14. Lucky
Lucky
Sadists will only hurt you.
I flip the pancake into the air, trying to get it to do three spins before it hits the pan again.
“ Can you just cook the damn things instead of playing with them?” Dom barks, pacing the kitchen behind me with the charged energy of a panther lashing its tail.
“ Art . This is art , boss man. Don’t mess with it.
And don’t get pissy with me just ’cause you didn’t think before you swung this time.
” Before oh-leader-supreme can bite my head off, I slide the pancake off the pan and onto a plate, and then plant it on the edge of the counter for him.
“ Just swallow it and apologize. Plenty of sugar in these babies to help it go down right. Jayk’ll bitch, but he’ll get over it. We’ll need him on side soon enough.”
Dom scowls... but stalks closer to the pancakes. He’ll settle once he’s eaten.
“ Not the point. I shouldn’t have gone after him like that.” He stabs a fluffy pancake with his fork, sounding almost sullen. “ She’s just got those big, prissy fucking eyes. She isn’t the type . What was I meant to think?”
He stabs the pancake harder and it splits in a fluffy spray.
A laugh snorts out of me that I can’t keep in, despite the glare I receive in return.
I hold up my hands in surrender. “ She got naked in front of four of us on her first night here and came all over Beau’s lap.
” Lucky bastard. It should have been a Lucky bastard.
“ She might not know what the hell she’s doing—and she might shock herself into a nunnery—but she’s definitely the type . Whatever that is.”
And she’s cute. And smart. And I have a mother-flipping date with her tonight.
Beau eyes me sideways, and I realize I’m grinning like a five-year-old with pockets full of candy. Ah , whatever. Why not? It’s been ages since I’ve felt this excited about something, and I’ll be good for her, anyway. I’ll make sure she has a bit of fun—the girl needs to lighten up.
Well , all of them need to lighten up, really, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lost cause with the guys. I’ve been working on ’em for years and I can still only get them to crack a smile once a month.
“ She won’t want anything from us if we keep lying to her,” Beau says quietly.
I shoot Beau a sympathetic wince over Dom’s shoulder as the full weight of the bigger man’s displeasure lands on him. “ Since when do we explain our decisions to civs?”
The doc—brave guy—rolls his eyes. “ I think that ship has kind of sailed, don’t you? She has a right to know if another group of hunters is hanging around these woods. I want her around as much as anyone but it could influence her decision on whether she wants to stay or not.”
Choosing self-preservation on this one, I pop a hunk of chocolate chip pancake in my mouth.
Beau and Dom’s recon mission had mixed success.
The guys covered their asses by heading to town, but after they flagged that there could be another group out there, Jasper started running through our camera footage.
Sure enough, there’s a huge group of hunters slowly making their way in our direction.
Right now, they’re about five days south of us.
So in the understatement of the year, it’s not great. These guys are getting closer and closer to Bristlebrook , they’re seriously kitted out, and if they don’t already know their friends were taken out, they will soon. I’m guessing they aren’t going to be too happy about that.
And worst of all, it’s making Dom cranky.
The captain’s prickling anger is tangible as he narrows his eyes on Beau . “ This wouldn’t even be our problem if we didn’t bundle her up and play knights in shining khaki for her. She’s been here a week and she’s already started infighting and brought a goddamn militia down on our heads.”
Beau meets Dom’s gaze, and I’d give my left nut to have that level of calm under our CO’s rage.
“ Eden didn’t pull that knife on Jaykob , Dom .” He runs a hand over his head. “ We shouldn’t have assumed anything, that’s on us. We should have known better. Jayk is a good dom. He’s a good man. We’re the ones who fucked up, not Eden .”
Dom grunts sourly, and I go back to flipping pancakes, shamelessly eavesdropping.
The doc leans back casually and shakes his head.
“ And I find it hard to believe that forty-plus men would take this many risks for one woman, no matter how hard up they are. They were already in our woods, close to our home. Did you stop to think about why they’re all here in the first place?
It has to be territorial, right? A push out from Cyanide , maybe? ”
I grimace at that thought. Cyanide City is the closest city to us, about a week south—called Cyanide because it’s damn suicide to go there.
After the strikes settled down, it became a war zone, with every gang around trying to claim their corner, and every stupid asshole who managed to get his hands on a gun trying to loot supplies.
