Fraud (Antihero Inferno #2) - Lily White Page 0,26
anything Gabriel tells them.
I push up into a sitting position and tug the sheet to my chest when Gabriel’s gaze drops to my nightgown. I wonder if it was the sudden movement on my part that forces him away from the wall, his steps heavy as he stalks toward me to kneel on the bed.
He grips my chin, and I can feel the tension in his hand, the struggle for control. I’m going to venture to guess Gabriel is seriously pissed about what I’ve done.
I’m not sure why, though. Really, given everything else we’ve done to each other, stripping him down and dumping him wasn’t all that bad. He was very pretty to look at, and I didn’t mind the view. Gabriel has nothing to be embarrassed about in that department.
Hell, if I were him, I’d walk around naked all the time just to show off my superiority to every other man on the planet.
His eyes pin me, a whole storm of hatred behind them.
“Did you really think you could escape?”
I narrow my eyes on his face. Fuck him if he thinks he can intimidate me. There are two players to every game, and I flat out refuse to be dragged into one with his rules only.
Schooling my expression, I speak with the sweetest voice possible. “Why are you here? Didn’t you learn your lesson last time?”
His grin widens, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from reacting.
It’s insane, this spark between us. But maybe that’s what hate does. It’s on such a fine line with love that your brain is tripped up and you experience the same desire.
“Actually,” he says, his voice a hiss of warning, “the way I see it, we’ve just gotten started.”
I smile at that. But really, I’m terrified. The years have done nothing to soften him. If anything, his edges are sharper, that cutting stare slicing me apart inside. How nobody else understands this side of him is beyond me.
Everybody believes Gabriel is laid back and sweet. They gravitate to him and whisper all their secrets. They have no idea who he really is beneath all his pretty wrappings, that silver tongue of his disguising the beast.
But I know.
And I’ll never let myself forget.
Gabriel is pure evil when he wants to be, his deceptive halo propped up by his pointy horns.
“You need to leave before I call security.”
He lowers his face and brushes my lips with his, that stupid spark between us bursting into a blaze of fire. I try to extinguish it with all the memories of the way he’s hurt me, but it won’t go out. It just gets hotter.
“You would never do something so common and boring.”
He’s right about that, and I roll my eyes.
“I hope you know I think you’re a bastard. This won’t happen. I’ll leave you behind just like I’ve always done.”
His green eyes sparkle, a flash of challenge behind them.
“Oh, sweetheart, I would expect nothing less of you.”
A tremor runs through my body because together with the hatred that is so clear in his eyes, there’s want. This man could devour me whole and I’m not sure I’d stop him.
“Then why are you here?”
He kisses me without answering, that talented tongue of his slipping into my mouth with the very real promise of the way he’ll eventually destroy me. I’m helpless to fight him off, my mind screaming for me to stop while my body begs for his touch.
This isn’t the first time we’ve kissed. Not the second either. And every time I’ve allowed him this intimacy, I lived to regret it.
Still, it weakens me so much that my thoughts short-circuit, and I melt where I sit, a tiny sound of complaint escaping me when he drags his mouth to my ear.
“I hate to break this to you, Ivy, but payback is a bitch.”
Smiling at that, I turn my head just enough that the corners of our mouths touch.
“I hate to break this to you, Gabriel, but so am I.”
He chuckles at that, his thumb softly brushing the line of my jaw.
“If anybody knows the truth in that, it’s me. I dare you to bring your worst, beautiful. It’ll only make what I’m doing to you more enjoyable.”
He says it like he’s already won, and I pull my face away from him to scoot off the bed.
Unfortunately, that means I’m standing on the other side of the mattress from him in only the thin pink nightgown I wore to bed, his gaze dragging down my