Page 54 of Lethal Attraction

“Thank God,” he responds with relief. “That makes one of us.”

I yank on his arm, forcing him to look at me. “You can’t dance?”

“Not at all.”

On top of being unbelievably nervous and sweaty, now I have to fight the urge to burst out into hysterics. “Wait! You’re going to embarrass yourself out there.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Baby, I’ve already embarrassed myself countless times in front of you. Let this one be voluntary.”

My heart? It’s thundering now. There’s a fluttering in my stomach that I can’t even fight. Reed makes me feel…alive.

Something shifts inside me then—quiet and catastrophic. Maybe it’s the same brand of insanity that’s always lived beneath my skin, the thing Atlas and I used to feed with bloody hands and sharp teeth. Maybe I’ve always been this way—someone born loving too hard, too violently, until affection curdles into fixation.

Whatever it is, it tightens around my ribs when I look at Reed, and suddenly this moment doesn’t feel small anymore.

It feels fatal.

The bar disappears into meaningless noise while he smiles at me, oblivious to the fact that something feral is unfolding behind my eyes. He’s still unknowingly dragging an apex predator onto the dance floor, still warm beneath my fingertips, and all I can think is mine.

Not in the sweet way girls in love mean it, but in the dangerous way that rots from the inside out.

Because I realize, with a cold rush of clarity, that I could become addicted to this man frighteningly fast. To the sound of his laughter, the lazy half-smirk he wears like sin itself, and the way he looks at me like I’m something worth discovering instead of surviving.

It feels less like falling and more like an infection—a sickening, feverish mass that continues to spread with every passing day.

And the worst part?

I don’t want it cured.

I want it to consume me completely.

A horrifying thought crawls through me then. If Reed ever left, I think I would burn the world down.

The realization should scare me. Instead, it thrills me enough to make my pulse stutter.

God.

I’m obsessed.

So much for keeping things casual. He has no idea, but I’m not letting him go. If he tries to escape, I’ll have so much fun locking him away in my basement. I’ll keep him watered, fed, and fucked so good he can barely remember his name.

My little pet.

He successfully gets me to the center of the floor, burying us among other couples who are drunkenly swaying to the song overhead. As he turns to face me fully, my stomach clenches at the sight of him. Every curve and dip. It’s like I can’t get enough.

He wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me flush with him and causing my smile to curl further as I wrap my arms around his neck and we begin to sway. The heat between us is almost suffocating as we get lost in each other, and he’s utterly unaware of just how insane I am.

Because all I can think about is drugging him and dragging him back to my shed to experiment on him. Maybe cut him up a little bit and taste his blood, or use it as lube before I fingerfuck myself in front of him.

Decisions. Decisions.

“How am I doing?” he asks quietly before spinning me in a messy circle that nearly sends us crashing into another couple.

I laugh despite myself, stumbling back into him. “Ten out of ten. No notes.”

“That confident, huh?” he smirks.

“You only stepped on one person.”