Page 71 of The Invite
“Look at me.”
But I am.
“Nessa.”
Why is he repeating my name over and over?
“Damn it, Nessa,” he growls. A fist pulling my hair hard. “Look. At. Me.”
I jolt so hard as though someone smacked me and blink rapidly, forcing past the fogginess and adjusting my vision to the darkness.
A chest covered by a soft hoodie fills my sight and I travel my gaze up a thick neck with an Adam’s apple over a square and gritted jaw into a pair of rich black eyes.
They peer straight into my soul.
Intensely.
Menacingly.
Intriguingly.
Augustus. My sinister monster. Clarity and coldness blast into my senses but memories of the past don’t come. Wasn’t he wearing a mask? The last thing I can recall is him pushing the knife against my pussy and then…blank.
Oh my god! Did I black out?
What did I do?
Does he know my secret? Did I tell him?
No, he wouldn’t be staring like I’m a mystery with questions swimming in his gaze if I said something.
He most certainly wouldn’t be touching me if he knew the truth.
I realize I’m still cupping his sinful face—for the first time—and try pulling my hands back, but he clasps them tighter. He walks us backward until my back presses against the wall once more. He doesn’t stop moving until we’re both flush from head to toe. His clothed body against my naked one.
The way he’s watching me doesn’t make me feel like I’m his little prey.
His possession—yes. But his toy—no.
“Augustus,” I whisper, afraid of his silence. His expression. His strangely intimate touch.
“Why the fuck would you use a knife to defend yourself when it’s a goddamn trigger for you?” he reprimands harshly. His cutting tone breaks the stillness.
“I… It’s…” I’m unable to form a response, making my defense mechanism kick in. “Why do you care?”
“You were stabbed by someone close,” he states through gritted teeth. “Who?”
A humorless laugh bubbles up and falls from my throat. “You may have ruthlessly stolen my present and my future but you do not get my past.”
His eyes flicker over my flushed face. Up this close, we can see each other perfectly. There’s no hiding or running away. I become mesmerized by the angles of his face and like before, I’m unable to resist skating my thumb over his cheekbones.
He lets me by loosening his hold.
His chiseled jaw is shaved with a shadow of stubble. As though carved straight from marble. When I graze the corner of his mouth, his thin lips, which perfectly suit him, part slightly and betray how I affect him just as much ashe affects me.
Despite his reaction, he doesn’t stop me.
I have an instinct that any other night, he would’ve.
