Page 36

I take a deep breath. “I know what I did.”

“I fucking love you.”

“Tragic,” I mutter, then finish stitching him up. It’s not a great job, but good enough. I grab the bottle of vodka that sits on the bench beside the cameras, and as the Jester watches me unscrew the cap, his smile falters.

“Don’t you dare,” he warns, but I just smirk as I tip the bottle over the wound.

He squeals and hisses between his teeth before he roars with laughter.

“Oh, stop being a little bitch. You wanted this.”

His eyes lift to mine, and his laughter disappears.

“I want you.”

Before I can answer, his hand slides behind my neck, and he leans up and kisses me. For a second, I’m too surprised to react, then I pull back—or try to, but his hand stays locked where it is. I could shove him away, hit him, or even remind him of how much I hate him. But something deep inside me says fuck it.

So I kiss him back.

Immediately I realize I have made a terrible fucking mistake. Kissing him shouldn’t feel like this. It should annoy me, like everything else about him—his voice, his face, the way he looks at me like I have personally hung the moon just because I threatened his life again. It’s all annoying. His mouth should annoy me too, but it doesn’t.

His hand tightens on the back of my neck, and I kiss him harder. Before I can think too much about why I’m doing it, his teeth catch my bottom lip, and heat rolls through me so quickly that I hate him a little more.

When I pull back, his eyes open slowly.

“This doesn’t change anything,” I mutter.

“That’s okay, because hate fucking is the best kind.” His grin widens.

“Of course you would say that.”

He smiles at me, and his eyes soften, and I can practically see hearts floating above his head. “I’ve been preparing for this moment since we met.”

I laugh at how absurd he is. “You’ve been preparing to hate-fuck me?”

“I’ve been preparing for anything involving you and few clothes.”

“You’re such a fuckin⁠—”

He stands, but I barely have time to register the movement before his hands grab me, then he pulls me to my feet and lifts me.

“What the fuck?!”

My back meets the wall, hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to knock the wind out of me. The bells on his pants jingle—I hate those fucking bells—and his mouth smashes against mine. My legs wrap around his hips instinctively, my long black skirt bunching between us as his hand slides beneath it, pushing the fabric higher.

“This is a lot of skirt,” he murmurs against my mouth, and I bite down hard on his lip, drawing blood. “I think you might be flirting with me, my dark queen.”

“I’m considering severing your tongue.”

“With your teeth?”

“Keep talking and find out.”

He laughs against my mouth. My skirt is around my hips now, and his hand moves over my stockings as he holds me against the wall. His fingers curl against the fabric and he tears a hole in the nylon, causing me to jerk back from his mouth.

“These are my favorite stockings.”

He chuckles. “I’ll buy you more.”