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Are they lace or silk?
Or…are you bare?
Rolling my eyes, I leave him on read. Ky is out with Thorne on whatever important murder-business they are required to attend to for the Anguis. I’m not answering him, even though he successfully tugs a smile out of me with his cheekiness. Not that I’d ever admit it to him, but Kyron Harris has absolutely got a charming aura and swagger about him that lets him get away with murder.
Quite literally.
Wolf boy has been a scarce sighting, like a rare species, a mythical creature who only appears once every now and then to feed on the souls of unwitting victims. So, considering that my three captors are all otherwise engaged, once again, I’m going to be rolling around the house on my own.
The auction is tomorrow night, and to ease my mind a little I’m planning on getting my outfit ready and doing some beauty pre-gaming. If I’m to be paraded in front of the Anguis once more, I’ve decided that I want to do so with the confidence of a woman wearing a suit of armor—one that comes in the form of looking and feeling my best.
Last time, I barely had five minutes to prepare. This time, I am determined to be ready with sharpened claws. While I was sitting by the pool this afternoon, I tried to list out all the little things Em would always bug me about remembering to do. Painting my nails, trimming up down there, moisturizing, deep conditioning my hair. All the tedious little girlie things that are one hundred percent the reason why Emerald Kirby is a rising star in the plus-sized modeling world, while I own a tattoo parlor where I can get away with wearing the same ripped black jeans for a week. Hell, I’m so useless at anything fussy like this. They’re all the things I far too easily forget because, in my natural habitat, I am a low-maintenance bitch who regularly forgets to shave her legs.
Don’t leave me on read, baby girl.
Those two broody assholes do it to me all the time.
Not you, too.
Ky follows up his little plea with a line of watery-eyed emojis. It’s so ridiculous; my resolve breaks, and I start typing back something cheeky and maybe a teeny bit flirty. I bite my lip trying to think of a reply as I flip my towel over my shoulder and wander toward the kitchen.
A little harmless flirtation never hurt anyone, surely?
Only, that irresponsible line of thinking is rapidly erased when I round the corner and bump straight into a firm wall of muscle cloaked in black and blood.
I nearly drop the phone with a scream.
“Fuck. You scared the shit out of me.” I’m clutching my towel and phone against my chest, heart pounding, and being stared down by Raven. His glare is pitch black, and one cheekbone is framed with the yellowing evidence of an old bruise.
He narrows his stare, dark hair hanging across his equally dark eyes, and tension crackles off him like a frayed wire. Threatening to spark and burn the whole place to the ground around our ears. He’s got dried blood caked all up one side of his face, and the smell of woodsmoke and pine trees clings to him like he’s been out in the forest. Or perhaps he’s been burning bodies on a funeral pyre.
In one hand, he’s fisting a jet-black motorcycle helmet. His other hand, with bruised and bloodied knuckles, is clenched by his side. A silver chain glints around his neck, hanging over a well-worn black t-shirt.
Raven looks like sin and sex and the worst decisions a girl could make.
“Did you just get back?” I swallow heavily. Nerves are prompting my mouth to move, when I know in my logical mind I should back away slowly and leave him be.
One side of his upper lip curls.
Shit.
“I’m going to…” This is absolutely the moment I make my hasty exit. So I duck my head and move to go around him while making doubly sure to allow a wide berth. Like a good little captive, I’m ready to scuttle off toward the kitchen and leave him well the fuck alone.
If only that was possible. I don’t even make it one step before his tattooed hand collars me. As he pins me beneath a tight grip, my head thuds against the glass wall at my back. His strong fingers and thumb dig in at the sides of my throat.
There’s nothing but malice filling his uncaring eyes. This man hates me with the force of an inferno fueling his rage, and even though he might offer me food and tolerate my presence here, something tells me he’s in the mood to spill blood tonight.
And most likely, I’m his next victim.
His fingers tense around my windpipe. The kind of firm hold that tells me everything I need to know about how many times this man has watched the life drain from someone’s eyes. But I’m not truly afraid. If anything, his tortured path is exactly why I chose to run away; he can’t see past his own need for vengeance to understand that.
I don’t judge him for that. I’d most likely do the same in his position.
He’s boring holes through my skull with such ferocity in his expression that it sucks the air from my lungs. Without needing to say a word, he’s telling me the story of his hatred with those void-like, soulless eyes.
My hands fall limp by my side. I’m holding a fucking pool towel and a cell phone, and I’m dressed in a crocheted coverall thrown over my bikini. What a way to draw in my final breath.
“Just…make it quick. Please.” My voice rasps under the crushing weight of his palm.
