“I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be.” My words hang in the air like a smoke ring. I drop my voice. “I wanted him dead. I wanted to watch the life leave his eyes as I choked it out of him. Maybe I’m more like Kylian than I originally thought.”
He reaches out to pinch my chin between his thumb and forefinger.
“You arenothinglike him. Don’t ever say that.”
I can hear my heart pounding inside my chest as his eyes burn into mine. His hand drifts down my neck. I’m practically panting when he slides his finger beneath my locket.
“Where did you get this?”
“From him.”
“Kylian?”
I nod, my entire body tensing and eager with him this close.
“And you kept it?” A dip appears between his brows. The air cools as he drops the necklace and pushes back from me a bit.
“I thought it might be useful somehow.” I open my mouth to explain, but with no words to justify my actions, I seal it shut again.
He nods, quietly contemplating something, but he doesn’t ask me to extrapolate. Sometimes I find myself dying to know what’s going on in his head beyond the unspoken words he occasionally shares with me.
The wind howls outside the window, breaking the moment’s spell.
“It’s getting late. I’m gonna get ready for bed.” The air is still thick as I slide off the bed and head toward the bathroom to change.
51
ZADYN
This is getting out of hand.
First the kiss in the street, then thealmostkiss at the inn. Sharing a bed for weeks on the ship, waking up accidentally tangled around each other. The constant teasing and flirting. These moments when we’re face to face, nearly nose to nose, testing each other—pushing the boundaries of our friendship to its absolute breaking point.
Any moment it could shatter.
And the idea of that partially thrills me.
I used to think this attraction was entirely one-sided. But now? I’m not so sure. Not when she looks at me with that glint in her eye—that little spark of mischief.
It’s utterly irresistible.
I pull the shirt over my head and toss it down on the daybed as the door behind me clicks open. My jaw goes slack.
Seven fucking hells.
Serena steps out of the bathroom wearing this slinky black slip with barely enough material to cover her perky little ass. Heat slashes up my neck at the sight of her bare legs—the smooth, tan flesh peeking out from beneath the lace panels on either side.
As if it weren’t enough that her voice haunts me everywhere I go. That she distracts me from being fully present in every conversation I have. That I can read every shift in her scent, that I know what it means when she bites her lip, when she arches her back slightly more than usual, the way her thoughts scream at me even when I try to shut them out.
No. As if all of that weren’t enough, she has to go and wearthat.
She has to know what she’s doing to me.
“What?” She blinks, the portrait of cruel innocence.
“Nothing.” I scratch the back of my neck, wiping the shock from my face. “That just seems like an impractical outfit with temperatures like these.”
