Page 55 of Misfit Monsters
He might have good predatory instincts, but his attraction radar is way off.
Or maybe hehaspicked up on my reactions and he’s trying to discourage me because I’m not his type?
I push those muddled thoughts out of my head and focus on the man sitting next to me. I came here for his benefit, not my own.
Since I promised him he didn’t have to talk to me, I peer through the forest into the thickening dusk. The crickets are out again, chirping away like birds of the night, and a half-full moon has risen to cast its silvery light over us. The breeze licks through my hair, cool but not uncomfortably cold.
Raze speaks without warning, his voice low and a little hoarse. “You’re always so… nice to me.”
I glance over at him with another twinge through my heart. “Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”
He’s looking at the ground rather than at me, his mouth twisted in a grimace. “I wasn’t very kind toyouwhen you first came into the dorm.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. I could tell you weren’t actually angry at me. You didn’t mean me any harm.”
A choked sound lurches out of him. “Inevermean any harm. It just… happens. You don’t know how many people I’ve hurt, how many beings… If I don’t stay totally in control, my powers can spill right out of me.”
My stomach knots. “I know how that feels.”
Raze shakes his head. “It can’t be the same. I’m a basilisk. I put on contacts to act as shields, but if I get upset, my true eyes can sear through them—and kill anything I look at. Poison seeps right out of my skin. Everything I see, everything I touch…”
He glares down at his hands. “I didn’t want anything like that to happen to you. I want it even less now that I know how sweet you are.”
He called me sweet. My pulse flutters despite the grimness of the rest of his words.
I scoot a little closer. “You’ve never hurt me at all. I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be. Everyone else is. Everyone knows what can happen if they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I dare to push myself even closer and set my hand on his arm. He twitches at the contact but doesn’t pull away.
“You carried me,” I point out. “Nothing bad happened.”
“I made sure I was totally calm and that there was nothing around that would startle me. And it was only for a few minutes. It was better than leaving you in pain.”
I trace the bulges of his muscles, unable to resist myfascination with his powerful body. At my touch, a quiver of emotion races into my veins from Raze, hot and heady as pecan pie straight out of the oven.
That definitely doesn’t feel like disinterest. I think he’s still trying to protect me—from himself.
I tip my head to gaze up at him. “You know, you didn’t just save me from pain. Having you hold me like that feltgood.”
Raze gapes down at me as if he can’t believe what I just said, but a starker rush of his desire washes over me.
I take the chance and bob up on my knees so I can press my lips to his.
Raze’s chest hitches, and then he’s clutching me to him, his fingers twining with my hair, his mouth scorching as it devours mine. Every inch of my body blazes with a joyful glow.
Some of it tingles from my scalp into my hair. After a moment, a pinkish haze seeps through my closed eyelids.
Raze will be able to see it too. Know how happy he’s making me. How much I want this.
No shame prickles through me with that knowledge. All I can do is keep kissing him with all my eagerness, my pulse skipping giddily.
This incredible man, so compassionate and selfless. He’s been so very lonely. I can taste it on him.
But I light him up too. I’ve proven that not everyone will want to run away from him.
Raze’s lips crash against mine once more. The kiss has barely begun before he wrenches himself backward.
