Fraud (Antihero Inferno #2) - Lily White Page 0,166

of soft, yellow light seeping in to break up the heavy shadows in our dark room. Ezra’s head snaps in that direction, his jaw tight, his body going frighteningly still.

I don’t know who’s at the door, nor do I care when I see for the first time the pattern of an ugly bruise on Ezra’s neck and shoulder, the dark blue-black stain dipping down beneath the collar of his shirt.

Without thinking, I grab the fabric and yank it down to see the shape of a handprint, four distinct fingers leading to his collarbone that I trace with my own, the touch snapping his attention back to me.

“Who did that to you?”

Anger flashes in his eyes, that and something else I can’t name. He pushes away from me, but I step forward to yank at his shirt again and see the damage.

I’m not even thinking, I just feel so full of fury that someone - anyone - hurt him like that. It’s visceral, this feeling, as if I have some claim on him that gives me the right to be mad. I barely know him and already, I want to shelter him from some unknown danger. I want to stand in front of him and rage at whoever believed they could touch him without my explicit permission.

And really, how ridiculous is that? The twins fight for the fun of it, but I’m still livid at the idea that a person believed they had the right to hurt him back.

They say redheads have fiery tempers, and judging by what I’m feeling now, they’re right.

“Who?” I demand.

The anger bleeds out of him to be replaced with amusement, Ezra’s lips curling at the corners despite the way my brows crash together and my mouth thins into a volatile line.

There’s an odd kinship between us now, a bond forged in fire and the threat of violence. Ezra recognizes in me what he has in himself, even though I don’t throw punches and I appear weak and pampered on the outside.

The truth is far darker, and judging by the look on his face, he sees it and likes it.

“Are you mad?” he asks, soft laughter lining the question.

“I’m pissed.”

Ezra rushes forward and I step back. My thighs hit a barrier, my bottom falling to sit on a mattress. Before I can push to my feet again, Ezra is above me, against me, all around me.

Feral.

There’s no other word to describe him.

His teeth nip at my skin just above the neckline of my dress and I can’t move.

Not one inch.

I’m frozen in place, partly terrified because I’ve never been on a bed with a boy before, but mostly because that boy is Ezra and I have no idea what he’s thinking.

The new terror chases the old anger away, his expression changing to see it.

Head tilting to the side, he pushes up to his knees that straddle my legs, reaches behind him and pulls his shirt off.

I go still again, except this time there’s a lake of lava expanding through my body, hot and vengeful, my mind swirling with such rash decisions and chaotic thoughts that I’m in a vacuum of sorts, time frozen, my hand reaching out past the incandescent fury to trace the shape of spider webs.

“Who did this?”

They’re everywhere, like paint splotches on a well-used drop cloth. One bruise fading into another, dark at the center before they spin out in a web of threads, the color changing from black to purple to blue and green.

Everywhere.

All over.

“They don’t hurt,” he whispers as my fingers trace a particularly ugly one.

My eyes snap up to his face, the anger returned, which only makes him smile.

“Who?”

Instead of answering me, he cups my face with both hands and kisses me, his lips forcing mine apart, his tongue sweeping in to taste the anger I’m feeling, as if my fury is a drug that gets him off.

Hands hesitant, I run my palms up his chest and over his shoulders, gentle, so extremely gentle because I can’t stand the thought of adding to the marks on his skin.

So lost in my worry for him, I forget that I’m in a dark room with a boy on a bed, and that lack of realization is why he is able to lay me flat, to crush his body to mine.

The panic doesn’t return until his knees cage my legs together, his hand sweeping behind my neck to hold me in this blistering kiss as his other hand drops to tickle my skin with