I Kissed the Villain Instead

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I got dropped into a novel with exactly one job: make the male lead fall in love with me, or I die.

I was about to fail.

So I did the only logical thing. I panicked, grabbed the gorgeous man in front of me, and kissed him like my life depended on it. Because it did.

Then the voice in my head started shrieking.

Wrong guy.

The male lead? Ten feet away. Completely untouched.

I hadn't kissed the hero.

I'd kissed the villain. The most dangerous man in the entire book.

The man I'd just kissed dragged his thumb across his lip. It came away red. He looked at the blood, then at my mouth, and smiled with absolutely nothing in his eyes.

"Explain," he said. "Fast. Before I make sure you never use that mouth again."

And now he was the one I had to seduce. Or I was dead.

Chapter 1

My hand had been doing something very stupid a second ago. Now it was locked in his grip.

It hurt.

I looked up on instinct. His eyes were black and full of a slow, patient fury, and the whole room had gone still, like the air had frozen solid around us.

The voice in my head was still shrieking. Wrong guy. WRONG GUY.

I turned. Across the room stood Adrian. The male lead. The man I was actually supposed to be seducing. He stared at me, jaw slack.

So if the hero was over there, then who was this poor, unlucky man I'd just assaulted with my mouth?

The villain, the voice wailed, like I'd personally ended its career. The biggest villain in the whole book. Damon Vale.

Right. There was a guy like that. It rang a faint bell.

I looked down at his hand, still clamped around mine. No escape route. Not even a small one.

"So," I started. Would you believe me if I said I got the wrong guy?

I didn't get to finish. The look in his eyes said he was choosing between killing me fast and killing me slow.

That was when I finally noticed his mouth.

Young. Ridiculously handsome. A little dazed, like his brain hadn't caught up to the fact that a stranger had just kissed him hard enough to draw blood.

Everything about the moment was screaming the same thing at me. Nova. Look what you did.

He dragged his thumb across his lower lip. It came away red. His gaze followed the smear, then dropped to my mouth and stayed there.

He smiled. There was nothing in it.

"Start explaining," he said, "or I'll make sure you never use that mouth again."

In my defense, I only have the one mouth. I'm very attached to it.

I clapped a hand over said mouth and threw myself on the mercy of the voice in my head.

Sys, help

Ding. Emotional fluctuation detected in primary character. Reassigning target.

Ding. Target successfully reassigned. New target: Damon Vale.

I said help me. Not ruin me.

I tried to back away. Physics had other plans. He stood there like a slab of cold stone, and my arm didn't so much as slide.

He got tired of waiting. He peeled my hand off my face and caught both my wrists in one of his, easy, like I weighed nothing at all.

He wasn't angry anymore. He was smiling. Somehow that was worse.

"Nothing to say?" Like we were making small talk about the weather. "Careful. Stay quiet and I'll take the tongue too."

He was tall enough that he had to tip his head down to look at me. Single-lidded eyes. A small mole beneath one of them that made his whole face look cool and faithless.

Here's the thing. I didn't doubt for a second that he'd do it. In the original novel, Damon Vale was a full-blown lunatic who did whatever it took to get what he wanted.

And I had just bitten his mouth open.

"I I I just really, really like you." The words fell out of me. "I couldn't help it. One look at you and my whole body stopped taking orders. I see you and I lose my mind."

"See me," he repeated. Flat. Not really a question. More like a door easing shut.

Damn it. This was what I got for hyping myself up and charging in with my eyes shut. Adrian hadn't made it big yet. Nobody came to this part of the building, not even stray dogs. How was I supposed to know there was a whole live villain waiting behind the door?

My brain redlined and made an executive decision. Lie. Lie beautifully.

He still had my jaw pinched between his fingers, so it came out mushy. "They say two people who are fated can smell it on each other. I didn't even have to open my eyes. I just knew it was you."

Chapter 2

"Oh?" Something flickered in Damon's face, like I'd just gotten interesting. His hand slid to my jaw and tipped my face up. I couldn't have pulled free if I'd tried, and I did try.

He leaned in, black eyes crawling over me, weighing me. He turned my face one way, then the other. Then, without warning, he dipped his head down.

His hair was stiff. It jabbed me in the cheek.

Rude. Was he trying to stab me to death with it?

Can hair hide poison sharp enough to kill a person? I asked the voice in my head.

Sys sounded deeply unimpressed. No. That is not a thing.

He was close enough now that I could hear him breathe. When he spoke, his voice was smooth and cool, like a stone dropped onto jade.

"You reek of chemicals," he said. "You're lying to me."

His hand hadn't left my face. Now it tightened.

