Chapter 14
Lynn
Accepting Cobra as my friend meant I needed to admit that ChaCha and Jessia were my friends, too. I made peace with that, and after an emergency meeting with the girls, I’d even accepted that wanting to sleep with Cobra wasn’t the end of the world.
“What’s the big deal?” Jessia said earlier. “Sex is natural, and good. Why’s it so wrong to want it? Sure, Cobra is… Cobra. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting him.”
I didn’t tell them how fucked up he needed sex, or that it intrigued me instead of scaring me away.
I didn’t tell them that I wanted to beat all my nightmares into submission by taking control of them.
By facing them, instead of failing to repress them.
Maybe, if I could be the one in control, instead of the memories, I wouldn’t even need a drink.
Maybe, eventually, I wouldn’t need Cobra.
I had a feeling I’d always want him, though.
I laid wide awake, tracing the scars on my hands as my friends slept soundly on either side of me.
Their anti-Cobra system had worked so well.
Let’s have a sleepover, they said. You’ll fall asleep with someone on either side of you, they said.
We’re ten times the company of that unfriendly motherfucker, they said.
“Liars,” I hissed, scowling from Jessia’s naturally beautiful face to ChaCha’s. She was radiant and fierce even in her sleep. I tapped the tip of her cute nose and smirked when she muttered in her sleep, throwing an arm over her eyes.
I was still awake hours later as the sun began to rise, cursing the friends I’d had forced upon me. My eyes were gritty, my head full of pressure I knew would form a headache, and it was a million miles from waking up rested in Cobra’s bed after he knocked me out with his bark.
“I hate you,” I grumbled when the sun rose and I’d had a grand total of forty minutes sleep.
Fifty if I was feeling generous. I slipped out of bed, stormed into the sanctuary, and grinned when I located the toy drum someone’s kid left behind at the Knights’ last barbecue.
ChaCha stole it, and I’d called her a fucking moron for it then, but now I saw the vision.
I slipped back inside my room, crept close to the bed, and beat the shit out of that drum.
My friends came awake with a squeal—Jessia—and a detailed death threat—ChaCha. I grinned and kept up a steady rhythm.
“Sleep well, ladies?” I shouted over the racket. “Because I fucking didn’t.”
“Aw, man,” Jessia sighed, sliding out of bed to hug me around the middle, ignoring the murder eyes I aimed at her. “I really thought it was going to work.”
“Well.” ChaCha rubbed her eyes. “There’s only one thing for it. Have fun being railed by the psychopath, Lynn. Hope your pussy survives.”
And with that she flopped back into the cushions and rolled over to go back to sleep.
I threw the toy drum at her.