Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
But I hear his footsteps behind me. For the first time, they remind me of a lethal predator stalking its prey, without knowing the prey is poisonous.
I keep walking, trailing my fingers along the glass barrier, and he keeps pace. Not crowding me, but not giving me space either. A constant presence at my back, radiating heat and intent, the kind of intent that makes me panic.
“The Chrysler Building,” I say rather stupidly, pointing at the art deco spire because I need to say something, anything, to fill the charged silence. “I’ve always wanted to see it up close.”
“I’ll take you sometime.”
His voice is low, intimate, like a promise of things to come. I can’t help but shiver, though I pass it off as the wind. It’s cold as hell up here, even though my body feels like it’s on fire.
I round the corner of the observation deck. He follows. I can feel his eyes on me, snaking over my body as if I’m naked, leaving trails of fire in their wake. I’m suddenly, acutely aware I’m not even wearing underwear. I am so exposed up here, alone with him, a thousand feet above the world.
Bayo must be losing his bloody mind.
I stop at the north-facing edge, gripping the railing, and finally turn to face him.
He’s closer than I expected, close enough that I can see the way his pupils have blown wide, swallowing the blue. Close enough to see the tension in his jaw, the way his chest rises and falls with carefully controlled breaths. He looks like a man on the edge of something, like he’s holding himself back by the thinnest of threads.
I hate that part of me wants that thread to snap, even though I know what it would mean for both of us.
“You’re following me,” I say.
“You’re running away.”
“I’m not running. I’m admiring the view.”
“So am I.”
My mouth goes dry. I take another step back and feel the glass barrier press against my spine. Nowhere left to go. He advances, slow and deliberate, until he’s standing right in front of me, close enough to smell him, feel the heat rolling off him in waves.
He could kill you, the thought flits across my brain. He could kill you before you’d even have a chance to act.
“Nate,” I say his real name, breathless and unsure.
“Mia.” He reaches up, and I flinch, but he only tucks a strand of wind-whipped hair behind my ear. His fingers graze my cheek, feather-light, and I feel it everywhere. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m cold.” It’s a half truth.
“I’m sorry, I forgot,” he says, starting to take off his jacket. “Here, let me give—”
“No,” I say quickly. “I’m fine. Please. I like the cold.”
And the last thing I need is to see him with one less layer of clothing right now. Besides, I’m burning up from the inside.
“We should go back,” I say. “People will notice we’re gone. Julia—”
“I don’t care about Julia.”
“The cameras—”
“I don’t care about the cameras.” He braces one hand on the barrier beside my head, caging me in, not touching, but close enough. “I don’t care about any of it. Not tonight.”
“What do you care about, then?”
The question slips out before I can stop it, and I watch something dark pass across his face, something hungry and desperate and almost frightening in its intensity.
“You know the answer, darlin’.”
Fuck.
I duck under his arm, escaping, and put several feet between us. My legs are still unsteady, the high heels and the vertigo mixing with a million other feelings, like arousal and fear and a desperate, aching loneliness I tried so hard to bury.
He wants me.
He actually wants me.
And I want him too, God help me. I want him so badly, it hurts deep inside, like I’m being stabbed with a hundred knives.
But I can’t have him. Can’t have anyone. That’s the curse I was born with, the poison my mother engineered into my blood before I even existed.
One kiss, and he dies.
One moment of weakness, and I become a murderer yet again. And I know that is the point of all this, that if I ever find out Vanguard is more than he presents himself as, that he’s a weapon that could threaten humankind, that I am supposed to take him out, whether that be by a kiss or by any other means necessary.
It only makes all of this so much harder.
I walk to the opposite corner of the rooftop, wrapping my arms around myself against the wind. The city blurs through the poison tears I refuse to let fall. Behind me, I hear his footsteps again. Following. Always following.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says quietly.
No, but I might hurt you.
“I know,” I say, though part of me doubts that still. I don’t turn around. “I just need a minute.”
“Take all the time you need.” A pause. “I’m not going anywhere.”