Page 38 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
I don’t know what I’m doing with my face except trying not to express anything at all, but as intelligent as I know Isadora Croft to be, she’s wrong, if she thinks I don’t want to kiss Karia.
“Would you rather open your mouth to speak or pluck out your own—”
“I’d rather not kiss you and I’d prefer to breakyourleg,” I finally say, my voice cracking. I am a liar. I would die to kiss her. To grab her baby blonde strands and twist them around my fingers. To touch my mouth to hers. Have her cheeks pink and her eyes closed and her hands by her sides as she let me explore her.
But…No one is interested in someone like me.Especially not a girl likeher.
Her eyes go wide as she clenches her fists in the hem of her skirt and Von’s lips curve into a reluctant smile and even Isadora snorts a little.
But Karia seems to take it personally and she clearly cannot read minds. She stands then, the edges of her skirt skimming her thighs and her face growing red as she stares at me.
“You are not any fun, Sullen Rule,” she says petulantly, then turns her back on all of us and heads for the corridor leading to the bathroom.
If I was a different person, I might follow her.
But I know if I do, nothing good will come from it, and Von is already glaring at me like he knows what I’m thinking and if I make a scene here and cause Stein embarrassment, I might not survive the night.
So I let her go and close my eyes, pretending to be completely unaffected as I wonder what it would feel like to touch her mouth.
Chapter19
Karia
“You never spoke to me before. When I tried to connect with you, you always shot me down. Why would you give me anything now?” I shake my head, glancing at the chair, grateful I don’t see any blood on it and wondering how strange this night has become to makethatthe thing I’m appreciative of in this cold room. “Why did you come back? You tell me that, I might sit in this chair for you.”
He watches me without speaking for several moments. There is no humming noise here, no fire alarm. It is dreadfully quiet aside from the beat of my own heart. I glance at the door behind him and wonder how long we have and why he is wasting it, counting down the clock in silence.
But he’s always been this way, and what he said about Stein, and my teeth… No wonder he’s communicating in chases and only comfortable when I’m sedated.
“Did you see me?” he asks in that peculiar voice, like every syllable scratches up his throat. A rusted tomb cracking ajar.
I will split the coffin wide open for you.
I don’t know what he means with his question, but I hold my tongue; I don’t think he’s finished speaking.
“Up, at the suites. Did you… look at me?”
My mind flashes back to swinging the flashlight. The way it jarred through my wrists and forearms as it cracked against Cosmo’s head.
Then his body crumpling.
And Sullen, bare from the waist up, lines of defined muscle and scars and wounds and what looked like letters and…
“You did,” he continues when I don’t answer him. “And I can see it in your face. You are disgusted.”
I shake my head and take a step back, wanting distance between us when he’s misreading me this way. “No,” I insist. “That’s not true at all. I think you are…” I trail off, worried flattery will sound insincere to someone unused to any.
But maybe he’s not. I don’t know where he’s been the past two years and even before that, Sullen Rule was always gorgeous. Dark eyes, dark hair, tall and broad and with that pointed nose and full lips, the stubble along his defined jawline and even wearing his all-black, the hood flipped over his head… he is and has always beenhot.There’s no way he hasn’t been with girls before—or maybe boys, or both. It’s impossible he is a virgin in any way. And how he held me under the stairs, and even now, before he let me go. And before, when I was on the bed, he flicked his tongue over my nipple, and it couldn’t have been the first time he did something like that.
“I’mwhat?”he asks in a low voice, his posture rigid.
“If I tell you, then you give me an answer to why you came back. Then we can talk about the chair.”
His lips tip upward, but only halfway. “Do you think you could stop me, if I strapped you down?”
“I’m tougher than I look,” I counter, wishing I was wearing something besides a miniskirt and crop top, but I won’t go down without a fight regardless. He saw what I did to Cosmo. I want to help him, but he shouldn’t underestimate me.
He flicks his gaze over my body. “Maybe,” he agrees. “But maybe not. I imagine you’ve spent most of your life lying on Egyptian cotton sheets and silk pillowcases, waking when you want, eating when you’d like, driving your little white BMW without a care in the world. I don’t think you’ve ever been hit before. Have you, Karia?”
