The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions #1)(65)

“I think it’s good to learn how to control it,” she says.

“Surely.” She’s still drunk with whatever energy’s coursing through her—I don’t know that I’m making out the tenor of it. I hear one rhapsodic note wavering above the rest. But it is wavering. If it’s Mara, it’ll wear off soon enough. And while she’s like this, I wonder . . .

Daniel and I have both shied away from the slightest implication that Mara could be responsible for what’s happened to the others, so it didn’t occur to me to bring up my conversation with Stella with him.

But now, here, alone with Mara like this—her tongue might be loose enough to trust.

“Where’s your scalpel?” I ask.

Her spine straightens at the word. “What?”

“Where is it?”

Her shoulders lift into a shrug. “I don’t have one, why would I—”

This time, I do hear her sound change. Liar, liar. “Is it on you?”

That wicked smile. “Maybe.”

“Well,” I say, “Isn’t this a dangerous game.”

Mara’s eyes take on that cat-slant. “I’m not playing.”

I take her by the wrist, lift her up to standing. She’s sober enough that she doesn’t sway. Much.

“Put your hands on the wall,” I say, and tip my head toward it.

She arches an eyebrow.

“Go on, then.”

She crosses the living area carefully, but makes it to the wall. She splays her palms against the flat white paint, and I stop inches from her body.

“Spread your legs.”

She laughs, full throated, sounding more and more like herself, which means I’m running out of time before she kicks back in and outsmarts me. “Is this foreplay?”

“If you’re lucky,” I say, and crouch down to her ankles. I run my hands up beneath the cuffed hem of her torn jeans, then over them in a neat line up to her hips. Nothing. I shift and trace my fingers along the inseam—she shivers just before I reach where she wants them most. I switch to her stomach, running them up over her shirt just before I reach her breasts, then under. My head is tilted down to hers, a few strands of my own hair mingling with her dark waves, my rough jaw meeting her smooth cheekbone. It’s our only point of contact—our bodies aren’t touching at all—but the charge is explosive, the air searing white, edging out every other thought that isn’t her. I stop because I need to find that scalpel, if it exists, and if I don’t look now—

She feels me hesitate, turns, gives me a look; a dare. “What?”

My eyes drop to her chest. I catch her smile.

“Looking for something?” Can’t tell if she’s mocking or serious, still high or dead sober.

“Do you have something for me to find?” I ask.

She takes my hand, weaves her fingers through mine, and leads me upstairs. The city’s lit beyond the glass, but the moon is full and outlines her curves in shadow and light. I close the door behind us, and she pushes me up against it with the full force of her.

Her mouth is on mine, her hands on my waist and in my hair—there isn’t one false move, one wrong note. Every movement, every touch, every kiss is where I want it and how I want it, like she’s inside of my head, unspooling my thoughts and following along. I begin to lift the hem of her shirt, and she traces her lips along my neck, tilts her head up, and whispers, “I’m going to shower.” Bites my earlobe with those sharp little teeth. “Come with?”

It might’ve been the teeth, or her flawless execution of my fantasy, but I tug on her tank, lowering it. “Wait,” I say. The half grin on her mouth falters. I press myself against her, push her back against the bed.

“I’m really dirty—”

“I know,” I say.

“No, seriously—”

We edge up to the bed until she’s standing up against the mattress. Looks up at me through a fringe of dark lashes, her gorgeous face half hidden in a tumble of hair.

“Turn around.”

I wonder if she’ll refuse. She doesn’t. She tucks away a smile though, intimate, full of mischief.

“Bend over,” I say.

She obeys, to my surprise, bending at the waist over the edge of the bed, stretching her feline outline in front of me. I slip my hands up beneath her shirt, then lower. Dip them into the loose waistband of her jeans, then lower. My breath hitches at the sensation of cold steel slicing through my fingertip. My hand curls around the scalpel tucked into the elastic of her underwear. God knows how she’s managed not to stab herself—or me—before now.

I hear the smile in her voice, smudged by her cheek pressed against the bed. “How did that get in there?”

“Yes. How?”

She turns over, still bent at the waist, chest rising and falling as she bites her lip.

“Why do you have this?” I ask, like I’m asking why she chose to wear those jeans today.

“It makes me feel safe,” she says plainly.

I turn it over carefully, wondering if this is, as Stella said, what she used to cut down her enemies. I turn over Mara’s lie as well.

It’s a trophy. I can’t deny it, not even to myself.

“Hey.” She stands, and since I haven’t moved, she’s up against me, her knee between my legs. She tilts her head up to kiss me, and with one hand, reaches for the scalpel, which is now behind my back.