Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) (19 page)

He
hated
the way the conversations around her continued whilst she looked on the edge of breaking. She’d never looked more isolated, embarrassed by her own compliance, no doubt because he was there to see it. She had to be thinking he would see only what the others saw, with no insight of how much he related to her at that moment; how much strength he knew it took to survive in a world like that.

But then Pummel’s laugh broke through him like a barrage of blunt knives, the joint laughter of the others making those metaphorical knives resonate beyond irritation.

‘Of course you can go,’ Pummel tagged on. ‘I’m just fucking with you.’

She looked back at him, right into those sadistic eyes above that broad smile. It was a glare that Eden couldn’t help but admire. She might have been forced into submission, but there was something behind those eyes that was far from broken.

That
was Jessie.

‘Or maybe not,’ Pummel tagged on, just as she moved to step away.

The laugh that followed was too much.

Eden flipped the mint in his mouth, unable to mask his glare from Pummel. This time he ensured it snagged Pummel’s attention – anything to take the pressure off Jessie for even a moment.

‘Have you got a problem, Eden?’ Pummel asked.

He kept his gaze steadily on the con’s as Tatum’s hand stilled, as she too looked across her shoulder at Pummel before staring back at Eden.

Clearly she wasn’t so caught up in the moment that she didn’t sense trouble either.

‘What would I have a problem with, Pummel?’ he asked.

‘That’s what I’m asking you.’

Eden gave a small nonchalant shrug. ‘Far be it for me to criticise your technique.’

Pummel raised his eyebrows. ‘Technique?’

He felt all eyes burning into him, not least Jessie’s as she stayed rooted to the spot like an actress forgetting her lines mid-performance.

Eden leaned past Tatum to grab his bottle of beer. ‘I’ve always thought the real skill is in making them
want
to do what
you
want them to do.’ Though it went against the grain, he gave Pummel a mischievous, playful wink.

There was a moment’s silence.

‘Is that right?’ Pummel said, seemingly momentarily appeased by Eden’s switch from condemner to conspirator. ‘And you know all about that, I suppose?’

‘Do you like stories, Pummel?’

A hint of a smile graced his thick lips. ‘I love stories. Who doesn’t?’

Eden slapped Tatum’s behind as an indication for her to move off his lap so he could shift to the edge of the sofa, fastening his jeans as he did so. He reached for the packet of cigarettes on the table – the top brand type he had brought back with him from Pummel’s list. He knew he could suffer one to placate the con who was now watching him intently. ‘Get her to get us all a cold beer while she’s up,’ he added, indicating to Jessie without even looking at her.

He fixed his attention on Pummel like he was looking into the eyes of a cobra, thoughts of slamming his fist clean into his face strategically suppressed as he crunched and swallowed the remains of his mint. Taking a slow inhale of his cigarette, one story in particular fortunately sprung to mind.

J
essie braced
her hands on the kitchen countertop, taking a deep and steady breath. He was
not
going to make her cry. Pummel would
not
win.

It was the scenario she’d hoped, pleaded, that Eden wouldn’t get to see – because having him in the audience only made the humiliation worse.

She didn’t care what the others thought now; their opinions, their judgements, their thoughts meant nothing to her.

But she
needed
Eden to know she wasn’t a coward. If her warnings, her threats, were to mean anything to him, she had to stand her ground. One sign of weakness and the more likely he was to stick around, to think he could manipulate and use her. She’d learned that one thing more than any other living in Blackthorn: signs of weakness led to demise. Survivors struck first.

Unless survival necessitated being obedient, indifferent and playing by the rules – and now Eden had seen that side of her. A side of her that made her feel too vulnerable considering he knew her secret.

What bothered her even more was that he would no longer see her as the strong, confident, defiant female that was so obviously his type. That he would now view her with disdain. Disappointment even.

