Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Tav
I sat like a docile kitten, unable to move or think or do much of anything but let Con manipulate my head while he snipped scissors at my hair and buzzed a trimmer around my ears and neck. I kept closing my eyes, my body swaying as I fought to stay awake.
From behind me, Con fixed my shoulders when I slumped forward, and he angled my head so he could check his work in the mirror. “Just a few more minutes.”
I yawned. “Sleepy.”
His smile was knowing. “Yeah, I know.”
“Don’t be smug.” He laughed, eyes glittering, and I found my lips curling into a slow answering smile. Still, I muttered, “You’re a shithead. Using my ass against me."
“But it works,” he hummed as he snipped at my sideburns.
He came back to my front, blocking my view of the mirror.
His crotch was in my face. He hadn’t come, and I could tell he was half-hard.
I leaned forward to nuzzle him, but he gripped my hair and jerked my head back.
“I have sharp objects around your face. Don’t make any sudden movements. ”
“But I’d welcome a scar you gave me.”
He paused his movements to narrow his eyes at me. There was no amusement in his gaze. “I absolutely do not want to scar you.”
I looked down. “Sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” He leaned down and brushed his lips across my temple in that place I hadn’t known I liked, but that Con had figured out within two days. “I like your face as it is. No additions or subtractions.”
He put down the trimmer and scissors on the bathroom counter and stepped behind me, fiddling with the top of my hair and smoothing the sides around my ears. I looked at myself in the mirror, knowing if I didn’t, he’d order me to. And I wanted to see myself.
My hair was clipped short on the sides in a fade, but he had kept the top longer, so that a few strands brushed my forehead and temples.
I had never had a haircut like this before.
When I was a teenager, Amara usually buzzed it for me, and for the last five years, I had one of the many sex workers around trim it.
There was one woman named Ivy who was actually pretty good at hair. But she was nothing like Con.
He beamed at me, clearly proud of his work. “Handsome,” he murmured, almost to himself.
I felt my cheeks heat.
I did look good, even with the fading bruises. I looked happy.
“Thank you,” I said.
He clapped my shoulder and went to the sink to clean his tools. “No one cuts your hair from now on but me.” He glanced at me over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised.
“Okay,” I answered, because of course.
He pointed at the shower. “Rinse the hair off or it’ll itch.”
I obeyed, because the sooner I did, the sooner I could pass out. I just wanted to sleep. I hadn’t worked out in a while, and now today I’d used the weights and heavy bag, and I’d been worked over by Con all while confronting my trauma. I deserved a fucking nap.
I rinsed off in the shower and dried off. Con was already in the bedroom when I emerged. I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and then crawled into bed. I collapsed onto my stomach, and reached for him to join me, but he shook his head. “I have to work.”
My face was already smashed into a pillow. I peered at him out of one eye. “You always have to work.”
“I know,” he sighed and leaned over me. His lips brushed my temple again, and I closed my eyes. His fingers rubbed over the now-short hair at the back of my head, and I shivered. “You were so good today,” he whispered. “So good.”
I would have preened if I was more conscious. “But you didn’t get off,” I mumbled.
“Later.” His fingers left me and his voice drifted as he walked away from the bed. “Sleep now.”
When I woke again, I was still flat on my stomach, face smashed into the pillow, and the sun was low in the sky.
Fuck, I’d slept like half the day. I rolled onto my back with a groan and stretched.
My sore muscles protested, mostly in my thighs and ass.
A bit in my chest too. I scrubbed at my head, unused to the shortness of my hair, and dragged myself out of bed in search of Con.
I found him in the kitchen staring at a heap of food on the island.
His gaze seemed distracted, unfocused, and he didn’t jerk out of his thoughts until I was right next to him.
I pulled him into a hug, squeezing tightly in the way that he seemed to like before pulling back to smack him on the lips. “Hey.”
He ran a finger down the side of my face. “You have lines from the pillowcase on your skin. I take it you slept hard.”
“Yeah.” I pulled back and surveyed the island. “What’s all this for?”
“I didn’t want you to cook today. I had my chef prepare a lot and bring it over.”
“A lot?” That was an understatement. There were various pasta dishes, a fish judging me with its dead eyeball, a whole chicken, some steak, and enough sides to last a week. “I think you overdid it.”
He bit his lip. “Yeah, I realize that now.”
