OALN

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  The video ended. Voice low, he said, “You’re even glowing in the video.”

  Mouth clamped shut, I nodded. And I waited.

  “You really have a thing for books.” When I didn’t respond, he closed the laptop without touching it. “It’s cute.”

  My head whipped around to him. “Cute?”

  “Yeah, it’s cute. Your excitement,” he said, shrugging. “It was cute.”

  I think my jaw hit the carpet.

  “But as cute as you are in pigtails, that’s not going to do anything to fade the trace on you.” He stood and stretched. Of course his shirt had to ride up, drawing my eyes. “We need to get this trace off you.” I was still stunned over the fact he hadn’t made fun of me, rendered speechless by it, shocked to the core. He just earned a few bonus points.

  “The sooner we get the trace off you, the less time we have to spend together.”

  And there went the points. “You know, if you hate the idea of being around me, why doesn’t one of the others come over here and do this? I actually prefer any of them to you, even Ash.”

  “You’re not their problem.” His eyes locked with mine. “You’re my problem.”

  My laugh was harsh. “I’m not your problem.”

  “But you are,” he reasoned gamely. “If I had managed to convince Dee not to get so close to you, none of this would’ve happened.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. There isn’t much we can do in here that’s going to make a difference, so we might as well count today as a loss and spare each other the pain of breathing the same air.” He shot me a bland look.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. You don’t need to breathe oxygen. My bad.” I shot to my feet, itching for him to be out of my house. “Can’t you just come back when it stops raining?”

  “No.” Daemon leaned against the wall, folding his arms. “I want to get this over with. Worrying over you and the Arum isn’t fun, Kitten. We need to do something about this now. There are things we can do.” My hands curled into fists. “Like what?”

  “Well, the jumping jacks for…an hour or so should do it.” His gaze dropped. Something flickered in his eyes. “You may want to change first.”

  The urge to cover myself was strong, but I resisted. I wasn’t going to cower from him. “I’m not doing jumping jacks for an hour.”

  “Then you could run around the house, up and down the stairs.” He paused, his smug grin turning wicked as his eyes met mine. “We could always have sex. I hear that uses up a lot of energy.”

  My mouth dropped open. Part of me wanted to laugh in his face. There was a part of me offended that he would suggest something so ridiculous, but there was another part that liked the idea. Which was so, so wrong it wasn’t even funny.

  Daemon waited.

  “That will never happen in a million years, buddy.” I took a step forward, raising my pointer finger at him. “Not even if you were the last—wait, I can’t even say last human on the face of this Earth.”

  “Kitten,” he murmured lazily. A clear warning in his eyes.

  I ignored it. “Not even if you were the last thing that looked like a human on the face of this Earth. Got that? Capiche?”

  He tilted his head to the side, and several locks of hair slid over his forehead. Daemon smiled, a wealth of danger in the tilt to his mouth, but I was on a roll now.

  “I’m not even attracted to you.” Lie. Ding! Ding! Lie. “Not even a little bit. You’re—”

  Daemon was in front of me in a flash, not an inch from my face. “I’m what?”

  “Ignorant,” I said, taking a step back.

  “And?” He matched my step.

  “Arrogant. Controlling.” I took another step back, but he was still in my personal space and then some. “And you’re…you’re a jerk.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can do better than that, Kitten.” His voice was low as he inched me backward. I barely heard him over the pounding rain and the thundering of my heart. “Because I seriously doubt you’re not attracted to me.” I forced a laugh. “I’m totally not attracted to you.”

  Another step forward on Daemon’s side, and my back was against the wall. “You’re lying.”

  “And you’re overconfident.” I inhaled, but all I smelled was him, and that did funny things to my stomach. “You know, the whole arrogant thing I mentioned. Not attractive.”

  Daemon placed his hands on each side of my head and leaned in. A lamp was on one side of me, and the T.V. on the other. I was trapped. And when he spoke, his breath danced over my lips. “Every time you lie, your cheeks turn red.”

