Mind Games (Mind Games, #1)(27)

“DRINK?”

I turn, surprised to see my line boy still behind me. He stopped existing for me as soon as I got what I wanted. “I don’t—” I don’t drink. Annie made me promise not to, and I haven’t, not a drop, not a single drop since that first time. Not even the year we were apart. Annie also promised to take care of me. Then she sent me out to kill someone.

“ABSOLUTELY!” I shout. He smiles and he thinks it’s predatory, and if I were another girl, I would-should-could be worried. I am the predator in any situation. I am not worried.

I close my eyes and sway, let the music wash out everything else, let it give me the dull I look for everywhere, let it pound the very thoughts from my brain. My only job right now, the only thing I have to do, is move.

So I move.

I move slow. I move fast. I move faster. My shoulder burns and I can’t raise that arm much, but I don’t care, can’t care. I am rhythm and bass and drums and beats and I don’t care what the song is, I just move.

Something breaks through, breaks me out, and I’m livid. I turn to find the boy from the line. He’s shouting something. I don’t care what he has to say. He leans closer and shouts again.

“YOU’RE CRAZY SEXY OUT HERE.”

I raise an eyebrow. “One part of that description is correct.”

“WHAT?”

He’s holding two glasses. I grab one. The way he watches it, I know he put something extra in it. All the better. I tip my head back and bring the glass up and—

“STOP.” Someone grabs my arm, the drink splashes me. It smells sharp and sour and sweet all at the same time, and now there’s that much less of it to drink. I scowl up to see James.

“He put something in it,” James yells.

I roll my eyes. “Of course he did.” I turn to the line boy, but, oh dear, he’s on the ground, clutching a bleeding nose. I shake my head and tsk at James. “That’s no way to make friends!”

“We’re leaving.”

He still has my arm, my uninjured one, and he’s pulling me toward the door. I spin away from his grasp and back into the bodies, turning and beckoning him with a grin. He shakes his head.

I raise both arms in the air (it hurts but I don’t care), bring them up through my hair, let my hips catch the beat. Look at James through my eyelashes. I have never let James dance with me before, not once, but I might die tomorrow and Annie used me and I can never be with someone like Adam, so I don’t care tonight.

He bites his lip. He follows me.

He puts his hands on my hips and I keep my arms in the air and there is the beat, the beat, the beat, and the music. And there is his body next to mine, and it isn’t just a body, it’s his body.

I wanted this so many times. Too many times. I never let myself have it. After a song or three or seven, James pulls me closer. “We should get you home.”

“You should buy me a drink!”

“You aren’t supposed to drink.”

“Thanks, Annie! I’m also not supposed to do this.” I put my hands on his chest (my hands he knows all about and he doesn’t push me away), and stretch up, take his earlobe between my teeth.

“Fia,” he says, and I don’t know if he’s scolding me or moaning.

“Buy me a drink.” I bite his ear harder. I feel like I’m in control tonight. I feel like I am the one using him tonight. I feel good. Or as good as I ever do.

He leans his face into mine—his cheek has a hint of stubble, it’s rough, I want to run my mouth along it—then bends down, lets his lips touch my neck, trace it ever so lightly.

He grabs my hand and pulls me out of the crowd, toward the bar. He’s angry, with himself or with me I can’t tell, but I’m getting my way so I don’t care. “Since we’re breaking all the rules anyway.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Annie will kill me.”

“No, she’ll just have me do it.”

He squints suspiciously at me, but I smile and twirl away to get to the drinks faster.

“Only one,” he says.

I open my blue eyes wide. I am the picture of innocent earnestness. “Absolutely.”

I can’t dance anymore. The lights are spinning and the floor is spinning. How did they install a spinning floor? It’s amazing. The whole world spins, spins, spins from the balcony where we’re sitting. I try to tap, but I can’t find my leg with my finger, and I laugh. I’m even free from my three taps.

“You know why I don’t want to be with you?” James’s eyes are as glassy as they were the first time we met.

“Because I’m too young for you? Because you’re an evil, manipulative monster and I know it?”

He smiles, and his smile has that edge I know, that sharp edge I recognize. It sings to my own sharp soul. “You knowing makes me want you more. And you aren’t young. You haven’t been young since you were fourteen.”

I smile back. “Fine, then. Because I’m psychotic and I kill people?”

“Nope.” He shakes his head, still smiling. “Because my dad wants us together.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. He suggested it when we left on the yacht. Wanted you to fall in love with me as another way to tie you to us.”