“You don’t know a fucking thing about me, little girl,” I say, slamming my glass down on the bar so hard everything shakes and rattles on it.
“Little girl?” she repeats. She blusters incoherently for a few minutes while I down the rest of my whiskey. “Why do you insist on treating me like I’m some naïve kid whenever it suits you?”
The alcohol burn churns with my moon craze and I realize I may have made a mistake with the drink. It's like I poured gasoline on the flames. Or maybe that’s just from the flush of outrage on Red’s cheeks.
“And anyways, you’re wrong,” she finally articulates. “I don’t care about everything, and everyone. I don’t care aboutyou.”
“Oh baby, you don’t mean that,” I say dryly.
Red raises her hand as if she’s about to slap me. Her fingers curl into a fist and she stomps a few feet away. But I’m emboldened by the drink. In a flash, I’m in her face again.
“You don’t care about me? Is that why you keep trying to get me to stop touching you?”
“What?” A puff of air explodes from her nostrils as she waves her arms about. “I don’t want anyone to touch me. Don’t give yourself so much credit.”
“You let Goldie and Cinder touch you. But when I touch you, I know what happens.” My eyes slowly rake down her body, pausing at her heaving breasts. Her piercings poke through her sports bra. I continue my perusal until my gaze rests at the apex of her thighs. I bet she’s already slick. I curl my tongue behind my teeth in that way I know galls the shit out of her.
“Stop,” she says breathlessly, as if the fight has gone out of her. Her arousal pulses off her, intertwining with mine. I know exactly what it takes to make those thighs tremble.
“You like it too much to keep me away for good.” I taunt, angry at myself for wanting her so badly my mouth has gone completely dry.
She closes her eyes and the atmosphere changes. The anger transforms into an added dose of pheromones and the magnetism between us. It’s fucking near painful, like skating along a razor’s edge.
“Yes,” she whispers, closing her eyes.
My voice drops to a low croon. “Does little Red want me to touch her? Make all this tension go away?”
Oh fae lords, say yes, let me do it.
She keeps her eyes closed tight, as if afraid she’ll crumble if she opens them. “Why aren’t you put off? I’m never satisfied. I always want more.” The shame and pain intermixed in those words . . .
The growl that rolls through my chest and escapes my throat is pure masculine need. This is that dickhead, Hunter’s fault. Making her think she’s “too much” for wanting him. The dumb fucker didn’t know what he had.
But I do. I know exactly what to do with a female this revved up. Fuck her into oblivion. Make her orgasm so hard and so often, she feels her brains might leak out of her ears.
“It must be hard, being so sexually repressed all these years.” I bring my nose within mere centimeters of her neck, knowing my hot breath is why she shivers violently. I want to press my bare chest against hers, but I maintain the smallest amount of distance possible. My words come out husky. “He couldn’t give you what you need, but do you want me to prove to you again just how big my appetite is?”
When I pull back, Red’s eyes are still closed and she’s panting like she ran five miles.
When they open, her misty eyes emanate an unnatural white glow for less than a second before it dies off.
Shock hits me like a brick. I step back.
No. It can’t be.
“It’s not that I’m repressed, or a total nympho. Well not entirely. There’s something you should know,” she says, licking her lips. Red’s resolve is melting fast, she’s ready to give into me.
The wolf in me howls in grief and frustration.
Because I know better than to touch her now. She might as well be radioactive.
All this time, I’ve been addicted to the mystery of what Red is, and it took less than a moment for clarity to shred through the paper-thin covering. How did I miss it?
She nervously plays with the bottom of her bra band. “It happens every month where I get this insatiable urge. It started when I was sixteen and it’s only gotten more intense as I’ve gotten older.”
But she doesn’t realize. She doesn’t know.
Her dad was a human who left before she was born?My fluffy white ass . . .