Seeing Tatum draped all over him only confirmed why the prospect of that troubled her so much. Her heart had ached at seeing her groping him – and him letting her. Tatum toying with Eden so openly had reminded her of her own imprisonment, how she would never have the freedom to be who she was, to do what she wanted to do. Pummel’s taunting smoke rings had been an equally cruel reminder that she wasn’t going anywhere, that she could never get that close to Eden, or any other male, without consequence.

And now Eden would be laughing at her like the others.

Except he hadn’t at the time. He hadn’t reacted like the others at all. Despite not daring to look at him, she had sensed it. More to the point, the way he’d intervened, although it could have been nothing more than an opportunity to share another dark and nasty con story, the type that they all liked to boast about to gain kudos, had been undeniably timely.

She removed the cold bottles from the fridge, cradling them against her chest as she closed the fridge door.

Instead of pulling away, she kept her palm flat against it.

She’d seen the look in his eyes when he’d snagged Pummel’s attention. It was the same look he’d had in the doorway the night before – reminding her of glimpses of movies she’d seen where a knight made eye contact with his jousting partner before lowering his visor.

She hadn’t been able to place it before, but now she did.

She hugged the bottles close to her chest.

So long had it been since anyone had defended her, even attempted to do so, even considered intervening, that she hadn’t even recognised it.

He’d done it to
help
her.

Her heart skipped a beat. A warmth spread through her despite the chill of glass cutting through her clothing. A small smile dared to grace her lips.

Or she was looking for hope where there was none. In her desperation, she was seeing any fragment of light. A light that would go out the moment he got what he wanted – what he’d already confessed he wanted.

Unless she got something out of it too.

She looked back at the larder door. Down at the floor where the trapdoor, the
padlocked
trapdoor, lay beyond.

It was a risk. It was inevitable what would happen should she be caught again. It was a risk just getting Eden involved. Maybe too great a risk.

She pulled herself away from the fridge, re-approaching the room with leaden legs. She paused and took another steady breath just before she reached the threshold.

As she re-entered the room, her grip on the bottles tightened.

His audience was captivated. Pummel was watching him intently. Both Chemist and Dice were perched on the edge of their seats, Chemist’s cigarette burning down between his fingers, Dice grinning broadly. Even Homer’s eyes sparkled.

‘…and I had the two of them, right there,’ Eden continued. ‘I swear you’ve never seen contraptions like these before. I mean I’m talking seriously screwed-up stuff…’

She placed four of the bottles on the table.

Pummel reached for his with barely a look in her direction. The others took even less notice.

‘To this day I don’t know if they really knew what they were letting themselves in for…’ Eden added.

It was as if she wasn’t even there.

‘I picked the blonde first…’ she heard Eden say amidst her haze of pending relief.

Tatum had returned to his lap, her back to Jessie. She was equally hypnotised by Eden’s tale – the animation in his expression, the dark glint in his eyes promising it was a story they all wanted to hear.

He held up his open hand behind Tatum’s back. Without even needing to make eye contact with Jessie, she knew it was her cue to hand him his bottle.

Whether his expectation of gratitude or just because he didn’t want to lose his audience by asking Tatum to pass him a bottle instead, Jessie complied, wanting only to get out of there whilst she could.

She placed the cold bottle in his hand.

Not losing his train of thought, not giving the slightest indication to anyone other than her, his fingers immediately brushed hers.

It could have been an accident but, furtively hidden from sight, it echoed his caress of her spine at the pool table. This time, his fingers lingered for a second longer than was necessary until it was her who abruptly withdrew.

He didn’t even flinch.

‘…I had her on her knees, wrists in these straps…’ he continued.

Her heart pounded, what had passed between them feeling even more intimate than the sexual contact they had had at the pool table hours before.

He
had
helped her.

Whatever his story now betrayed, a story she didn’t know if she believed or not, a story she didn’t even care about, he’d shown her more compassion in that single act than she had experienced in decades.

Tears welled in her eyes; tears she couldn’t afford for anyone else to see. She sloped away, her chest tight, the implication of her train of thoughts terrifying.

A train of thoughts that meant she was considering believing Eden. Considering
trusting
him.