We decided early on not to risk trips out there unless it was absolutely necessary. There are other towns around that, while less abundant in supplies, are a heck of a lot less dangerous. None of us wants to get a bullet in the ass because some trigger-happy civilian wants to throw his dick around.
Dom ducks his head like he’s thinking it through, a grim cast to his mouth.
“ Eden was just a surprise bonus for them, and you know it, Dom ,” Beau presses.
“ This is not her fault. Best I can tell, our librarian’s cave was more or less on the fringes, and she just happened to run our way.
And a party that size? Pushing through our woods?
They were going to get close to Bristlebrook sooner or later anyway.
It’s better we found out about them now and not when we have our pants down—we haven’t been monitoring our cameras half as much as we should. ”
Dom shakes his head like he’s about to argue, but Beau cuts him off. “ Just shitty luck, Dom . Don’t blame the girl for it.”
The door swings open and I look up hopefully, but it’s too soon for Eden to have showered and come down already. If she’s even able to work up the courage to face us after this morning.
Seeing Jasper gives me a familiar jolt, though, and I slide the fresh fruit salad I prepared into a bowl and place it in front of him.
From under my lashes, I take in the familiar icy irritation in the set of his angular jaw and silently add a piping chocolate pancake to a plate and slide that over too.
He’d never admit it—he’s always rigorously in control of what he eats—but I know he loves the sweet stuff.
The muscles in my back clench as I turn back to the stove.
Memories of Jasper’s cruel care, the torturously perfect pain he can inflict, are too vivid, even after all this time, for me to ever relax properly around him.
Now , normally I would say that letting your psychologist whip you until you come somewhat stretches the bounds of friendship—but lying to myself isn’t my kink.
Jasper is torturously perfect. Perfectly painful. And if he’d wanted to work me over every night since our very own D -day to satisfy his frustrated sadistic needs, I’d have buckled the handcuffs myself.
But I’m not that lucky.
In the long years in our new base camp here, our relationship has changed.
No matter how he tries to insist otherwise, I’m more than his patient now.
More than his friend. Even if he’s still never accepted pleasure from me.
Even if he only doles it out so sparingly I could starve between the nights he really looks my way.
And if my stomach still twists every time he talks about his ex-wife, or I still stare too long when his eyelashes cast secretive shadows over his face, and if I still think he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, well, we’ve both gotten pretty good at ignoring that too.
An image flashes into my mind of Eden kitted out in leather and whips, and I can’t help but snort at my own fantasy. Dirty she may secretly be, but somehow I seriously doubt she has it in her to take control like that .
The image is chased away by another, of her kneeling next to me, our trembles and tears mixing as we wait to serve a different master.
I choke on my chocolate chips.
“ Is there some part of this I’m missing that is funny to you, Lucien ?” Dom glares at me.
I turn the stove off, angling my body behind the counter so they don’t catch sight of the erection suddenly tenting my apron, and give him a wounded look. From anyone but Jasper , “ Lucien ” means I’m in trouble.
Well , fine. If I’m in trouble, then I’m keeping the rest of the chocolate pancakes for myself. And for Eden , I guess. If she’s nice to me.
I really hope she’s nice to me.
“ Nah , boss. Your call, one hundred percent.”
Over Dom’s shoulder, Beau’s look turns dry, and I can practically see him calling me a coward. But whatever. Ole Doctor Decent knows I agree with him— I just have better self-preservation skills than he does. I give him a one-shouldered shrug when Dom turns back around, and he rolls his eyes.
“ And you?” Dom snaps at Jasper , who’s perched elegantly on the breakfast bar stool, for all the world as though it’s a throne. “ You think we should tell her about the hunters?”
Jasper sips from his coffee before answering, the measured delay after Dom’s demanding tone clearly deliberate.
As the military psychologist, Jasper is the only one of us who hasn’t been directly under Dom’s command.
He was responsible for our debriefings, supervised our reintegration, and because of the nature of our specialist deployment, we’d all had regular—and mandatory—sessions with him to work through our shit.
Before he retired and left us, that is. Between that and the fact that this is still Jasper’s home, he made it clear early on that his obedience to Dom is just a courtesy.
“ I don’t think we should tell her, no.”