Burned (34 page)

When she pushes herself up to climb on top of me again, I shove her back and snarl, “Arms over your head, woman.”

With a husky laugh, she falls back and complies.

She’s gonna stop laughing real soon.

Scowling all the while, wishing I
had
chains in this room—bloody hell, how can she look at this face of mine and not see danger?—I dig around in the sheets for the scarves my parade of blondes donated to the cause, knot them around her wrists, and tie her real tight to the posters at the top of the bed.

Then do something I never let myself do, and tie her feet down, too, thinking, Man, she should not be letting me do this, followed by, Man, I know better than to do this.

I got Jo spread-eagled naked, legs wide, totally at my mercy, and I’m not gonna have one fucking ounce of it. She’s not getting out of this bed until she’s had the most explosive orgasm of her life, followed by a few hundred more. I’m keeping her for weeks.

I’m keeping her until she’s telling me I’m the hottest fuck she’s ever had and means it. Until she’s Lor-Pri-ya. Until she sees there’s a little more going on here than Mr. Fucking-Second-Rate-Nice-Guy who’s
fun
, for fuck’s sake, and wasn’t one of the most vicious killers the old world knew. I can keep it under control. I’ve been soaked in sex for the past week and a half. The lethal edge is off my appetite. Mostly.

We’re a competitive bunch at Chester’s. We don’t take kindly to being called second best. It’s why we don’t poach each other’s pussy. We get territorial, even if we screwed ’em just once. Level 4’s turnover is the highest in the club.

She’s looking straight at me, catches her lower lip with her teeth. “I never let Ryodan do this to me,” she says breathlessly.

Wise woman. Not so wise now.

Score one for Lor. I’m doing something the boss didn’t do.

I’m about to do a few other things I guaran-damn-tee Ryodan didn’t do, too.

      27      

“Are you in the firing squad or are you in the lineup”

MAC

Being invisible in a closed elevator with Barrons and Ryodan is quite possibly one of the most stressful experiences of my life. It nearly ranks up there with being tortured by Mallucé.

You don’t think about the many ways your body has of announcing your presence until it’s absolutely essential you remain one hundred percent silent. I could sneeze. Hiccup. Pass gas. If I forget to walk with my feet slightly apart, my jean-clad legs will swish against each other. One of my joints might pop. I may be young but my bones keep getting broken and occasionally my knuckles remind me of it. A single belly growl would out me in an instant. These are men with dangerously acute senses.

I make a mental note to forgo eating when I decide to go sleuthing next time so I won’t have to worry about my stomach gurgling as it digests. Then I realize if I don’t eat, it might
growl from hunger. I conclude I’ll have to eat frequent, small, easily digested meals to minimize the likelihood of either from happening while I scout the restricted half of my world.

I press back in the far corner opposite them, trying to be as small as possible, holding my breath and praying it’s a short ride.

Although it feels interminable, we stop after only two levels. Ryodan stalks off the elevator with Barrons behind him. Again I have to run to keep up.

A few doors from the end of the hall, Ryodan slams his palm against the wall and roars, “Get the fuck out here now, Lor!”

I catch up to them as the door whisks open and stand behind them, peering in.

Ryodan storms into the room. And stops. Mid-step.

I lean forward and—Oh. Wow. Oh. Looks like Jo took my advice. Plunged into it with alacrity and abandon.

I wonder irritably how many times I’m going to have to watch Lor have marathon sex this week. The universe seems to be taking some kind of perverse pleasure rubbing my face in his carnal abundance and my lack thereof.

The three of us stand, staring.

Jo and Lor are frozen, staring back. Then again, Jo’s pretty darned well restrained so I’m not surprised by how immobile she is.

Barrons laughs softly. “Didn’t see this one coming.”

Jo is tied to the bed, spread-eagled, with Lor straddling her. They’re not actually having sex at the moment, but by the tangled sheets, how sweaty Lor is (gotta love a hardworking man), and Jo’s bed-head, it’s obvious this isn’t their first go-round.

I’ve seen way too much of Lor naked lately. I scowl at Barrons, wishing we’d had sex more recently. Like five minutes ago.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Lor growls.

“You’re a dead man,” Ryodan says softly.

