Chapter 27 #2
My cock kicked between my legs like it had been called into action, and my body damn near wheeled itself around, ready to burst from the bathroom and throw itself at the incubus asleep in my bed. I would ravish him. Pin him down and force myself inside and take… like he did.
This was hunger. A craving that demanded to be satisfied. A previously unknown feeling.
It was alarming, and foreign, and I knew…
I’d never kissed him.
I wanted to, more and more every day. But I didn’t because incubi were predatory creatures. Cock-sucking ticks. Fish that dwelled in muddy, shitty holes, and I’d become a noodler. I’d caught the fish, and he caught me.
Bile surged up from my gut, and I swallowed it down, leaving my throat raw and burning.
It was exactly what I’d feared: I’d been bewitched and also incredibly stupid.
Spit in and open wound would be just as effective as spit the mouth.
Zephyr had put his poison in my bloodstream the night we met.
He’d set a trap, and I had been caught in it ever since.
I wasn’t in love with a prostitute.
I knew better than to feed a stray and welcome it into my home.
I would never share my bed with a man I’d known for a matter of weeks.
I was above all of that, and I’d suspected as much all along.
My aching hand curled into a fist, and the tremble started there. It spread to my shoulders and then down my spine. Rage—that was what this was. Not heartbreak. Certainly not regret.
The bathroom door creaked open, and a wide pane of light poured over Zephyr’s prone form. I crossed the room toward him, each step deliberate, a threat in motion.
He stirred seconds before I reached the bedside, perking up with his head wobbly and a smear of drool at the corner of his mouth.
I wanted to kiss him. Or shake him until those pretty eyes filled with fear. Or scream until the walls cracked. Instead, I held up my hand and asked in a low voice, “Did you do this?”
What I should have asked was why.
Had Luxe foisted him off on me, thinking I was an easy mark?
I’d seen the petite dancer tittering with Colette that afternoon in the Dollhouse halls, casual as anything.
He was clever enough to keep half of Vegas curled around his little finger, and generous enough, apparently, to share his prey with coworkers.
It would seem sex demons weren’t the only predators in this town.
Zephyr sat up, brows scrunching together as he wiped the pajama sleeve across his lips. He looked at my wounded finger, then blushed, embarrassed.
“Yeah,” he said. “But you know it was an accident.”
“Was it?”
His grin was half-cocked and awkward, far from the guilt of a man who’d been caught in his crime. “Of course,” he said. “I don’t just go around biting people. That would be weird.”
Having no patience for his feigned ignorance, I scowled. “I said you weren’t stupid, so don’t play at it now. I don’t mean the bite.”
He studied me between slow blinks. “Then what?”
“You poisoned me.”
Zephyr rubbed at his eyes as though he could scrub clarity into the situation. When he started shifting off the bed, I backed up a step.
His gaze snapped to the space I’d put between us, and he had the gall to look wounded by it.
“You put me under your spell.” I aimed my sore finger at his chest. “And I hope you got whatever you wanted out of this because it’s through. I won’t be manipulated or used by anyone. Not again.”
He leaned back, no longer trying to leave the bed but rather disappear into it. “What spell?” He shook his head. “I didn’t—”
“It’s not what you did,” I cut in. “It’s what you are.”
The statement appeared to be as much of an affront to him as his treachery was to me. But was it truly his deception? I may have misread him, but not entirely. He was trusting and malleable and could have been manipulated by the wraith who held the strings of his fate.
“Did Maslow put you up to this?” I demanded, then decided as much for myself. My face twisted in a scowl. “He’s using you as leverage. Trying to get me to sign for Fairmont. That rat.”
Zephyr glanced around as if there were someone here who could save him. From this. From me. But no, even if Maslow was the cause, Zephyr was the culprit. He deserved my scorn.
“I-I didn’t… I wouldn’t,” he sputtered, trying for an excuse but failing to come up with anything more than a plea. “Beck, stop…”
“Say it’s not true, then.”
“It’s not!” he bawled.
I lunged forward, bending in and planting my palms on the mattress. “You didn’t put your venom in me? Didn’t enchant me so I’d be your thrall? Your puppet? Your pet?”
When he tried to speak, nothing came out. His shoulders caved inward as he started to cry in earnest, mouth working like the words were there but stuck in his throat.
I felt sick.
I felt cruel.
More than that, I felt justified.
Standing straight, I pointed toward the door. “Get out. You can wait in the hall. Colette will take you home.”
Zephyr looked up at me, eyes glassy, lashes wet. When his voice came, it was low and steady, more steel than sob. “That’s not my home,” he said.
“Well, it’s where you belong.”
He didn’t meet my gaze again before swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress. His bare feet hit the floor with soft thuds, then he mopped his face with the sleeve of his pajama top and followed my lead toward the exit.
When I opened the door, the hallway light cast long shadows between us. Zephyr stepped over the threshold, and I didn’t touch him. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t breathe.
Then I shut him out.
The lock clicked into place, and the ensuing silence was profound. I stood for a long second, resting my hand on the knob, staring at nothing.
Turning, I walked back to the bedroom and retrieved my phone from the side table. My fingers hovered before I punched in the number.
It rang twice before Colette picked up.