Fraud

With two fingers, I press the handle down and step inside, her back to me as I move in far enough for the door to swing closed behind me.

The light doesn’t stay green after that. But I’m not sure she knows I’ve locked it.

“Nice choice of rooms. Is this a subtle hint or what?” I glance at the bed that takes up the majority of the room.

Ivy groans and turns to look at me.

“No. I didn’t mean to come in here, but after doing so, I thought it would look stupid to march back out and head the other direction.”

“It kills the dramatic effect,” I comment.

Her lips tug apart at that. “Exactly.”

Tossing up her hands, she drops the tough girl act, her eyes pleading with me from across the bedroom.

“What do you want from me? I don’t have any information to give you about my father, so I’m not sure what I can do to get out of this.”

Unfortunately for her, that’s the last thing on my mind at the moment. I’m still stuck in my junior year of high school, the rain driving down in freezing drops.

She should never have been there that night, and wouldn’t have if she weren’t attempting a prank in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Since then, she’s always seen me as the broken prince. And I can’t stand that she knows it.

We hated each other then, but that hatred was simply a juvenile dislike. A spark burst into life on that night, and neither of us have been able to snuff it out.

She may try to pretend she’s not interested, but I know the truth.

What’s sad is that she’s right to say what she has. Our games only got crueler after she saw the horrible ugliness of what resides beneath a practiced smile and quick wit.

I struck out because the pain and embarrassment were too much, and she struck back because I deserved it.

When I don’t answer, she shakes her head again, the near-white color of her hair shimmering beneath the low light of the room.

“I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? You never had a reason to hate me even before that. You just did. Since we were children. So in this, I think it’s safe to assume your group will torture me for the fun of it. Regardless of whether I can give you information or not.”

So caught up in what she’s saying, Ivy doesn’t notice I’m creeping closer on slow steps. My eyes pin her in place, the distance shrinking, but she’s too upset to realize she’s being stalked.

She’s not wrong though. About anything she’s mentioned. The Gabriel everybody else knows is playful and fun. I’m always good for an easy laugh and quick entertainment.

All of it is on purpose, of course, my good cop act a complete ruse to make people drop their guard.

Ta

Ta

But that’s not the only reason Ta

Just like Ivy.

Although she was never invited by me to see that truth.

Like always, this woman didn’t ask permission to know who I am, she simply walked her beautiful ass into the wrong situation and stole it.

She turns to see I’m only a foot away from her, a gasp bursting from her lips as she flinches.

“Jesus Christ, Gabe.”

Taking a step back, her mouth twists into a frown when I close the distance again.

She stills in place, challenge rolling behind her eyes.

“What are you going to do? Murder me? Finally make good on all the threats you made in high school?”

I stare at her and grin to see Ivy fidget in place. Silence falls between us, but she can’t stand it. Her lips parting again to fill it.

“What if I just apologize for what happened and we leave it at that? Go on with our separate lives as if we never knew each other? You can fix whatever you did to make my dad hate me, and we can pretend all of this never happened.”

She never shuts up. I’ve always liked that about her. It makes her more interesting than most people. It means her mind is moving faster than her mouth, her filter usually entirely absent so that I get a front row view of every thought.

Right now she’s wavering, short-circuiting. But then she always has around me, and I like that, too.

“What are you doing?” she asks when I stand here patiently watching her without saying a damn word in response.

I’m gathering intel, examining, assessing. It’s what I do with every person, but especially her.

You have no idea how boring most people are. They say the same things. Do the same things. Act like clones of each other when in certain situations. Always expected. Never surprising.

Not Ivy.

She’s a mystery wrapped in pretty feathers. A thousand different flavors of the same person, each one more tempting than the next. I just don’t think she knows it.

That’s why it was stupid of me to fall for the game she played on our date. I should have known better. You can’t take a person who is too large for their skin and shove them into a standard sized box that has no weight or volume.

It’s impossible, and I should have known that. Yet, I fell for it anyway.

I won’t again.

Reaching out, I gently cup her cheek, my lips curling when her eyes slightly widen and her body goes still.

Always...

That’s what you need to remember.

I’ve always wanted this woman, even when I couldn’t stand that she exists.

“You shouldn’t touch me,” she breathes out, her voice lacking strength.

My mouth curls more at that, and I inch closer.

Eyes wide, she doesn’t back off or back down, but she’s still as nervous as she can be.

“This never ends well,” she argues, her gaze dropping to my mouth before bouncing up again.

She’s not wrong. But then, we’ve never had a moment where we weren’t interrupted. It felt like the world agreed we were the worst possible people for each other and would set obstacles in place to keep us apart.

This attraction is a fatal virus to which neither of us are immune, one that infected us when we were children and has slowly chipped away at everything we are.

And while I still want to destroy her, I can’t fight the need to taste her in the process.

“Gabriel,” she warns, but doesn’t pull away. “You know this can never happen, and you also know why. So just stop before you push it too far.”

I like pushing things too far.

Ivy and I both are experts at it.

Our mouths are a teasing inch apart, our breath shared as our eyes dance together with both hatred and want. Still, she doesn’t stop talking, and I grin to hear it.

“You’re a walking lie, Gabriel. Will you ever let anybody besides me know it?”

My mouth brushes against hers when I answer, “I don’t plan on it.”

“Such a shame.”

“Just shut up.”

Our mouths press together, my tongue sweeping out to trap hers, my hand moving so I can fist my fingers in her hair and hold her in place. And, fuck, my body is tight with the need to restrain myself, hers melting in place as if to surrender.

This kiss is feral for how much we want each other, dangerous for the way it should never fucking happen, wrong for how meaningless it is because it won’t change my decision to destroy her.

We’re devouring each other, my other hand taking hold of her hip to tug her body to mine, her hands diving into my hair to drag me to her. Even in this, we fight, but that’s the way it’s always been.