once again. This close, I could see tiny flecks of amber in her otherwise hazel eyes. The lightest scattering of freckles was noticeable over her nose, faintly dotting the smooth skin of her cheekbones. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts, and I could feel each gust against my cheek. I realized I had made a grave mistake getting so close.
Her expression was closed, but her eyes burned. There was a bitterness to the set of her mouth, like she was grappling with herself internally, wrestling with some twisted emotion. All of her frustration she aimed at me, conveyed through the intensity of her gaze. But when I brought my other hand up to tuck a curl behind her ear, she sighed into the touch, letting my fingers graze her freckled cheek.
I teetered on a knife’s edge, my resolve dwindling at the sudden heat in my abdomen, and the catching sensation in my chest. I leaned closer, tugging against the invisible shackles that had always stalled me before. Amara jutted her chin out as if to close the distance between her lips and my own, and I inhaledsharply, consumed by the burning sensation that thrummed through my veins like a second heartbeat.
She’s your enemy.I had to remember that. But it was difficult to think rationally when her hips rocked forward to press against mine. I closed my eyes and dropped my forehead to hers, crowding her body against the wall and leaning my forearm above her head. While my rational brain screamed that I shouldn't,couldn’tcross that line, my very cells sang for her, demanding a devastating release that only she could offer.
Before I could betray myself further, and with great effort, I dropped her wrists and abruptly pulled away. Only, I didn’t get very far. Without warning, Amara’s hand snaked out and grabbed my collar, yanking me back toward her and claiming my mouth in a brutal, searing kiss.
Chapter 12
Amara
Dylan jerked away from me for a moment, wild eyes flashing like she couldn’t quite believe this was reality. I watched her closely and ran my tongue over my lips that tingled and burned like I’d been branded. I wondered if I took it too far, if she might push me away. She looked horrified, terrified… and hungry.
Like floodgates giving way, Dylan wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and surged forward, pressing her lips to mine in a hot, demanding kiss.
There was nothing graceful or delicate about it. It was desperate, insatiable, the inevitable crescendo to the tension that had been building between us since the beginning. It was reckless, and we were both well aware of that – two deceivers with a debilitating craving for each other. That only made the need more dire, more intense. I thought irrationally that if I could just do it fast enough, kiss her hard enough, maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe this moment would exist outside oftime, untethered to the rest of the world and the web of lies that tied us together.
Dylan's tongue probed between my lips and I moaned, the sliding of her tongue robbing my knees of their last bit of strength. I turned my head for a breath of air but Dylan couldn’t stand to leave my mouth for a moment. She gripped my hip with one hand, the other sliding up my side, my throat, and eventually fisting in my hair at the nape of my neck. She tugged at it and I gasped, and Dylan used it to her advantage, her open-mouthed kiss stealing the air from my lungs.
The kiss was urgent and frantic, demanding all of me in a single bite and I responded in kind. I wove my arms around her neck, pulling her closer while my back arched against the wall behind me. I kissed her back with equal force, palms flat against her chest, and moaned when she wedged her knee between my legs. When she broke the fierce contact of our lips I sucked in a rattling breath and leaned my head back against the wall to catch my bearings, only to feel the warmth of her breath at my neck.
I quivered under her touch, moaning at the tantalizing brush of her lips over my throat. Dylan kissed along the juncture of my neck and I ran my hands down her body, coiling my arms around her waist as she flattened me to the wall. Dylan's teeth grazed the soft flesh of my throat and I shuddered, digging dull nails into her back at the sensation. I didn’t care about consequences, I didn’t care how quickly Dylan had me wet and weak-kneed at her touch. I wanted this delirious entanglement to go on forever.
Hazy-eyed and hungry too, I sought out her mouth again, biting down on her bottom lip. Dylan moaned at the slight nip and I felt the vibration of it. Driven by desire I hooked a leg around her waist and Dylan dropped a hand to my thigh to brace me, pressing fierce, bruising kisses to my open mouth.
A sudden prick on my bottom lip, sharp and unmistakable, had me stiffening abruptly. Startled, I pulled my head back and touched a finger to my lips. It came away bloodied, and I tasted the metallic tinge of blood on my tongue. My eyes widened and I glanced up at Dylan.
Her face was a mask of horror, her canines startlingly prominent beneath her lips. I felt her body tense up, every muscle suddenly on high alert. Dylan clamped a hand over her mouth, wrenching herself away from me and staggering backward. She grew progressively paler, an expression like regret crumpling her features as she backed away from me.
My lips shaped her name and I reached for her, but she disappeared before my eyes. It was as if she’d drawn a veil of shadows over herself, a cover of darkness that swallowed her whole. For a moment I just stood there, my heart pounding in my chest, hoping she’d come back.
But Dylan was gone. And I was left standing alone in the apartment with my hand outstretched, choking on all the words I could not speak.
