She’s hesitant now and uncertain. She doesn’t know where she stands or what role she plays, but I can see the fire in her eyes. I can hear the strength in her voice.
She is perfect—or as close to it as any of my lovers are.
Right now isn’t the time, however. I wouldn’t be able to fully submit to what I want. Not until Kane’s home with the promise that everything will go back to normal. That feeling haunts me as I head inside and make my way to my empty bedroom.
With a growl, I shove my fingers in my hair until my mouth opens on a silent scream. Sometimes not being able to make a sound is a blessing. Being able to torment people in my playroom with my silence gets me off in ways I never imagined it would. But right now, I want to be heard. I want to voice my agony and frustration and fear.
Turning on my heel, I strike out and put my fist through my dresser mirror. The shattering glass isn’t as satisfying as it should be, but the pain helps, as does the feeling of blood dripping down my fingers.
Down the hall, I hear James call out, but I ignore him, locking my door and then stepping into the shower. I put it just short of scalding, only because Kane rigged it so it can’t go any hotter, and I wait until my skin is so red that I feel like an overboiled lobster. I stare at the white slashes of scars over my skin, bisecting freckles on my arms, my torso, and my legs. I thumb the nipple ring that James dared me to get when he was first testing the limits of what I’d allow him to command, and I feel a little pulse in my cock.
There’s no point in paying attention to it now. I feel fucking impotent, knowing that we have a long list of people to maim and kill before we finally have Kane back. I can only hope—if he really wants to prevent real carnage—that he’ll free himself before I get lost in the mission and drown the world in blood.
* * *
By the timeI’m clean, I’m grateful I was alone because my overdramatic ass is humiliating enough even without having witnesses to it. In truth, the very idea of being vulnerable makes me want to kill things. It creates a rage in me that eclipses all other emotions.
I tend to let people assume I feel nothing because it’s a lot easier to explain than the truth: sadness and anger have made a home inside me, waged a war, and took over. They allow me to feel sometimes. There was no hope for me when it came to loving the misfits, and even now, my heart’s starting to thud a little harder whenever I see Alice’s pretty little face.
But when the primal part of my brain is triggered, there’s nothing left but a shell of a man, and when I come back down to myself, it’s hard to settle in my skin. I light up a cigarette after I get dressed and make my way downstairs. I can hear voices, and it doesn’t take me long to find Phoenix on his laptop at Kane’s parlor desk and James on the sofa, forcing Alice to eat.
She looks wan and exhausted, and I know it has to be unsettling because the first time I saw someone best Kane, even for just a moment, it had thrown me. He’s too strong for his own good and too clever. So the idea that anyone could get the jump on him shook my world.
It’s easier to remember he’s human a little bit better now, but it took me years, and Alice has been here just a matter of weeks. To her, he’s still an untouchable god.
She glances up at me when I walk into the room, and I nod at her because I don’t want to burn any bridges with her before they’re done being built. But I’m not about to offer her comfort I’m not capable of giving.
Instead, I walk over to Phoenix and shove myself into his lap. He growls, irritated, but he still wraps his arms around me before his fingers go right back to his braille display. I can hear his AI murmuring in his ear at a speed I will never be able to follow, but his entire attention is focused.
“He’s locating our next target,” James says as he presses a bit of melon to Alice’s mouth. She takes it delicately with her teeth, and James sighs.
My cock twitches again at the sight of her pretty pink tongue licking juice from her bottom lip. Again, I feel nothing more than a superficial desire for her that can’t and won’t go anywhere, but I do allow myself to remember what it felt like to sink inside her. She was so fucking responsive, so expressive. I can’t wait until she learns my language so I can tell her all the depraved, filthy things I want from her.
Taking a last drag of my cigarette, I stub the rest out in the little ashtray at the corner of the desk, then lean back against Phoenix’s chest. Like the beast he is, he’s two inches taller than me and broad. I’ve always been tall, so it does something to me to be able to feel tiny and insignificant in his grasp.
‘How close are you?’ I tap on his skin.
He grunts and ignores me for another minute and a half before finally dropping his hands to my thighs. He spreads them wide, then traces his thumbs on either side of my limp dick. “I found him. He’s on a plane right now, but he lands at two o’clock. I was able to tap into the flight’s GPS, so you two can give him a proper welcome.”
‘Who is he?’
Phoenix absently traces the head of my dick, and it starts to plump a little. “Guido’s nephew from his second youngest sister.”
Shit. That’s high up the chain, even though Romano doesn’t seem to favor any of his siblings’ children any more than he has his own. The two nephews that work on his right and left earned their way to his side, and even now, we all know he doesn’t trust them. He’d slit their throats on a whim if they gave him a single reason to do it.
All the more reason to dive in and snatch this fucker before Romano decides he’s a liability. ‘Count us in.’
Phoenix rumbles a laugh against my ear. “That was never in question.”
I huff and want to pout a little, but only because my head is a mess, and I’m feeling fucking bratty. But I can’t lose myself to my wants right now. There’s too much shit to do. Curling my hand around Phoenix’s right wrist, I shove his hand over my dick and force him to rub me. Hard. Hard enough it hurts, and my erection starts to wane.
“Okay, sweetheart,” Phoenix rumbles, and though the word might be kind, the intent behind it isn’t. It’s a promise for later, and I tuck that into the hollow space behind my ribs where my heart should beat. He suddenly slaps the side of my thigh hard enough to make me gasp and Alice cry out.
I glance over at her wide eyes as James holds her tightly, and I just meet her gaze and shrug. I’m not going to coddle her like James will. I have no intention of letting her sink her toes in and get used to us. She will take us exactly as we are.
“Go prepare everything we need,” Phoenix orders, and I nod, gripping him by the hair to kiss him before I slide off his lap.
I give both James and Alice a heated glance as I breeze toward the door, but the moment it shuts behind me, they fade into static as my task looms. For the moment, my ability to shut off feelings is a gift.