Chapter 7 #2
I grab his phone from the table and go back to him to unlock it with the face recognition. But with his eyes closed, it doesn’t work. Damn it! I need Ramiel to see if he can find anything that can point us in Nine’s direction.
I pocket his phone and use mine to send a text to him. Uriel’s call arrives five minutes later.
“What?” I answer with annoyance dripping from my voice.
“Nine is back?” It’s more a statement than a question.
“Yeah.”
Ramiel didn’t waste time. The silence that follows is filled with almost palpable fury.
But then Uriel’s voice turns muffled. “Baby Blue, I think I heard Albert E. screaming for help.” Sariel’s guinea pig?
Sariel replies something about how idiotic that sounds but that he’ll go check, before my brother comes back to the call. “What happened?”
“She sent someone after Sully.”
“Fuck, Sari was right.” He sounds proud for some reason.
“About?”
“You having the hots for little Carver.”
I grit my teeth. “Is that a problem?”
“Rague is going to tear you to pieces, and Ollie will piss on your carcass.” He snorts.
Like I’ll let that ever happen. “And where would you be when someone with your exact face is being mutilated and sullied?”
“Watching with a bucket of popcorn.”
“Perverted fucker,” I mutter.
“Like you are so innocent.” He sniffs. “So either Nine knows you are alive or she’s just fucking with Sully because he’s the easiest target among us.”
He came to the same conclusion I did. “Yeah.”
“Did you secure the soon-to-be donor?”
“He’s mine, Uriel. I have it here with me.” I look at Jacob’s unconscious body hanging from the rope again.
“And where is here?”
I remain silent. My brother is still attached to the vigilante team, trying to include me into it for some fucking reason.
“Sharing can make it more interesting,” he states.
“Like you would share anything.”
“I have been,” he declares. “My family.”
His words irritate me. I don’t do homes or families. Look at what happened to the two people who tried with me. They died. What’s the point? But what about Sully? He might think he needs them. He looks closely connected to them. Fuck, that irritates me.
“How about Sariel?” I taunt him, not wanting to continue the conversation.
Cue the murderous snarl. He never disappoints. “How about you share Sully?”
The sole thought of having one hair on his head touched by someone else turns me rotten inside. “Try me.” The icy voice comes out from the pit of my guts.
“Remember that feeling,” the fucker sneers, ending the call.
My brother’s words make me uneasy, and I quickly go check the CCTV of the pet shelter—Dare gave me access.
Yesterday Sully fell asleep talking about his volunteering job there.
I didn’t get most of what he said, but his enthusiasm was cute.
I’ve never in my entire fucking life found anything cute, but him.
His eyes were closing, but he smiled and thanked me for listening—for such a minor thing? He’s very easy to please and damn cute.
The camera finds him in the shower room. He’s washing a dog while chatting with Ren. After hearing about the attack, he insisted on staying with Sully when I couldn’t. He thinks he is at fault for the roughing up done by Jacob. Guilt is such an easy emotion to exploit.
I’m finished here, so I can go see Sully.
Still, I take a moment to look at his face on my phone screen.
The bruise on his temple is covered by one of my bandages.
His glasses look a little askew. Drops of water are falling from his messy hair and covering his green scrubs.
His delicate features and fragile looks urge me to haul him out of there and fuck him all day long until he can’t stand.
Until he can’t do anything without my help.
And I’ll do whatever it takes to make it so that whenever he opens or closes his eyes, I’m the only one he thinks about.
I follow the two burly football players into the coffee place situated on the university campus.
Their size partly allows me to walk in undetected.
The sun is setting, letting the world grow dim.
I can hear people chatting around me and smell the scent of roasted beans coming from the coffee machines.
My eyes find Sully sitting at a table near the window with Ren.
He has two books open in front of him and is nodding at something Ren is saying while looking down at the pages.
I order a tall Americano and find a sitting spot with the perfect view of him, but far enough so he can’t see me. I could go sit with them, but I won’t—not yet. I don’t want to be far away from my little chick, but I feel quite the enjoyment at watching him like this.
Because I know now how thick his hair feels between my fingers and how soft his delicate, pale skin is.
Fuck yes, I know. His body is covered in marks I left with my hands and mouth.
He can hide them with oversized sweaters, but I know.
And I fucking like it so much that I have to force down my own body’s reaction to the simple memory.
