He brushed the long sweep of my seaweed colored hair back over my shoulder, making room for his warm breath to fill the space and remind me just how close his lips were to my skin.
“You’re doing it again,” he said.
“What?” I whispered.
“Turning me into stone.”
My knees trembled but I locked them in place. “I don’t have that ability. And if I did, it wouldn’t matter. You’d have to actually see me for it to work.”
“I see you.”
“Come on,” I said with irritation. “No, you don’t. I’m a faceless girl to you, Royce. A nobody.”
Fire scorched his eyes. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I fucking see you, Marist.”
And as if it would prove his point, he slammed his lips down on mine, crushing everything I believed into a million pieces.
THREE
ROYCE’S KISS WASN’T A three-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne you could sip, it was a shot of the cheapest whiskey you could get your hands on and had to take as quickly as possible. He invaded my senses. His taste stormed past my lips, seared against my tongue, and burned all the way down my throat.
Was he the prince of fire?
His kiss ravaged and consumed.
I cried out against it, a mournful sound escaping my chest as my eyes slammed shut. The idea this wasn’t real sliced deep and left me gasping from hurt. This thing between us, it couldn’t be pretend. It was too powerful, too desperate to be a lie.
His lips moved against mine, demanding I meet his level and match his urgency. His hand on the small of my back drove me deeper against him while his other grabbed a fistful of my hair, tangling my strands in his rough fingers.
Kissing me was forbidden, and I wondered if it was gasoline on the flame between us.
Not to be outdone, I curled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled. He made me mad. Not angry—but crazy. Out of my mind. Reality sifted through my grasp. I could claim surprise at first, but letting him continue to kiss me was a bad idea, and there were major consequences for actively participating in it.
In some versions, Medusa didn’t start as a gorgon. She’d been a beautiful mortal who worshipped Athena and had the terrible misfortune to catch Poseidon’s eye. He followed her into a temple and raped her. Outraged at the desecration of her temple, Athena engaged in the ultimate victim-blaming—she cursed Medusa to become a gorgon with snake hair and banished her to live out her days on a secluded island. There were different versions of the myth, but the ending was always the same. Perseus came along, cut her head off, and was hailed a hero.
Would it be the same for me? Macalister decreed Royce and Emily should be together, and I’d seen what he did to people who created obstacles when he wanted something. Nothing as nefarious as death, but just as bad, really. A single negative word from him meant the offender would be shunned. Their status would evaporate overnight, and soon after, their money. It was what Royce had done to me in high school, but on a much grander scale, and one that involved the whole family.
It was a different kind of murder.
And Macalister wouldn’t blame his golden son for anything. No, the blame for this dangerous and potentially destructive kiss would fall solely on my head, regardless of who had started it or whether I wanted it or not.
You do want it. You want more.
Heat sizzled across my skin, a mixture of desire and anger. I was upset Royce had put me in this position and pissed at how good it felt as his tongue slicked over mine. I didn’t like him, but my body didn’t care. I tugged harder on his hair, not to pull him off me or break the kiss, but to create a manifestation of the discomfort he’d caused.
He grunted so softly it was barely audible, but satisfaction warmed in my center. It died as quickly as it had arrived, because he tore his lips from mine, jammed his face in my neck, and sank his teeth into my flesh.
“Fuck,” I gasped, more surprise than pain, although he’d bitten hard enough it was likely there’d be a mark. The sharp edge of his teeth was replaced by the damp velvet of his tongue, and the shiver that flitted through my shoulders was unstoppable.
“I see you,” he murmured. “And now I’ve tasted you.”
Oh, God.
In addition to Macalister’s threat, my sister’s face flashed through my mind. “No one can know.”
“Who the fuck would we tell? You don’t have any friends.” His mouth latched onto the spot where my neck met my body.
I tried to shove him away but put no effort behind it. His kisses sucked all my strength. “I have friends.”