CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT #2
I kissed her back, with more heat to it than I in-tended, re-mem-ber-ing how it felt to first lay eyes on her, the im-pos-si-bil-ity of her beauty, the mag-netic field sur-round-ing her. And now I was kiss-ing her.
I laced my fin-gers through the short crop of her hair and pulled her to-ward me, mar-vel-ing at the soft-ness of her lips, the tin-gle of her tongue; all the while a sense of eu-pho-ria coursed through me like an elec-tric cur-rent. A deep, tremu-lous thrill.
I was kiss-ing Davina. The most tal-ented per-son Do-rian had ever seen. The girl so wrapped in barbed wire no-body could ever get close.
Ex-cept me.
Maybe there was some-thing spe-cial about me, af-ter all.
I could get into Do-rian. I could have Davina.
I was some-one.
Her teeth grazed my lower lip, her grip tight-ened on my jaw un-til it was al-most painful, and some-thing rich and aching be-gan to pool be-tween my legs. My heart bucked in my chest—with nerves or long-ing, I did not know. Kiss-ing her felt like press-ing down on a bruise. I couldn’t tell if it was pain, or plea-sure, or a po-tent mix of the two.
Some dis-tant part of me felt guilty. Be-cause in the very depths of my chest, nes-tled in the place just be-tween my ribs, I knew I re-ally wanted Catalina. I knew my feel-ings to-ward her had swelled and deep-ened. But I also knew that it would de-stroy me if she didn’t feel the same, and I lost her the way I had lost Samara.
Davina was here, now. And de-spite ev-ery-thing we had done to each other, she wanted me.
I was wanted.
Her spare hand traced a fin-ger-tip along the ridge of my col-lar-bone, down the curve of my breast, over the peaks and troughs of my ribs, un-til it came to rest over the top of my waist-band. The hook of her thumb through my belt loop, the gen-tle tug, was enough to un-ravel me. Goose-bumps cov-ered the flat plane of my stom-ach in sec-onds, and I shiv-ered in-vol-un-tar-ily.
Press-ing her palm flat against my hip-bone, she pulled the top of my jeans down ever so slightly; ran a fin-ger over the red-laced edge of my un-der-wear.
“Do you want me to?” Her voice was the brush of cos-tu-mier’s satin against bare skin.
Per-haps it was the thrill of hav-ing some-one like Davina se-duce me. Per-haps it was the prom-ise of plea-sure af-ter so many months of phys-i-cal dis-com-fort. Per-haps it was just lust, pure and sim-ple. But I knew, with a sin-gu-lar chime of truth, that I wanted her hand to slip lower more than I’d ever wanted any-thing.
I nod-ded, shak-ing al-most un-con-trol-lably, my breath-ing too loud even to my own ear.
She un-but-toned my jeans with a prac-ticed pre-ci-sion. A light flick was all it took.
I gasped at the cold of her fin-ger-tips against the soft-ness of me. The touch, so light and yet so sharp, a thou-sand times more vul-ner-a-ble and in-ti-mate than when I ex-plored my-self. She traced the out-line of me, dip-ping into my own wet-ness be-fore trac-ing tiny cir-cles over the place where heat was build-ing. The heel of her hand pressed into the ex-panse of skin and bone above, and I throbbed against it.
Fall-ing into a light rhythm, her other hand slid un-der my jumper, un-der the lace band of my bralette, and tweaked me with al-most too much force. I gasped, and her eyes glinted with sat-is-fac-tion.
She was play-ing me like an in-stru-ment, ev-ery note crys-talline clear, build-ing to an in-evitable crescendo. I be-gan to melt into her, to feel my-self tight-en-ing and puls-ing around her hand.
And then—
Rrrripppppp.
“Davina,” I mur-mured, a gasp, a plea, a warn-ing, and just as I was with-draw-ing my-self—an in-el-e-gant back-ward scut-tle—there was a vi-cious noise from some-where in the gallery.
We both stilled, her hand held in the air over my thigh like a claw, fear creep-ing across her face.
Rrrripppppp.
Can-vas shred-ding be-neath a blade.
Hor-ror bloomed in-side me; an un-furl-ing black-ness.
We hadn’t heard foot-steps.
It was a mir-a-cle I hadn’t whis-pered her name loud enough for the per-son on the other side of the screen to hear.
Mak-ing as lit-tle sound as I could, I pulled my phone out of my fur coat pocket. With it came the tiny origami lion Catalina had given me as we walked across cam-pus. De-spite the fear lurch-ing in my chest—or per-haps be-cause of it—the in-tri-cately folded pa-per made me yearn for her.
I cupped it in my palm. A tal-is-man. A re-min-der of why I was worth sav-ing.
Rrrripppppp.
An-other vi-o-lent shred-ding of can-vas from the other side of the gallery.
Were we about to die?
What would my fi-nal thought be?
I couldn’t hear any-thing else—ragged breath-ing, the squeak of foot-steps—over the roar of blood in my tem-ples. I had never in my life been so afraid of some-thing I could not see.
Switch-ing my phone to record mode, I leaned slightly to the side, so that my right eye could just peer around the edge of the screen.
The sen-sa-tion of a missed step.
There was no-body there.
Un-less I just couldn’t see the killer from this an-gle …
I tilted my body even fur-ther to the side un-til I had a view of the whole gallery.
It was empty.
Had I imag-ined the noise?
No. Davina had heard it too. She was still frozen to the spot with the fear of it.
Eyes fran-ti-cally scan-ning the room, I did a quick in-ven-tory of the paint-ings to see if any had been dam-aged. They were all as they had been be-fore, but—
No.
An-gus Ar-ras.
There were three fu-ri-ous stab marks on his chest—one di-rectly over his heart.
His por-trait was right by the en-trance. Had the killer slipped qui-etly out af-ter the fa-tal blow?
Con-fu-sion spi-ral-ing through me, I lifted my phone and be-gan record-ing in case they re-turned.
That’s the only rea-son I caught it. The fourth wound. That’s the only rea-son, in the days and weeks to come, that I knew I wasn’t los-ing my mind.
Rrrripppppp.
Straight through his mouth, bi-sect-ing his lips.
It ap-peared as though from nowhere—apart from the slight-est bulge in the can-vas the mo-ment the knife wound ap-peared.
A burst of sil-very light, seem-in-gly em-a-nat-ing from the can-vas it-self.
And then noth-ing.
“Im-pos-si-ble,” I breathed.
“What is it?” Davina asked, qui-eter than I’d ever heard her speak.
It couldn’t be. And yet …
“I think the killer is be-hind the por-traits,” I whis-pered, still breath-less, still throb-bing, my mind spin-ning off the edge of the world.