Page 66 of Burn With Me

I shake my head, so focused on the two of them that when a shadow falls over the table, I only catch it for a brief second before a strong, masculine arm slides around my shoulders. “What are we laughing at?” Isaac’s deep baritone rumbles against my back as he pulls me back against him and leans down.

My mouth opens to ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing when he drops down and captures my lips with his. I mean to pull away—really, I do. The thought is in my mind. My body, however, has other ideas. It’s addicted to him already and it relishes in the feel of him, in the taste. My lips part under his and his free hand comes around, clasping my throat to hold me in place—and I know it’s just in case my mind catches up with what I’m doing. He’s keeping me where he wants me. His tongue invades, marking me as his as he sweeps away all rational thought with this kiss.

This is exactly what I need to be avoiding—very public displays of affection.

Finally, he frees me, pulling back and staring down at me with a wicked, knowing grin. I try to grasp at the tendrils of logical thought as he strokes my jaw with his thumb. “Having a girl’s day?” he asks.

I blink and pull away. “No.” I turn in my chair, but he’s already scraping a chair from a nearby unused table and pulling it up close to me. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s the school cafeteria,” he replies as he glances over the table and reaches for a carrot stick on my plate. He pops it into his mouth, crunching down as he leans ever closer. “I’m here to eat,” he finishes, swallowing.

My thighs tighten at his statement. To anyone else, it would seem such an innocent comment—perfectly appropriate in a place where people congregate to get food. But to me, it’s anything but appropriate. There’s nothing about this man that screams ‘innocence’. If anything, he’s the epitome of immoral.

Hel scowls as she scoots to the side, further away from Isaac as he practically shoulders her out of the way and reaches for my plate once more. “Isaac,” I snap, innately aware that all eyes in the cafeteria are on us. What little ambiguity I might have had is being wrecked and erased.

“Aurora.” Isaac doesn’t seem bothered by my discomfort at all. In fact, his hand lands on my side, hard fingers wrapping around my waist, and just … rest there as he eats another carrot. The heat from his palm is driving me mad. Whatever spell he cast on me, it needs to stop here.

I stand abruptly, and his hand falls away. “I’m leaving,” I say, shooting a look at a wide-eyed Selene and an obviously irritated Hel. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I pick up my tray, practically ripping it out of Isaac’s reach as I turn and stride across the dining hall. I drop it off in the window along the farthest wall away from the exit, hating that I have to return the same way I came to leave and suffer the looks and whispers all over again.

Almost as soon as that thought crosses my mind, Isaac appears at my side and I press my lips together, grinding my teeth as he ignores my obvious irritation and swings his arm around my shoulders once more.

“Why do I get the sense that you’re trying to avoid me, Sunshine?” he asks pleasantly, a smile on his face.

“I don’t know, maybe becauseI am,” I snap.

He clasps his free hand over his chest. “Oh, you wound me, baby,” he says. “How cruel.”

“Stop it,” I practically hiss at him, dipping my head low as I pass a particularly full table of girls from one of my classes, all of them openly gawking.Fuck, what am I? A zoo animal?It fucking feels like it.

When we make it outside, I feel marginally better. There are fewer people and, therefore, fewer eyes on us. Isaac still follows me, though, all the way to the front of Rozenfeld Dorm. I stop in front of the steps and turn to him.

“Why are you doing this?” I demand, pushing him back. “What are you plotting?”

“Plotting?” He arches a brow and ignores my outstretched palm. I could be warding off a ghost for all the good it does; he seems to walk right into me, gripping my wrist and holding it up and out of his path as he sidles up, close as ever. His chest to mine.

“I’m not an idiot, Isaac,” I say, glaring up at him. “No one just flips a switch that quickly. You can’t torture me for weeks, threaten me, and then the second you get some ass—pretend like all is forgotten and forgiven.”

“Do you think I see you as a piece of ass, Aurora?” The question is insulting, but that’s exactly how I’ve phrased my own responses. A large part of me says ‘yes.’ That’s exactly how he sees me. Another part of me wonders…

And as if he can read my thoughts, Isaac’s fingers squeeze my wrist. “If I wanted ass, I can get it wherever,” he states. “I don’t need to chase after someone as stubborn as you.”

“Then why are you?” I demand.

Isaac pulls me closer. “Why don’t you answer that question yourself?” he prompts. “If anything, I should be avoiding you. Isn’t that right? Considering our ownfamilial relation,you are not someone I should even be pursuing like this.”

I flinch at the reminder and turn my cheek, not wanting to stare into his impossibly dark and violent gaze. “If you know we shouldn’t be doing this, then why are you pushing?” I ask. “It’s not like we can be anything, so why try?”

Isaac’s sigh blows over my face. Shockingly, he leans into me and drops his head against my shoulder. With the height difference, his back has to bow and his knees have to bend for him to do so, but it warms my shoulder. When his breath fans over my throat as he turns his head, my pussy fucking throbs like the annoying, lusty bitch that she is.What the hell is wrong with me?

“Forget them, Aurora,” Isaac finally says. “Forget my father. Your mother. Everyone on campus. What do you want? Do you want me the same way I want you?”

Each word is another breath of hot air on my skin, scrambling my thoughts. He’s a drug, I realize. Dangerous and addictive. I shake my head. “I can’t forget,” I say. “It’s not that easy.”

His grip on my wrist moves, his thumb rubbing over the pulse there before moving down as he twines our fingers together. “It can be,” he says. “It can be as easy as we make it.”

My head drops back and I resist the urge to groan. “You’re asking for the impossible, Isaac,” I tell him. “Our parents are fucking married. Legally bound together.”

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