Page 171 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
I swallowed, following the path of her fingertips. “Yes.”
She tugged a fraction, flashing me a peek of smooth skin. “How much restraint does it take to not devour it?”
“Fucking all of it.” Tossing the unlit joint to the leaf-covered ground, I crushed my heel on it. “Are we breaking and entering or what? I’m beginning to think you’re too vanilla for this criminal lifestyle, Jailbait.”
Emery gifted me with her throaty laugh, so pure and fucking genuine, it traveled straight to my cock. Her teeth grazed her lower lip, chancing a final glance at me before she began climbing the gate.
If I pinned her to it and fucked her hard, she’d probably beg me to fuck her harder. She'd been giving me those eyes since I let Reed go to town on my face. Blue one darkening. Gray one lightening.
They spoke all the words she'd never say.
I need you inside me, they challenged. Give me everything you’ve got.
It took all my self-control not to slide her jeans down her legs and sink inside her.
She was still a walking, talking, breathing rift between me and my brother, and I needed Gideon’s location.
A conversation was long overdue.
Not to mention, Ma had pulled me aside at the house and told me Brandon stopped by a few times to talk to her, too. I realized I’d been so wrapped up in discussing Emery that I never asked Dick the PI who the second party to profit from the Winthrop Scandal was.
Now, Brandon was on my ass like a rash, stalking Ma and Emery. I'd burn myself with him, just to see him wither to ashes.
Emery whooped from the top of the gate, straddling it on either side. I edged forward in case she fell.
“How’s this for vanilla?”
I tilted my head. “The sun’s shining right on your tits. Are those hearts on your bra?”
“I’m not wearing a bra.”
Fuck.
She covered her palms with her hoodie, slid down one of the gate’s iron pillars, and landed with a Selena Kyle crouch. Her brow lifted as if to say, beat that.
I skated into my driver’s seat, inched to the gate box, typed the code, and pulled up beside Emery.
She swung the passenger door open. “What the hell? You know the code?”
“It’s the same one.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“Worked out just fine.” I parked in front of the mansion’s double doors. “I’m in the company of a criminal mastermind.”
“Do you think someone’s in there?”
“No, but we’ll knock in case.”
Emery followed me up the steps. She knocked while I retrieved the spare keys beneath a rock. “It doesn’t bother you that we're breaking in?”
“Word around town is no one lives here.” I swung the door open.
Her lips parted at the sight of the foyer. The ridiculous Dionysus statue welcomed us, pristine given the weekly cleaning service I paid for.
Emery’s fingertips trailed along the staircase’s railing, coming up without dust. “Isn’t this weird to you?”
“What?”
