Page 5 of Little Blue

The rabbit in me quivers.

When I say and do nothing but stare at him with what I just know are pathetically wide eyes, he leans just a little closer. Winter and spice and pine flood my airways, gripping me in a stranglehold.

“Your bet. It’s risky.” Gosh, his voice is like gravel. It has pinpricks of awareness rising on every inch of my flesh. When those eyes drop to take in the very visible evidence of how he affects me, I’m struck by the sight of his tongue sliding over his full lower lip, before that lip curls into his mouth for a quick assault of his teeth.

An image of his teeth biting into my own lip strikes hot and unexpected in my mind.

I jolt. WTF?

I clear my throat. “I-I know.”

A single brow rises as he cocks his head slowly to the side. I have a suspicion that every single movement, every expression, everything this man does, is plotted. Planned. Thought out.

I’ve never met anyone so absent of unconscious movement. He’s too still. The movements he makes are too sure. Or maybe they’re delayed? I can’t put my finger on it, exactly. I just know that he feels dangerous to me. He’s too collected to be real.

“Do you take risky bets often?”

“Never.” Why do I tell him that?

Why is he watching me like he’s cataloguing every flicker of my pulse, every breath, every nervous twist of my hands in my lap? I feel like a mouse caught between the claws of a cat who isn’t sure if he wishes to play with me or devour me whole.

His lips part. My heart kicks. Something hitches his mouth—the first involuntary movement I’ve seen. It looks like the formations of a grin, before he shuts it down.

He leans in closer. Oh, God.

Is he playing with me?

“Why tonight, then?”

Swiping my nearly finished sparkling water with the pretty twist of lemon from the table, I finish off my drink. Then, I scowl down at the empty glass. With the way this lethal man is looking at me, trying to slay me with his eyes alone, I need something to cool me off.

I’m starting to feel too hot.

I’m flushed.

I don’t want him to know he’s affected me this way.

I should get up and walk away. Leave my chips where they lay and forget about this ungodly handsome man. Sure, he’s handsome. Probably the most attractive man I’ve ever seen—but I believe the Devil is handsome, too.

The man’s eyes tear from me for the first time, and my eyes drop to his hand as it lifts. It’s a big hand with the kind of veins Rae would go on and on about. But that’s not what snags my attention. What I can’t look away from is the bloom of purple that spreads across healing knuckles.

My mouth goes dry. Prickles of unease raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

“Why the risky bet tonight?” He pulls his hand under the table. My eyes snap up to his. He’s watching me with a calculating interest that makes me feel exposed in a way I don’t like.

I swear, his unnatural eyes see beneath my dress and skin to the web of secrets I hide deep within. I’m confident with time, this man could unravel that web to lay every hurt I contain deep inside, bare.

Instead of answering his question, I risk one of my own. “Why the interest in my bet?”

His eyes flare. My inner bunny tries to cower, but I force my chin to lift, a brow to rise.

He smiles. I think it’s genuine this time, even though it’s the pinnacle of wolfishness. “People place bets like this for one of two reasons. Out of desperation or because they have nothing left to lose. Which are you?”

I used to be desperate, before I got my new job—and could afford to eat. I know what it is to be hungry, so now that I’m a little more blessed, I do what I can to help those who know the sharp pain of an empty belly.

Now, I have everything to lose. A job that pays for the rent of my very small, very run-down apartment that houses me and Lucy, paying for our full bellies in a crowded city that cares not about those who are down on their luck.

“I’m neither,” I say, as a fresh glass is set in front of me. I see the spiral of lemon in the glass as my empty glass is swiped, the server gone before I can hand over one of my drink tokens. I stand, “Um, wait?—”

---