Liar (Madison Kate #2)(59)
"Oh yeah?" he challenged me. "Do you make a habit of lying to yourself, Princess Danvers? Or is it just me that you lie to? Because we both know you were more than happy to touch my dick all over at Bree's party. And don't get me started on the way you threw yourself at me in the weapons room of Phillip's office."
"Excuse me?" I whirled around to face him in outrage, then immediately regretted that choice. He was bending down slightly, and suddenly I found my neck craning so that our eyes met—a foolish move on my part. "You fucking started that. Both times. And you also blew me off both times, so clearly you're either suffering some kind of split personality malfunction, or you choked under pressure. Either way, big man, you lost your chance. As someone told me recently, I don't fuck desperate."
His lips curved in a vicious smile and his ice-blue eyes flared with victory. "Liar," he breathed, then kissed me.
For a moment—okay, a few moments—my brain shut down, and I kissed him back. When his hands shifted from the countertop to my waist, I didn't push him away, I just pressed my body into his, shuddering at the hard planes of his muscles and the barely concealed danger lurking within him.
Then I snapped the fuck out of it and shoved him away from me.
The two of us just stood there a moment, staring at each other with hungry eyes, our chests heaving and our lips wet. It was scary how badly our bodies wanted one another while we also wanted to kill each other.
"How's that denial going for you, Princess?" Archer taunted me with an arrogant smirk.
I sneered back at him. "Pot calling the kettle black, dickhead. Or maybe all those steroids are making you delusional."
His pale blue eyes narrowed, but the tilt to his lips was still pure sex. "Madison Kate, it's adorable how you're pretending you're not currently ruining your panties just thinking about what I could do to you right here on the counter." He leaned back against the island, but his eyes didn't leave me for even a second. It was a deliberate move, reminding me of the fact that I'd fucked Kody right where he stood, and damn, it was working.
Someone cleared their throat in a pointed way, and I wrenched my eyes away from Archer’s and over to Kody, who stood in the doorway looking both amused and annoyed all at the same time.
"What's going on in here?" he asked with an edge of suspicion. "I hope you found your manners this morning, Arch?"
The surly guy just glared at his friend—he made no reaction to Kody’s pink hair, much to my disappointment—then shot me a warning look. The message was crystal clear: This isn't over, Princess Danvers.
"He's still hunting for them," I replied to Kody in a cool tone while sending a silent message back to Archer. Bite me.
"Shocking," Kody muttered with dripping sarcasm. "What's in the box?" He pointed to a package on the counter, which I'd totally overlooked thanks to Archer's oozing sexual frustration.
I shrugged and moved closer to it. "No idea, Karen said the groundskeeper brought it in this morning sometime."
The package was fairly nondescript, just a plain brown box with a printed label on it displaying my name and address. Except...
"Guys, there're no postage marks on this," I pointed out while a chill ran down my spine. The package was totally devoid of any postal stamps or barcodes. Like it'd been hand-delivered.
Kody swiped the package out of my hands without a word, then grabbed a knife from the cutlery drawer and sliced the packing tape open. He flipped the flaps open as Archer swooped in between us, blocking the contents from my view.
"Hey, what the—fucking move, ass-pig!" I jabbed Archer in the ribs, but the glare he shot me froze any further protests from me. Whatever was in that box... it wasn't books from Amazon. Not with that reaction.
"Show me," I demanded.
Archer shook his head at the same time as Kody made a sound of disagreement.
"Show me!" I snapped, meeting Archer's glare head on with one of my own. "It's addressed to me, so fucking show me what's in the box, you overbearing ape."
Archer's brow cocked, and he gave me one of those looks that suggested I was being an idiot but he wasn't going to stop me. Prick.
"Uh, I don't think—" Kody started to say, but Archer had already moved out of the way and I could see into the box in Kody's hands.
I sucked in a gasp, pressing my hands to my mouth as bile rose in my throat. Inside the nondescript box was another clear threat. This time it was against Kody, there was no doubt about that. The dead bird held the distinctive forked tail of a swallow, and the white rose was smeared in the bird's blood. Swallows and roses. Just like Kody's chest tattoos.
"Give it to me," I whispered, not trusting my full voice for fear of throwing up. Still, I was slowly becoming desensitized to these things, blood and threats. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but it was helping me keep my shit on a daily basis.
Kody wanted to refuse, I could tell, but I snatched the box from him before he could do anything dumb. Like give it to Archer.
Holding my breath and praying for strength in my stomach, I reached in and carefully moved the bird aside so I could grab the blown-up photograph underneath it. The image was coated in blood and grainy like it'd been taken from a surveillance video, but it only took me a second to recognize the image.