I take a sip of hot coffee just as Lori sits near me.
“Watcha doing?” He has a huge drink in one hand, topped with whipped cream and sprinkles, and a chocolate croissant in the other.
I lean back against the chair and give him a death stare.
“Are you flipping the question to me?” He doesn’t get my silent fuck off message. “Well, I’m not a stalking psycho, so not the same thing as you, Robin Brood.”
“Why are you here?” I ask him, moving my eyes to Sully again.
“My nipples were achy this morning. It was like a pulsing inner warning, and the first person I thought about was you.” He points his green-polished nail at me.
“I once killed a guy in a crowded space without anyone noticing.” I let the threat register and calmly take another sip of brew.
“No need to brag. But can you teach me?” He sounds excited.
“I can show you right now,” I threaten him. I can’t be more direct than this.
“Crikey. I got it. So narky!” His pouty mouth would have stirred thoughts of a blowjob in the café bathroom, but all I want to fuck right now is Sully’s still virgin throat.
“What are you doing here?” I ask again.
“You should work on your manners, mate. And of course I’m here. Sully-doo is like a brother to me. My bestie freaked out after he heard what happened yesterday, but he can’t come—Rague’s red haze.”
From what I’ve heard, Raguel underwent various brain surgeries when he was imprisoned. I don’t know what those scientists were trying to achieve, but they cause him episodes of uncontrollable rage when he gets too stressed.
“So, I’m here in…loco parentis,” Lori finishes.
I take another sip of my coffee when I hear part of the conversation the two girls standing near the counters are having.
“That’s Ren Wright,” one of them says.
“He’s so handsome. You think I have a chance?” the other asks.
“Of course! I prefer his friend. He’s cute in a Peter Parker, bad boy kind of way.”
“Cute? He’s stunning, too. Look at those eyes and that smile. Hubba-hubba.”
“Dibs!”
I crush the paper cup I’m holding, spilling hot coffee over my hand. But I don’t feel the burn. All I’m focused on is that girl expressing a claim on what’s mine.
“Quit flexing…and sending homicidal stares!” Lori scolds me while tossing some paper napkins my way.
“The homicidal stares are only an indication of what is going to happen very soon,” I growl, looking at the two girls reaching his table.
Sully stiffens slightly as one starts talking to him. She laughs too loudly and then tucks her hair behind her ear coyly. She says something which I can’t hear, but it creates a little crease between Sully’s brows, the one that says that he’s puzzled or confused.
I wish I could read his mind and discover what thoughts populate his head. I’d find the ones about me and delete all the others.
“You’re expectedly the possessive type,” Lori states, but I ignore him.
Because Sully is biting his lip. The sight goes straight to my cock.
Does he know what that gesture does to me?
I don’t want him to show it to anyone else.
He already belongs to me, doesn’t he realize that?
His body, voice, breath, even a single strand of his hair, and all his fears and hopes are mine to break and to give them new shape.
How dare he flaunt all that sweetness and innocence around?
I don’t feel the urge to hurt him—much—but I’ll drive him to his limit until he needs me like air.
The girl writes something on a piece of paper and slides it toward Sully. I’m about to leave my chair and go to them when Lori grabs my forearm.
“You know, when I met you, I thought you should wear a mood ring. You were so fucking hard to read. But now… have you ever heard of Tomkins? Silvan Tomkins, a personality theorist? Or was it Solomon? Sylvester?”
Why is Lori still here…talking? My hand is itching to unsheathe my knife, especially when I see the girl still flirting with Sully. If she doesn’t leave right now, I’ll be very happy to show her my psychotic nature.
“The human face is like the penis.” Lori’s absurd words reach me, and I turn toward him.
“The penis?”
“Tomkins thought that the face, like a dick, has a mind of its own. It betrays us on an almost daily basis. Advertising our secrets to those who observe and know what to look for. Thanks to that, I don’t need to ask your intentions toward Sully-doo.”
Is he going to give me the I’ll-hurt-you-if-you-hurt-him speech? Because this…family needs to remember that I’m the one who inflicts pain.
“For example, if I tell you that Sully is going to move into Ren’s house next month, you…”
Lori is trying to play with the bow strings of my sanity by suggesting that Sully will reside somewhere else besides my bed. Under my roof. In my arms.