Chapter 22
ADELAIDE
Ace parks the truck just up from the shop I’m meeting Clio at and kills the engine. For a second, neither of us moves. The cab goes quiet around us, thick with him.
I’m still half turned toward the window, trying very hard to act like my body isn’t already leaning his way before I’ve even made the decision, when his hand slides to the back of my neck and he draws me across the console like he knows exactly how little resistance he’s going to get.
“I’m going to miss you,” he whispers. Then our mouths clash hard. I moan into the kiss before I can stop it. God.
He kisses like he’s been holding back for the whole drive and finally got tired of being patient.
His thumb traces slowly along my jaw, and every nerve in my body lights up at once.
I’m already leaning into him, giving him more of my weight, my fingers clutching at his shirt, my whole body answering him with humiliating speed.
This is the problem—not that I don’t want him, but that I desire him so badly my body keeps voting yes before my head gets anywhere near the discussion.
We’re kissing wildly, my heart thumping, my panties wet, and my thoughts blur for one perfect second. Then something colder slips in around the edges.
The hidden basement, knives, masks.
It’s not enough to kill the insatiable craving for Ace. God, no. My body is on fire and aching and absolutely not interested in caution. But enough to make me feel the split within me, which reminds me that I still don’t know everything, and until I do, I need to get a grip on losing control.
I pull back first, breath shaky.
He follows half an inch, like he might take my mouth again if I let him, and that nearly ends me all over again.
“I have to go,” I whisper against his mouth.
“Mm.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
He grins evilly, and damn him for being an entirely too beautiful man currently spoiling my self-control in a parked truck. He releases me in stages, clearly insisting I feel every inch of it. His hand slides from my neck to my shoulder, then down my arm, before he finally drops it.
“Text me when you’re ready to come home.”
Home? That word lands heavily on my mind. Is that how I seem to him already? As one of them. My heart beats faster at the thought because I desperately crave that too.
“I will,” I say, and my voice still sounds kissed. Once I’m out, I shut the door and rush through warm air across the open parking area toward the line of shops surrounding the lot.
Purr-a-Dice. Games and Collectibles, advertised in small script under the neon sign, is right ahead of me. The front windows are blacked out, but I knock twice on the glass.
It swings open almost immediately, and Clio is there, her blonde bob pulled into two pigtails sticking out at defiant angles.
She’s wearing an oversized vintage cartoon tee that hangs off one shoulder and exposes the thin strap of a mustard-yellow bra, denim shorts that might technically be underwear, and chunky white sneakers.
She yanks me inside by the wrist, slams the door behind me, flips the deadbolt, and then finally wraps me in a hug tight enough that my ribs object.
“Oh my God, I missed you,” she says into the side of my neck. “It’s been too long since we saw each other.”
“I missed you too.”
“You smell like an Alpha.” She breaks our hug.
“I’ve been around a lot of them.” I laugh as if it’s not obvious.
“Come, let me show you around. We’re in the back.”
She loops her arm through mine and leads me deeper into the shop.
The store around me is gorgeous. Shelves from floor to ceiling along every wall, crammed with board games in colorful boxes, columns of manga in neat spines, racks of trading cards in plastic sleeves, gallery-lit display cases housing limited-edition figurines.
The lighting is dim and amber. “I love this place,” I say, and mean it.
“I know. Aura did all the decorating and lighting.”
“Where is she?”
“Stockroom. Dealing with a delivery that came in wrong.”
The partition at the back of the shop divides off a small semiprivate space.
Tonight the gaming tables have been pushed against the walls, and a row of folding chairs is arranged in a loose semicircle facing a wheeled whiteboard.
A long side table runs along one edge, crammed with snacks.
Kettle chips in three flavors, pretzels, a plate of chocolate-dipped shortbread, two bowls of dip, a pitcher of iced tea with lemon slices floating on top and mint.
I go straight for the food. “Oh, thank God,” I say and grab a handful of the chips and pour myself a glass of the iced tea.
Clio grabs a handful of the same and drops into one of the folding chairs. She pats the one next to her, and I sit and set the glass between my feet on the floor.
“We’ve got about twenty minutes before Malia gets here,” she says. “She’s always early. Priya’s coming straight from court, so she’ll be late.” She pops a chip into her mouth. “Talk. What’s going on?”
I take a breath, then tell her. She already has the basics from the phone call, so I give her the specifics that won’t stop replaying in my mind.