  “Nuh-uh.” Not the most eloquent thing I’d ever said, but it was the best I could come up with.

  His hands slid down the wall, stopping beside my hips. “I bet you think about me all the time. Nonstop.”

  “You’re insane.” I pressed back against the wall, breathless.

  “You probably even dream about me.” His gaze lowered to my mouth. I felt my lips part. “I bet you even write my name in your notebooks, over and over again, with a little heart drawn around it.” I laughed. “In your dreams, Daemon. You’re the last person I think—”

  Daemon kissed me.

  There wasn’t a moment of hesitation. His mouth was on mine, and I stopped breathing. He shuddered and there was a sound from the back of his throat, half growl, half moan. Little shivers of pleasure and panic shot through me as he deepened the kiss, parting my lips. I stopped thinking. I pushed off the wall, sealing the tiny space between us, pressing against him, digging my fingers into his hair. It was soft, silky. Nothing else about him felt that way. I sparked alive, my heart swelled to the point of near bursting. The rush of sensations crawling across my body was maddening. Scary. Thrilling.

  His hands were on my hips, and he lifted me up as if I were made of air. My legs wrapped around his waist, and we moved to the right, knocking into a floor lamp. It toppled over, but I didn’t spare it another thought. A light popped somewhere in the house. The TV turned on, then off, back on. Our lips remained sealed. It was like we couldn’t get enough of each other. We were devouring one another, drowning in each other.

  We’d been building up to this for months, and oh my God was it worth the wait. And I wanted more.

  Lowering my hands, I tugged at his shirt, but it was stuck under my legs. I wiggled down until my feet were on the floor. Then I got a hold of his shirt and yanked it up. He broke apart long enough to pull it over his head and toss it aside.

  His hands slid around my head, pulling me back to his mouth. There was a cracking sound in the house. A fissure of electricity shot through the room. Something smoked. But I didn’t care. We were moving backward. His hands were moving down, under my shirt, his fingers skimming over my skin, sending a rush of blood to every part of my body. And my hands went down. His stomach was hard, dipped and rippled in all the right places.

  And then my shirt joined his on the floor. Skin against skin. His hummed, brimming full of power. I ran my fingers down his chest, to the button on his jeans. The back of my legs hit the couch and we went down, a tangle of legs and hands moving, exploring. Our hips were molded together and we moved against one another. I think I whispered his name, and then his arms tightened around me, crushing me against his chest and his hands slipped between my legs. And I was swimming in raw sensations.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured against my swollen lips. And then he was kissing me again. The deep kind of kisses that left little room for thought. There was only feeling and wanting. That was all. I wrapped my legs around his hips, pulling him closer, telling him what I wanted with my soft moans.

  Our kisses slowed, becoming tender and infinitely more. It was like we were getting to know each other on an intimate level. I was breathless and dazed, unprepared for all of this, but my body ached for more than just kisses and touching—for more of him. And I knew he did, too. His powerful body shook like mine. It was easy to get lost in him, lost in this connection betwee
n us. The world—the universe—ceased to exist.

  And then Daemon stilled, his breath coming out in rough gasps as he pulled back, lifting his head. My eyes opened slowly, dazed. His pupils were white, glowing from within.

  Daemon took a deep breath. An eternity seemed to pass as he stared down at me, his eyes wide, and then he pieced himself back together. The light went out. His jaw hardened. A mask slipped over his face. The arrogant half smile I disliked so much tipped up one corner of his swollen lips. “You’re barely glowing now.” Chapter 27

  I hated Daemon Black—if that was even his real name—with a vengeance that equaled the solar power of a thousand suns. You’re b arely glowing now. He left after that, grabbing his shirt off the floor and sauntering out of my house.

  The son of a bitch blew up my laptop.

  That was what had been smoking. His alien mojo apparently has a major affect on lights and most electronics. Now I had to rely on school computers to update my blog. Ugh. And I’d spent a good hour after I peeled myself off the couch replacing light bulbs in the house. Luckily, the T.V. hadn’t been fried.

