“Don’t try me,” I warned with a shaky voice.

I’d never hurt anyone before, but I knew Vaughn could bring me there. He always made me do crazy things. I’d stitched him up. Stabbing him seemed like coming full circle.

“You need a bitch to bring you down. I hope she’ll stab you while she’s at it,” Knight had said to Vaughn on the last day of school.

He wasn’t wrong.

Vaughn finally detached his lips from me, elevating his head just enough to look me in the eye in the dark. He was so heart-stoppingly beautiful, I couldn’t breathe.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. I told you to do your worst. Play along,” he enunciated.

Lord. He practically invited me to hurt him. And I was going to do it. I rearranged the angle of the blade away from his Adam’s apple, picking a place where I couldn’t see or feel the bulge of a vein. When he stayed silent and still, I poked. I didn’t stop until a trail of thin blood began to run down into his black shirt, like a tiny river. I held my breath, watching the cut in his throat, mesmerized.

Before I knew what was happening, Vaughn had snatched the knife from my hand and pointed it to my neck, smiling politely.

“My turn. Now suck on it good. I know how much you like my blood. Arabella and Alice don’t call you Drusilla for nothing.”

I swallowed hard, but made no move toward his wound.

He was right, of course.

Drawing and sucking his blood turned me on, and that mortified me.

I knew I was going to get off on it, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“Nah. I think I’ll wait to see who cuts deeper,” I heard myself say.

I couldn’t believe those words had left my mouth. I was obviously drunk on our kiss. I didn’t want him to cut me. And I had no doubt he would. He was Vaughn bloody Spencer, for goodness’ sake.

Literally Vaughn bloody Spencer. And it was all my doing.

He poked the blade a little into my flesh, but stopped before it even hurt. “Fuck, you’re crazy.” He laughed, his eyes lighting up as if the revelation relieved him.

He now had a partner in crime. I didn’t say anything. Just waited for him to return the favor, so to speak. Then I felt something I hadn’t felt either of the first two times he’d kissed me.

His erection pressing against my stomach.

I was terrified and elated all at once. My heart jerked everywhere in my chest without a rhythm or particular pace.

I’d seen him hard before, kind of, when Arabella sucked him off, although he never did come. He was the least horny bloke I’d ever met. Vaughn’s eyebrows pinched together, and both our gazes skated down to the point where our bodies met, his groin against my belly button.

My heart. My wild, desolate heart couldn’t take all the adrenaline. My body, however, was coming alive in a way I’d never experienced before. Blooming, warming up, and begging for permission to grind against him.

“That,” he said, still pointing a knife to my neck, “never happened before. I usually…control them. Sorry.”

Did he just apologize for getting hard when we were pressed against each other? I wanted to laugh, but bit down my smile.

“You’re fine.”

“Unfortunately, so are you.” He looked back at me, a faraway, slightly shocked expression on his marble face.

“That sounds dangerously close to a compliment.” I couldn’t help but grin. Vaughn never said anything about how girls looked. He was perpetually immune.

“Suck my blood,” he said wryly, changing the subject.

“Will you stab me if I don’t?”

“Your neck is too pretty to slit. I could cut other things, though.” He ran the knife down to the center of my shirt, poking the hem.

My eyes flared, but I pretended to keep my cool. He tugged at the fabric, ripping my shirt open in the middle. My breasts were bare in front of him now, my nipples erect and pointing expectantly at his face.

Touch us. Bite us. Hell, put a ring on us.

Everything was swollen, with sex in the air. What was up with my idiotic body? This person and I hated each other. Tomorrow morning, we wouldn’t say hi in the hall.

“Suck. My. Blood,” he repeated, hovering over me. A drop of said blood fell directly to my mouth. I refused to taste it, pressing my lips together.

His hand moved between us, about to cut off my jammies. The knife trailed along the slit of my pussy through the fabric, and I shivered all over. I snatched his wrist.

“Christ,” I snapped.

I jerked him by the hem of his shirt, hungrily sucking on his blood. I didn’t know what it was about it that drove me mad—the fact that it was hot, metallic, and sweet against his cold, stony features, or the idea that I’d done this to him. I’d hurt the guy who managed to destroy everyone and everything in his way. I felt wetness pooling between my legs and found myself rubbing against him without meaning to, sucking harder on his throat and moaning.

I wanted him to touch me, and I didn’t care that I’d regret it tomorrow.

I wasn’t doing it to make him feel good. I wanted him to make me feel good.

And tomorrow, when the reality of Arabella, Pope, Vaughn, and me inevitably crashed over my head, at least I’d have one good memory to cling to.

I took his hand and guided it between us, shoving it into my jammies with a lump in my throat as I continued suckling. His hand froze when it reached my waistline, refusing to dip farther. I frowned, peeking at his face. My lips felt puffy and sensitive.

“I want you to do this,” I confirmed, in case he needed verbal consent. He just stared at me, like I was a complete stranger.

“I don’t do that,” he said after a beat, his voice thick and strange.

“You don’t do what?”

His nostrils flared, the vein in his square jaw tightening in annoyance.

“Any of that.”

“Are you a virgin?” I joked, popping a brow.

He snorted in disgust, unplastering himself from me and standing up. It all happened so fast, I didn’t have time to decipher his reaction. He rearranged his cock inside his black jeans, grabbing his phone and a joint from my nightstand. Obviously, the twat had made himself comfortable before he woke me up. Again.

Only this time, I hadn’t pretended to sleep. No. I’d let him use me in my bed.

Yeah, you really showed him this time, Lenny.

Daft, daft girl.

Shame flooded me as reality trickled in.

I’d asked him to finger me.

And he said no.

I sat up, crossing my arms over my chest.

“If you come here again, I’ll aim the knife at a vein, and I’ll dig much deeper.”

“More for you to suck on.” He shrugged carelessly, lighting his joint and tightening the laces of his boots. He didn’t even spare me a look.

“Or maybe I’ll just kill you next time. No one’s going to miss you. Maybe your mum,” I mused, snapping my lips together.

“Doubtful,” he spoke with the lit joint in his mouth, tucking his Zippo into his back pocket. “But if you kill me, I’ll kill you, too. So we can join the Tinsall ghosts. Isn’t your room the very place she killed her husband? Kinda fucked up, GG.”

How did he know about the ghosts?

About my room?

He’d only been here for summer session. Once. And he hadn’t talked to anyone.