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I flipped through the pages. The half and half style was quite popular. She had drawn dogs, raccoons, and other animals similar to the cat: half skeletal. Some of the pictures, the skeletal half was moved; instead of right and left, it was divided between the top and bottom halves of the image.
They were all quite good, I hated to admit, and even more so, I hated the fact that this surprised me. I’d taken one look at Brianna in that hallway before the wedding and judged her, but clearly I’d been wrong. There was more to this girl than met the eye. I was intrigued by her.
She’d come to regret it.
I came upon the last picture in the sketchbook. This one was different than the others. It wasn’t an animal. More like a self-portrait, and judging on what she was wearing in it, it was from the wedding. It was all black and white, done in pencil, but I knew.
Brianna stood, wearing her maid of honor dress, staring at herself in the mirror of a restroom. Her hair was down, messy, but that wasn’t what drew my focus. No, that honor belonged to the being staring back at her from the other side of the mirror. It wasn’t a skeletal version of herself. It wasn’t that deep.
Literally, it wasn’t that deep, as in, the person staring back at her from the mirror looked to have had their skin torn off. You could see the muscles and the tendons, all shaded immaculately. There were no eyelids and no lips, either.
A hard, feminine voice demanded out of nowhere, “What are you doing?”
The moment I turned to face Brianna, who’d come out of the bathroom wearing what must’ve been her pajamas, loose pants and a baggy t-shirt, she stormed over to me and snatched the sketchbook out of my hands—though it was too late, of course. I’d seen enough.
Her hair was wet. It hung over her face as she puffed herself up and glared at me. Her eyes were a dark gray color, and it struck me then how unique they were; something I hadn’t noticed at the wedding.
“Those are private,” she hissed out, holding her sketchbook against her chest after flipping it closed. Her nostrils flared. “You shouldn’t even be in here.” She stood her ground, less than two feet away from me, awfully bold and confident, and that bothered me more than it should. She thought this was her room? No, we were merely renting it out to her. Only the devil knew how long she’d survive in this house.
I knew what she saw when she looked at me: a cold expression, a glare perhaps, but none of the interest I’d gained from looking through her work. I was good at bottling things up and keeping them inside.
“This is my house,” I told her, taking a single step toward her. She didn’t back up; she held her ground. “I wanted to see what kind of artist you were.”
“You had no right to look through my things,” she huffed, still upset at me.
I let a slow, deadly smirk grow on my lips. “I can’t wait until your mother leaves. I have the feeling you and I will get to know each other very well while she and my uncle are gone.” Taking yet another step toward her, I towered over her, still smirking.
The goal was to intimidate her, to make her feel small, but I didn’t know if I succeeded, because she continued to glare up at me with hatred in her eyes.
And, what was even weirder, I got a whiff of whatever soap she’d used. Fucking strawberries. The thing was, it didn’t smell bad. The fruity scent was the opposite of awful, but you’d never catch me saying that out loud.
“Get out of my room,” she whispered, and it became clear to me then that she held onto that sketchbook against her chest to make it another barrier between us, to shield herself from me.
I had the strangest thought then: yank that sketchbook away from her, push her back and pin her against the wall, and inform her that she couldn’t tell me what to do. To feel her small body squirming against me, trying to escape my hold… it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
I might actually enjoy it.
Hmm. Maybe Alistair was right, and I’d have some fun with this girl after all.
Chapter Seven – Brianna
The look Gareth was giving me right then told me his thoughts were churning, the wheels spinning in his head. I’d just caught him snooping in my room, going through my sketchbook, and he was acting like he owned the place and I was just a visitor. As if I wasn’t staying for the foreseeable future.
I probably shouldn’t poke the bear where he was concerned, but damn it, I couldn’t stand back and let him do whatever he wanted. I wasn’t that kind of girl.
I’d just told him to get out of my room, but based on the look on his face, he wasn’t going to leave without a fight. He was like a wild dog, vicious and ready to bite, ready to mark his territory… and I’d just stepped within his range.
It happened in the blink of an eye. He grabbed my sketchbook and tossed it aside. It landed on my bed. In the same movement, he brought a hand to my throat and swept me backward, slamming my spine against the wall. His tall frame loomed down over me, his green gaze narrowed.
“You never, ever tell me what to do,” Gareth growled out, his chest rumbling with each spoken word. His body pinned mine against the wall, and no matter how hard I tried to push him off, no matter how I tried to wiggle away from him, I couldn’t get him off, nor could I free my neck from his hand.
I was trapped.
“Let me go, Gareth,” I whispered, smacking his chest to no avail.
His fingers tightened around my neck. If they tightened any more, he’d be choking me. “No, you see, there you go again, trying to tell me what to do.” His face leaned down to mine, his forehead resting against mine. “This is my fucking house, no matter what you or your slut of a mother think, and I can guarantee you this.”
I stopped struggling against him the moment I began to feel something on him stir, something below the belt line.
