Page 7 of Ly to Me

All laughter left me as my jaw worked. “Good luck with that.” I walked by him and started pulling leftovers from the fridge. Jamie leaned against the wall and watched as I heated a plate, and was probably still waiting for her in my kitchen as I entered my bedroom, taking my food with me.

I pulled off my shirt and laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling, a full plate of food on my nightstand as I listened for the sounds of feet sweeping over the floors. Minutes ticked on by as memories faded in and out, my fingers tapping along my chest to the beat of each agonizing tick of the clock on the wall to my left.

And then, I heard it. When the bathroom door closed in the hallway, I shot up from my bed and made my way to the hall, leaning against the wall across from the door. Her shadow moved through the crack at the bottom of the door like a small,dark-as-her-soul sliver across the wooden floor. I knew it wasn’t Jamie who was now running the faucet—his steps were heavy as if his toes were made of lead, and Ly…well, she’d always been sneaky to a fault.

One of her many.

I folded my arms over my bare chest, waiting. The door whipped open and her dainty, black-painted toes came into view. I grinned, keeping my chin angled down to the floor, but my eyes like a switchblade aimed right for her.

“Ly, Ly, Ly.” She took a step back and gasped. “Didn’t I tell you the coyotes around here get hungry at night?”

4

Lyra

The Mirror

Piercing blue eyes beamed like headlights through the dark hall, his broad frame large and foreboding.

I took another step back, my heart thundering in my chest as he met each of my movements with his own. His steps atemine away until I was backed up against the sink, and having nowhere else to go, I scooted along the counter, maneuvering back further.

If he still had that toothpick in his mouth, I’d rip it from his lips and stab him in the eye. Shame to see such pretty things go down, but survival was the only thing my brain was dead-set on never waning from.

Without another word or a single glance down the hall to see if maybe Jamie was right there and had heard him, he tapped his foot to the door, clicking it shut.

“Car—”

He pressed his finger to his lips, and I forgot how to breathe as he dragged a knuckle down my cheek. The look on his face had my limbs quaking, fingers gripping the edge of the counter. The cold mirror sent a shiver down my spine as I pressed back into it like it’d open up and suck me in, but there was apparently no running from Carver Roland.

He cupped my chin, then gripped it roughly between his fingers, popping my lips apart. When he pulled me closer to him, I whimpered.

“Lyra Thomas, as I live and breathe.”

“Please—”

“Uh-uh, Ly. You keep that mouth of yours shut.” Carver released my jaw with force, sending my head back into the mirror. I reached up to rub the back of my head, and he lunged forward, taking my wrist in his hand and pinning it beside me. I angled my cheek to the glass, avoiding his heady stare and the way it was eating apart my skin, layer by layer. “What are you doin’ back?” he whispered, a hint of vulnerability there.

Distant, but there.

Like a switch, I smiled, knowing just being here was enough to get him to that point. Mama always said to find a man’s weakness fast, and once you did, you won.

Well, Carver, I just fuckin’ won.

I glanced over his body, trying to act like the stacks of muscle he put on and tattoos he’d inked all over himself didn’t light a fire within me. “I have business here.”

Deep grooves formed between his brows. “You’re lying through your teeth.” He released my hand and put his palms flat on my legs, his rough fingers dangerously close to the hemline of my shorts. “You’ve always been that way though, haven’t you?”

I scowled, and then before I could talk myself out of it, I spit on him. Right on his bottom lip.

He grinned, then swiped his tongue out and growled low. “Ly.”

That weakness was gone, replaced with a demon of a man. Something more rabid and animalistic. A shimmer in his eyes I hadn’t seen in about a decade bloomed to life before my very eyes.

Carver looked like a man starved, and I was the meat. His hand snaked up to the roots of my hair, then jerked my head to the side as disgust twisted his lips. “You looked better as a brunette.”

Suddenly, he shifted his hands down, grabbing onto the backs of my knees, pulling my ass to the edge of the counter with one firm tug. The force sent my head back again, and he used the time that my body was unstable to pop open my jean shorts and undo my zipper.

My heart started racing, a flash of panic coursing through me. It seized my limbs and my breathing became erratic.