Chemicals. Excuse you. That was three hours of flawless no-makeup makeup, the kind engineered to look like I'd simply woken up perfect. What would he know.

I was furious. I did not say I was furious.

"You don't like it?" I went soft and wobbly instead. "I spent forever on my face just to be brave enough to come see you. Fine. Next time I won't wear any."

This was my best angle. Good light, trembling lip, big wounded eyes, the sweet little damsel lilt that usually melts men like butter. It would work on him. It had to.

It did not.

Damon let go of my face and clicked his tongue. "You look ugly like this."

Great. He was the first person in my entire life to call me ugly. I was going to murder him. Internally.

"Next time, don't come kiss me looking like that," he went on, voice as flat as ever. "It's ugly."

A beat.

"Now I want to ruin that mouth even more than I already did."

Pure survival instinct kicked in. I threw myself face-first into Damon's chest.

I wrapped both arms around his lean waist and made my saddest, most pathetic sound. "I just couldn't help myself back there. I'll do anything you want. Anything. Please. Don't be angry."

To really sell my commitment, I knocked my forehead against his chest.

Solid. Great pecs, actually. Let me have another bite.

I was winding up for a second knock when the veins in his arm jumped and he shoved me off.

"Nova." Right then, Adrian appeared like a literal angel, sliding himself between me and Damon.

"Nova?" Damon looked at me, thoughtful now. Then he smiled, and the mole under his eye turned genuinely distracting.

"Your little fangirl?" he said. "The one who said she loved you so much she could die?"

Adrian said nothing.

Alarms went off everywhere in my head. He already knew that? "No, no, it's not like that. I only ever got close to Adrian so I'd have an excuse to look at you a little longer. My love for you is witnessed by the sun, the moon, and all of heaven and earth."

I don't know if my brain short-circuited or if Damon had simply scared it clean out of me, but I actually lifted both hands and made a tiny heart at him.

Damon's face didn't move. "You like me."

I nodded so fast my neck hurt. One second too slow and I was sure he'd slap the words right back into my mouth.

He lowered his eyes and smiled, unhurried, and smoothed down the shirt I'd wrinkled. To Adrian, he said, "Sounds like, next to you, I'm the better man."

Then he turned to look at me. "Isn't that right?"

Bewitched by that stupid, beautiful face, I heard myself answer, "Absolutely. Damon is supremely, unbeatably the better man."

He liked that answer. I could tell. The mole under his eye shivered when he smiled, and I very nearly reached up to touch it.

"If you like me this much," he said, "why don't you come home and meet my mother?"

I did my best shy-and-reluctant. "Oh, I don't know about that. So... are we leaving right now?"

Damon burst out laughing. He hooked an arm around me and reeled me into his chest.

I blinked, completely lost, as he spun me in one slow circle.

"Good," he said, nodding like he'd confirmed something important. "Arms, legs, all accounted for."

Chapter 3

What kind of a compliment was that?

Adrian, who'd stayed silent through all of it, suddenly said my name.

"Nova. Don't do something you can't take back just to win a fight." His voice was low, serious. "Damon Vale is cruel. Vindictive. He does not forgive."

My head turned to check Damon's face before I could stop it.

His eyes were already resting on me. All he said was, "You can still back out. Right now, if you want."

That mole sat just under the corner of his eye. Cool and pretty and merciless.

I gazed up at him like a hopeful idiot. "I don't want to back out. I'm thrilled, actually."

Seducing you is the only reason I get to keep breathing.

"You hear that?" Damon lifted an eyebrow, and there was a clear dare in it. "Her choice."

Adrian faltered. Then, with total certainty: "Nova. I promise you. You're going to regret this."

Here's the thing about Adrian. His whole deal in the book was gentle and approachable on the surface, impossible to actually get close to. He never said yes, never said no, just let a girl keep chasing. This blunt, this certain, with a thread of something angry underneath? First time I'd ever seen it.

Well, well. Look at you, Damon. Not bad at all.

I doubled down. "But you can say all that about him and he doesn't get mad. You're the one working yourself up over it. Did your mother never teach you it's rude to talk trash about people?"

Principles? What are those. Nothing matters when your life is on the line.

Adrian's face finally cracked, the gentle mask he wore everywhere barely holding.

"I told you. You're out of your depth next to me. Stop clinging." Villains are villains for a reason. One clean strike and Adrian had nothing left to say.

Damon, on the other hand, looked positively cheerful, the corner of his mouth tipped up. On his way out, he even pulled the door shut behind us.

A truly considerate villain.

I preened, privately, and reported to the voice in my head. Damon's a way easier mark than Adrian. Day one and I'm already living in his house. Give it two more days and we'll be signing a marriage license. Tsk. Can't even imagine.

