Page 70 of Snitches and Serpents

She jerks back as if I had slapped her.

Then fury pulses across her face and she yanks up her hands and shoves me hard.

“Asshole,” she snaps at me as she slips out from between my body and the wall.

But her face is red with embarrassment. It’s so intense that I can practically feel it in the air around her as she adjusts her dress and hair with jerky movements.

“Fucking asshole,” she snarls again and shoots me a contemptuous look.

Then she spins on her heel and stalks away. But that searing embarrassment still clings to her entire body language.

I let out a dark laugh.

So humiliated. So perfectly fucking humiliated.

With that vicious smile still on my lips, I keep my eyes on her as she stalks across the room. She won’t leave, I know that. Because she still wants to keep track of me. But now she’s feeling embarrassed, which means that she will most likely resort to alcohol to numb it. Which is exactly what I want.

The fact that my own body also feels like it’s full of liquid fire is of course entirely irrelevant. As long as Elle doesn’t realize that my cock fucking ached with need for her when I kissed her neck like that, it doesn’t matter that this brief confrontation affected me too.

While trying to force my heart to stop beating so damn hard in my chest, I slip through the drunk crowd until I find Paul. He’s dancing with a couple of girls, but when he sees me, he immediately stops and approaches me instead.

“It’s time?” he asks.

I nod. “Yeah. Do it.”

He nods back and then disappears into the crowd.

Dark anticipation courses through me as I turn to watch him go.

It’s time to start playing dirty.

25

ELLE

Anger and embarrassment streaks through me like bolts of lightning. God, he’s such an asshole. I can’t believe that I actually admitted that I wanted to have sex with him again. I didn’t even know that I wanted to have sex with him again until he started kissing my neck like that. It made me feel as if fire coursed through my veins. I could barely think straight. And because I couldn’t think properly, I admitted… that. Ugh.

Yanking up a hand, I rub the side of my neck hard. As if that can get rid of the lingering feeling of his lips on my skin.

God, he really is an absolute bastard.

My cheeks are still flaming red as I march through the crowd of drunk, dancing people and head straight for the tables on the other side. I need a drink. Actually, I need more than one.

When I reach it, there are several other people there too, so I wait for them to finish getting their drinks first. While I wait, I glance over my shoulder to see if Tristan is still watching me. He’s not. Instead, he is talking to another group of women. As if he didn’t just set my soul on fire with nothing but his hands and lips two minutes ago.

A cold oily feeling spreads through my limbs. And I don’t even understand why. Why do I suddenly feel rejected?

He is nothing to me. I am nothing to him. It’s not as if there was even anything to reject. We were never anything more than enemies.

The people in front of me at last move aside, clearing the path to the table.

Tearing my gaze from Tristan, I shift my attention to the army of red plastic cups waiting for me. They all appear to contain the same thing, so I just pick one at random and turn back around.

A huff rips from my chest as I slam into someone. The impact jostles my arm, making me spill half of the drink on the floor.

“Shit, sorry,” a guy says.

I shift the cup to my other hand and flick spilled alcohol off my fingers while looking up to see the guy I collided with. My eyes widen.

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