It wasn’t until Beast that I saw a future, but it was a dark one. Something I was afraid to say aloud, or even in my head.
“I don’t know what I was thinking sending you that book,” I lied, gesturing between us. “I don’t want to be killing and-and,” I stuttered as he pulled me closer. “I’m not this person,” I lied again.
“You are exactly this person,” he growled, biting my ear and pulling at it with his teeth. “You fear yourself more than you fear me, more than you fear anyone, because you know what you can become.”
Damn him, because he was right.
“I—” I tried responding, tried formulating another lie, when the sigh of floorboards cut me off. My blood stilled—someone was in the hallway.
“Go.” I hurriedly pushed Anteros toward the window. “You have to go. This isn’t even my room.”
“I know. It’s Gabriella De Luca’s.” My eyes widened. He grinned. “You girls have been very naughty. Murdering husbands. Tying up bosses. Killing Wolves.” I stopped pushing him, the memory stalling my movements. He threw me a knowing smile and I pressed harder against his chest, getting back to work. “I’m still surprised Gabriella had it in her,” Anteros continued as I shoved him. My heart pounded as I heard feet approach, but Anteros didn’t give a shit. His smile widened as he made me push him.
“So was her husband,” I gritted, pushing him. He laughed. Goose bumps rose at the foreign, wonderful sound, but it was too fucking loud.
“Shut up,” I whispered, looking over my shoulder.
“I still can’t figure out who helped you escape, who really helped you. Gabriella might be smarter than I thought—a grapefruit would have been smarter than I originally thought her to be,” he added as an afterthought, “but she didn’t pull it off on her own.”
I paused, hands splayed on his chest.
Nikolai.
Nikolai had helped, and he was still helping. I needed to tell Anteros there was a snake in his house.
“Anteros I need to tell you something,” I whispered as footsteps arrived just outside the door. Anteros swung one leg out the window, grin still on his face. He gripped my face again and pulled me into a kiss.
“Next time, mio cuore.” His breath was steamy against my lips. We were just a thread away from one another, and I could smell his skin, could practically taste him, but even still it was too far—agonizing, the pull too intense, like someone was stretching the very skin off my body.
“We can’t meet here again,” I said, licking my lips, wanting to reach out and taste him, but knowing if I did I would get lost and we would get caught. “It’s too dangerous.”
“You want to see me.” A wicked, arrogant grin lifted the corner of his lips, and he pulled me against his thigh so I could feel him rock hard. His hand rounded my ass, tight, gripping. Then his lips were on my neck. I said something about him needing to go, but they were flimsy words, and my grip on his hoodie strengthened.
“Well I’m a fucked up girl who loves killing and you’re an animal—a Beast.” I breathed as he bit the skin at my collarbone. “We were made for each other.” It was meant to be sardonic, meant to devalue the crazy situation and our fucked up nature, but I sighed the words and instead gave it more power—gave us more power. He scored my hair, tilting my head back so our eyes locked. My heart pounded a heavy beat so loud I was sure whoever was on the other side of the door would hear it. My tongue darted out involuntarily to wet my lips and his eyes traveled down, narrowing as they followed its slide across my mouth. The air caught fire and I didn’t care who was outside the room. I wanted to burn with him.
Then with a growl deep in his throat, Anteros tore from me and pressed something into my palm—a phone.
“I’ll text you the address,” he said, voice like gravel.
“It can’t be far. I need to be close. Lucia…Lucia wants me close.” Another lie. It was hard to leave Lucia—she had eyes on me more than Anteros did—but I found ways. Truthfully I was starting to feel sick, and even just walking to Anteros’s club was weighing on me. I didn’t want him to know that, though. I didn’t want him to think I was broken.
“It will be close,” he said with a cruelly sensual grin. Just before he left he reached out his pointer finger and gently lifted the diamond rose from my neck. One, two beats passed with him holding it in suspense. Our eyes locked, a smile ghosted his face, then he dropped the pendant and climbed the rest of the way through the window, quickly jumping down. I released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, fingers going to the necklace like I could feel him still.
It was a marvel to watch him go, muscles rippling, feet landing on the cement with agility. He adjusted his hoodie, vanishing among New Yorkers. I looked at the phone in my hand, hope blooming in my chest.
I could still taste him on my lips, was still tingling with the touch of him, when the door opened behind me. Spinning around, I shoved the cell into my pocket. I expected Gabby. Of course I was wrong.
I wondered if she could see the sweat on my brow, if she felt the pounding in my blood. The window was still open, breathing icy air into the room, but it wasn’t enough to cool down the heat in my veins. She looked beyond me to the open window, folding her arms.
“Waiting for Gabriella?” Lucia asked.
I swallowed. “Yep.”
Another moment passed. “That’s nice. I never had girlfriends to gab with, no one to talk about boys with or to share my…secrets.” She closed her lips in a thin smile and tilted her head, watching how I responded to the word secrets.
I shrugged, not really sure what to say. Gabby and I weren’t really mulling over the latest issue of Teen Vogue, but that wasn’t what Lucia was implying. I didn’t feel like playing her game, not
when I could still taste Anteros on my lips. When I was certain she could smell him in the air because his spicy scent was sharp as a needle in my heart.