Page 65 of The Devil We Crave
It'sneed.
I’m not running, or even thinking about running, becauseI don’t want to.
It’s not just that Achilles makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff feeling the wind whip across my face as I teeter on the very edge.
He also makes me want to look over that edge and see how far down it goes.
Morbid fascination.
Toxic curiosity.
Self-destructive intrigue.
He’s not just the inexorable pull of gravity beyond the edge of the cliff.
He’s the black, intrusive thought that makes me take that last step.
I want to label him the villain for that, but only because I’m not sure I’m capable of looking in the mirror long enough to ask what all that makesme.
Because I’m the one still standing here.
Looking over the edge.
Letting those intrusive thoughts in.
“And again, little prey…” he murmurs darkly behind me.
His teasing breath traces sensually over the backs of my bare knees, making my thighs tighten as a shiver chases up my spine.
“I have to wonder if you’re down here in the shadows all alone because you hoped that I’dfind you here.”
“H-how…” I swallow, my breath heavy in my throat. “How did you know I?—”
“You don’t honestly think there’s anywhere you could go that I wouldn’t find you, do you?”
My breath drags in and out of my lungs, rattling over my slightly parted lips.
“Why?” I whisper.
“I’ve already told you.”
I flinch but remain silent and still when his hands move from the handrails of the ladder to the sides of my calves. Heat blooms under the cotton of my knee socks as his strong fingers splay over my leg.
“You caught my attention, little prey.”
His hands begin to slide up the sides of my legs. Every instinct I have screams to run, or tell him NO, or kick him, or do anything I can to stop him.
But there’s a darker, more insidious instinct buried deep inside me, and that’s what takes over when the rest of me freezes, caught between fight or flight.
That’s what has me closing my eyes as I turn my head forward, my breath ghosting over my lips and my hands tightly gripping the handrails as Achilles’ fingers slowly trace up my calves. Then my knees.
Then under the hem of my skirt.
My eyes squeeze tight as the world around me grows warmer and darker. He doesn’t lift my skirt, but my entire focus is on the hot, deliberate slide of his strong fingertips up the outsides of my thighs.
I wait for the acidic flashback to this summer, to hands pushing where they didn’t belong, without permission. For the claw of fingernails against my skin.
Taking.
