After a beat of silence, he drawled, “You're too young to have committed any crimes worth committing.” I scoffed. Little did he know. “You don't look old enough to even enjoy sweetstalk syrup.” His eyes were drifting over me again, and the same tangible sensation traveled over me. Like a heated touch.
Now it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “How old do you think I am?”
He continued his slow perusal, and an involuntary and unwanted trembling stirred in my chest. The slightest smile transformed him from handsome to gorgeous. “I'd be a fool toanswer that. No woman ever wants to know the age she looks, and no girl ever wants to hear that she still looks like a girl.”
“So you think I look like a girl,” I summarized.
My ears burned with embarrassment. Looking down at myself, the toned muscles I'd worked so hard to strengthen did appear small next to his bulking arms and legs. But I had curves in all the right places, the places a woman should have them.
“I didn't say that.” The heat coming off his skin warmed mine a little too intimately.
The sting of humiliation chafed, even after hearing his clarification. “I'm older than I look. I've done things you couldn't imagine,” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Yes, practically pressing yourself up against me on this ledge screams of your vast experience,” he muttered. The instant and primitive need that arose to claw at him would be completely inappropriate. With effort, I squashed it down.
Concentrating on steady breathing, I did my best to reign in my rising temper. “Don't flatter yourself,” I lifted my chin. “I've had enough experience to know that jerks aren't my type.”
“Mhm,” he drawled, sarcasm heavy. Defiance sent blood rushing to my cheeks.
“You probably don't even know how to please anyone besides yourself.”
His eyes narrowed. “You talk big, but you wouldn't last one minute if I made the smallest effort.”
“And you talk even bigger. You’re not the first arrogant man I’ve met, you don’t know the first thing about me. I’d never fall for your tricks.” His eyelids lowered, dark eyes smoldering beneath.
“Challenge accepted,” he leaned his face toward mine, and my eyebrows shot to my hairline as realization of his intentions dawned. I scrambled away and back to my feet, moving out of his reach. He followed me up.
“What? No! Not challenge accepted. I'm not interested in playing games with you.”
“For a former criminal, you’re a terrible liar,” his voice roughened, dropping lower. A shiver raced down my arms. Staying near him would guarantee he'd win his self-imposed challenge. The wind blew his scent to me, like earth and rain. It was raw and heady. Irrationally, I liked it.
He was nothing like Jessarian.
Instinctively and against all logic, my body leaned forward toward him. He reached out a knuckle, barely a whisper-light touch against my chin.
Something burning hot, almost painful, pressed down on my chest. Wincing, I pulled away from his hand. What was that?
He flinched, eyes lowering down to his own chest as he leaned away from me. “What..?” he tugged at the neckline of his shirt, pulling it down to reveal unmarred skin and wisps of dark hair. I sucked in a breath.
He drew it down further. A Skinscript glyph marked his skin in the middle of his chest, simple lines with curving ends. His eyebrows shot up, jaw tensing.
Peering down at myself where the searing sensation had been, my eyes widened. Dark lines peeked over the hem of my shirt. On my skin. He noticed them at the same time. Before I could react, he reached out and yanked at the edge of my shirt, pulling it down scandalously far to reveal the same glyph I’d seen on his chest. I reeled myself away from him, out of his reach. “What the hell? What did you do to me?”
“Me?” He sounded incredulous. “I should be asking you that.”
“You’re the one with a million Skinscripts!” I argued. “Are they contagious?”
“No,” he muttered, eyeing the mark peeking out of the edge of my shirt. I pulled my neckline up to block his view, glaring at him. He made a low humming noise. “Peculiar.”
“Not peculiar! Take it back!” I demanded. Skinscript was tightly controlled by the Ascendancy, and I was still on probation. If I was caught with unauthorized Skinscript, I had no idea what the consequences would be. They wouldn’t be good.
I could be sent back to the Reformatory.
He was studying me now, eyes lit with far too much interest. His mouth drew straight into a thin line. “Skinscript isn’t something you can undo,” he said, tone grave. “But it’s not something that just happens either. It’s an involved process to receive even one glyph. This is…” he trailed off, searching for the words. “New.”
My pulse was pounding so hard it pulsed in my toes. “What is it?” I asked.
He frowned as he considered me. “I have no idea.”
