Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EBONY
Making my excuses, I tell Megan I’ll see her in the morning when Mateo arrives to collect her.
Neither seem overly excited about leaving me after what happened last time I dared to get home by myself, so I order the rideshare in front of them and pinkie promised I would wait in the brightly lit and crowded entrance.
Megan pre-warned me she’d be spending the night at Mateo’s, which is in the opposite direction to ours as he doesn’t live on campus.
I’m practically giddy at the idea of the apartment to myself.
I exit the tent, their hold over me still strong enough to strangle my senses, even as the distance grows between us.
Moving quickly through the stalls, the throngs of people in costumes giggling, throwing caution to the wind as they knock back their fruity cocktails with mini umbrellas and outrageous names, I can’t help the sense of trepidation that licks at my skin.
I wander around for a while, debating the pros and cons of seeking the guys out.
I watch as the carnival clears out, the carpark nearly empty, and the lights from the welcome sign fizzling out as the night beckons the silence, and the world shifts into slumber.
Hugging myself and wrapping my leather jacket around my body the best I can to stave off the chilly night air, I decide to throw caution to the wind.
I had spent the better part of four years wondering what it would be like to see the guys again.
The first two years filled with internet searches and paying hackers with my tip money from my waitress job to track them down.
When I finally got the location of Blackwood Asylum—kicking myself that it was only a two-hour trip—I realised I didn’t have the guts to go and see them in person.
I knew they would hate me, and the visual of seeing that truth etched into their faces was enough to keep me away.
I’d sent letters that went unanswered until the day the unopened pile arrived at my local post office with a return-to-sender stamp.
Not long after, I read about the fire and the death of the woman in charge.
They had been released, and I’d had no idea where they had gone, but a part of me secretly hoped they would come and find me. I would take their punishment happily, just to know they were okay.
As I’ve grown older, the feelings I harboured for the Knox brothers have morphed from a forever friendship to something darker, something carnal.
It’s an itch I need to scratch, a sexual tension that refuses to be sated by any other man—and believe me, I’ve tried.
Finding out that Cooper was the mystery cowboy in the closet at the party turned me on more than I cared to admit, and knowing Caleb went all dangerously possessive at the fact he hadn’t had his own taste of me threatened to send my brain in overdrive.
I can’t help but wonder what they would feel like under my fingers now.
How it would feel to give my body over to them at the same time, to beg them to do whatever they pleased with me, to have them consume my very essence until there’s nothing left.
My underwear didn’t even have a chance of drying out.
‘Attention, clean-up needed, dripping woman on aisle four.’
Rubbing my thighs together, I wipe at my sweaty brow; it’s freezing out here, but thoughts of the twins is enough to have my body temperature sky-rocketing.
I suck down a steadying breath and ignore the trepidation that skitters up my spine.
I should really start listening to the danger cues my body is sending me, but that’s a problem for future Ebony.
Caleb wanted to punish me, I could see it in his molten green gaze the second I realised it was them hidden under their disguises back in the carpark and again tonight as our eyes met when I watched them perform. I’m ready to give him what he needs.
Flustered, my heart thumps wildly in my chest as the image of them on that stage fills my head.
It’s too much, this feeling, the sense of belonging to them too strong of a connection for me to shake.
The part of Caleb Knox that wants to break me, the side of him that scares me—if pushed too far, he could sever the connection I still feel to him, and that scares me most of all.
What if they reject me? What if I’ve misread the signs completely, and they are just here to watch me finally be punished for what I did to them? What if after all those years at Blackwood, they have lost the plot and are the ones murdering women as a substitute thrill before they could find me?
‘Don’t be stupid. Possessive—yes. Unhinged—certainly.
But those boys want you very much alive.
They aren’t killers,’ the little voice in my head squeaks.
‘Killers of women anyway,’ she adds as an afterthought.
‘You’ll take and enjoy whatever it is that those boys plan on doing to you, and we both know it.
’ I could disagree; it would be pointless though.
I’m practically salivating at the idea of being held down and taught a lesson by Cooper and Caleb.
The fact that I would take their punishments willingly should worry me, but other than that tug of yearning and the fear of opening old wounds, I can’t feel much of anything when I’m without them.
It’s only now when the voices in my head settle, and it’s just the erratic thumping of my heart in my ears, that I realise how far I’ve wandered into the belly of the now deserted circus.
Muffled raised voices beckon me forward as I see two people shuffling around in the rear entrance of the dimly lit big top tent off in the distance.
My legs are moving before I can alert my brain to the possible dangers of snooping, the uniqueness of my kitty-inspired attire means I’m shit out of luck if I planned on being discreet.
This kitty cat is down to her last life.
I know that the part of Caleb Knox that I am guilty of breaking can only be fixed by my hands.
We can argue and snap at each other, but the comfort I know only I can give him is present every time he gazes for a beat too long into my eyes.
He wants to forgive me, and whether he’s admitted that to himself yet or not, I can see it.
I roll my eyes when my head takes over my heart, and the internal voice that is always ready to kill a mood in under two seconds says, “If all else fails, stick his cock in your mouth; that certainly swayed the other one.”
And here I was thinking romance was dead.