15. Poe #2
“Maybe,” she said. “I want to hear what else Channing digs up. For some reason, I feel like this is all connected—me, Evelyn, Zion…” She shook her head. “My mother.”
“The Bastards and the Scorpions have been enemies for years,” Lycan said. “It’s unlikely that Evelyn and Marx had anything to do with Zion or your mother.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Still, I have this nagging pit in my gut telling me to pay attention.”
The conversation flowed after that, drifting to the rest of our trip and how we’d make our way to London. Mill and Orion thought flying was too risky, even if we chartered a private jet, but Lycan believed the fifteen-hour drive from here to London would put us at even more risk.
“But I want to go. I have to go,” Ava said, grabbing my plate when it was empty to put it in the sink.
I tried to protest, but she waved me off and ignored my groans of, “Don’t do that. I’ve got it. I can clean up—”
“We haven’t secured the deal with the Seventh Earl of Terrible Life Choices yet,” Lycan said.
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Stop making up horrible names for him.”
“Why?” Lycan grinned and ran his tongue over a canine. “He deserves it.”
They’d told me about Scott Fitzgerald when I first arrived, particularly the part where he and Ava used to date until he wanted to get married and she’d turned him down.
I tried not to relate. Lycan and I were in a different circumstance altogether, right?
I wasn’t the Earl of Brooding Exes in his book… was I?
“Enough shop talk,” Ava said. “We can figure it out when we get to London. It’s been a rough couple of days, and I need a break.
Tonight, I want to have fun. Maybe let myself be a little reckless.
” She stood and walked to the end table next to the couch, sliding out the drawer before picking up a deck of playing cards.
Oh no.
No. No. No.
“Who’s in for a game of poker?” She glanced between us and smiled.
“No,” I said at the same time Lycan slammed his hand on the table and said, “Hell yeah.”
“What?” Ava’s features dropped, and she put a hand on her hip. “Why not?”
I looked at Lycan and pursed my lips, recognizing the taunt playing behind his violent, stormy eyes.
I knew all too well what would happen if I did this.
Lycan played dirty, and he wouldn’t stop until he got exactly what he wanted, which in this case would probably result in continuing whatever fucked-up thing he’d been about to do yesterday before Ava interrupted us.
“He’s scared,” Lycan said, leaning back in his seat while he drummed his fingers on the table.
“I’m not scared,” I snapped.
“Then there’s nothing to worry about.” He laughed as Ava circled the table and brushed her fingers along the back of my shoulders. I tensed to hide the shiver that soared through my muscles.
Why would they want me to play with them? Lycan knew where this would lead. Fuck, he was probably ten steps ahead already. And Ava…she had to know. She’d played poker with him before.
“What should we bet, huh?” She sat and shuffled the cards. “Secrets? Shots?”
“Poe likes when we bet clothes,” Lycan said, holding my gaze.
I took a deep breath and forced it out on a slow sigh. My cheeks burned as my heart raced and my skin tightened. Why the fuck was he toying with me like this? He had his wife. He had the happily ever after I thought he’d share with me. Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone?
“Don’t you, Poe?” Lycan asked in that annoying, fake-innocent tone.
A thousand retorts raced through my mind.
Why are you doing this?
You have her. Just take her.
How dare you say I’m scared? You’re the one who’s scared, you selfish prick.
Maybe Lycan read all of that in my angry stare because he grinned and shifted his head, daring me to back down, to run away.
A part of me wanted to. The angry, heartbroken man Lycan had left months ago wanted to disappear into the woods until we left.
But something kept me rooted to the spot.
Maybe it was that connection still humming in my veins, the one that we’d formed last night in our other forms. Maybe it was the way my bonding scent rolled off me in waves that didn’t threaten Lycan away from Ava.
No, it invited him. It coaxed him. It wanted him, too.
I sent Lycan a look that asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Lycan ran his tongue over his teeth and answered with a silent, “Bet.”
“Sure, Lycan,” I said. “Whatever you say.”
“Well, I like the sound of that.” He pushed his chair back from the table and walked to the counter, retrieving a bottle of whiskey and three glass tumblers before placing them down in the center of the table. “You deal the cards, Trouble, and I’ll pour the drinks.”
Ava hummed agreeably as she shuffled the deck, and I shifted, trying to force air back into my lungs.
