Good For You

You’re vulnerable right now.”

I know he’s right, and I’m sliding headlong into something that can’t end wel . Avoiding his gaze, I promise,

“I’l be careful,” and just like that, I’m official y lying to everyone I know. Everyone except Reid.

Chapter 43

REID

“If you close your eyes, you won’t know if he’s dead yet,” I say.

Dori’s hammering away on the control er, click-click-clack-clack-clack, hacking the thing on the life-sized screen until it’s a bloody pulp. “But it’s disgusting.” We’re in the media room where I sit on the sofa with her cross-legged on the floor between my knees. My guy is already dead, so I’m just watching her. For a former non-gamer girl, she’s a remarkably quick learner. “Eww eww eww,” she says.

Squeamish, but quick.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve kil ed him.” She flashes me a sideways look and I grin, one palm up— what?—and then she chops the thing one more time.

“I just want to make sure.”

“And I want to make sure you’re on my team if demonic predators ever attack earth.”

My phone buzzes with a text from Dad: Come to my study when you have a minute.

He never puts in an appearance to my side of the house to speak with me—I always get a text summons to his office. Once, I was away on location and he sent one requesting tax receipts. I took great satisfaction in replying that I wasn’t in the house, or LA, or California for that matter. He prides himself on being a detail guy, but he didn’t notice his only kid was out of town? Pretty sure he lost out on Father of the Year for that.

“I’ve gotta go talk to Dad about something. Back in a sec.” Dori nods without looking at me, alternating between staring at the action onscreen and squeezing her eyes shut

—every single time she’s kil ing something. It’s so cute that I can’t resist leaning forward, pul ing her hair away from her neck and running the tip of my tongue along the bumpy vertebrae, nibbling the smooth skin.

“Mmm.” Her arms go a little slack and her eyes drift closed. Her avatar is going to get slaughtered thanks to me. “You’re distracting me, Reid. You’re going to get me kil ed.” I chuckle and she shrieks, hunching her shoulders.

“No tickling!”

“I didn’t mean to.” I lean around, turn her face towards me and kiss her, and she forgets to hit pause before dropping the control er into her lap—such a girl. Judging by the sounds roaring from the speakers, she’s dying a quick bloody death, but she doesn’t seem to care.

“You didn’t mean to tickle me, or you didn’t mean to kil me?” Her voice is a breathy whisper into my mouth.

I kiss her again before saying, “Neither. I was trying to distract you, though. To see if I could break through your bloodlust.”

Something flashes through her eyes, so quickly I almost miss it. “Mission accomplished,” she murmurs.

“Hmm. What was that look for?” She shakes her head, her ears pink. My arms surround her and I fold over her like a tent. “Was it because I said—” I lower my voice “— lust?” Her skin darkens under the dusting of freckles across her cheeks. “Is that what you’re feeling for me?” I hold her face steady, kissing the corner of her mouth, preventing her from turning her head and fusing our lips together—not yet. “I feel so used.” I run my tongue along her lower lip and she gasps. “Good thing I’m total y okay with that, huh?” When I kiss her this time, her head fal s back against my thigh, her torso twisted as her hands reach for me. Winning her desire is like nothing I’ve ever accomplished. The pathway to it was proving that I’m worthy of her trust, and somehow, I’ve done that. She was indifferent to everything that usual y matters to people in my experience. A bolt of panic shoots through me when I realize I don’t even know what it was that earned her confidence.

My phone rings, startling us both. While my jaw clenches, she jumps and pul s away as though someone has walked into the room and caught us kissing. As though we don’t have every right to do so, the rest of the world be damned.

It’s Dad. “Yeah?”

“Are you home? I thought I saw your friend’s car outside…”

I am not discussing Dori with him.

“I’m on my way down. It’s a big house.”

“I just need a signature on a court doc.”

“Sure. Be right there.” I hang up, and Dori is saving and signing off of her failed demon-exterminating mission—the one I wrecked. I can’t be sorry for wrecking it. “You can restart the level, you know.”

She smiles. “Maybe next time. I’ve sort of lost interest in, um, bloodlust.”

I’m biting back the licentious replies pouring through my brain because I’ve already exceeded my daily quota for inciting mad flushes to scurry across her skin. “We have time to watch a movie. I won’t be long—he just needs me to sign something.” I hate giving up even ten minutes with her, a fact that should alarm me, but doesn’t.

When I get to Dad’s office, he presents a pen and a document with an X at the bottom, my ful named typed under the line that needs my signature. “Once this is recorded, you’l have completed the initial probationary requirements of your sentence.” I scrawl my name as his words sink in.

“My license suspension?” I feel like it’s been years since I drove a car, as opposed to six months.