88
" Anna turned the pages slowly for effect, and like some demonic schoolmarm, held the book at an angle to provide maximum exposure to the assembled crowd. Everyone needed to have the opportunity to catch a long, languorous glimpse of my disgrace.
"This looks so much like you," she said to Noah, pressing her body against his.
"My girl is talented," Noah said.
My heart stopped beating.
Anna's heart stopped beating.
Everyone's heart stopped beating. The buzzing of a solitary gnat would have sounded obscene in the stillness.
"Bullshit," Anna whispered finally, but it was loud enough for everyone to hear. She hadn't moved an inch.
Noah shrugged. "I'm a vain bastard, and Mara indulges me." After a pause, he added, "I'm just glad you didn't get your greedy little claws on the other sketchbook. That would have been embarrassing." His lips curved into a sly smile as he slid from the picnic table he'd been sitting on. "Now, get the fuck off me," he said calmly to a dumbfounded, speechless Anna as he pushed past her plucking the sketchbook roughly from her hands.
And walked over to me.
"Let's go," Noah ordered gently, once he was at my side. His body brushed the line of my shoulder and arm protectively. And then he held out his hand.
I wanted to take it and I wanted to spit in Anna's face and I wanted to kiss him and I wanted to knee Aiden Davis in the groin. Civilization won out, and I willed each individual nerve to respond to the signal I sent with my brain and placed my fingers in his. A current traveled from my fingertips through to the hollow where my stomach used to be.
And just like that, I was completely, utterly and entirely,
His. "
― Michelle Hodkin , The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #1)
91
" Lolita,” he said, turning my book over in his hands. His eyes widened over the pink-lipped mouth on the cover, then handed it to me. Our fingers brushed, and a warm current coursed through them. My heart thundered so loud he could probably hear it.
“So,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “You’re a smuthound with daddy issues?” The corner of his mouth turned up in a slow, condescending smile.
I wanted to smack it off his face. “Well, you’re quoting it. And incorrectly, by the way. So what does that make you?”
His half-smile morphed into a whole grin. “Oh, I’m definitely a smuthound with daddy issues. "
― Michelle Hodkin , The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #1)