The High School Reunion From Hell - Saranna DeWylde Page 0,37

with us on this?”

I realized he was still so very close to me. Close enough that anyone watching would think it was an intimate moment and leave us alone. He was acting like this was some kind of cover, but I was experienced enough to know when someone wanted something from me. Gabe wanted more than just my consult on this case.

Earlier, I’d gotten the idea he was interested in something physical, but now I wasn’t so sure. I’d noticed he didn’t have any comment about Brooke and I dating. Not that we were, or anything.

“Come to my room tonight after the trivia competition. You remember where?”

“I remember.” His room wasn’t too far from Lindsey’s.

He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t seem inclined to let me go.

“It’s too bad you didn’t want to take me swimming in high school,” I said, to test his response.

“I was a dumbass,” he said whispered in my ear. “A total dumbass.”

I’d been so caught up in our clandestine plots, that I hadn’t noticed the criss-crossing of scars across his shoulders and back.

I liked scars. I found them interesting, and I thought they said a lot about the person who bore them. Scars were proof of pain, yes, but more than that, they were proof of survival. Proof that whatever had tried to lay you low had failed.

“That’s some badge,” I said, and swept my thumb over his shoulder, mapping the topography of those long-healed wounds, reading the story of his suffering.

“Iraq,” he said. “I stumbled into a nest of vamps.”

“They didn’t bite you?” I inspected the scars more closely, mentally cataloguing the range and sizes of the weapons they’d have to use to make those kinds of scars.

“No, that nest was particularly old. Their nails were like dragon claws. They saved me.”

“Is that why you work for the FBVI? To help them?”

“Those that deserve it, yes.” He leaned in close to me again, his lips close to my ear. “I learned a lot in Iraq about vamps and humans. About myself.”

Things were getting too intense too fast. This was the part I was supposed to ask what he’d learned about himself and then he’d continue on with his story about his pain and he’d try to use it to get in my pants. I’d heard this song and dance before.

“We should probably get back to the others,” I said.

“Is that really what you want?” He pressed his lips to my cheek in a way that was oddly reverent. “None of them see you like I do, Margie. None of them know your true value.”

Yeah, I’d heard that before, too. “I guess I’m worth one gold coin.”

“Billions of them,” he whispered and pressed another kiss to my throat.

I felt nothing when he touched me. Any attraction that had simmered between us, at least for me, was long gone.

I needed the information he had and he didn’t seem inclined to give it to me unless I played along. He’d insisted I come to his room, and I knew where that led. He was going to try to get me to sleep with him. If the information wasn’t contingent on him getting what he wanted from me, he would have waited before making his grand announcement.

Well, I’d play along for now.

I pulled back from him and met his eyes. “The water’s pretty deep here, don’t you think?”

And I meant more than just the pool.

“I can do this all day,” he said. “This is an easy day at the gym.”

That was when I noticed he wasn’t winded at all, and he’d been treading water keeping us both afloat for some time.

I was worried about Brooke, Lila Jean, and even Cornflake out there by themselves. I needed to get this new information to Marc as well. I needed to hurry this up.

So I kissed him.

I’d surprised him. He was still under my lips, so much so that I pulled back. “What? Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“Very much so. But I have to wonder why now?”

He was deflecting. Interesting. “Why now? Our lives are on the line. You brought me to a secluded place and started talking poetry about how you see me. Did I misread you?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“You just surprised me, is all. I thought I’d need to convince you how good we could be together.”

“I already told you I was willing to listen to new ideas,” I teased.

“It seems I’ve got you right where I want you, Margie. Yet somehow, I know I don’t.”

“What do you mean?” I