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She raised her fists in the air, attempting to catch my nose, my cheek, my neck. I grabbed both her wrists and slammed them down on either side of her head. She moaned in pain. It took everything in me not to hit her.
“What’s your problem? Huh?” I screamed.
She panted underneath me. Her chest rising and falling. She wasn’t wearing a bra. I swallowed, feeling weird and tingly and not half as furious as I should be. And it sucked, because even though I hated her, I didn’t hate her body.
“Kiss me.” She licked her lips, her dark gaze dropping to my mouth.
“What?” I asked, confused.
She tried to wiggle free, laughing. “Kiss me, you dumbass. I want you to be my first.”
She hadn’t been kissed before? She was almost my age. I was still a virgin, but I’d kissed plenty, made out, and even finger-banged two girls at a ski tournament last winter.
Plus, and more importantly—why me?
“You hate me,” I spit out.
“‘Hate and love are the same mistresses under a different mask.’ I once heard this phrase somewhere, and it made me think of you.” She smiled up at me, batting her lashes. And that’s when I realized what was happening. She liked the struggle. The fight. The games. She saw Doug and Miranda’s relationship and wanted to reenact it. What I saw as abuse, she viewed as passion.
My hand slid from her wrist to her neck. I put a little pressure on it. Not so much as to hurt her but enough to tell her I wasn’t messing around. I lowered my face to hers. Her eyelids fluttered; her breath hitched. Her stupid body caved in, muscles going slack, as she readied herself for a kiss. I leaned forward. My lips were a hair away from hers when I stopped moving, letting that last inch between us feel like an entire mile.
“You foolish, foolish girl. If you ever try to kill me again . . .” My grip on her neck tightened. “I’m going to break your pretty little neck, even if I’ll get locked up for it. Next time, you won’t be crying wolf—you’ll be eaten by it. Bones and all.”
Before I could straighten my spine and get the fuck out of there, she leaped forward, and her lips touched mine. She stole a kiss. It was sloppy and full of tongue and metal. It tasted like venom. Like alcoholic mouthwash and a girl I had no business wanting, but I wanted all the same.
“You taste like poison,” I whispered into her mouth.
She grinned, biting my lower lip real hard, until the metallic taste of blood exploded in both our mouths. “Maybe that’s how I’ll end up killing you.” She licked the blood off my mouth. “With kindness.”
CHAPTER SIX
ARSÈNE
“This might not mean jack shit.” Christian inches in front of the billiard table, holding his cue like a rifle. He shoots a perfect cannon. “You’re reading too much into this.”
I’m perched on the recliner behind him at the New Amsterdam. A private gentlemen’s club on the corner of Sixty-Ninth Street. It is the most exclusive club in New York, and therefore relatively empty.
Christian, Riggs, and I have been hitting the place ever since Riggs informed us we could no longer go to the Brewtherhood, our favorite pub, because he’d banged his way through the patrons, the pub goers, and some of the supply providers.
“Hardly.” I flip a page in the astronomy book I’m reading, a pipe tucked in the side of my mouth. “I went to see his estate lawyer today. He couldn’t give me details but said that Grace inherited something of value.”
“That could mean anything. It could mean the good fucking china. When can you see the will?” Christian puts his cue aside to grab his beer and take a swig.
“A physical copy should be sent to me any day now.”
“But why would your dad leave Grace anything?” Riggs frowns, moving around the billiard table to examine where he wants to take his best shot. “Wasn’t she his former best friend’s spunk stain?”
I put the pipe down. “Being a polarizing piece of work runs in the Corbin family. Giving her something he thought I’d want would be the ultimate fuck-you. I don’t think he ever forgave me.”
“For what?” Christian frowns.
“Being born.” I smirk.
“You weren’t the one who shoved his cock into your mom, excuse my French.” Riggs takes a pull of his drink.
“Grudges, like crotchless underwear, make very little sense.” Christian claps my shoulder. “What do you think he left for her?”
The hotel on Fifth Avenue? The yacht? The time-share private jet? The options are limitless. The Corbins are old money. So old you can trace it back to eighteenth-century France. My ancestors ate cake with Marie Antoinette.
“Hard to say.” I toss my book onto a table. “Douglas had a lot of assets and zero scruples. The only thing I know for sure is that he couldn’t have given her too much. We’re not known for our generosity.”
