Page 14 of The Lies We Steal

Someone blows a cloud of smoke in my face, making me cough, waving my hand to clear it out of my vision.

My body flinches back, my heart sinking to my feet, spooked from what I found. The strobe light catches the angles of his face in glitches. One second he’s there, the next it’s darkness.

He comes to me in sections, like a jigsaw puzzle.

His broad shoulders were sheltered by black leather, a white shirt plastered tightly across his chest, stretching against the rigid muscles that lay beneath. The perfect swimmer's body. Tall, wide, all tapered to a fitted waist. I find one of his hands suspending by his side, as he props himself up against the wall his boot keeping him there. Lengthy legs covered with dark-washed jeans, a standard for college guys, minus the wallet chain that hugs his pelvis and it makes my lungs throb with adrenaline.

There are a least twenty people from me to him, enclosing him on both sides, yet he sticks out. I’m unmoving, continuing to piece him together. My mouth starts to water, my hands sweating profusely and there is a thumping inside my stomach.

Smoke from his cigarette creates a veil of mystery around his face, the strobe revealing him gradually. I catch the veins in his dominating hands, protruding, lingering too large fingers that are embellished with silver rings.

I shudder unconsciously, blotches of blood clinging to his knuckles. He’d recently connected them to someone’s face and I wasn't sure if it thrilled me or scared me. Someone who could put up a fight? Or someone violent by nature?

I was so curious. My nosey self wanted more. More than the pieces of him I could see. That was until I started putting together the edges of his face. The beat in my stomach dropping south, crawling between my legs.

I clinched my body together, biting harshly on my tongue.

The harsh scowl that adorns his otherwise angelic face, sucks the breath out of me. How anyone so handsome could look this bitter, was beyond me. I’d always been good at math, angles, points, and numbers.

Everything about him was flawlessly proportioned. Aligned, sharp, and intense.

Dark hair, the color of onyx. Dark eyes like strings of licorice, sugary enough to eat and tart enough to make you sick. It wasn’t one of those instances where you thought someone was looking at you but really they were looking somewhere else.

His eyes left no question. He was staring at me.

But it was the shade of his heart that scared me. Such a terrifying level of black varnished the organ inside of his chest that recycled blood over and over again. It made me wonder if I sliced him open would his blood even spill crimson?

The lowest part of my abdomen quivered from dread, from desire. There was a gravitational pull in his appearance, luring me in. But I could feel the sensations that rippled off him like a stone in a still pond. He was filled with ruckus, anarchy, violence personified and it struck a chord in me that hadn’t been plucked in a long time.

Fear.

Hot-blooded fear that boiled in my throat, ate at my skin, and gave me the sudden need to run, far, far away from him.

While my brain was moving on high alert, screaming to leave and hit the road.

My body had an entirely different reaction. It was refusing to leave his gaze. The outside of me, frozen. But the inside buzzed. The feeling stuck between my legs intensified because there was something about trouble that I'd always loved.

When the strobe light went dim for a split second, relighting the room, he was no longer leaning on the wall. Now he was a few lengths closer to me.

One second he was there, the next he wasn’t, only to reappear another inch closer to me.

He was an apex predator on the prowl for something to feast on. Something he could sink his teeth into and shred apart by the seams, stoking his need for the hunt and curing his hunger.

I wrap my hand around my wrist, digging my nails into the soft flesh of my arm. Forcing myself to stay put. I needed to see what would happen.

What he would do.

Another burst of light and then, I could feel him in my space.

He was so very close to me. Sucking up all of my oxygen. Looking over my body. Just another step forward, just another inch, and I could touch him. Smell him. Feel his presence tenfold.

As if he could sense that knowledge, he poked his tongue into his cheek, running it across his canine teeth and dropping his head, jaw tensed. His eyes beckoning me, giving me this urge to show him something…special.

He knew I was nervous. He was ready for me to turn and run for the hills. I think a piece of him wanted to chase me, wanted me to try and get away so the wolf in him could hunt me down.

Darkness incases me for another second, holding my breath, ready to face the consequences of my decision. To deal with whatever destruction he was ready to do to me, prepared to see his face light up with something like a surprise that I stayed put.

For a millisecond, I could smell something spicy and warm. I could feel his proximity right on me, even hear his breath fan down on my face.

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