I feel naked, too, like they can all read my past on my skin. The things I’ve survived etched into my flesh, setting me apart, marking me as other. They’re all far too comfortable, too sure of their future. Tomorrow they’ll wake up hungover and they will still own the world. For me, every day is a tightrope walk without a safety net, and one wrong move could see my neck snap.
Gabriel hands me a drink. I sip it gingerly. It tastes like a unicorn farted into a case of top-shelf gin.
Gabriel links my arm in his and yells over the music, “Let’s find Eli.”
We walk a circuit of the room. Eyes flicker over me, their judgments burrowing into my skin. Gabriel tries to talk to some guy from school, but the music’s too loud. The bass vibrates the bones right out of my body, or maybe that’s the warmth of Gabriel’s touch turning me to jelly.
Eli’s nowhere to be seen, but we do find Noah hidden in a dark corner with Cleo draped over his lap, her lipstick smeared across his sharp cheekbones. She’s dressed as Cleopatra, of course, with a gold lamé dress and a collar of glittering diamonds. Cleo must’ve decided Noah was a worthy new target. They both glare at us, but of course Gabriel ignores them and drags me over.
“Don’t you two look cozy together,” he yells.
“Get lost, Gabe.” Noah pulls Cleo onto his lap. She wraps her arms around him and presses her lips to his. Their kiss is hot, searing. His fingers drift up her spine to tangle in her hair. I wish for a cold shower or the floor to open up and swallow me.
Noah’s eyes never leave mine. He’s kissing another woman, and all he can do is burn his hate into my retinas. A shiver runs down my spine – the kind of shiver that grows an ache between my legs.
As we walk away, Noah’s eyes follow me across the room. I know better than anyone how hate can heat the blood, can stoke a fire of longing no amount of soft touches or kind words will ever quench. Does he feel it too? The all-consuming fire that draws us together? Is that why Noah looks at me as if he’s burrowing into my soul? Is that why he can’t forget me?
We head downstairs. A group of guys pass a crack pipe around. They offer it to Gabriel, but he declines. The music rattles in my chest, my bones, my brain. We move out to the pool. There’s space to breathe out here, small groups scattered around talking, couples lying in the grass or pressed up against the walls, lips, hands pawing. I go to sit on one of the loungers, but it’s occupied by a girl in an angel costume being fucked by two guys in devil horns. I jerk away.
Gabriel laughs, pulling me close. “You act as though you’ve never been to parties like this before.”
“Sure I have,” I shout back. “I just think this one’s lame. Where’s the petting zoo?”
“Nice try, but nope, I definitely don’t think you’ve been around, because I’d have remembered that glorious arse.” Gabriel’s eyes are heavy-lidded, dangerous – just the way I like him. “Where have you been hiding away, Mackenzie Malloy?”
I wag my finger at him. “Nope. We have an agreement. You can’t ask me about my past.”
“Mmmm.” Gabriel’s lips graze my neck. “Fair enough. I can think of much better things to be doing than talking.”
He kisses me. It happens so fast that all the things I expected to stress about during the moment of my first kiss don’t even register. There’s a flicker where my heart plunges into my throat, and then Gabriel’s lips are warm and sweet on mine. The pressure has me sinking into his body, like he’s melting my limbs into liquid and I’ll slip through his fingers and end up a puddle on the floor.
I’m kissing Gabriel Fallen.
I’m kissing the mouth that sings the stars.
Gabriel’s lips are hot velvet. He presses and parts and cajoles, and my mouth is falling open, and I’m falling into him. And then his tongue is in my mouth, tasting and touching, that stud a bite of ice against the heat of him. I want him to devour me from the inside out.
Gabriel pulls back, not a jerk, but slow and languid, his eyes sweeping over me, taking in the reaction in my body – the tremble in my hands, the heat pooling in my cheeks and in… other places. His eyes cloak with darkness, and the corner of his mouth twists up into his signature smirk.
Then he plants both hands on my shoulders and pushes me into the pool.
23
Mackenzie
The cold water hits me like a freight train, forcing the air from my lungs. Icicles puncture my skin, piercing my organs. My net flies out of my hand, and I flail under the water, twisting my body to avoid impaling myself on my trident.
I struggle, gulp in water. I break the surface, gasping.
Gabriel dives in beside me, dog-paddling toward me. He smiles. “That was brilliant.”
“What did you do that for?” I shriek. And in a moment, Gabriel has undone it all, the way being with him undoes me. He’s peeled off the makeup and the fancy haircut and the designer costume, and laid me bare for the whole party to see. And they see, and they point, and they laugh, and they remind me with every peal of laughter that I’m not one of them. Anger seethes through me, irrational but justified.
Gabriel reaches me and tries to embrace me. “You looked like you need cooling off.”
There’s that smirk again. I know he’s playing with me, keeping his promise to not get too deep. I raise my hand and slap it off his face.
“Fuck you, Gabriel.” I swim to the side, trying to push myself out of the pool. The dress clings to my body, weighing me down. I slip back into the water.
