Page 35 of Toxic Kiss

That stops me cold. I spin around, every old wound flaring back to life.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? You’ve always had a problem with me. I’m not acting high and mighty. I’m just no longer letting you push me around. You have always been and will always be a total asshole who thinks he is God’s gift to the world. News flash, you’re not. At least not to me.”

I march into the dressing room and Declan is there, mid-call, eyes wide as Cyrus storms in behind me.

“Out,” Cyrus orders Declan, but he doesn’t look away.

“Cyrus, I⁠—”

“I said get out and close the fucking door.”

“No, leave it open,” I call after Declan, but he slams it shut.

Great. I glance around and feel like I just willingly stepped into a trap.

“What the hell do you want?”

Cy stalks me, and my feet instinctively move back until I hit the wall with a thud. Like a cage closing in, a hand lands on the wall on either side of my body.

“You think you can just walk away from me? You think you can pretend nothing ever happened.”

I laugh once, and it is laced with a bitterness that I can taste on my tongue.

“Nothing happened worth remembering.”

The heat from his body is penetrating through my clothes. Damn him.

“Bullshit,” he growls. “I’m still in your head. The same way you’re in mine. Just admit it.”

The air thickens around us, and stupidly, my pulse jumps. His proximity does things to me that I don’t want to admit. It always has. I used to try and stop it every way I knew how, and none of it helped. Five years later, I thought I was past this crap.

“Fuck, you’re still under my skin.” He leans in closer and breathes in, making me shiver. “All sweet blueberries and temptation. My Butterfly.”

“That’s a you problem,” I bite out. “Now back off.”

He doesn’t. Instead, he steps in so close that our chests brush. The dark scent of his cologne still sticks to his skin and mixes with the intoxicating sin that he is. It wraps around me until I can barely think, and I hate him for it.

“Understand this, Haven…you never stopped being mine. I just let you think you got away,” he whispers, and all the hair stands on the back of my neck.

I choke out a humorless laugh. “Sure, like I believe that.”

“Careful, Butterfly.” Cy grips my chin in his hand and runs his thumb over my lower lip. “You sound like you want me to prove it. I will. I’ll bend you over that couch right now.”

What the fuck?

I try to pull my head away, but he holds me tighter. I’m tempted to hit him, but I know it will only escalate things further.

“Rot in hell, Cy. And stop calling me that.”

“So feisty…” He smirks with amusement, and my heart goes crazy under my ribcage. “I never wanted you to go to New York.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “Excuse me if I have a hard time believing you. Why are you in here anyway? Didn’t you just have your tongue down a groupie’s throat, playing tonsil hockey?”

“You know why I did that,” he says, and a shadow crosses his face and turns my blood molten. I’m sure it is going to burn right through me, and I’ll end up a puddle on the floor.

“I don’t care. I stopped caring the moment I left for New York.” Liar. A little voice in my mind hisses at me.

He tilts his head, eyes gleaming.