Clara
“What… did you just say?” The words barely come out.
Fuck. They don’t even sound like mine.
My chest heaves, and I hate that I’m still pinned between him and the wall, body betraying my mind.
Too close. It feels too fuckinggood.
NO.
“I didn’t kill him.” His voice is steady, but it feels like a sledgehammer to my brain.
I blink, my mind stalling.
No. He’s lying. He has to be.
This doesn’t make sense.
His hand tangles in my hair, holding me still. Trapping me against the wall while his breath fans across my skin.
“Clara, I didn’t kill Jake.”
The words hit like smoke—everywhere and nowhere, impossible to grasp. My brain shorts out, caught between his body pressing closer and the ground crumbling under everything I’ve believed.
“Stop.” It comes out broken. Desperate.
Ineedmy anger.
Without it, there’s just…him. The mint-coffee heat of his breath. The grip that’s more promise than threat.
His thumb traces my throat, and something molten pools low in my stomach.
“I didn’t kill him.” His lips ghost along my jaw, each word a brand against my skin. “Listen! I. Didn’t. Kill. Jake.”
Everything narrows to points of contact—his chest against mine, fingers controlling my head, the dangerous brush of his mouth.
Wrong. This is wrong.
My hands betray me, pressing against his stupid hard chest—whether to shove him off or pull him closer. I don’t even fucking know anymore. Hard muscle beneath expensive fabric; his heartbeat thuds under my palms like it’s calling out a challenge. Mine picks up pace, falling into rhythm with his, our bodies synced in ways I don’t want to understand.
I never thought this is how I would feel.
Relief, confusion, more anger… when my brain snaps back to me thirty seconds later.
“Liar,” I hiss in a whisper.
His teeth catch my earlobe. “Am I?”
Not the killer.
Not the killer.
Not. The. Killer.
Fourteen years of hating him. Fourteen fucking years of seeing The Raven’s face every time I think about Jake.
If he’s telling the truth… My head spins.