Straining futilely against the scarves—even from my limited perspective I can see Lor knows how to tie knots right—Jo says, “Ryodan, it’s not his fault! It’s mine. He didn’t want to sleep with me, I forced him—”

“Where the fuck do chicks get that phrase?” Lor growls. “No man wants to
sleep
with a woman. He wants to fuck her. And nobody forces me to do shit.”

“—to do it. I heard he was Pri-ya. I took advantage of him.”

“He’s a dead man because he lied to me, Jo. Not because he fucked you. Though I’d rather not have seen it.”

I peer at Ryodan from the side. He’s watching Jo through narrowed eyes and I realize it really does bother him seeing them together but it’s not emotional. It’s purely territorial. Still, that’s something and I’m glad Jo got the satisfaction.

Jo meets his gaze and says quietly, “I didn’t mean for you to see it.”

“He’s not Pri-ya. He’s faking. That’s what he lied about.” Ryodan drops the bomb casually and watches it detonate.

Jo blanches and her gaze flies back to Lor’s face. “Is that true? You’re not Pri-ya?”

“What the fuck’s the difference? You wanted to fuck me. You asked me to get the boss’s taste out of your mouth. I did.”

“Taste out of your—” Ryodan says. “Christ, Jo.”

“It’s not like I thought the idea up all by myself,” Jo says defensively. “Mac’s the one who—”

“Get off her, Lor,” Ryodan orders.

Great, now Ryodan has one more reason to dislike me.

“—told me to do it because she thought it would be—”

“Don’t go getting pissed about it now,” Lor cuts her off. “I’m the one that should be pissed. This didn’t have a damned thing to do with me. Just my dick. You know how many times you told me how glad you were I wouldn’t remember this? Well guess what, Jo? I remember every goddamn detail. Etched into that puny-ass little brain you think I have.”

“She thinks you have a puny-ass little brain. And she told you that,” Barrons marvels.

“Apparently. She also thinks I’m not dangerous.”

“Ah. I see why you tied her up.”

“You’re
faking?
” Jo says again, like she just can’t wrap her brain around it. “The whole time I’ve been saying and doing anything I felt like because I thought you were—”

“Been right here with you, babe,” Lor says with a savage smile. “Whole. Time. Every bloody word, every confidence, every howl of pleasure. Want to tell me some more how perfect my dick is and how hot I am?”

I study Lor, realizing I might be seeing a little more than a mere territory dispute on his face. Did Jo get under his skin?

Jo pales. A parade of expressions stampede across her fineboned features: embarrassment, fear, self-consciousness, wariness. It takes mere seconds for her emotions to march to the beat of a different drum as she concludes the thought she began a few seconds earlier. “Wait a minute,” she snaps. “Does Mac
know
you’re not Pri-ya?”

Aw, shit. That was never supposed to come out because no one was ever going to learn about our little pact. Glad I’m invisible.

“Sure does,” Lor says flatly.

Why does everyone rat me out so fast?

“Get the fuck off Jo. Now,” Ryodan says.

“Jealous, boss?”

“Don’t push me. In the corridor. Unless you prefer we air our business in front of Jo. In which case she dies.”

Jo gasps.

Ryodan turns and stalks from the room so suddenly I almost don’t get out of the way fast enough. I flatten myself back against the wall outside the door and hold my breath again, but not too long because that can result in a huge, noisy exhale. I ease it out slowly when Jo demands, “Untie me.”

“Not a chance,” Lor snaps. “I’m not done yet.”

Then Lor joins us in the corridor. Naked. Still hard, too. He slaps a palm against the door, and as it slides closed, I hear Jo yell, “Hey! I said untie me! I never would have come here if I’d known you weren’t Pri-ya!”

“Not scoring any points with me, honey,” he says over his shoulder.

“You can’t leave me like this!”

“Sure can,” he says. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll be back to finish what I started.”

“That’s not what I—” The door closes, cutting off the rest of Jo’s words. The rooms around here are seriously soundproofed.

“The fuck you will,” Ryodan says.

“Because she’s yours?” Lor says. “She’s done with you.”

Ryodan glances at the door, making sure it’s closed. “I was done with her months ago. Kept waiting for her to move on. Just not with you. It seems you’ve forgotten two of our critical rules: we don’t fuck one another’s women. We don’t lie to one another.”

“It wasn’t as if I went looking for it. She came in and sent all my babes away and she was crying, for fuck’s sake, and you know damn well I can’t stand it when chicks—”

“Dani’s back. She looks five years older. Possibly more. She’s taken over the abbey.”

