Chapter Seventeen
Sky
H e’s a nightmare coated as a dream, like chocolate dipped cyanide. And I’m just hungry enough to eat it. It’s a dream, anyway, so what’s the harm? I peer at him between half-lidded eyes as he whips his gaze between me and Ruby. Odd that she would be in my dream, but whatever. I’ll take what I can get.
My lower stomach clenches with anticipation, waiting for him to come to me. He’s got his hood up, and my god is he sexy. Black eyes and harrowing height. I plan on pulling that hood down, running my hands through his dark hair and—
He goes to Ruby instead. What the hell?
I blink and shift my head just the slightest, watching him hover over her. The room suddenly feels too real. My toes aren’t covered by the blanket, and I can feel how cold they are. The radiator isn’t rattling either, and everything is too silent, too corporeal.
This isn’t a dream. He’s really here.
“Cade?” I whisper, my voice weak with sleep.
He whips around like lightning, shoving his hand into his pocket as his eyes go wide. I hear him gulp in the silence, and I quickly untangle myself from the blanket, my brows coming together as I sit up.
“What are you doing?” I hiss, wiping the sleep from eyes and peeking around him to Ruby. She’s still asleep, her innocent face slack and unaware.
“Hey,” he whispers, and takes the one step he needs to cross over to me. “I thought… I didn’t know which bed was yours.” He gives a husky chuckle as he looks down at me, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to smile or not. But just that small flash of teeth makes the bats in my stomach awaken.
I swat at them. What the fuck is he doing here at—I glance at the clock—two a.m.?
“You aren’t supposed to be in here. We could get expelled.”
God, what is he thinking? My father would buy a house with a basement just to keep me in it if he found out I had a guy in my dorm. Especially after everything with Chase.
“I… I wanted to watch you—I mean see you.” He growls to himself and huffs. “I wanted to see you,” he says more confidently, and straightens.
My cheeks start to lift at how nervous he is, somehow the fumble making him hotter. He wanted to see me? The idea of Cade getting out of bed in the middle of the night and sneaking across campus to see me suddenly has me all types of softened.
“You really—” I start, but Ruby twists, whimpering. “Shit.” I tug on Cade’s sleeve and quickly pull him out of the room. I don’t need Ruby having something over on me before I know if I can really trust her.
The hall is even colder than my room, and I shiver in my shorts as I pull the door shut. The chill slaps some sense into me.
“You can’t be here,” I say. “If Martha catches you, we are both in trouble, and I already have to deal with the fallout of missing classes.”
“Fallout?” He raises his brows and leans against the wall, like he doesn’t have the slightest qualm about getting caught.
“Yes!” I hiss as quietly as possible. “Some of us have to worry about repercussions.”
He rolls his eyes. “What, you won’t get your monthly allowance?”
The steam that fills my skull at his assumption makes me see red. You would think that someone like him wouldn’t be so quick to judge.
“No, you dick. I’ll get my lip split.”
I gasp.
Oh, no.
I did not just say that.
Cade’s eyes narrow, and I can see the gears churning. Damn it.
“What do you mean—”
“Nothing,” I cut him off. “Just forget it. It’s late.” I try to take a step back from him, as if I can put distance between me and my mistake. But he steps forward, closing the space. Heat radiates off his body, penetrating through the uniform he’s still wearing, and I swallow, trying to raise my chin, to not be intimidated.
“Sky, what do you mean ‘split’?” His voice is a mixture of depth and grit, like sandpaper I want to ruin my skin against.
I open my mouth to speak, to lie, but he doesn’t stop advancing, and I’m slowly being backed into the opposite wall. I can’t formulate words, don’t even know how to breathe all of a sudden. He’s so back and forth that my head is swirling. He basically just called me a spoiled brat, and before that, he told me he wanted to see me. And now he’s stuck on this? I don’t know what to make of him, but I do know one thing.
I want him.
I don’t know if I’m still heady from what I thought was a dream or if I like the way he knows —knows without any explanation what my words meant, but I want him and all his nonconformity, want him so desperately I ache for it.
I bump into the wall, and he locks an arm over my head.
“Cade,” I breathe. It’s the only thing I can get out as he leans over me, piercing me with those forbidding eyes that take the air out of my lungs.
“Tell me,” he demands, and I swallow against his force.
“Cade…” I try again. I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to be seen like that. Maybe I’m more of a Lyons than I thought.
“Tell me.”
“No.” I bite my lip, afraid of what refusing him will get me.
His gaze snaps to my lips and his chest starts to rise and fall.
“Sky,” his voice is a warning, but I like the way my name falls from that mouth of his, aware that his tongue is just behind those sharp teeth. And I want it behind mine instead. I want him to kiss me. I want to know what it feels like to be kissed by a real demon, not one that parades around in a friendly costume like Chase.
Metal suddenly rattles down the hall, sending my heart into a spasm.
“Fuck,” Cade whips his head to the left, where the iron staircase is.
“You can’t be here.” I start to panic. Missing class is one thing, getting hurt, another, but having a guy here after hours? I don’t even want to know my fate if this gets back to my father. “Oh, god,” I squeak.
Cade studies my eyes for a burning second, as if trying to gauge if I’m seriously worried, and then scowls.
“This way,” he whispers and quickly tugs me down the opposite end of the hall. He pushes me in front of him, nudging my lower back with urgency, and I tip toe as fast as I can. But I don’t know what he’s thinking. We’re trapped. Any second, Martha—or someone who likes to tattle—is going to round the corner and spot us. I don’t think a lie will get me out of this.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I bock, sounding something similar to a chicken, and feeling like one too, as Cade herds me toward the dead end. There’s nothing here but a painting of an ocean with two weak sconces on either side. I’ve never come this far down, but I know we’re cornered.
I’m so screwed.