Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
J
The Cross men aren’t easy. I am not the first, nor will I be the last girl to throw herself at a member of The Kings.
But I have something those girls don’t.
Information.
I know The Kings back and front. Their loyalty to one another cannot be tested. It is infallible. Like gravity. Like sunlight. Like air.
They are also confident. Not cocky. Their self-assurance comes from the fact that they’re rich, talented, and out-of-this-world gorgeous.
They are not trying to be these things. They are not claiming to be these things.
They are.
And they do not care—at all—about anything outside of their own desires and appetites which are easily filled with a snap of their fingers.
Thinking that jiggling boobs or twerking and grinding is all it takes is where most go wrong. A warm body in their bed is the least interesting part of The Kings’ existence.
Cadence won Dutch’s attention by standing up to him repeatedly.
Grey took over Zane’s life because she refused to step into the darkness with him. She challenged him to become someone she could embrace in the light.
The women who caught the attention of the princes of Redwood didn’t win the battle with their bodies.
And that means I have a chance.
The Kings love a feisty woman willing to tell them off. The anger has to be sincere, of course. Royalty can spot a joker a mile away.
Thankfully, I meant every word I said.
Finn is very irritating.
He’s also a rather bland kisser.
Which is disappointing, but hey. He hasn’t been a willing participant in any of these make out sessions, so I can’t exactly blame him. If the shoe was on the other foot, and a guy I was not attracted to kept kissing me without permission, I would disengage too.
My watch goes quiet while my face is smushed against his.
I’m kissing him with my eyes open.
His eyes are staring back at me too.
That’s not good. I was banking on this kiss being a bit more fiery. Finn seemed interested in the capabilities of my watch, and I hoped the colors changing on the screen would keep him occupied like a toddler on a tablet.
I need him close and disoriented long enough for me to grab his wallet.
But this kiss is barely making a blip.
I change the angle of the kiss, sucking hard on his lips and trying to reignite the feelings that sent my pulse into overdrive just a few seconds earlier.
It’s no use. Maybe I’m not that great of a kisser because he’s not doing anything except standing there, which makes this rather boring.
With time against me, I keep my lips frozen on his and focus on getting his wallet out. My arm wraps around his back, and I keep wiggling his wallet past the confines of his jeans pocket.
I can feel it coming loose.
Almost there…
Almost…
Finn snatches my hand, and the wallet tumbles out of his pocket and lands on the floor with a soft thud. I whip my eyes up to his guiltily. Did he sense that I was going for his wallet? Was I discovered?
His jaw muscles clench as he moves back. But not too far. Our lips are still on top of one another. I’m so close, I can see the cuts on his face. His skin burst open from whatever happened to him today and the wounds are beginning to scab.
“Why’d your watch go quiet?” His voice is dark velvet threaded with an accusation.
I force my chin up as my breath steadies. He didn’t notice I took his wallet.
“I guess kissing you so much made the novelty wear off. It doesn’t make me feel anything anymore.”
He glowers at me as if it’s my fault.
“Or,” I add, stepping back, “maybe you’re not that good of a kisser.”
A slow, rolling storm passes through his dark eyes.
And then he smiles fully. And I almost wish that he’d go back to not having any expressions.
That smile doesn’t soften Finn an inch. In fact, it makes him look manic and dangerous, like a beast set free from its cage.
Monsters only laugh when they’re about to destroy something.
I try to swallow, but my throat has gone dry. “Y-you disagree?”
“You’ve kissed me all night, J. But… I…” He undoes the button of my shirt. “Haven’t…” Another button. “Kissed you.”
My watch starts beeping again, which is the absolute worst timing.
His gaze doesn’t even flicker to the device. It’s like he expected it to go off again. Didn’t think for a second that it wouldn’t.
This is his game now.
I sense the shift in him. The intensity of his stare probes at me in a different way, as if he’s finally allowing himself to play with his toy.
Breathless, I pin my shirt closed with my pointer finger and thumb. “W-what are you doing?”
Finn easily captures both of my hands and pulls them behind my back. With his free hand, he catches a strand of my hair, rolling it between his fingers like a cigarette.
“What exactly do you want from me?” He’s talking in a musing way, like he’s thinking out loud rather than addressing me as a person.
His fingers release my hair and trail down my neck, stopping at my pulse point. I hate the way my body turns into him. Hate that my heartbeat seems to throw itself against his fingertips, beating for him in a way I’ve never experienced before.
The air around us turns unbearably hot, and it doesn’t help that my watch has not. Shut. Up.
“I want to squeeze it out of you.” Finn’s voice is so low that I can barely hear it over the watch’s alarm. “But…” His hand brushes down my collar bone where my pacemaker was inserted and slides into my shirt until it rests against my heart.
I buck as the tip of his rough middle finger brushes the sensitive point of my chest.
Heat explodes through my body, and I whimper.
From desire? Fear? Both.
I need to slam the brakes on this.
“Finn—”
“But,” he exhales shakily, “if you come out and tell me, then the game ends. And I don’t think I’d like that.”
My watch is about to burst my ear drums.
I look for any path of escape from the monster, but Finn’s hips keep me pinned against the counter. I try to at least free my hand so I can see the color on the watch screen, but his grip on my wrists is secure.
Finn watches me with that deranged smile.
It’s then I realize what I’ve awakened. Finn has kept this part of himself under the radar, but the beast inside is stirring.
He’s a psycho who would kiss me just to kill me.
He would devour my lips and my life and watch the light drain out of my eyes in the process.
And he would like it.
My chest expands and contracts.
I can feel my heart skipping.
Something’s wrong. There’s not enough oxygen in the room.
“I can’t…” I shake my head back and forth, gasping for air. My pulse is beating faster than I’ve ever experienced before, and the shortness of breath is making black spots dance in front of my eyes. “Please.”
“Ahem,” a voice grunts from beyond the doorway. “Are we interrupting?”
Hope springs to life in me. We have an audience. That means this ends now.
But Finn is unbothered.
Keeping his hips against mine, he calmly lifts my hand and checks the watch.
“Orange,” he says, showing me the watch face like a serial killer brandishing his trophies of severed fingers and sliced bundles of hair. “The next level is orange.”
And in that moment I know if I had my breath and a knife, I would stab him.