“You’re missing one big difference. Kay and I are two completely different people. Gabriel is your birth name. It wasn’t like I was calling you some random guy’s name like Alejandro or Chris or something.” He really was getting under her skin. Mentioning Kay really didn’t help. Kay was her friend, but she was also Jack’s friend-with-benefits, and considering what had almost happened between him and the dryad, reminding her of the fact that he was sleeping with the siren was kind of a sting.
Jia Li’s brows knitted together when he called himself a monster. It didn’t make any sense. Just being an asshole didn’t make someone a monster. Maybe he was referring to how far he went to actually push people away. That fake rape scare had been pretty intense, and she had been terrified. When she’d actually begun questioning whether or not he was really going to do it, she had thought he may be a monster, but he hadn’t actually done it. It had all been a show, and he’d come back and shown another side of himself that had made her completely forget what he’d been pretending to do before that.
She couldn’t think of that right now. He was telling her about who he was before all of this, probably before his family was killed, too. Could that really have been him? Her gaze moved over his, and she found she didn’t entirely doubt his description. With the way he acted now, she could picture people wanting to beat him up and shunning any chance at friendship. His current physique would keep him from getting his ass kicked these days for the most part, but in the past before he grew into himself, he could have been a scrawny kid who couldn’t entirely defend himself against bullies. “Getting beat up by bullies when you were a kid doesn’t excuse your being one today, and I don’t believe for an instant that you’re the monster you say you are.”
Jia Li sighed. “Of course I would try to help someone if they were getting mugged. It’s because I actively care about other people. I don’t really think anything warrants violence unless a person has to defend themselves. You didn’t just shout and try to shoo them away, though. You actually risked your life to save mine. You didn’t know that they couldn’t kill you.”
She seriously doubted that people would just shrug off the fact that she had a huge web of burn scars all over her outer leg. There would be stares and repulsion and questions. The dryad couldn’t handle facing all of that, but she didn’t say any of that to him. He couldn’t understand. He wouldn’t ever have physical scars. Instead she said, “Hah! So you admit you’re not a total asshole.” He had totally caught himself in that net, and she smiled to have realized it.
Then he moved back to a subject she’d hoped had been extinguished. “That is corr-” She began to say, but her words were cut off when his lips pressed against hers. This wasn’t that demanding, scare-tactic kissing that he liked to display. This was gentler and steadily picking up passion, and she could feel her lips responding as heat coloured her skin and all thoughts left her mind. She practically melted against him as his hands moved down her curves and his thigh slipped between her thighs.
Jia’s tongue snaked between her lips to trace over his. The taste of whisky wasn’t as obvious as it had been, and it didn’t seem as terrible as it had earlier. In fact, nothing seemed as terrible as it had seemed earlier. His body was warm against hers, and her hands seemed to move of their own accord as they swept over his chest to his shoulders. One hand moved the back of her neck where her fingers curled into the hair there.