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He looked up, stopping three feet in front of me.

“I know guys like you.”

A devilish smirk danced on his lips.

Suddenly, I crashed into the wall.

I gasped in shock.

Damn, I hadn't expected that...

Heated, rough skin wrapped around my throat. His tattooed hand.

The fact that YOUR THROAT HERE was tattooed between his thumb and index finger didn't make it any better.

I wanted to break free, but he managed to grab both my hands and press them against the wall above my head, causing the stone above me to crumble and fine dust to fall onto my hair.

He had cornered me, just like when we had first met at the winter ball.

The devilish grin was gone. Instead, he looked at me with contempt, as if he were ready to end my life right here and now.

“You don't seem to learn.”

I tried to break free, but he was simply stronger than me.

“Believe me,” he began grimly. “You don't know me.” He leaned in toward me. “And you don't want to get to know me.”

Hostility flashed through his eyes.

I paused, staring into his clear, sparkling grey diamonds. The one to my right had a brown spot in the iris that interrupted the round iris circle. Sectoral heterochromia...

Unconsciously, I took a shallow breath.

A pleasant masculine scent floated my nose, accompanied by a smell I had grown to love on the streets of Sacramento.

Damn, he didn't just smell good, he smelled like motor oil.

I felt my heartbeat quicken under his hand on my neck. And I hated the fact that he could feel it too.

“Are you threatening me?” I pressed out, unimpressed, though strained, trying not to get lost in the small detail of his eye.

He let go of my neck, his grip on my hands pinned above my head tightening as he held his free hand up beside him and…

I suppressed the urge to swallow as his fingernails turned into sharp, dark claws.

My gaze shifted from his hand to his face as I tried not to let my uncertainty show. And in all my burgeoning madness, I began to laugh challengingly.

“Put those claws away, big boy.”

Great, Larissa. You seem to have a death wish.

He narrowed his eyes. But instead of using his claws, he pushed me away from the wall and into the hallway, where I stumbled backward.

He followed me.

“Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?!”

Cockiness overwhelmed me, but I knew that any further smirking could send me into my abyss. And I wasn't really in the mood to end up with a badass face decoration just like my grandfather's.