Page 111 of Ravage
I look around the room at the others. At the people who mean more to me than they will ever realize. It gives me the strength to do what’s necessary to keep them together. “I already have a partner I’m working with. Besides, you don’t trust me. We can never be a team if we don’t trust each other.”
“Who? And we can put aside our differences and trust in that we all want GE gone. It’s a common goal that we’re working toward. Trust in that.”
Dane cuts in, “I don’t want her here either. I’m not working with her.”
“See? Not happening.” I give him a saccharine smile and turn back to the door.
There’s no deal or offer he can make me to join sides now that I’ve seen the damage I cause them.
It’s better if I do this without them.
Sighing, I lean against my apartment door. I’m not entirely sure how I feel that went. Instead of coming back feeling relieved or satisfied with any revenge on Dane, I just feel empty. And lonely.
Jackson patiently watches me as I put myself back together. He’d followed me out of the safe house and all the way back without a word.
My shadow. My protector. My personal god of death.
He knew exactly what I needed when everything was going to hell in a handbasket and did it without hesitation.
He said he knew me better than I knew myself. Can I even doubt that anymore?
His hood is back down again now that we’re alone, but his eyes are no less intense out of the shadow. There’s a dark heat in his expression that calls to me. I want to bathe in it and feel it in the way he touches me.
“What do you want?” he asks so softly that I’m not sure how I actually heard the words that barely grazed past his lips.
My heart thumps and squeezes in my chest, and my breathing shallows.
“You,” I breathe in an exhale.
He’s on me in less than a heartbeat. I’m mid-gasp when his mouth covers mine, and then it’s game over.
His kiss is demanding. Eccentric. Insatiable.
I can taste the obsession on his tongue. Feel his devotion in his touch as his hands hold either side of my head. It’s almost too much. I’m drowning in him as he fills me up and saturates me with the endless depth of his need for me.
I cling to his hoodie for support when my body threatens to give out under the headiness of his kiss. His hands grasp my wrists and our lips smack apart with how quickly he pulls them away. Our foreheads and the sides of our noses stay joined as we pant.
“Wait.”
I release his hoodie when he tugs on my hands. His cerulean eyes never stray from mine, leaving me doubtless that he won’t be gone from me for long.
Jackson carefully drags his hoodie over his head. The motion is slow and drawn out while he maintains eye contact with me for as long as possible. It feels like a strip tease, even if it’s only a hoodie. But it’s Jackson’s hoodie.
What does he look like underneath it now, all grown up?
I’m half-kidding to myself that I’ll see he has a demon’s torso from making a deal with death to be its reaper.
The hoodie finally drops from his head and onto his arms and then he carefully extracts those as well. Jackson’s lips tug into a cocky smirk when he tosses the hoodie to the floor. It drops like it’s weighted with lead and clatters with the sound of metal.
Holy fuck.
He wears that all the time?
I check out what he’s wearing underneath and, surprise, surprise. It’s a black shirt.
“Is black your favorite color?” I tease to break some of the sexual tension in the room.
He chuckles and bends down to unlace his boots and heel them off. “I could ask the same of you. But I already know why you wear it so often.”
