Page 14 of Dark Delights

“Don’t tempt me, Eve. Asher’s gone. Some might call you fair game. So, unless you want to become a target, be a good fucking girl and behave.”

I had to wet my lips twice before I could speak. Damn my hormones for going berserk for this guy.

“Be a good girl? Fuck you, Anderson. I’ll never, ever do anything you tell me to.” It was an old belief, long held, and just saying it aloud gave me comfort.

Beckett blinked, and I thought I’d stumped him for a moment.

Then a grim smile twisted his lips. It wasn’t pleasant. It was downright terrifying. He let out a long breath, and in the next second, the rigidity of his body faded, and he was a supple wall of muscle melting into my body.

“Is that right? We’ll see about that,” he murmured.

I gasped as he took my hips in his huge hands and pressed against me. My hands fell to his arms, holding him close, or pushing him away, I had no idea.

He leaned in, running his nose through my hair and ending at my temple. His hot breath tickled my ear and sent goosebumps cascading down my neck.

“Eve?” he murmured, his voice deep and sinful as hell, devoid of its usual mocking.

“Hmm?”

He stroked his lips along my ear, his teeth grazing the lobe, and I shivered.

“Get the fuck out of my room.”

I did just that.

Ripping myself away from him, I scrambled for the door, only remembering when I was in the hallway that I still had the damn pencil case tucked in my back pocket. I pulled it out and backed away from the door. Had he seen it sticking out of my jeans?

“Eve?”

I jumped at my mother’s voice and whirled around guiltily, clutching the pencil case.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I shook my head. My mom’s eyes fell to the pencil case, and she tugged it from me before I could get my brain to work. She opened it and gasped as she peered inside.

“Mom, don’t mess with that. I’ll put it back, and he’ll never know it was gone.”

My mom stared at the contents for a long moment, and then shut the lid carefully. She shook her head. “No,mija, this isn’t for you to worry about. I’ll take care of it and put it back.”

There was an expression on her face that made me nervous. It was the one she got when she made me and Asher do something we didn’t want to, for our own good.Eat your veggies, brush your teeth, do your homework.It was that look.

“Now, Mrs. Linton needs help organizing the pantry. Why don’t you go and see her? She’ll give you a good tip. I’m nearly finished,” my mom said briskly and pushed me along the hall toward the stairs.

I nodded, letting worries about Beckett and what was going on with him slip from my mind. He wasn’t my friend; more like my enemy. Why should I waste time worrying about him? I had to worry about myself. If a billionaire like Beckett couldn’t take care of himself, then the rest of us were really fucked.

I turned toward the stairs and resolved to let my mom put the pencil case back. She’d know how to handle it. It wasn’t my problem.

Beckett

“Come on,Beck. Come in the water. Achilles’ mother bathed her son in the river Styx to make him invincible.”

In the dream, I always saw that afternoon through a murky lens. My mother’s white dress, the hem drenched as she walked into the pond. Her pale fingers drifting through the weeds. The feeling of pebbles against my bare feet.

I woke with a start, drenched in cold sweat. I could still smell the damp scents of Miller’s Pond in spring – new life blossoming all around, and a lurking undercurrent of decay.

Death, while everything else was just coming alive.

I sat up and pulled my sleeveless T-shirt over my head, tossing it in the direction of the hamper. My bedroom was still. Too still.

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