  But my brain had. What had I been thinking? Doing? It had to have been all the arguing between us. That was the only explanation for why there was such a massive explosion from such a heavy make-out session. And he wasn’t as unaffected as he pretended. No one could fake that.

  My glow had faded to a small trace, much to everyone’s amazement. Imagine trying to explain how that happened. And I’m sure he couldn’t wait to share the info.

  I hated him.

  Not just for the fact he’d proven me a liar, or that I now had to wait until my birthday for a new laptop, or the fact Dee was highly suspicious of how my glow faded, but because of what he made me feel, for making me admit it out loud, too.

  And if he poked me in the back with a pen one more freaking time, I was going to throw him in front of an Arum.

  My cell phone buzzed in my backpack as I walked to my car, hunkered down against the unforgiving wind sweeping down from the Rocks. Without looking, I knew it was another text from Simon. For the last week he’d been texting his apologies over and over again. He didn’t dare talk to me in class or public, not with Daemon’s threat looming over his head. I wasn’t forgiving him anytime soon. Drunk or not, it wasn’t an excuse for being an overbearing ass who didn’t understand the word “no”.

  “Katy!”

  I jumped at the sound of Dee’s voice. Shouldering my bag, I turned and waited.

  As always, Dee looked amazingly beautiful. Today she’d worn skinny dark denim jeans and a lightweight turtleneck. With her glossy black hair and bright eyes, she was stunning. Her smile was wide and friendly, but it quickly faded as she neared me.

  “Hey, I didn’t think you were going to stop,” she said.

  “Sorry. I was lost in my thoughts.” I started walking again, spying my car. “What’s up?”

  Dee cleared her throat. “Are you avoiding me, Katy?

  I’d been avoiding all of them, which was hard. They lived next door. They were in my classes. They sat with me at lunch. And I missed Dee. “No.”

  “Really, because you haven’t been very talkative since Saturday,” she pointed out. “Monday you didn’t even sit with us at lunch, claiming you had to study for a test. Yesterday, I don’t think you said two words to me.” Guilt twisted my insides. “I’ve been…out of it.”

  “It’s too much, isn’t it? What we are?” Her voice was small, childlike. “I was afraid this would happen. We’re huge freaks—”

  “You’re not freaks,” I said, meaning it. “You guys are…more human than you give yourselves credit for.”

  Dee seemed relieved to hear that. She darted in front of me. “The boys, they’re still looking for Baruck.”

  I sidestepped her and opened my car door. The obsidian blade bounced around in the compartment on the side of the door. Carrying it in my backpack had made me feel like I was going to shank a student or something. So in my car it went. “That’s good.” She nodded. “The boys are going to continue searching and keep an eye on things, and both you and Simon barely have any traces on you now.” Dee paused. “I’d still like to know how that happened so quickly.” My stomach twisted. “Uh, yeah, there was a lot of…physical activity.”

  Her brows inched up her forehead. “Katy…”

  “Anyway,” I said quickly. “That’s all good—the trace fading from Simon, especially since he has no clue about any of this, so I’m glad, creeper-ness aside.”

  “You’re rambling,” she said, grinning.

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  “So what are you doing tomorrow?” she asked, hopeful. “It’s Saturday and Halloween. I thought maybe we could rent a bunch of scary movies.”

  I shook my head. “I promised Lesa I’d give out candy with her. She lives in a subdivision, so…” Hurt flickered across Dee’s face. What was I doing? Dissing a friend because of her jackass brother? That wasn’t me. “I can come over afterward, and we can watch movies if you want?”

  “If you want?” she whispered.

  Leaning over, I hugged her slim shoulders. “Of course I want. Just make sure you get tons of popcorn and candy. Those are a requirement.”

  Dee returned the hug. “That I can do.”

  I pulled back, smiling. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow night then?”

  “Wait.” She grabbed my arm, her fingers cold. “What happened between you and Daemon?”

  I willed my face blank. “Nothing happened, Dee.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I know better, Katy. You would’ve had to do major running around to burn off most of the trace in one afternoon.”

