Page 182 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
She cradled the box she’d taken from her room to her chest. It was a tin box, waterproof by nature, which she would have realized if she wasn’t hammered out of her mind.
Curiosity plagued my thoughts. I was tempted to ask her why she’d kept the notes, but I carried her to the trunk and set her down.
I wanted to crack open her mind like a book and read it, but I was fucked if it became my favorite book to read.
I obsessed.
When I loved a book, I didn’t read it once. I read it over and over again—until the pages fell off, until I could anticipate the words before I read them, until they sunk into me and melted inside my bones in a way that never happened with books I’d only read once.
I couldn’t dip into her mind.
She reeked of my downfall.
Emery used one of my gym shirts to wipe the rainwater off the lid before shoving the entire box in the corner with a bunch of my shirts covering it for good measure. When she lowered my hood, she sat on it.
“What’s your barrier?” She swiped at the wet hair plastered to her cheeks. “What’s stopping you from giving in? I’m not talking about just sex. I know if I told you I’m thinking of you bare and inside me”—fuck—“you'd give it to me. But what if I like who you are and want more than that?”
“You don't know who I am.”
“I do,” she argued. “More than you think I do, and it's driving me crazy.” Her ankle hooked around my leg. “Is it the age difference? Reed? The fact that I'm a Winthrop? Because I think it’s stupid when two people like each other but aren’t together.”
I grabbed her calf and stepped into her body. She hooked both legs around me.
“What if I don't like you?”
“I'd say you're a liar. Is it the taboo element that’s stopping you? What if I told you, as long as I don’t touch you, this isn’t wrong,” she whispered, getting closer. “You aren’t ten years older than me.” Lie. “You aren’t my best friend’s brother.” Lie. “You don’t hate me.” Finally, a truth. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Actually, what I wanted was absolute confirmation she had nothing to do with my dad’s death.
Legit the only thing I wanted.
Fuck revenge.
Fuck my brother.
Fuck the company.
Fuck the fucking age gap.
I just needed to know, with absolute certainty, she did not have anything to do with my parent’s losing their savings, with Dad losing his spot in the medical trial, with Hank Prescott dying.
For that to happen, I needed Gideon’s location.
I cupped her cheek, leaning in to inhale the petrichor on her skin. “Tell me where your dad is living, Little Tiger, and I will give you everything you want and more.”
“Enough with the subject changes.” One of the smartest people I knew, and she still didn’t get it. She leaned against my palm and closed her eyes. “For god’s sake, take a leap, Nash. You will always be older than me. I will always be younger than you. Maybe we’ll always ‘hate’ each other, too. But will we always feel like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like our fingertips can shoot lightning, but the only target they can hit is each other.”
“Talk to me when you’re sober.”
“I’m not wasted. I’m happy. And I’m finally realizing that two souls don’t just find each other by accident.” She leaned forward and bit my lip, harder than any sane woman would. “You taste like sin, Nash. So delicious. So wrong. So right.”
It wasn’t
a kiss, but it could be. If I gave in, gripped her neck, and closed the distance, it could be. Was the last time a fluke, or did she really taste and feel as delicious as she looked and acted?
