Page 38 of Never Die for a Sinner
“None?”
I grit my teeth. He’s trying to toy with me.
“None at all,” I sigh. “Fortunately, I can get cheap dick anywhere. Yours has no effect on me.”
He chuckles darkly, and the sound goes straight to my core.
“We’ll see about that.”
Shaking my head, I place my hand on the side of his face to steady myself. I move forward, and right when he’s about to say something that will probably make me blush, I pierce the skin with the needle.
He hisses out a breath through his teeth, his hand shooting to my hip and his fingers tightening to near bruising strength, but I don’t stop. I’ve sewn up holes in clothes before. Stuffed animals when I was a kid. This can’t be all that different, right?
“Punishing me, little ghost?” he asks. Despite the needle slipping through his torn skin, the pain doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on him.
“Something like that,” I murmur curtly, my lips pursing as I work. I can’t look at him because if I do, I know I’ll screw this up, and call me crazy, but I have a desire to prove myself.
I finish the stitches, and although they look choppy, they hold. When I settle back, attempting to get off his lap, his grip tightens, locking me in place.
My eyes go to his for only a second, and I find him staring at me with something so far from indifference, it makes my stomach do cartwheels around my organs.
“I’m done,” I say softly, and his jaw clenches. My eyes stay on the lines of his T-shirt where it stretches over his skin.
“Are you?”
I nod, my tongue darting out to lick my lip. Levi’s gaze follows the motion and darkens.
“Ava . . .” he says quietly. “Look at me.”
I suck in a shaky breath and force my gaze to his. It’s a mistake because once I look at him, I can’t look away. Ice-blue eyes, the color of an Arctic tundra. Only, instead of sending a chill through me, my blood heats with fire.
His gaze flicks from the whiskey bottle, then back to mine, dark and so consuming, it feels like swallowing a live grenade.
“I think I should go up to my room now,” I breathe, and neither of us moves.
“I’m thirsty.” His voice is dark and deadly calm, like a gentle breeze before the storm of a lifetime. I blink at him, not understanding.
And then realization hits.
Sucking in a shallow breath, I place the needle on the stand beside us, taking his bottle instead and holding it out for him, but he doesn’t take it.
He nods at the bottle of amber liquid.
When I don’t move, his voice is stern and calculated. Controlled.
“I said I’m thirsty, Miss Ryan.”
A shiver moves down my spine when I realize what he wants.
“You’re insane,” I whisper. He doesn’t try to deny it.
Leaning back, he readjusts underneath me and settles back into the couch.
“It shouldn’t be a problem for you. As you’ve said, you can find cheap dick anywhere. I have no effect on you, remember?”
Asshole.
Why did I have to say that?
