Page 67 of Stroke of Shadows

“I went for a walk.”

The lie prickled at his skin.

“A walk, huh?” Sythe leaned down, his eyes settling on her lips. He wanted to groan, to simply taste her. To forget who she was.

But he couldn’t forget, and yet he still couldn’t stop himself from touching her. From wanting her like his next breath.

She was his own personal brand of fucking poison.

“You don’t lie as good as you think you do, darling.”

She stilled beneath his touch, her eyes hardening a fraction before she pushed at him. It was soft, nothing like she should if she really wanted to get away. She was restraining herself, and he was tired of her hiding.

“You’re reading into things that aren’t there.” Another shove, but no more strength behind it than before. “I couldn’t sleep, so went for a walk. Nothing nefarious about it.”

Sythe couldn’t help his smirk. “Nefarious?”

“It seems we’re now even. You can go now, Mr Black.” Harper steeled her spine, but her words lacked the authority needed behind them.

“Even, are we?” He crowded closer, watching how she tipped her head back to better meet his gaze. “You were scared earlier, before you realised it was me. Why?”

Slight panic in her expression, but she covered it quickly. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“You really lie so easily, don’t you?” The irony wasn’t lost on him, yet he couldn’t help but push her beyond her carefully constructed mask. “I want to feel your real anger. Feel the real you, not this practised version of yourself.”

The tip of her nose darkened along with her cheekbones, her irises glittering in irritation. “Get out.”

Finally, he thought. A genuine reaction.

“Hit me.”

The next thing he knew, his hand had moved to the back of her head, wrapping the thick strands of her hair in his fingers. He needed her to push him away, to really hate him. But instead her lips parted with a breath, and she was making it really fucking hard for him to walk away.

“Hit me,” he whispered against her skin. “Use me, Starlight. All these emotions you keep coiled inside, trapped and hidden. I want you to release them.”

His fist tightened its grip, wanting to give her a little pain in punishment for making his cock so hard it felt ready to break beneath the denim of his jeans.

Punishment for making him want her. The fucking enemy.

“I want to see you with no shields. With no expectations of how you should behave. I just want—”

“I can’t.” Her eyes blazed like a carefully suppressed storm. “You seem to think I have that privilege.”

His spare thumb slipped along her bottom lip, and she shivered in his grip.

Mine.

Sythe pushed his beast to the back of his mind. She wasn’t his. She was just someone to fuck and get out of his system. Maybe if he gave into his obsession, he’d realise she was nothing but a morbid fascination after all.

“You’re worse than them,” she whispered. “To make me feel like this when I’m—”

He didn’t care for her next words, his lips demanding and firm. He wasn’t kind, not when anger vibrated his blood. He was disgusted by her family. Disgusted by her. He’d seen some horrifying things that night alone, and rather than deal with it, he was there.

In her bathroom.

With her.

The same woman who knew every horrifying detail. He’d seen the knowledge in her eyes when he mentioned the shipment. She may act innocent, but that was all it was. An act.

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