She ascended the stairs, tripping halfway up, her trembling legs not functioning as well as she wanted them to in her distraction.

She slumped onto the steps just outside Pummel’s room, at the foot of the dog-legged staircase. One hand clutching the worn spindle, she gripped her forehead in the other as she rested her elbow on her knee.

Laughter echoed up the stairs from the lounge below, curling towards her amidst the cold shadows. Her gaze rested on the obelisk of light not far from her feet, the moon now high in the sky.

She knew she could no longer deny it, as frightening as acknowledging it was. It wasn’t a fear associated with physical injury, but the prospect of
real
pain. A world where love and trust and kindness and intimacy were options. A world that, once she was inevitably forced to leave it again, would only exacerbate the loneliness and darkness of her reality.

But she
had
to acknowledge the truth: she was attracted to him, now for far more than just superficial physical reasons. She
liked
him. She liked the way he talked, how he moved, how he walked. She liked the playful mischief in his eyes. She liked the brightness behind them. She liked the way he hung on everything she said. She liked the way he looked at her. She liked the way he touched her. How he made her feel.

He’d been so right: her heart hadn’t been in it down in the lock-up. If it had, she could have killed him. Yet every instinct had told her that she hadn’t needed to fight back. That he wasn’t going to hurt her.

She had fought him out of desperation. Had set him up out of desperation. She
had
been under Pummel’s spell. She
had
been retaliating as his puppet.

But there in that lounge, Eden had started to snap those strings right under Pummel’s nose.

And she liked him even more for it. She liked Eden’s reminder of who she was, the wake-up call he was instigating.

Her anger towards Pummel escalated. Her grip tightened on the spindle at the recollection of how he had demeaned and humiliated her, a spindle that splintered under the pressure.

But her attention snapped to the shadowed stairwell below as voices crept up towards her – a female and a male. The latter weaved deep inside her with its compellingly welcome familiarity, its edge of masculinity, its sexy and addictive undertones.

Remaining crouched in the shadows, she leaned as close to the spindles as she dared.

‘I want to try it out,’ she heard Tatum declare breathily.

She detected the faintest terse exhale from Eden. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

‘Better still…’ she said, her voice lowering further. There was a moment’s pause as if something else was simultaneously happening between them.

Her stomach wrenched, visions of them together hitting her hard and fast and leaving an acrid taste in her mouth.

‘…I want to watch you in action. Further down the row. I’ll sort it out. Get it all set up.’ She became barely audible, forcing Jessie to lean closer. ‘Find you a couple of women…’

There was silence.

‘What?’ Tatum’s tone was curt. Harsh even.

‘Maybe another time,’ Eden said.

‘Did you just push me away?’

‘I said,
maybe
another time. I’m tired.’

Her heart skipped a beat, relief washing over her. For a moment, just a moment, she allowed herself to believe there was an alternative motive behind his rejection.

‘Tired?’ Incredulousness spiked Tatum’s pitch.

‘Yes,
tired
. I’ve spent all day getting Pummel’s stuff. I haven’t slept since I got here. I’m tired. So let’s take a rain check.’

‘I’ve just offered you potentially the best fucking time of your life. Literally.’

This time Eden’s terse exhale was louder. ‘Oh, darling, you really do rate yourself, don’t you?’

Jessie’s jaw dropped. Tatum’s gasp was audible. The silence was excruciating. Her hand gripped the spindle again.

‘Do you
know
how lucky you are that I picked you?’ Tatum asked curtly.

‘Right now I feel about as lucky as having a wasp pick my sandwich at a picnic.’

Jessie clamped her hand over her mouth. She almost smiled had the cutting remark not filled her with a sense of dread.

The indignation in Tatum’s tone was impossible to miss. ‘Do you know
who
I am?’

‘I thought I did – someone who gets this. Someone who likes to fuck as much as I do with as few strings as possible. So what’s with the leash, Tatum?’ Eden asked,
his
tone impressively calm. ‘Because I sure as fuck didn’t have you down as the clingy type.’