Page 131 of The Villain We Tempt

“Yeah, could yourestrainyourself?” I say, my face souring.

“Probably not,” Dad winks. “Great timing, by the way. I was about to make some lunch.”

“Ooo, perfect. I’m starving,” Mom groans as they turn and start to walk toward the kitchen, their arms around each other's waists.

“Still?” Dad murmurs, making Mom giggle.

Demi and I share a grossed-out look as they disappear down the hall.

“Huh, so…” My nose wrinkles.

Demi shakes her head. “They’re getting worse as the house empties,” she sighs. “I sleep with earplugs these days.”

“Dude…” My face sours.

“Tell me about it,” she sighs. “I seriously don’t see why I can’t just graduate early.”

Us three kids have always been smart. But Demi is on another level. She's pretty much been finished with high school ever since she petitioned the school last year to let her take her senior level exams a full year early.

She aced them all.

She still goes every day, mainly to keep Mom and Dad happy. But they’ve also got her a tutor who’s teaching her college level material before she gets to Knightsblood next fall.

“So,” Demi eyes me. “Whatareyou doing home?”

I sigh. “Can I not just be homesick?”

“Youcan, but we both know that’s not why you’re here.”

She's right, it’s not. I’m back in the city because I need to put some distance between myself and the Knightsblood campus.

More specifically, I need to put some distance between myself and one particular personONthe Knightsblood campus.

I saw the look in her eyes when they landed on the scratches on my hips earlier today. She covered quickly, but not quickly enough.

She knows.

Well, she might notknow. But she at least momentarilywondered, and that’s not something that’ll just drop out of her head and be forgotten.

Fuck.

At some point, this whole thing is going to become untenable and I’m going to have to decide: tell Galina who I am, or end it all.

There’s no third option. Either this becomes real, or it stops. This make-believe world we’re existing in right now, where I’m this masked fantasy she gets to lose herself in, isn’t something that can be sustained much longer.

The problem is, I do want to tell her. Iwantthis to become real. I don’t want to just keep watching her through my laptop screen. Or only to touch her while she looks into a masked face. I want to kiss her, I meanreallykiss her, and to taste her lips bare against my own.

I want Galina in a way I’ve never wanted anyone before. Entirely. Infinitely.

But every single fucking time I envision telling her everything, I see pretty plainly how it ends.

Spoiler: not well.

First, I started this whole thing withblackmail. Fake blackmail, but…still.

If we were to keep things strictly how they are now, just playing out this ongoing MaskTok fantasy, thatmightbe fine. But it’s not how you normally start a relationship, and I don’t see a world where a girl like Galina just lets that go.

But the big block there?