Page 54 of Once Upon a Fable

“Photos? On a phone? You think I’m some imbecile?”

“No, I...just let me put it away.” Her fingers heated until her touch burned me. She branded me better than any fire, any ember. AndChrist, it made me thirst. Made me hiss and smoke with violence.

I raised my arm, making her body stretch and fingers cling. Her face lost its reluctant submission, flaring with vibrant hate.

I knew it.

I knew there was a fucking hellcat hidden beneath her reserves.

“Give it!” She scratched my forearm.

I groaned.

Her touch on my skin. Her fight and fury incinerating her act of demure and downtrodden. She wasn’t meek. She wasn’t accepting.

She was stupid and reckless and just as mad as me.

“I knew you’d give me a war if I pushed hard enough.”

Her eyes shot to mine. “I’ve given you my body. I refuse to give you anything else.”

I raised my arm even more, making her stretched-out form crash against mine. We both sucked in a desperate breath. “Are you so sure about that?” Our noses brushed as I looked down at her. I trembled with her closeness, drinking in the rage of a pissed-off girl who was no longer free.

“You’re a bastard.”

“That’s what you think I am?” I smiled icily. “That word is far too polite for the likes of me.”

She froze, hanging off my arm.

For a second, we were both trapped in a web of hatred and heat. An intoxicating curse that blurred every rule and erased every line.

My mouth watered to kiss her.

My cock begged to fuck her.

I couldn’t stand having her this close. Her very nearness set my mind on fucking fire and the walls I’d built shivered with fear.

Dropping my arm, I grabbed her wrist with my other hand. Ripping her hold off me, I held the device to the side as I jerked her against me, making her slam into my chest. “This isn’t just a phone, is it?”

She struggled and squirmed, her lips thin and angry. “Let me go.”

“What is it?”

“You’re hurting me.” She tried to pry my fingers off her wrist.

“I’ll hurt you worse if you keep lying to me.” I gripped her harder, not caring my nails punctured the paper-thin skin around her breakable bones. I shook her. “Is this how people will find you?”

She gritted her teeth, her eyes no longer gold-flecked hazel but heated with flames. “Fuck you.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“It willneverbe an invitation!”

“No?” I shoved her away from me and raised the unknown device above my head. “I think time will change your mind.”

“Wait!Don’t.” She threw herself at me, but it was too late.

I tossed the thing as hard as I could against the concrete, smiling coldly as it smashed into smithereens.