Oh my God… Oh my fucking God.
On one of the screens was a zoomed-in image of me, and from the designer suit I was wearing, it had been taken the first night I’d walked into the Wolfe’s Den. Had that been all that was on the screen, I wouldn’t have thought twice. In fact, I would’ve been flattered. But it was the other photos that had bile rising in my throat.
The second screen was a hazy photo of a boy in his teens, and at first glance, I thought it was me. But that boy wasn’t wearing a shirt, and there were bars pierced through his nipples. Whoever that was wasn’t me, but he was so eerily similar, even down to his haircut, that he could’ve been my twin.
That’s Lee. Lee Wood. It has to be. That woman at the café had been right—we were the spitting image of each other. Tor had a type, and it was fair-haired, lean, and innocent-looking, although the piercings Lee had seemed out of place with the rest of him.
I should’ve turned off the televisions then. If I hadn’t looked at the third screen, maybe I would’ve stayed in happy oblivion for a while longer, dismissing what I’d just seen as a physical preference.
I didn’t look away, though. I stared…and I stared…and I stared, unable to comprehend why and how Tor had pictures of me. A collage of candid photos took up the screen: one of me and Brayden on his couch, laughing, and the photo had been from outside a window. There was another of me exchanging money with Mr. Brown at the farmers’ market at the pier, and another of me dragging the garbage can that had gone tumbling out of the laundromat and into the street weeks ago. The angle was such that the photographer had to have been standing next to the building, but no one else had been there with me that night. I’d been alone, but felt like someone had been watching me, and now it turned out someone had. And that someone was my lover.
No… No, this was too much. This wasn’t real. I had to have hit my head when I fell, because otherwise, the horror of what that photo meant was too much.
I could hear Tor’s footsteps in the hallway, and my adrenaline kicked in. You have to get out of here. Run, before he realizes what you saw.
But my body didn’t listen. It stayed on the floor in shock, crumpled and frozen and unable to take my eyes off the images that would stay burned in my brain forever. It wasn’t until Tor called my name out that I dared look his way, and when I did, the strangled sound of my voice was one I didn’t recognize.
“What have you done?”
There’s a simple kind of beauty in the eyes of someone who is truly terrified. It’s the gleam that shimmers in their depths as tears begin to fill them and make the colors of the irises so vibrant. Jesse’s eyes had never looked bluer as he stared up at me in horror. His mouth was opening and shutting, like a fish out of water, as he tried to find words that were getting caught somewhere inside of him.
I’d left him alone for two minutes. Two minutes inside my office, where I’d figured he would move to the couch and wait for me like a good little lamb. But I should’ve known better. Jesse had been curious from the beginning, and it appeared he’d become curious tonight when he’d been left alone in the real Wolfe’s lair.
My mouth screwed up in annoyance at both the disobedience and impudence Jesse had displayed in questioning me, when he had been the one snooping around where he shouldn’t be. My hands balled into fists as the annoyance shifted to anger, and without responding to his question, I turned my head toward the three screens on my office wall and drank in the sight that greeted me.
It was a work of art, really. The way the camera had captured both of the heavenly faces staring out at me in such a pure light. Especially when I knew what deliciously devious urges those shells housed.
I crouched until I was on his level, and Jesse immediately scrambled backward, his heels digging into the rug, his fear of me evident on his face, and the way all color drained from it made my cock kick in response.
“What…what is that, Tor? How do you have those pictures of me?”
I reached for his ankle, wanting to pull him to me so I could teach him a lesson or two about what happened to those who dared defy the Wolfe, and when he kicked at me, my jaw bunched. “Be very careful, lamb…”
“Tell me!” Jesse demanded, and when I reached for him again, I caught his foot. I hauled him across the rug until I loomed down over him, a hand on either side of his body, my weight enough to keep him trapped beneath me, and just as I’d hoped, Jesse fought back. “You’ve been following me,” he said, and when I didn’t deny his accusation, he reached out to hit at me, trying to get free. “You’ve been fucking following me. How? Why? Why would you do that, Tor?”