Page 54 of Rev

What a strange and scary answer. “Better for whom? You or me?”

Another strained pause. “You.”

“Care to explain?”

“No.”

“Even a little?”

He lets the silence breathe for a long moment. I can feel him weighing what to tell me. “There are people out there who don’t like me. If they knew where I was and who I was seeing, they’d take steps to make sure I know they don’t like me.” Another pause. “That’d be…unpleasant.”

“Oh,” I whisper. “Enemies from your days in the Marines?”

“No. My enemies from my days in the Marines are all dead.”

“Oh.” I put two and two together and get something close to four. “I’m assuming you mean these people who don’t like you would do something tometo hurtyou.”

“Pretty much.” He steps toward me. “Told you, you don’t want no part of who I am.”

“Honestly, part of me wishes I wasn’t so attracted to you, Rev. But I am.”

“You just think you are.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I actually am.”

“You knew the half of it, you wouldn’t be.” Another step closer to me, and I stand my ground, knees locked, breath trembling—anticipation, now, rather than fear. Or, at least, it’s more anticipation than fear. “You’d run for the fuckin’ hills.”

“You want me to run, tell me something that would make me run.”

“You don’t wanna know.”

I swallow hard as his eyes bore into mine; I reach up and push the hood back, revealing his hard, craggy, sharp features, his glittering dark eyes, the slash of his mouth, the jagged edges of his cheekbones. “You like to think you know what I want, Rev. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you don’t know what I want?”

He closes the space, his chest pressing my breasts flat, his hips hard against mine. His hands curl around my hips, at the swell of my buttocks. “You want this?”

“Maybe I do.”

“You’re a good girl, Myka.”

“I was.”

“Still are.”

“Maybe I’m looking to change that.”

He shakes his head. “You want to take a little walk on the dark side? Be my guest. I’m not the dark side, Myka. I’m something way fuckin’ worse than just slummin’ it with a bad boy.”

“I don’t know what you mean by slumming it,” I breathe. “You’re trying to scare me.”

“Because you should be scared.”

“Of what?”

“Me.”

“Why?”

We’re nose to nose, chest to chest, hip to hip, breathing our words. Or, I’m breathing them, he’s growling them. I feel his words in my chest as much as hear them with my ears.