Page 26 of Poison Touch (Monarch Vipers #1)

EDGE

The torrent of rain has doused most of the raging bonfire.

Smoke billows up into the sky like a signal for help.

I follow Ninja through the rain. I know it’s a bad decision the moment the idea springs into my head, but despite knowing better, I steer in the opposite direction from my friends.

Everything in me is telling me not to follow her.

Then there’s that one flicker that instantly grows into an inferno.

Call it curiosity, need, lust, instinct—whatever the fuck you want. But I have to go after her.

I climb the steep boardwalk of the lifeguard stand she darted into, then push open the door.

She’s sitting in the only chair, staring at her phone.

She isn’t as startled as she should be to see me.

Probably the least of what she was expecting, which was perhaps nobody.

Still, even though her body stiffens, I can tell she’s not scared.

I wonder if haunted houses or horror movies give her the creeps.

I consider myself a monster, and I have yet to see her flinch around me.

It’s almost insulting but impressive all the same.

I rub my hands together. “Yep, it’s just you and me,” I repeat.

“What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, trying to get out of the rain.” The answer is too simple to be the complete truth and too obvious to be a complete lie.

She has to know I have an ulterior motive.

But I don’t even know what it is. All I know is my gut, and possibly dick, guided me right to her like a lost boat to a lighthouse.

“Really? You couldn’t just follow your friends into the beach house and continue partying there?”

She’s right, of course. That would have been the logical thing to do, but where’s the fun in that?

I ignore her question. “Where were you going before you ran in here?” I ask instead, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor near the door.

I want to call a truce with her, but this game between us, this head-to-head contest of push and pull, cat and mouse, is way more exciting.

Even when she never runs, she only challenges me.

I want to chase her, see fear in those bright blue eyes, and feel some semblance of control over her.

But whenever I’m close, she pushes back a little harder and counters with more angst. And each time she does, I get harder for her.

“Home.” She twists the ring in her eyebrow.

Surprised that she answered, I ask, “So you live around here?”

I can tell she wants to let her guard down, but she’s wary of me. I don’t blame her. She should be. She fidgets with her phone. The screen suddenly goes black, throwing us into complete darkness.

“Shit!” she says, setting the phone on the makeshift desk.

Through the closed shutter, slivers of the amber streetlight stream along the tip of her bare shoulder. She shifts in the wooden chair, trying to get more comfortable.

“You can sit on my lap.”

She scoffs. “I’d rather sit on a bed of thorns.”

“I doubt that.”

Although I can’t make out her expression, if I had to guess, she’s wearing a scowl that could turn me into stone if she had the power.

“I’ve got to go.” The chair creaks as she stands. She shuffles around for her phone. My eyes have adjusted enough to the dark to watch her shove the useless device into her back pocket.

She should be drunk or at least unsteady on her feet with the amount of tequila she drank.

But she’s as sober as she was when she arrived at the party.

I know because I had my eyes on her from the moment she stepped around the bonfire and came into my line of sight.

The fact that she came to meet that asshole Josh pisses me the fuck off.

When he brought her to the drink table, I sent Gunner over to ensure that punk didn’t spike her drink.

“So, you’d rather take the chance of getting struck by lightning than hang out in here with me until the storm passes?”

“Exactly.”

I quickly stand, blocking her escape. Her body bumps against me. The softness of her chest skims the front of my shirt.

“No, you’re not getting off that easy,” I drawl.

She takes a step back and crosses her arms over her chest. Her tank moves with her movement to reveal the top of her black bikini. “What’s your deal, Edge?” She huffs out a frustrated breath. “What do you want? To give me another warning?”

I shrug and shake my head. “Honestly, I don't know. You’re a mystery that I want very much to decipher. I have several ideas about what I want to do with you, but giving you another warning isn’t one of them.”

I’ve realized that my warnings to her are as useless as selling sand at the beach.

Her taunting me to give her another one proves that.

As much as I want to gaze down at her perfect body, I force myself to remain looking at her face.

She’s naturally exquisite. But even in the dim lighting of the room, it’s easy to see she has her demons.

To most, I’d bet she can keep them well hidden, guarded behind her protective wall, under lock and key.

I see them, though. I’m all too familiar with them since I keep mine caged in a similar fashion.