“Dozens of knives,” I say. “And that’s when I found the three black masks made from some kind of weird fabric.”
“You sure they’re not Halloween ones?”
“I mean, I can’t be certain, but why would they hide them in the knife cabinet?”
Clio sets her iced tea on the floor and turns to face me, one knee up on the chair, her hand finding mine. “Okay,” she says. Her voice is lower and more serious than I’m used to from her, which makes the whole thing worse. “What’s the worst-case story in your head right now?”
“That I’ve been sleeping with three men I don’t actually know.” The words shake as they come out of me. “That every one of them told me separately they had a past they weren’t proud of, and I believed the edited version, and now I’m thinking I ran from one murderer and ended up with three others.”
“Okay, that’s a big leap.”
“Am I safe?” I press the heel of my hand against my eye and rub the itchiness. “Maybe this is the part where good things end for me, and I should have known, but I did know and I ignored it.”
“Stop. Don’t say that.” She holds my hand tighter. “You’re not allowed to pre-mourn.”
“I’m not—”
“You are. You’re about to write the whole ending of this story before you have even a quarter of the information. I won’t let you.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Talk to them tonight! I can join you if you need. Ask them what you saw. No assumptions. Just be direct.”
“What if the answer is bad?”
“Then we’ll deal with it together.” Her thumb strokes across the back of my hand. “But you don’t get to decide it’s bad before they’ve said a single word. You owe them that, especially after you’ve been through the worst couple of months of your life and your instincts are frayed.”
A tear slides down my cheek, and I swipe it away with the back of my hand, furious at my weakness. “I really like them, Clio. And that scares me.”
She nods, holding me.
“I wasn’t supposed to.”
“Oh, babe.”
“I could live there. I was starting to imagine it too. Christmas with them. I was writing whole chapters, and even inviting Chris to come visit. And now…” I sniffle.
“Now we have questions to ask, not jump to conclusions.”
I nod, but my throat is too tight for words. She leans her head against my shoulder, and we sit there for a moment with the amber lights. Of course, she’s right and maybe I just need to hear it from them.
The stockroom door swings open with a cheerful, unrepentant bang. Aura emerges with a stack of games that is taller than her body, her eyes peering over the top.
“Oh, thank God,” she says. “A distraction. I’ve been sorting through an order of T-shirts for an hour, and I want to die. Adelaide, you’re back. Tell me something interesting, as my brain’s melting.”
I find half a smile. “The shop, by the way, looks incredible. Amazing job.”
“Right!” She sets the stack of games down on a gaming table with a theatrical sigh and pushes her hair out of her face with the back of her wrist. She’s in a lime-green tee that reads DEFINITELY NOT A GAMER in bold across the front, and in small tag font underneath, (i am a gamer).
“So what’s the drama? Both your faces are doing drama. I want in.”
Clio glances at me, and I nod once. We can do the drama pivot. It’ll help me.
“Aura has a situation,” Clio says in a dramatic tone.
“Oh, no,” I say, feigning shock. “What kind?”
“My situation?” Aura lifts her brows. “Really? Are we pretending one of you isn’t the one with the situation?”
“Nope,” Clio says.
“I’m absolutely going there.” Aura pulls her phone from her back pocket and swipes across it with the smug precision of a person who has been waiting all day to ruin someone’s peace. “Adelaide. Look at this.”
She comes over and turns the screen toward me.
The photo is of a man from the neck down wearing approximately one responsible decision’s worth of fabric.
Broad chest. Carved stomach. One vein running up his forearm, hand resting low on his abs in a pose that was so calculated it probably had a storyboard.
Clio is sighing, trying to push Aura’s arm away.
“Who’s the hunk?” I ask.
“Clio’s new obsession.”
Clio half groans, half laughs. “So not true and out of context.”
Aura taps the screen with a teal nail and opens up the comments, scrolls, then points to one. “Her exact words were, and I quote, ‘You can break into my bedroom anytime. Obsessed.’ ”
“Oh my God, that was a joke.” She’s laughing, doing that fake look as she glances my way.
“You were trying to pick up this gorgeous thirst trap.”
“Okay, well, I’m invested and need to know. Clio, I thought we said no secrets!” I grin her way, and she’s blushing. Love that for her.
Clio sighs and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Okay, fine. There’s a guy, and he’s on the streaming platform I use.”
“Which you said you quit,” I clarify.
“I un-quit.” She shrugs, and I raise my eyebrows.
“Since when?”