I remained silent.
“Cessie, look at me, please.”
Bowing his head down to meet mine, he pushed the twinkling sparkles to the top of my head. After a moment, I gave in and accepted his hazel eyes, which flickered with the subtlest strobes of red.
“I didn’t sleep with her.” His voice was sharp and definite.
I hadn’t wanted to ask; if I had then he would know I gave a damn.
“It’s all right. Really. I don’t pretend to understand what you need, how you go about, that is … Well, it’s not my business.” I felt like I was fumbling my words.
“It’s not difficult. What I need is the girl who’s standing right in front of me. I’d say that truly makes it your business, doesn’t it?”
He spoke in a low, seductive murmur, and I had to do everything in my power to stop my knees knocking together. Releasing my body he twirled me around before pulling me back in, placing his hands underneath my long hair and across my bare back. I inhaled sharply, grabbing for his hands and throwing them down from my jagged, bumpy scar.
“Don’t touch me there!” I snapped, exhaling abruptly.
He stood perfectly still, watching anger and embarrassment spill over my expression.
Against my will, he placed his hands back, this time running them up my scar rebelliously. My long hair draped over his strong arms, tickling his skin in return.
Whispering in my ear, he said, “There isn’t an inch of you that isn’t irresistible to me.”
A few of the other members had joined us on the dance floor. A lounge singer now accompanied the piano with a rendition of Lana Del Rey’s “Born to Die.” I crumpled a little and placed my face against Jonah’s chest.
The words of the song stung me, and I wavered, uncertain, not sure who they referred to anymore: Gabriel or Jonah.
Jonah reached for my chin and angled my face up toward him. He wasn’t meant to make me feel like this. I began to let my defenses down for just a minute, caught up in the music, in his eyes, in the moment. I struggled to stand upright; I winced, unbalanced, as the stilettos slowly killed the balls of my feet.
Sinking deeper into Jonah wasn’t helping; he’d suddenly become quicksand, and the more I struggled to fight him the faster he pulled me down. Without asking, he scooped me up in his arms and ran the length of my lower leg with his index finger, leveraging my feet out of the patent heels, gradually popping me back down to the floor, barefoot.
Placing my feet on top of his boots to gain a little height, he lowered me back down. “I like you just the way you are … hair up, hair down,” he murmured, twisting my sweeping bangs, which cascaded across my eyes, so that I could see him clearly.
His left hand remained softly stroking my cheek. “Lipstick on, lipstick off…” he continued, suggestively pressing his thumb gently into the center of my lower lip. “Eyes … black holes … red warning lights…” His words growing quieter, he kissed my eyelids gently and I closed them, drawing a breath.
“He only glimpses part of who you are,” he said, lingering.
His lips caressing my earlobe seductively, he whispered, “I see you, all of you. I can still taste you even now.”
I let his words drift over me, comforted by his palm placed protectively at my back. He brushed the tip of his nose to mine. When I didn’t protest, he married his lips with my own and I squeezed gently in reply, a silent confused tear falling against my cheek. I inhaled his warm and inviting aroma, which reminded me of the woods in summer.
As he crushed his lips a little harder, the sweet flavor of his kiss seemed to subside, instantly changing to a warm metallic taste. My eyes flew open and, pulling away, I gagged as her blood spread across my tongue.
“Cessie?”
Pulsing with disappointment, I pushed him away.
“You drank from her?”
He answered me with a stare that gave nothing away.
“Did you kill her?”
He looked irritated that I would make such an accusation.
“No,” he said.
“Was she worth it? Did she taste that good?”
“Not as good as you, beautiful.” The corner of his lip turned upward.
I was such an idiot! He didn’t give a damn about what promises he made me or whether he kept them. He was beholden to no human, no creature, and certainly not to me.
Watching his eyes watch mine, I delivered a final blow—one that I was certain would bring this conflict to an end. “He’s everything you’re not and could never and will never be!”
I broke away from him. I wedged on my heels and ripped the mask from my forehead, chucking it on the bar. I felt a draft whip my neck; I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know Jonah had left.
I followed an EXIT sign to a back door and stumbled into the black of night. I had to get back to the main entrance of the club and find Brooke. I began tottering forward, but I didn’t get far before a hand grabbed my shoulder, pulling me backward.
“Jonah, I don’t have anything else to say to you!” I hissed.
“Lucky for me, I’m not your friend Jonah,” Bradley sputtered.
“I thought you were someone else. You’ll have to excuse me, I need to go.”
“Now, now, what’s the hurry?” He wasn’t about to let me leave.
Taking me by the length of my curls, he dragged me farther down the building’s side until we came to an isolated area, cut off entirely from the rest of the club. Ancient cobwebbed beer barrels stacked on top of the concrete cut off the track into the trees.
“You’re hurting me; let go!”
He hurled me up against the cold brick wall and pressed against me. “You still owe me a dance.…” He trailed off as he inhaled my hair.
I froze. I wasn’t expecting to run into trouble with a human this evening.
“I figured when I saw you leaving that perhaps you’d prefer a private one.” He grinned menacingly as he placed the palm of his sticky hand through the soft fiber of my top, resting it on my chest.
“Take. Your. Hand. Off. Me,” I said firmly.
Puckering his lips, he stared defiantly back.
He smeared his clamminess around to my back, tugging my hair down, smelling my neck. My body shuddered with disgust. He grazed my scar as he moved down my back and the slightest look of surprise bounced between his beady eyes. “What’s this? Seems you’re prone to danger. My kind of girl.”