Page 40 of Rage

“You’re not supposed to be home this early.” Her eyes traveled down the length of me, then back up, stopping at the open drawer of her dresser. “Why are you wearing different clothes than you left in? And what are you doing rummaging through my dresser?”

The suspicion in her eyes only grew the longer she looked at me. When she stepped closer, her eyes burned a hole straight to my soul as she relaxed her stance and stretched a hand up to touch the stubble starting to form on my jaw. Her fingertips grazed the soft skin under my chin, and her eyes widened.

“You’re not—you’re not him!” She recoiled like a snake had bitten her, and that gun came right back up again, fear replacing curiosity and suspicion in a flash. “Who are you?”

Chapter Three

Tara

His smile spread slowly, not the predatory one I was used to seeing when Arkady thought he’d won an argument just because I stopped arguing back, but a real one. Genuine amusement shone in the depths of his eyes, the color not quite the right shade, confusing me further.

I knew Arkady. His eyes had always been this pale green in college, when we first met. I used to tease him about them over drinks at the college cantina. But when we ran into each other at a reunion and decided to hook up, his eyes were darker, less vivid. He always insisted I must’ve been mistaken. His eyes had always been green. What did it matter what shade they were?

But standing here in front of me were those same pale green eyes I remembered, the ones I fantasized over when I got so drunk I forgot I swore I wouldn’t get involved with anyone while I was in school. I was there for the education, not the boys. Still, something about Arkady Accetta had drawn me in, made me want to do things I shouldn’t be doing.

Like him.

I still had a picture of us in college, the whole late-night cantina gang around Christmastime, crowded together outside the fucking bar like a bunch of fools. Arkady’s roomie, Pete, hadbrought a sprig of mistletoe and was jokingly holding it above everyone with a laugh. Arkady had torn it from his grip right before we took the picture, and he dangled it above me with a drunken smile, his velvet words caressing my earlobe as he leaned in and whispered against my skin aboutrules are rules; pucker up, bookworm.

Fuck, even when the man wasn’t using his tongue—which had been the stuff of legends in the girls’ dorms—he was still insanely good at it.

That picture was hidden behind a picture of the Arkady I’d been with for the past couple of years, tucked away like a forgotten memory, but always there in case I needed reminding that people changed.

As if living with the man wasn’t reminder enough.

His hands were still in the air, a picture of us from Christmas with his mother still gripped in his hand. I’d thrown it up with a piece of tape last year when she sent it, hating the way the whole interaction gave me the ick, but knowing he’d complain if I hadn’t.

My hackles raised, even as I tightened my grip on the gun between us. “Who the fuck are you?”

I didn’t like how his eyes searched mine, how they obviously found something in my gaze that told him everything he needed to know. His hands lowered just as slowly as he’d put them up, and I watched as he leaned against the dresser behind him, casually crossing his arms as if we had all the time in the world.

“I think you know who I am, Tara.”

I knew that voice. For so long, I’d deluded myself into believing that the one I remembered had changed as he grew into the man he was now, that even my voice wasn’t like it had been before, but this?—

“Arkady,” I whispered, my confidence and self-assuredness crumbling as I realized I’d been living with an imposter all thistime. But if this was Arkady here before me, if this was the man I remembered… “But that’s impossible.”

“It’s a long story, bookworm, but if you put that gun down, we can talk.”

I didn’t know what to trust anymore, so the gun stayed in place. I knew I wouldn’t use it. I didn’t even have the balls to pull the trigger on a damn deer when we went hunting a few years back. I wouldn’t be able to shoot a man. A living, breathing human.

“No way in hell. I have no idea who you are, but you need to get your skinwalker-ass out of my house before I call the cops?—”

He lunged forward, his hand closing around the gun with a finality that sealed my fate. I felt it slip from my hand, and a sense of relief actually passed through me, the weight of the gun more mental than physical, taking away the possibility that I mighthave toshoot someone today.

I waited for him to put the gun to my head, but he didn’t. Instead, he unloaded it, tossed it across the room, and put the bullets in his pocket, making a show of it for my benefit. He still held me in his grip, my back pressed against his front, and for a second, my hormone-addled, perplexed mind stopped to bask in the warmth of his body, the careful way his free arm cradled me just below my chest, keeping me trapped but not confined.

And then I remembered my training and started to flail, knowing instinctively I had to get away from this man—fast.

“Ngh, stop that, Tara, you’re—fuck, no, don’t be like this, I—oh, god, I?—”

His cock pressed against my ass and he moaned as it dragged along my jeans, the hard length short-circuiting me momentarily. His breath came in short, panting puffs against my neck as he leaned down and nuzzled me, those soft moans doing something to my insides that left me feeling very aroused.

“If you don’t stop moving, I’m gonna?—”

Something malicious in me wanted to see what would happen. Some part of me I couldn’t shut off, the part of me that knew the real Arkady was right behind me, and very, very horny—and he wanted me. My college brain kicked in, and I squirmed a little more, letting my ass twist against him, loving the way his voice sounded in my ear as his hips jerked and he groaned, almost painfully.

“Fuck me, girl, even without a gun, you’re dangerous.”

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