Why does this feel so…incriminating?
“He came to GAZ the morning after you fucked up my room.”
Kai stiffens beside me. “You were alone with him?” His voice is level, but his hand tightens on my thigh.
“Briefly.” I clear my throat, shifting. “That cop arrived.” I add, “Thank God,” under my breath.
“So much for the fucking deal,” Kai mutters. He sits forward, elbows on his knees, his tall frame hunching as he drags his fingers through his sandy hair. “He cornered me at the hospital.”
“No! What? You didn’t tell me you went to the hospital! Or about Bastian!”
He leans away from me, shaking his head. “Ezra wasn’t even awake. And Rooke was…just being Rooke.” The disgust in his voice calls him out on the lie, but I don’t want to push him for more info in case he expects the same from me.
“What are we gonna do, Kai?” I murmur, staring past his head and through the little kitchen window to the oak tree outside. “Whatthe fuckare we gonna do?”
He says nothing.
And I let him.
I’m guessing he’s as clueless as I am right now. We tried to run, but our professor was with us the whole time like a ghost we couldn’t outrun. He’sstillwith us.
And I’m not sure if that terrifies me or excites me.
Maybe both.
I touch the butterfly pendant again.
Outside, a gust of wind slaps the oak tree’s leaves against the window. Some are already changing color.
Somewhere in Agony Hollow, my father’s body lies in a morgue, silent and waiting for an autopsy.
Somewhere else, a rich, manipulative, too-handsome and too fucking intelligent psycho is just as silent. And he’s probably waiting, too, though fuck knows for what.
Kai glances at me, blinking slowly as a sad smile spreads across his mouth.
Like I’m the only thing in his universe he’s sure of anymore.
Fuck, how I wish I could just be straight with him and shatter that illusion before it drags us both even deeper into this mess.
Because there’s nothing real about me. I’m just a trick of light that makes you think you see something solid.
But I’m not brave enough to open my mouth.
Guess we’re more alike than we realized.
When Kai just keeps looking at me with that hopeful expression, I slide over on the sofa until our bodies touch. He barely hesitates before dragging me into a straddle over his muscular thighs.
I plant a kiss on the side of his neck, trailing my lips up, over his jaw, over his chin. His mouth responds to mine eagerly, greedily. When I rock into his lap, he’s already hard.
We fumble with our clothing, panting against each other’s lips as I wrestle away just enough of Kai’s sweatpants for his cock to escape. When he pushes inside me, I gasp—not from the stretch, but from the relief of finally having something to feel that isn’t grief or guilt or dread.
My hands slide into his hair, twisting, and he groans against my neck. For a few perfect minutes, my brain goes blissfully quiet.
Fuck being reasonable and working shit out like adults.
We’d both rather be doing this.
It’s stupid and immature and won’t fix anything…butfuckit feels too right.
