Page 84 of Raze
“You know them?” Aiden asks darkly, and I nod. He turns the TV off and smacks the remote down on the table, then stands. “We need to find him and get him under control. This isn’t how we do things.”
He storms past me, and I turn and grab his arm. He stops and looks over his shoulder at me with a stern expression. “Wait, what do you plan to do?”
“Whatever it takes to make this bloodbath end.”
My grip on him tightens. “How? By locking him up, too? Is that your answer for everything?”
He seizes my wrist and yanks it from his arm, then turns his back on me and keeps walking. I chase after him, catching the door before it hits me in the face as we move into the truck bays and through the other side to the locker room.
“You can’t just lock people up because they don’t do what youwant! Jack’s out theredoingsomething for our cause. At least he’s not sitting around here doing nothing! He’s working on something, I know it, so just let him finish—”
Aiden whirls on me. My face smacks into his chest, and I bounce back. “Do you know it? What he’s working on?”
I frown and rub my face where it impacted with his soft shirt, but firm chest. “No, but—”
“Then how are you so certain he has a plan? That he hasn’t just gone on a killing spree for the fun of it?”
I glare up at him, meeting his eyes with all the conviction in me. “Because I know him. And I trust him.”
Aiden’s eyes shutter and close. “You trust him,” he repeats slowly.
“Yes. I do. I don’t immediately assume the worst of the people I care about when they do something bad or when something doesn’t add up,” I snark at him, thinking of how that’sallhe’s done of me, since everything went to shit. “I’ll believe in him first.”
His eyes open, but only to narrow at me when he catches the double meaning in my words. “And what did he do to earn your trust so easily? Your blind belief in him? You don’t know who he became in the last five years. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”
“I know him better than you think,” I retort breathily, not needing to use my full voice while we’re sharing the same air between us. His smell of cinnamon is richer than ever now that his body isn’t tucked away behind layers of fabric. It fills my lungs and flushes my skin with heat. I tell myself it’s the anger that’s making my body respond this way, but I’m also all too aware of his proximity.
He’s being an arrogant asshole, and I want to simultaneouslystrike him and kiss him into submission.
“Do you think fucking him means you know him now?” The shock of him knowing that freezes me in place. The back of his hand strokes down the side of my face, and my breath stalls. His touch is soft, unlike the malevolent undertone of his crooning voice. “Would you know and trust me, then, if we were to fuck?”
I slap him across the face. He grabs me by the throat and shoves me back against the lockers, the empty metal boxes clanging and echoing through the room.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” I spit at him.
“And you’re the most difficult, infuriating woman I’ve ever met,” he counters, his lips hovering over mine.
We stare at each other in a charged silence, with nothing but the sound of our breathing between us. His hand and body keep me pinned to the lockers, but it’s not tight enough to block my airflow. It is enough to feel the rush of my pulse beneath his fingers as I watch him with a heady mixture of hate and lust that clouds rational thought.
He doesn’t say anything more, but he doesn’t move either, as if he’s waiting for me to decide what happens next. The mere idea that he’s relinquishing control to me for something that could be catastrophic to both of us makes me dizzy.
My hands dive into his hair, sliding my fingers between his short cut, before yanking his lips down on mine. His mouth opens without hesitation, both of us fighting for control of the other in a tangled tango of tongues.
A part of me is yelling at me to stop this. That I shouldn’t begiving in to him like this, but I shove her away. I’m not giving in to him. I’m taking control of what I’ve wanted for a long time.
Aiden was my first kiss. The first boy I’d fallen for back on the island, and I’ve never stopped wanting him. Even as much as I hate him today, I can’t deny the bottled-up desire that only stokes my irritation toward him, just waiting for the passion of anger to turn into this.
I kiss him with all my fury, hate, bitterness, and craving bundled up as one. I’m ready to drown in this feeling and let it consume us.
He rips away from me, using his hand on my throat to keep me still while he pants and eyes me warily. “You make no fucking sense.”
“Good,” I retort haughtily. “I’d hate to bore anyone.” My hands drag him back down to me, and he caves into our kiss again. He tastes like mint and a bit of bourbon, and I wonder idly if he’d been drinking when I first walked in on him in the living room. My hands slide down to his shirt, rubbing against the soft fabric, and then sliding up his chest underneath it. They pause over his pounding heart. It’s echoing the pace of my own as if they’re connected or one and the same.
His fingers twitch around my throat, and my hips grind into him instinctively, as if urging him on. I push my body further against him, straining against his hold on me until he does exactly as I’d hoped and slams me back against the lockers for my defiance.
Aiden pulls away again, but before I can protest, he spins me around and shoves me back against the lockers with an arm pressed firmly across my shoulders. He yanks my leggings and underwear down roughly, and then his palm cracks across my right ass cheek.
I jerk from the sting and inhale sharply. Then he’s rubbing the pain away, and all that’s left is a heated tingle beneath my skin.
