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“Did he, now?” Will shot me another look.
Emmy shook her head drunkenly. “No, that wasn’t it. He called me a naughty girl. He told me later.”
Will let out a slow whistle and I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat. “Why did he call you that, huh, Emmy?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I interrupted. “Anyway, this is Laney, Emmy’s roommate.”
“Please call me something in Russian,” Laney begged, giving Will puppy-dog eyes. The side of Will’s mouth kicked up in a half smile, actually looking charmed by her entreaty. He reached up and fingered the blonde waves of her hair.
“Solnyshko,” he said.
Laney nearly swooned. “What does that mean?”
“Little sun—your hair, your golden eyes. It’s the perfect name for you,” he said smoothly.
God, he was a slick bastard. I couldn’t believe Drago had him protecting Katya. I’d break his arm before I’d let him near Emmy.
Some guy came by with a tray full of shots. Laney swiped four and handed them out to us. “I’ll drink to that!” she said happily and tossed back the clear liquid, her face twisting as the harsh alcohol registered on her taste buds.
“Drink, drink, you guys!” she ordered hoarsely.
I tossed back the shot—vodka. A terrible brand. It went down easily enough. Will also quickly swallowed the familiar beverage. I watched Emmy stare at it dubiously, before lifting it to her lips.
“You don’t have to drink it,” I said, conflicted about her drinking. I didn’t necessarily want her to get drunk, but I was having a hard time not enjoying the way it loosened her up.
She took her eyes off the vodka and gave me a bright smile. “College experience, right?” she asked, then shot it down. She went into a full-body spasm as the vodka slid down, her grimace of disgust making me want to laugh out loud. “Gahh, that’s terrible,” she moaned, fanning her tongue dramatically to combat the heat of the liquor. Laney handed her a beer to help chase the taste away.
I shook my head, amused at her display of inexperience. “So, I take it that one of your past drinking experiences did not include hard alcohol,” I said dryly as she gulped down beer. It was still hard to imagine a girl getting to her age without attending at least one serious high school party.
Emmy tilted her head as she thought, her expression brightening as she remembered something. “Oh, yes, actually I have, at that bar where I had drinks with Hannah, Katya, and Anya for Anya’s birthday. But I barely tasted the alcohol in those drinks, and it wasn’t like we got drunk considering what happened that night.”
That was the night Yuri stormed The Trinity Club in order to kidnap Katya and most likely kill all of us. That was also the night I learned that he was the one who killed my mother. I still felt a sharp sensation in my chest as I relived that moment, thinking of my mother’s fate at the hands of a crazed, perverted lunatic. I’d kill him again if I could.
“But never just straight, like, out of the bottle,” Emmy continued. Her cheeks were starting to flush and loose, dark brown hairs were falling out of her bun and curling around her face. She was so stunning, I felt dizzy in a way that had nothing to do with the liquor I’d consumed.
“Maybe you should slow down,” I said, sweeping some loose hairs behind her ear, unable to stop myself from touching her. It was a compulsion that was increasingly impossible to ignore as the night progressed. I’d had my hands on her in some way or another all night.
Touching her gave me pleasure, but it also fed another unfortunate need I was just coming to identify. It fulfilled my growing possessive impulse to demonstrate my ownership of her.
This dingy basement filled with any number of predatory males brought out instincts in me I’d never experienced before but were becoming impossible to control. I was filled with an aggressive need for every person here to understand that Emmy was not available.
“You’re so sweet—always looking out for me.”
I almost laughed in her face. There was absolutely nothing sweet about the rampage of emotions she evoked in me, yet her expression was utterly sincere.
To make the situation worse, she reached up and stroked my cheek, as if she sensed these out-of-control instincts and wanted to soothe me. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. It inflamed me, provoked me, made me desperate to have her.
Once again, I leaned in to take her mouth, prepared to push her against the wall and demonstrate my claim on her to every motherfucker in this room, to her, to myself. Emmy licked her lips, her eyes sliding closed as I curled my arm around her waist.
“Emmy! You have to go to the bathroom with me!” Laney’s voice broke in, once again throwing cold water on my erotic intentions.
Emmy’s eyes flew open as she swung her head in Laney’s direction, then shot me a regretful look. “I have to go with her.”
My eyebrows snapped together. “Why?”
She gave me an incredulous look. “Because.”
That’s it. Because. “That’s not a reason.”
