Page 39 of Ruse
Turning my attention back to Mav, I tilt my head up to meet his gaze, praying I don’t do something stupid like lean forward and press my lips to his. As much as I want to, I can’t let myself go there tonight. Not with Brooklyn not even ten feet away.
“Witnessing how angry it made my father to see me by your side. Figured it would be a giant fuck you to him, and it worked.”
A sexy smirk pulls at his lips. “And why do you think he hated the idea of you near me?” Annoyed he’s asking questions he already knows the answer to, I roll my eyes and turn away from him, but he reaches out and captures my chin, turning my head back to him. “Maybe because he saw the way your body reacted to my touch, just like it is now.”
Mav’s hand on my waist moves lower, fingers grazing me as it wraps around my lower back and grips a handful of my ass. My gaze is transfixed on his and the desire I see reflected in it, hits me like a rogue wave ready to drag me away if I don’t hold on to him. “Maverick, we can’t.” “Brooklyn is…”
“High and clueless, baby. God, you look so beautiful.” He lowers the hand gripping my chin down to my ass, taking another handful, and pressing me against his hardened cock. I whimper at the feel of him, hard and aching to be inside of me. “So, fucking, beautiful Nyx, illuminated under the light of the moon, in the darkness you shine my goddess.” His lips find my neck arching back for him to nip at the skin. He does, whispering against me. “The chaos and darkness that lives inside of you, that runs like black tar through your veins, shines like an eternal flame which has been swallowed by the shadows of your melancholy. Tainted by pain and darkness yet still perfection personified.”
The realness of his words shocks me yet makes me melt to a puddle of need at his feet. Everything I never realized I wanted to hear, yet coming from him, it’s everything I needed. This inexhaustible game we’ve been playing is excruciating, and I’m so fucking tired of having to hold back from what I really want. I can’t resist him any longer, but I need to find the strength to. I can’t give in, I cannot allow this to happen anywhere near my brother, whether he’s high or not.
It takes all my inner strength to pull away from him and walk over toward the railing at the edge of the bluff. I pray he doesn’t follow, but it’s useless. He’s already made up his mind, and it’s telling him I’m his.
A hand wraps around my waist like a thorned vine tightening, making me ache as he pushes my back into his chest while his left hand rests just above my left breast. I can feel my heartbeat vibrating against his palm. “We’re going to happen, Nyx. I told you to stop kidding yourself otherwise.”
I shake my head in denial but don’t move a muscle nor object. I can’t. Frozen in place by his touch and begging for his fingers to move a little lower. For him to sing those words to me once more.
“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to fall for any of your tricks.” My voice comes off breathier than planned and it’s obvious how much he affects me. How much his touch weakens me, and how much of a lie my words are.
Mav releases his hold on me, and at once it’s as if the blanket of warmth and safety that was tightly wrapped around me, protecting me, is gone, and in its wake, he leaves nothing but a fierce and bitter coldness. “You will, and soon baby. I will have you in every way possible. That’s a fucking guarantee.”
ChapterThirteen
PHOENIX
The last time I felt this content was the night my life changed drastically, for worse. That itself should have been a telltale sign it wasn’t going to last.
That dreadful night three months ago, I was out clubbing at Echo with Dee, Olly, and Chad, spending way too much money on expensive fruity cocktails and the best bubbly money could buy, and dancing the night away to the hottest DJs in all of So-Cal. I was oblivious to everything happening in my surroundings, all that mattered was that I was having the time of my life with the people I cared about.
We were celebrating my eighteenth birthday, something I hadn’t originally wanted to do, but was coerced by my best friends, anyway. I refused a party but a night out at my favorite place, being surrounded by people I didn’t know, was my ideal way to spend my time. To not have to worry about keeping up appearances or faking how perfect my life was, because in that moment, within the crowd of strangers chanting my name and singing to me in their dreadful voices, I was the happiest I’d ever been.
Like I said it never lasts.
As I drove home in my Uber at three in the morning, high off life, and what I believed to be a fragment of happiness, I could have never expected what I’d soon come face to face with. My mother was throwing my father’s belongings off their bedroom balcony as he stood down below screaming his lungs out, calling her a variety of vulgar names, and degrading her in the worst possible way.
I tuned out their ear-splitting screams, brushing it off as just another one of their petty arguments which happened more often than you’d think, entered the house, and locked myself in my bedroom until the next morning. When I found her just a few hours later, I realized this time it was so much more than some insignificant argument they’d later shove under the rug.
It was then the shred of happiness I felt, disappeared. Obliterated, completely erased from my mind, never to be felt again.
I promised myself I’d never again fall victim to the false ideal of being happy. I saw firsthand how it all crumbled before me, how every day my mom would put her mask in place and fool all of those around her, acting like all was well in the world, when she was falling apart from the inside. My father’s demand for a divorce was the last straw that brought down the perfectly crafted disguise. I didn’t want to end up that way. I refused to.
After finding out my father was cheating on my mom with none other than our neighbor, I felt lost in the town I once felt comfortable calling home. At every turn there are memories of the people who turned their back on me after the scandal that changed my life. Lies and betrayal, friendships, the fake ones at least, lost in time. Time I would never get back.
My father made me lose all faith in men, and Chad cheating on me before texting me we were through, was the sugar-coated cherry on top. The only man I didn’t completely hate was my best friend, Oliver. Even my brother Brooklyn was currently on my shit list.
But none were higher than my dear stepbrother, Maverick. Written in blood red ink, with a giant X mark next to it, Maverick was enemy number one. And I’d checked that list twice.
I was becoming so blinded by my hatred for him I forgot all about the other first-class gentlemen who continuously let me down.
Especially after everything that’s happened between us in the short time he’s been here. Visions of him hovering over me, his body hot and heavy against mine, have tortured me for days. Thick, dark pink lips teasing me, a wet tongue licking me. Our kiss was magnetic, a torturous pleasure I should have never allowed myself to indulge in, yet I couldn’t resist. And I’ll be punishing myself for it for all eternity.
And then the bastard had the audacity to say thatwe are going to happen, whatever that means. Not to mention the way he stood up for me in front of my father and took Brooklyn and I out to distract us from the train wreck that is our home life.
The way he whispered to me everything I didn’t know I needed to hear.
Tainted by pain and darkness yet still perfection personified.
It’s a goddamn lie, yet leaving his lips, I wanted nothing more than for it to be true.