She sighs and tries to maneuver around me. “Well, when you think of it, let me know. For now, you can get the fuck out of my way.”

“I don’t think so.” Without thinking, I grab her around the waist and pull her tight against me.

The action isn’t easy since she’s expecting it.

Off balance, she grips my biceps and starts to move against me.

Fuck, that’s the wrong thing for her to do.

“Keep moving like that, and we’re going to have a bigger problem on our hands that may have to be dealt with. ”

With her so close, I can easily make out the lines of her face. She looks exasperated as though she’s heard it all before, but at least she stops fighting against me.

“Let me go.” Her voice is breathy and cautious.

Ninja’s damp chest rises and falls against mine as her hands slide down my slick arms. The only images smashing through my head are of ripping her clothes off, pulling her onto my dick, and thrusting as deep as I can into her until her screams drown out the roar of the storm.

She’s got to feel my cock getting hard, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Not until you tell me something,” I taunt.

“What?” she says.

Her breaths are short, quick, and tinged with the faint scent of the tequila she drank earlier.

It’s intoxicating as fuck. I have no idea what I want to ask her, if anything.

I’m just not ready to let her go. Instead of asking her anything, I lean down to nuzzle her neck.

She smells so fucking good, beach and rain, coconuts and raw lust. She tries to push me away, but her efforts are weak.

I know she’s not trying nearly as hard as she could.

Her feeble nudge gives me an incentive to push further.

“What happened to the fight in you?” I whisper against her ear. She goes completely still. Her breaths have slowed enough that I barely feel her moving against me, and I already miss it.

“What do you want, Edge?” Her words are low and barely audible above the pounding rain and thunder. The way she says my name is like it belongs to her—like she’s said it a thousand times before as her perfect mouth closes around the last sound.

I brush the tip of my thumb over the bare skin of her waist. Goosebumps rise on her cool skin. She shivers against me. Instinctually, I pull her tighter against me. Her body fits perfectly against mine.

“Are you cold?”

“Not at the moment,” she answers. Again, there’s the honesty I want.

She’s almost as sexy when she’s not sassing me as when she’s telling me to fuck off. Although I have to admit, her scrappy attitude gives my self-control more of a challenge than most guys in the fucking ring.

The temptation to glide my hand up to the center of her back and pull on the string of her bikini, then continue to the one tied at the base of her neck and tug that one loose, is overpowering. But I manage to control myself. Most girls would be begging me to strip them down. Not my little Ninja.

She’s been in my grasp for less than a minute, but it’s like time has stopped.

I glide my lips from her ear around to her cheek, grazing her smooth cheek, stopping only a breath away from her mouth.

Her eyes are a convoluted mystery I can’t read.

Her hands grip my arms tightly, but she isn’t pushing me away, and I have no idea why.

I thought I would have gotten kneed in the balls by now.

I thrive on control, but with her so close, that control is slipping.

Lightning strikes. A current of electricity rips through the small space. There’s only a sliver of space between our lips.

Unable to stop myself, I press my mouth to hers. The rain pounds against the shutters, mimicking my heart's beat in my chest. Her lips are soft and full and maddeningly still.

She doesn’t kiss me back. I can tell she wants to by the way her back arches, pressing her body against mine. The exhale of her breath lets me know she’s made her decision.

Her hands slide down my arms and drop to her sides. I raise my head. Her eyes search my face in the dark, landing on mine.

“You don’t get to touch me,” she says. There’s no anger or distress in her tone. She simply states the exact opposite of what I want to hear and what her body is begging for.

Then she gently pushes me out of the way. I don’t fight her. She whips open the door.

“Where are you going, little Ninja?”

Her heated glare sears into me. The wind tears the loose band out of her hair, freeing it to whip around her. Rain plasters the long, dark stands to her face.“Home.”

The storm is one of the worst we’ve had in a while, but it doesn’t stop her as she runs directly into it.

Black waves crash angrily against the shore.

Thunder cracks as lightning streaks across the sky.

Through the thrashing storm, her form gets smaller and smaller the farther she moves away.

I stand at the top of the ramp, watching her race down the beach.

Lightning strikes down, silhouetting her body in a path of wicked white light.

Then she’s gone.

I slam my fist against the wooden wall of the shack and roar into the storm. “Fuck!”