  “Dee—”

  “And Daemon has been acting grumpier than normal. Something happened between you two.” She brushed her hair out of her face, but the curls sprung right back. “I know you said you guys didn’t do anything that one time, but…”

  “Seriously, nothing happened. I promise.” I climbed into my car, forcing a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  She didn’t believe me. I didn’t believe myself, but what could I say? Admitting what went down between Daemon and me wasn’t something I wanted to share with his sister.

  …

  Every Halloween I missed being a kid, getting to dress up and eat tons of candy. The only thing I got to do now was…eat tons of candy. Not half bad.

  Lesa laughed as I dug out another box of Nerds. “What?” I elbowed her. “I love these things.”

  “And mini Hershey bars, Kit Kats, bubble gum, Starbursts—”

  “Look who’s talking!” I gestured to the pile of wrappers on the steps beside her feet. “You’re a freaking candy monster.”

  We stopped while a small child shuffled up the steps, dressed like a member of Kiss. Odd costume choice.

  “Trick or Treat!” the little boy cried.

  Lesa fawned all over him and gave him several pieces of candy. “You are so not here for the kids,” she said, watching the little boy run back to his parents.

  I popped a piece of caramel in my mouth. “What gave you that idea?”

  “Did you think that little boy was cute?” She moved the bowl away from me.

  I shrugged. “Guess so. I mean, he kind of smelled like…I don’t know. Kid.”

  Lesa busted out laughing. “Do you like kids?”

  “Kids scare me.” A mummy and vampire approached us. Lesa cooed over them until they scampered away. “Especially the little ones,” I continued, scowling when I saw there weren’t any Nerds left. “They jabber and stuff, and I have no idea what they are saying, but your little brother is super cute.”

  “My little brother craps himself.”

  I laughed. “Well, maybe it’s because he’s, like, only one?”

  “Whatever, it’s still gross.” She handed some candy over to a cowboy with an arrow through his head. Sweet. “So what’s your deal been?”

  “My deal?” Like a ninja, my hand shot out and snatched a r
oll of Smarties. “I don’t have a deal.”

  “You’re so full of it.” It was so dark out, I couldn’t make out her eyes. Her subdivision didn’t believe in street lamps. “You’ve been an angst-ridden teenage girl, like the kind in the books I read, all week.” I rolled my eyes. “Have not.”

  She nudged me with her knee. “You haven’t been talking to anyone, especially not Dee. And that’s weird, because you guys are close.”

  “We still are.” I sighed, squinting into the encroaching darkness. Shapes of parents and their kids walked along the side of the streets. “I’m not mad at her or anything. I’m going over to her house after I leave here.” Lesa cradled the bowl. “But?”

  “But something happened with her brother,” I said, caving in to the need to talk to someone about what happened.

  “I knew it!” she screamed. “Oh my God, you have to tell me everything! Did you guys kiss? Wait. Did you have sex?”

  A parent of a fairy shot her a dirty look as she ushered her child off Lesa’s porch.

  “Lesa, seriously, chill.”

  “Whatever. You have to tell me. I will hate you forever if you did but don’t tell me. What does he smell like?”

  “Smell like?” I scrunched up my face.

  “You know, he looks like he’d smell good.”

  “Oh.” I closed my eyes. “Yeah, he does smell good.”

  Lesa sighed dreamily. “Details. Now.”

  “It’s nothing big.” I picked up a fallen leaf, twirling it. My lips tingled, thinking about his kiss. “He came over last Sunday and we kissed.”

  “That’s all?” She sounded so disappointed.

  “I didn’t sleep with him. Jeez. But…it was pretty heavy.” I dropped the leaf and ran a hand through my hair, tugging it back. “We were arguing and the next thing I know—BAM. We’re going at it.”

  “Geez, that’s…that’s hot.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, it kind of was. But then he left abruptly.”

  “Of course, because you guys have this fiery passion that explodes, and he couldn’t take the heat.”

  I gave her a bland look. “We don’t have anything.”