Page 46 of Striking Range

“Is it me?” he asks softly. I close my eyes. “Is that why you looked like you wanted to hit me last night while I was dancing with Jacob?”

“I need a drink.” My voice is shot, and the black behind my eyelids is failing at hiding him from me.

I can see him anyway. I can always fucking see him.

“Evie.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

Slowly—so slowly and so petrified—I open my eyes. He’s right here, right in front of me, completely in my space.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” he prompts. “You want to touch me.”

I say nothing, because I do. God, I want to touch him so badly; I want to taste him and hear him and see what he looks like once he’s naked and panting and stretching so obscenely around me.

“Please, Sky. Don’t do this to me,” I plead.

It’s my last-ditch effort. If he pushes once more, that’s three strikes. I’m out.

I will devour him.

And just as my intuition told me he would, he drops those figurative fangs of his and lunges, sinking his teeth straight into me.

Skylar is, by definition, the prettiest fucking predator.

“I want you to,” he murmurs. “I want you to touch me.”

Annnnnd, he hits it right out of the park. Home fucking run.

“Go to your room.”

Skylar startles at my demand, forcing out an absentminded, “Sorry?”

“Your room. Now.” I stand, staring down at him.

The moment he realizes what I’m insinuating, he grins, standing quickly and turning toward the bedroom. As he tips forward due to all the alcohol rushing through his system, I wrap an arm around his waist and steady him against me.

“Oops,” he laughs out, leaning back onto my chest.

I breathe him in, dragging my lips over his neck, relishing the shiver it earns me.

“Evie,” he pants out, breathless and awed.

“Go.” I nudge him forward, watching as he stumbles down the hall.

And lord help me; we are so fucked tomorrow.

Chapter Eleven

Everett Young

As I cross the threshold into Skylar’s bedroom, he’s turning to face me, the backs of his knees bumping into the foot of the bed.

He’s staring—his eyes wide and scared. Skylar has the same expression that he wore in the bar; the expression he had as he accepted Jacob’s number. Shy, naïve, coy—Skylar is playing the part of the little incubus who knows how to use his faux innocence to get defiled. To be sunk into.

I take my time to approach him, enjoying every second of this new persona, this side of him that no one has ever truly seen. Until now.