“I’m happy you came back, Poe,” Ava said. “I was worried about you.”
“Yes, it was very mean of him to walk-of-shame it out of here the morning after your first shift, wasn’t it?” Lycan tsked. “Such bad manners.”
“Well, you know what they say,” I muttered, running a palm over my face. “Three’s a crowd.”
Lycan laughed and poured two fingers of amber liquor into a glass, setting it down in front of me.
“No one says that anymore. Three’s a party.” Then the fucker winked at me, and something hot rolled down to my balls.
Fuck.
I’m so fucked.
“Are you angry at us?” Ava asked, dealing two cards out to each of us. “For…the night before?”
My stomach lurched as I remembered the sight of her kneeling in front of him, his beautiful cock in her throat, her arousal so potent I smelled it from the other side of the window.
“No,” I said. “No, I’m not angry.”
“Then why did you leave?” Her big blue eyes implored me to be honest, even as she tried to keep her features neutral.
“I told you, Trouble.” Lycan peeked at his cards while Ava flipped the first three cards over. “He’s scared.”
“I’m not fucking scared,” I snapped.
Lycan held his hands out to either side in a mocking display of deference. “Alright. You’re not scared.”
“Besides, aren’t you the one who never lets anyone get close to him?
The one who thinks he’s too much of an evil bastard to love anyone besides himse—” This wasn’t an argument I wanted to have in front of Ava.
It wasn’t her business, and besides, it didn’t matter anymore.
Ancient history and all that. He’d moved on. I should have done the same.
Except…sitting there in that room with his dangerous eyes on me and the taste of Ava’s coconut pheromones on my tongue, it didn’t feel like he’d moved on. It seemed like he’d bucked a U somewhere around “I do” and dragged Ava to this fucked-up hell with him.
“That’s right,” Lycan said. “I am an evil bastard. Might as well enjoy it.”
What if we did end up naked together? Was he planning to fuck both of us on this table, cards scattered on the floor, whiskey and sins dripping from our lips? The thought sent another bout of butterflies straight to my groin, and I closed my eyes, locking it down before it burned out of control.
“Well, cheers to evil bastards, selfish princesses, and lost souls,” Ava said, lifting her whiskey.
I snorted a sardonic laugh and tapped my glass against hers. “Is that what I am, Ava? A lost soul?”
She shrugged, swallowed, and cleared her throat. “I think we’re all a little lost.”
“Truer words,” Lycan said. He gestured to the deck. “Go on, then. Let’s see the river.”
Lycan won the first round, and when I tossed my shirt at him, he grabbed it and tucked it under his thigh, indicating I’d have to do something undoubtedly deviant to get it back.
He let Ava take off her socks, which he chucked to the side, forgotten as soon as he had them.
Ava won the second hand, and after another two fingers of whiskey, forced me to take off my belt.
She wore it around her throat like a necklace, occasionally fiddling with the buckle whenever she got lost in thought.
I managed to win the third hand.
“I want my shirt back,” I told Lycan.
He only sipped his drink, causing my focus to drop to the tiny drop of liquid pooling over his full bottom lip. How I ached to lick it off. How I yearned for him to make me lick it off.
“That’s not how the game works,” he said. “Your shirt is my prize. You only get to pick something off my body.”
“A shirt for a shirt seems fair,” Ava said. “Take it off.”
“Careful, Trouble,” Lycan said. “You owe him something, too.”
“You want my shirt? Fine.” Ava stood, grabbed the hem of her oversized white tee, and shucked it over her head, leaving her sitting in a baby blue lace bra that matched her eyes and made her tits look absolutely edible. She tossed it at me. “It’s Lycan’s anyway.”
When the combined scent of Lycan and Ava hit me, I fucking wilted.
I wanted to stuff the cotton into my mouth and inhale until my lungs burst. I wanted to put it over my head, shove my body into it, and see how much I liked all three of our aromas mixed together.
My wolf panted and paced at the back of my mind, urging me to do it.
Restraining myself, I tucked it under my seat and stared at the fucking instigator.
“Well?” he asked.
“Shirt.” My voice cracked like a fucking adolescent, and I cleared my throat to cover it up.
Lycan sighed before pulling off his black Henley and tossing it at me. “Amateur.”