I pump the digit a few times and then, with a smile, withdraw to taste the evidence.Holy, sweetness.My eyes slide closed, and I let loose an involuntary groan.Good things sure do come to those who wait.
I barely have time to register the change of pressure at my side before cool steel touches my temple. “Freckles…”
“What do you want from me this time?” Her words shake, as does my gun against my head.
“What do you mean?”Why the fuck do I still have a raging hard-on?
“Exactly what I said, Fang. Every time you’ve done this to me, there’s been an ulterior motive for you. What is it this time?”
“Nothing.”
She shoves the weapon into my skin, pushing my head to the side. “Bullshit.”
I guess if I’m going to die young, then at the hands of a beautiful woman while she’s wrapped around my hips isn’t too bad a way to go. “I meant every word I said, Jenna.”
“Really?” The skepticism is thick in her words.
“Really.” I take a swift step backward, letting her fall to the forest floor, and snatch my gun from her grip on her way past.
The air leaves her lungs with a sharp huff when she hits the ground, Jenna staring up at me with shock pinching her brow.
“Gotta know who you’re fucking with, baby.” I flip the safety on and holster the weapon, removing the other to do the same.
She rises to her feet, dusting leaf debris from her clothes. “Why do you keep them live in their holsters?”
I thumb my bottom lip with a slight grimace. “Because the time it saves me not having to flick the switch could be the difference between living and dying.”
“It’s that serious?”
“It hasbeenthat serious. Yeah.”
“Daddy?”
My gaze fixes on Jenna’s, the woman staring straight back at me with equal surprise.
Fuck.“Yeah?”
“Are we looking at the horses now?” Molly stands a few yards away, attention flicking between Jenna and me.
“Sure, baby. Gimme a minute.” I lean in close, lips brushing Jenna’s ear. “This isn’t over.”
She pushes against my chest and slips free with a mumbled, “It should never have started.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
JENNA
Arms hugging myself,I follow Molly and Fang across the yard.I’m doing this for her.Nibbles stops at a tap on the back wall of the house and pauses to wash his hands. It’s no more than basic hygiene after what we got up to, but for some reason I still need to rub away the ache of disappointment in my chest.
We shouldn’t have done that.
He shouldn’t have done that.
Ishouldn’t have done that.
But I was raw and all types of messed up after yet another meltdown. My emotions don’t know which way is up with all this bullshit going on about us, and I can’t seem to catch the break I need to regulate my fried nerves. Mom always said, in conversation with others, that I was an energetic kid—loud, and always on the move. I might have tamped that down a little as I got older with the need to act accordingly around other adults, but I sometimes wonder if there’s something deeper at play within my brain. A restlessness that can’t find a home. Is there a reason why I can’t seem to stop myself from making things worse? Why I open my mouth wider and shove the other foot in,every time, instead of taking a step back to evaluate the situation first?
Every cell in my body believed Fang had yet again used physical attraction as a weapon, intending to get me off guard so I’d spill even more secrets. But when I confronted him—dramatic as it was—he showed nothing but hurt. Genuine disappointment that he’d told me the truth and I didn’t believe him.