I picked up a fork and swirled it into a pasta dish before stuffing it in my mouth, slurping what I couldn’t get in one bite. Sauce splattered near my eye. Con sighed immediately. “Tav, this is family style. So you put what you want on your own plate. And eat it off there. Your own plate.”
I shrugged before digging into something cheesy. Were these potatoes? “But it’s just us.”
He stared at me for a moment before waving his white flag. “You know, you’re right. Whatever. Just eat.”
I grinned around the cheesy potatoes and settled onto a stool across from him.
I kept eating, sampling from different dishes, but ignoring the fish who wouldn’t stop looking at me.
I didn’t realize until I was nearly full that Con hadn’t moved.
He hadn’t eaten. He still stood where I’d left him, staring at the plated food like it held the key to eternal youth.
I sat back and licked the tines of my fork. “Con.”
He didn’t respond, eyes unblinking.
I rapped my fork on the countertop. “Con.”
With a jerk, he glanced up, eyes finally focusing on me. “Yeah.”
Yeah? Con didn’t shorten words like that often. An uneasy feeling slid through my gut. “What’s going on with you?”
He ran his fingers through his hair, and I studied him more closely now. Lines bracketed his eyes, and he seemed paler than normal. His button-down shirt hung askew on his neck, one collar tip curled under. What the hell had happened while I slept? My overfull stomach rolled. “You okay?”
He leaned forward. “It’s not about me, it’s—”
The ringtone of his phone pierced the air.
It sat face down on the counter near Con’s hand.
He rarely placed his phone face down. He snatched it up immediately, and I couldn’t see who was calling.
“Yes.” He stood straight now, perfect posture, chin out, as if bracing for something.
“Now? But you—” he closed his eyes and rubbed at his mouth.
“Good. Your instincts are perfect as always.” Whoever was on the other line said something that made Con smile tightly.
“I suspect we’ll be hearing from him soon.
I’ll need to speak with her tonight.” Her who? “I’ll be in touch when we’re ready. “
He dropped the phone on the counter with a clatter and turned slowly to meet my gaze. “Where’s your phone?”
I patted my pockets, finding them empty. “Uh. Dunno?”
He marched around the counter. “Shit.” His bare feet pounded the tile floor as he searched the couch in front of the TV.
“I think it’s in the bedroom,” I said. He began to head that way. I spun on my stool with a frown. “Or maybe it’s in the gym—”
“Fucking find it, Tav!” His shout made me rear back, but he didn’t see my reaction, because he was already down the hallway in the bedroom. I could hear him tossing things.
I rose from the stool slowly as alarm bells blared in my head. As I opened the gym door, I heard the distant jingle coming from my cell phone. It was on a weight bench, the screen lit with an incoming call. I grabbed it just as Con appeared in the doorway. His chest heaved. “Who is it?”
“Just Chen,” As Con opened his mouth to say something else, I answered the call. “Yeah?”
Speaker, Con mouthed, and I hit speaker phone just as a voice filled the gym. A voice that was not Chen’s.
“Hussssssk,” Devlin hissed. “Oh Hussssk, where are you?”
My heart dropped into my feet. Con held my gaze, looking a lot less shocked than I felt. I blinked, “I’m at the hotel.”
“Oh no, you’re not.” Devlin was in a car.
I could hear the engine revving. “Because I just left the motel where you’ve supposedly been staying.
And now I know. You haven’t been there at all.
You lied to me, Husk.” He inhaled sharply, and I braced.
When he spoke, again, his voice elevated to a maniacal roar.
“How fucking dare you lie to the man who owns you?”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. My blood froze in my veins, and my lungs seized.
Amara. Amara and Holden. He was surely on his way to them now. He’d hurt them. He’d hurt them. He’d hurt them. He’d hurt them.
I could only stare at Con as guilt slammed into me, shame at enjoying the last week of this fantasy world where I could be happy all while my sister and nephew were in danger—
Devlin wasn’t done fucking with me. “I heard Amara has only gotten more beautiful. Maybe I’ll see if she can breed me another Walsh son.”
Con was at my side, stabbing the button to end the call while I dropped to my knees.
White noise roared in my ears, barely audible over the drum beat of my pounding heart that had to be leaking blood all over my insides.
There was no way the organ was still intact if I was in this much pain.
No way. A horrible sound was happening in the gym, like nails on a chalkboard, and as pain registered in my throat, I realized the noise was coming from me.
Conrad