15. Threx Fish Food #2
My knuckles split while I drove my fingers into my thighs, trying to bleed off the pressure. It didn’t work. There was no place to go, to move as Daphne’s voice fucked straight into my brain.
“Thay,” she begged, and my cheeks filled with air. Violence. Want. Hunger. And something softer… beat its fists against my ribs, but there was nowhere to put her.
Then she broke.
Rolling, arching, making everything bleed.
I had made her come once, but I never went back there. To what it felt like to be inside the shape of her body while we fucked to the heartbeat that created us.
Being inside Daphne was the most dangerous feeling I had ever known.
So why was this different?
Why was this allowed?
Because the Underworld saw her, but not as mine? Because pushing her away sent her into that fucking alley with Wolfe? Or was it because I was tired of denying her the truth and reliving the way it shattered her repeatedly?
I didn’t know. And more than that, I didn’t care.
The second I glimpsed her face on the list, I broke.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Wolfe yanked my head up to meet his eyes. I was slung low, my hands trembling hard enough that the phone slipped onto the floor. Wolfe glanced at it before crouching to pick it up.
“Come on. We need to go.” He grabbed my shoulder, but I stayed seated, staring into the center of nowhere. “Threx!”
We must have docked.
I finally met his gaze, hearing him through the brain fog. My brain was melting, and I couldn’t breathe.
“I need a second,” I snapped, shoving him away.
“Take one in the car,” he growled, stepping closer, but I warned him to back the fuck off.
Wolfe swallowed, glancing at Daphne’s name glowing on the screen, and then panicked.
“Is she okay?” His tone shifted, and I smiled, tilting my head just slightly. “Is that a yes?”
When I didn’t answer, he yanked me up by the arm, catching a full view of my massive erection before letting me go with a look I wished I could bottle for later.
“I told you I needed a minute.”
“Tuck it in your waistband and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I scowled. “This isn’t fourth period, Wolfe! If I touch the goddamn thing, it will explode. Just give me a fucking second, okay?”
He laughed, shuffling his fingers through his rugged locks before plopping down next to me in amused exasperation.
“Where is Lyla?” I asked.
“Restroom.”
“Think they took the bait?”
“Yes. But we hold the contract for now, and there is some shit I need to talk to you about. Karsten approached me when you left with the Red Dress. Did she do this to you?”
“Fuck no,” I glowered, feeling the tension release. Just thinking about Kiera made my dick sad. “I did not touch her.”
“Then, who did?”
It was a stupid question, and I wasn’t used to him asking them.
He glanced down at the phone and grabbed it before I could pick it up, hovering his thumb over the evidence.
“How?”
“Wolfe,” I swatted his hand out of the way, but he only laughed.
“Look, I get it. She is the only one who commands my dick, too. But yours is usually so much better behaved!”
“Thanks for noticing,” I smirked.
He pressed it, and I threw him the earbud, watching his expression change when he finally put it together.
“Holy fuck,” he said, gripping the table.
I thought about hitting him. Turning his pretty face into the ugly fuck he was acting like, but something held me back.
Fine, take it, asshole. I want to see your face when she moans my name.
“Fuck!” he groaned, again.
I watched like a bystander while he turned into a lusty boy at the sound of her breath changes, knowing damn well he knew this part of her better than I did. How to control it! How to make it do what he wants, and even then, she held him.
Wolfe’s expression fell into a slow break, and now we had two hard dicks under the table.
“Hi, guys,” Lyla draped herself around Wolfe’s shoulders before plopping into his lap. “What the hell?” Her eyes widened, and she stood. Apparently, Lyla was not a fan of ass play. Poor Wolfe.
He did not apologize to her; he only tilted the phone down and kept listening.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, flashing a smile.
“Oh, um?” Lyla blinked, glancing at Wolfe and then back at me. “Nothing. I just feel like standing, is all.”
“Makes sense,” I took a drink of champagne. “I thought it had to do with his boner, but if you are more comfortable.”
Wolfe kicked me, and I laughed.
“Got to the best part yet?” I asked, leaning on my elbows.
I wanted to see it. The moment my name flashed in his eyes, knowing full well I wouldn’t get what I hoped for.
Because, unlike me, Wolfe didn’t care that we shared a soul.
He was content to play out this poly nightmare as long as she stayed just a little bit his.
And if I were being honest, I wasn’t sure Daphne would let him go. Not even for me.
“Fucking hell,” he breathed, his features going ragged, and I already knew Lyla would spend her evening paying for everything Daphne was doing to his body. But then I saw it: the confirmation in his pretty eyes.
It was not jealousy or pain. Or the edge of madness, where nails bent into the floorboards.
No, it was love.
And love was a dangerous emotion for a man who had been taught never to feel it.
Wolfe was a black sheet of ice, splintering into a winter valley.
His parents had forged him from shadow to kill things and sleep at night, and I don’t care who you are, you do not walk away from that kind of world-building without being a whole different level of fucked up.
For him, nothing was real, and nothing was pretend.
Everything had to be reduced to letters and numbers, because it didn’t matter how much red stained your hands as long as the equation held.
But love threw him off a cliff. It was ink crumpling in the fire. A black draught of poison that died at dawn. He had spent his entire life avoiding mirrors until the day he saw himself in her and could never look away.
I watched as he tore the buds from his ears and placed them in my hand.
“Shit.” He rose to his feet, and true to his nature, didn’t give a fuck about the tent in his pants or the attention it drew.
“What?” I asked, standing and reaching for Lyla, who was pale and beginning to come apart at the edges.
“Nothing. I just realized something.” He shook his head and tossed my phone against my chest.
“Like what?” Lyla used me as leverage to get to Wolfe, slipping neatly onto his side. But he did not feel her.
“Nothing. I,” Wolfe cleared his voice. “I just didn’t say it back.”
I knew what he meant, and it hit with a splatter. It felt as if someone had turned off the lights in the whole damn universe.
“It’s fine,” he shrugged, walking away. “We need to go.”
Daphne: Love you. Goodnight.