I could so easily become addicted to Lynn, if I wasn’t already, but she deserved better than attention from a man like me. It wouldn’t be healthy. I would devour her, consume her, burn her like a forest fire. It was all I knew, the only way I knew how to love.
16
Lynn
Iwas lying to myself, but I wasn’t the only one.
This is the last time,Cobra said every night. And I’d agree.Just one more time.
Then the next night, I’d be back, and he’d put me to sleep with a bark sweeter than honey, and I’d wake up in his bed in the morning. Everyone thought we were sleeping together, which was fine. Except for the fact that Iwantedto sleep with him, and he was determined to stick to some gentlemanly code by keeping us fully dressed at any time.
It had been weeks of this. Five, in fact. Some nights I didn’t need his bark; when the Knights threw a party or the girls dragged me to the sanctuary for girl’s night, tequila and whiskey could work wonders. Cobra sulked the next day, all the while pretending he wasn’t sulking.
Tonight, I let myself in his room without knocking, partly out of habit, partly because it made the vein throb above his eye and it was fun to watch.
“Do you ever fucking knock?” he growled predictably.
I smirked, closing the door behind myself. “Rarely.”
The smirk fell off my face when I realised he stood in the doorway to the en-suite bathroom, steam curling behind him, a black towel around his waist and nothing more.
“Nice outfit,” I remarked, as if my mouth hadn’t gone dry and my heart thumped harder. He was covered in ink from neck to ankle to wrist, the designs both brutal and beautiful, true artistry. I’d seen him shirtless before, but neverthismuch skin, and the abrasive bitch in melovedhow dangerous those tattoos and the scowl on his face made him seem. All the while knowing I was completely safe. A thrill without danger—that’s what Cobra was.
He didn’t say anything, just watched me, the two of us frozen by the atmosphere that hung explosively between us. One touch and the whole room would go up.
“You have an owl on your knee,” I observed. A serpent on the other, too, wisdom and wickedness side by side.
“Never knew you had a knee kink, asshole,” he drawled, recovering.
“Oh, fuck you,” I huffed. I wanted to. Badly. The insults felt like foreplay. But Cobra had drawn a hard line, and I’d be damned if I fucked up our friendship and my lifeline by crossing it.
So I dragged the drawstring bag off my shoulder and strode to the bed, getting out the long black shirt I liked to sleep in. There was nothing out of the ordinary about my behaviour, we did this shit most nights—it was just easier for me to bring clothes to his room so I could shower and get dressed in the morning before heading to breakfast. I stripped off the blackvest I’d worn today and threw it in the bag, and completely froze when a warm hand slid across my bare stomach, splaying over my middle.
“Cobra?” I whispered, because henevertouched anyone, and especially not skin to skin. It made more sense that someone else had snuck in here than him touching me, and yet his leather and rum scent engulfed all my senses and I was calm instead of threatened.
“Just one touch,” he groaned, but we both knewjust onemeantmore, morewith us.
It came as a surprise when he let go a moment later. Cold rushed into the places his hand had covered, and my skin cried out, my heart lurching, refusing to lose the touch so soon. An ice-cold brand decorated my skin in the exact shape of his hand.
I turned before I could question the wisdom of doing so, took one look at the fierce need in Cobra’s venom-green eyes, and kissed him. Hard.
My hand moulded to the back of his neck, fingernails biting into his flesh, my lips taking, demanding, enforcing. And for a moment, I thought this deliriousness was one-sided. My heart began to crumple, acid spilling into my stomach, but Cobra groaned and hauled me against him. Skin graced mine, feverish and thrilling, droplets of water from his shower speckling our skin, only my bra between us.
My eyes slammed shut, the intensity overwhelming everything in my brain until there was only static and need for more. He stole control of the kiss, a hand fisting in my hair, tilting my face so he could plunder my mouth with a barely-controlled ferocity. My entire body turned electric, tingling, sensitive. Soft moans were torn from me with every rough stroke of his tongue, every scrape of his teeth, every growl he let loose.
It was a kiss that drowned me, a kiss I would happily give up all my air to chase for one more second. I never wanted it to end,never wanted this deadly current to leave my bloodstream. For a long minute, I wasn’t any of the things I’d had to become to survive; I was just Lynn.
And that was a drug I wanted another taste of, so when Cobra ripped himself away, dragging both hands over his head as panic set in, I closed the distance between us. My hands encircled his wrists, cuffing them in my grip and directing them to my waist. I bruised his lips with another kiss.
He resisted for all of one second and then his hands bit into my hips, fingers pressing with enough force to leave bruises. We’d been building to this since that first day in his game room, every smirk and snarl and drop of vitriol leading to this moment. The air between us had been charged for months, and now it was like flame hitting a powder keg.
“Fuck,” Cobra grunted, dragging his teeth along my tongue, forcing himself back, out of my space, gasping down air. “Lynn, we can’t.”
“We can,” I disagreed. “We’re grown adults, Cobra. Who the fuck says we can’t kiss?”
A dark, rumbling laugh was my response. His eyes were bright, frantic, but they betrayed his interest by returning to my mouth.
“Why not?” I pressed, taking a cautious step closer. “Give me one good reason.”