Lor goes motionless. “How the hell did that happen?”

“We don’t know,” Barrons says. “She’s not talking to any of us.”

“So encourage her,” Lor says.

“She’s more difficult to encourage than she used to be,” Ryodan says.

“How is she? What happened to her? Is she okay?”

“Get your fucking clothes on. In my office in five.”

“What about Jo?”

“I’ll take care of Jo,” Ryodan says coolly.

“You’re not killing her,” Lor says sharply.

“Never said I was. But that’s the third rule you seem to be forgetting: I run this place. I run you. If you don’t like it, too fucking bad. You’re not leaving, so I suggest you get back on the program. Fast.”

Ryodan stalks off. Looking amused, Barrons heads off after him.

Fascinated by the perks of my new state—my own personal reality TV, I’m getting
all
the juicy dirt!—I hurry after them.

      28      

“Don’t play with me ’cause you’re playing with fire”

MAC

When we reach Ryodan’s office, Barrons says he’s got things to do and I’m abruptly divided, but I make a snap decision to stick with Ryodan. Although I’m dying to know what kind of “things” Barrons does when he goes off by himself (and intend to fulfill that fantasy very soon), I’m also riveted by the intimate look I’m getting at the man behind Chester’s, who I’m beginning to realize is far more complex than I thought.

He protected Jo’s feelings. He was done with her months ago and waited for her to dump him without ever betraying it. That’s hard to pull off in any relationship. I can’t reconcile the ruthless, bottom-lining man I know with the one who went out of his way not to hurt a human woman.

When he steps into his office, I follow, realizing only after the door slides shut that I’m stuck in here until he decides to leave again. When he pulls out his cell phone that shouldn’t
work and taps a number, I hope he’s not summoning a woman to get the taste of Jo and Lor out of his mouth because I really don’t want to watch Ryodan have sex.

Well, okay, so maybe I wouldn’t be entirely adverse to that, if I didn’t know him and have to see him all the time, but really. Not in the mood for more of the sex everyone else is getting to have at the moment. Between my new invisibility and extreme irritation at the only man I want to have sex with, my prospects are slim.

“Fade, get your ass down to Lor’s room and untie Jo.” He’s silent a moment. “It’s none of your fucking business why Jo’s tied up there. Just do it. And I don’t care what that woman says or does, I don’t care if she’s suddenly snatched up by a tornado and dropped straight on your dick, you will not fuck her.” Another silence. “Yes, she’s naked. No, that’s not ‘cool.’ Fuck you, Fade. Forget it. Take one of the waitresses down. You will remain outside the door while she goes in and unties her. Then tell Jo she’s fired.” Silence. “I don’t care what the waitress thinks. Fire her, too.”

He ends the call, shoves the cell phone in his pocket, drops down into the large leather chair behind his desk, picks up the dark blade and starts toying with it again. I’d really like to know what his deal is with that knife.

When the door swishes open I debate leaving while I can.

While I stand there, pondering options, the Unseelie that Dani called “Papa Roach” stumps in, and I shiver with revulsion. I totally get why she nicknamed it that. Papa Roach is segmented, made by thousands and thousands of roachlike creatures clambering up on top of one another to form a larger being. They are the same bugs the waitresses permit beneath their skin to feed on their fat. Papa Roach, the collective, is
purplish-brown, about four feet tall with thick legs, a half-dozen arms, and a head the size of a walnut. It jiggles like gelatin when it moves as its countless individual parts shift minutely to remain coalesced. It has a thin-lipped beaklike mouth and round, weirdly lidless eyes. As it moves into the room, a few of the roaches skitter off. I press back against the wall, creeped out by the nasty things, in no mood for a few of them to scurry over the toes of my boots. I imagine they’re small enough to turn invisible, which could be a problem if anyone was looking.

Ryodan barks, “Keep your shit together when you’re in my fucking office.”

The bugs scurry back up Papa Roach, scale a leg, and settle into a knee.

I don’t heave the sigh of relief I feel.

When Papa Roach speaks, I shiver again. Its voice is pretty much exactly what I’d expect a roach to sound like: a dry, malevolent, insectile rustle. “The one you call Jada has left the abbey. We lost her a few blocks from here.”