Sys crackled twice, a burst of glitchy static. Then, dry as dust: Ha.

Outside, Damon had stopped a little ways ahead, like he was waiting for me.

I pitched my voice up, sweet and syrupy. "Hi. I saw you standing over there just now, waiting for"

Oh. He was on the phone. Not waiting for me.

I quietly shut my mouth and pretended I'd never opened it.

He looked thoroughly put out, like he was only taking the call under extreme duress. He gave a bored mm, and then his hand drifted up to my ear.

"What are you" I started, on instinct.

"You hear her? There. Satisfied now?"

Whatever the other person said made him frown. His gaze dropped and moved over me, slow.

"Fine." He gave a short, scornful laugh, then jerked his chin at me. "Let's go."

Same question. "What?"

Damon smiled. "Taking you home to meet my mother." A pause. "You coming?"

That smile could thaw a frozen river. Green shoots pushing up through dead branches. The gloom cleared out from between his brows, the corner of his eye lifting just a little.

Awful man. Weaponizing his face at me.

Am I really that easy? I went home with him on the spot.

Right before he walked me through the door, something seemed to occur to him, and he lowered his voice.

"I shouldn't have to tell you which things to say in there and which to keep to yourself. Should I?"

I told him, with total confidence, that he absolutely did not.

Chapter 4

"So you're my boy's girlfriend." His mother beamed at me. "Oh, wonderful. Look at you. Arms, legs, and a pretty face on top of it all."

So that's where your son gets his mouth from.

"Auntie, you have such a... unique way of complimenting people."

Mrs. Vale's warmth was coming at me faster than I could catch it, and my head had gone light. Damon, meanwhile, had poured himself boneless across the couch, offering a lazy word or two whenever the conversation absolutely required it.

"Auntie, you were just about to ask why I like Damon so much."

I shot him a save-me look. The corner of his mouth curled, and his smile was pure malice with a bow on it.

Fine. You're really something, Damon.

I was so busy thinking it that I said it. Out loud.

The room went instantly, totally silent. Silent enough to hear the wind against the window.

Mrs. Vale opened her mouth, closed it, and laughed awkwardly. "She really does just say whatever's on her mind, doesn't she."

Oh no.

"I mean he's good," I said. "Good at his job. Good-looking. Good with people. Whatever he does, he's good at it. He's a very good, very capable, all-around functional man. In every area."

My brain's CPU fried itself to a crisp.

Somehow that was worse than saying nothing. Mrs. Vale's entire face had rearranged itself into two words: I see. She slid Damon a look I could not begin to translate.

"Well. It's getting late, let me go check on dinner." She left the two of us alone with tremendous tact.

I gave Damon a smile that was equal parts groveling and mortified. "Ha ha."

"You really are something, Nova."

I kept my head down and mumbled, "I'm nothing special. Not like you. Last month Adrian offended you, and this month you poached his company's contracts right out from under him before he'd even gotten off the ground."

Something in that must have struck a nerve, because Damon shot to his feet, took my hand, and hauled me toward the door.

"Mom," he called over his shoulder, "Vee says she's got a headache. I'm taking her to get it looked at."

Mrs. Vale's footsteps came hurrying after us, her voice tight. "Wait, a headache? Since when? At least eat something first. And slow down, you're going to drag that poor girl straight onto the floor."

I managed to twist around. "Bye, Auntie."

Damon's stride was ruthless. I grumbled at his back. "Did you not hear your mother? I'm about to get dragged onto the floor."

He folded me into the car and leaned across to buckle my seatbelt. Through the window, I could still see Mrs. Vale craning to watch us go.

One hand pinned my legs down where I was trying to kick him. His eyes were dark, fixed on me like he wanted to see all the way through.

"Nova. I'm warning you. Whatever it is you're after, you are not going to get it."

I shook my head. "Don't believe you."

I'm going to live.

His expression went cold in an instant, his mouth pressing thin over something he was holding back. Controlled. Restrained.

"Then by all means. Try." His voice dropped low. "You already know Adrian only annoyed me, and look how that turned out for him. So you should also know"

Beautiful mouth, though. Looked very kissable.

I leaned in.

Shock flooded Damon's face, then curdled fast into something furious.

Look, I'm already a dead woman walking. If I can't pull this off, I die anyway.

Something shifted behind those black eyes. Whatever he was thinking, it pulled a low, quiet laugh out of him. He looked down at me.

"Tell me," he said. "Do you even know how to kiss?"

A shadow dropped across my face. His voice came rough and dark.

"Let me teach you."

The space between us was small. He came closer, close enough that I could count every one of his lashes.

"May I?" I heard the smile in his voice.

"I