leaps onto his back and settles down, as if to say she’s claiming my kill for herself.
My chest heaves as Noah scrambles to his feet, holding Queen Boudica in his arms. He inspects the knife quivering in the wall. “You tried to kill me.”
“Serves you right for sneaking up on a dangerous woman.” I shrug, allowing my fingers to loosen their grip on the blade. I’m wound up so tight there’s a horror-movie soundtrack of anxiety-inducing violin music playing on constant repeat in my head. “You startled me. I’m not used to having people in my space.”
“Clearly.” Noah takes in the room again, his eyes appraising all the things I have come to care about in my solitude – my books, my knives, my music, my cat’s happiness. Even though the ballroom is literally the size of a football field, when he stands there like that, it feels tiny, like the walls are pressing us together.
Or maybe that’s the memory of his cock inside me as I brace myself against the steel of the panic room.
Yeah, could be that.
“What are you doing in here?” I snap. “I thought you were dealing with Eli.”
“I locked him in his room. He’s ready to bolt, but now he’s not going anywhere unless he’s eager to scale the side of the house, and he won’t risk it in the middle of track season. Eli’s dealt with, at least until he successfully Googles a lock-picking tutorial. I came to find you because I…” Noah touches his hair again. “I thought you might want to talk.”
I wind the sword through the air a few times. I feel slow, my fingers made of lead. Noah watches me with his intense gaze. “What gave you that idea? We’ve just spent the last fuck-knows how long talking, and all that happened was Gabe got drunk, you got weird, and Eli hates me.”
“I got weird how?”
“Before, when we…” I trail off. I don’t know how to talk about this crap. “I just told you I’m an imposter from a crime family trying to steal a house from the first girl you had a crush on. I just gave you all the ammunition you need to destroy me, and you want me to hand you a gun and induct you into the family. That’s weird.”
“Damn right I want in. Someone shot at us.” Noah’s hands curl into fists. “I’m helpless, and I hate it. The only time I ever felt helpless was when Felix died. He deteriorated so quickly – he took those performance enhancers for a couple of weeks, and suddenly he’s in the hospital, slipping in and out of a coma. And then one day he never woke up. When he died, I descended into this void of darkness, and I was just starting to claw my way out when you came back to school and shoved me back down there again.”
I cock an eyebrow. “And now?”
He runs his fingers through his hair. “You’re not Mackenzie Malloy. You have nothing to do with my brother’s death. And like Gabe says, you’re intriguing. You’re Claudia.”
He says my name in that dangerous voice of his, edged with sin and shadow. I’ve opened the door to a world where his desire for revenge is normal, where his ruthlessness is a gift and not a curse, where he can embrace the dark instead of running from it. I can’t blame him for wanting more.
Noah’s die had been cast a long time ago – the son of a senator bound for college and the life of avarice and cruelty only the rich can imagine. Now I’ve come along and stomped on the game board, and he has to start to rebuild with the broken pieces left behind. Noah stares at the sword in my hands, and there’s a vicious hunger in his eyes that makes my pulse race.
I drop the sword to my side and step towards him. He locks his eyes on me as I close the space between us, stopping only when my chest is inches from his. The sword clatters to the floor, sending chips of marble pinging across the room.
“You think you want to be part of this world.” I slide my hand past his ear, trailing my fingers through his curls. Noah’s jaw clenches, his coal-black eyes boring into mine as he fights against his better nature. He always has to be in control, but I can see the need in his eyes, can feel it pulling us together.