I just… I nod. Can’t really do much else. Because with how fast my heart is beating, I’m either going to say something stupid or rip him into me by his shirt.
Hydration is helping. A little.
Never mind.
Now, he’s shutting the old fridge and stepping closer.
He smells so sweet, and his usual suntan is extra warm with red watercoloring his misted skin, like a picture straight out of the smutty magazines Ora and I browse through.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Hm?” My brows flatten up at him, swallowing another mouthful of water.
He reaches around me, grazing his fingers up my spine. “This.”
I didn’t notice myself shrinking small. The chill of his touch running up to my shoulders is building me back up, enough for a little attitude to knit my brows at him taking the water bottle from me.
He smiles, slipping his hand to my lower back. I try to anchor my sneakers to the floor, but they’re stumbling into the motion, allowing him to pull me closer to the dribble falling from the bottle’s neck as he takes a drink.
He wants me to watch. And call me crazy, but it’s clear he wantsmeto take what I want—confidently.
“You’re… It’s…” I point lazily, gesturing to the stream of water dripping from his bottom lip.
He furrows his brows, lowering the bottle between us and angling his head. “What?”
The pressure sifting up through my pelvis is inflating my head. I get dizzy, drifting out of a lucid state with a target on his bottom lip rolling between his teeth.
I swallow.Hard. And knot my hands low at my waist to prevent them from clawing at his zipper. “You’re really messy.”
“So messy,” he whispers, his slick hair moving with a taunting head shake.
Please stop making this so hard.
My internal whine slips through my nose, my burning thighs rubbing against each other and my nails scratching at my shorts. “Can I go back home? For just a little?”
Sweeping down my visible distress, he raises the water to his sharp smile, pausing to bathe in how badly I’m writhing. “You don’t gotta go home to get what you want. That door closes.” He tips his head back over his shoulder, polluting me even more with the biggest smile I have ever seen carve around his canines.
My toes squirm in my sneakers, and because I’m clearly suffering, he coasts his hand down my butt, squeezing just enough to flicker the old bulbs in my slaughterhouse.
I have two choices, both of which causing panic to burn my ears. I can get what Ineed. With him. Right now. Or I can run.
Swiftly, I dip under his arm and veer around him, skittering past a tall metro of tools and equipment. I twist my neck to look back at him, but three clean chainsaws sitting on a shelf have me doubling back on them.
I can’t stop. I have to keep going. Even though that’s really concerning and I need to know why they have them.
“I’m gonna… uh, go do my makeup!” I shoot him a smile, visually trailing the shiny blades capable of massacre as I straighten my neck.
What the frick?
My heart is hammering for a different reason now.
I pick up the pace until I’m running past Gwen smacking the microphone into the ground, Duse and Aries lighting their hands on fire, and Xene and Cash shredding their throttles for donuts.
Subconsciously, I look for Ora through the pulsing anxiety. But I don’t have time to search through clouds of burnt rubber. I just keep running to pacify myself from the turmoil splintering my bones.
CHAPTER NINE
RAZOR
