Chapter 13 #2
His eyes gleamed with the memory, as if mentioning it suddenly allowed him to relive it.
My cheeks burned and core throbbed, remembering the way his hand had circled my throat from behind, pulling my head to the side, offering him my neck.
The way his other hand had found its way to my breast as Arc had brought me to my climax without even taking our clothes off.
“The voices were mad, I’ll tell you that.
I thought I was going to die from their screeches.
My brain felt like seconds away from dripping down my ears.
” He chuckled dryly, shaking his head in disbelief.
“And then they were gone. Silent. My mind was finally clear after over a century, and I didn’t even have a fucking headache the next morning to remind me I was a pathetic Datura addict. ”
Our eyes met then. And maybe he did see the guilt swirling in them, because he added, “Don’t look at me like that. I deserved every punch you landed.”
I agreed, giving him a single nod. But it didn’t stop the knot in my stomach from tightening at the thought that, all this time, me being in the same room as him had hurt him in an unimaginable way.
“Your blood makes them quiet,” he said. “The only reason I can think of is that it’s because you’re my mate.”
“You think so?”
He straightened up in his chair, leaning his elbows on his thighs, and nodded. “I don’t see any other reason.”
He stayed with me in the Archives all morning. Maggie was unusually quiet, only summoning a steaming cup of coffee on my desk during the five minutes I spent looking for a book that Jeremiah had sent a request for the day before.
Carter had walked from faraway shelves to even farther away ones, and the only grunts he let out had nothing to do with Maggie potentially harassing him, but everything to do with some files being somehow gone.
But, maybe it was her who had messed with them, so I didn’t want to speak too fast.
The door creaked open and the hesitant face of Ann peeked through. My stomach made a little loop. We haven’t talked for a while, since I thought that she might have had a part in chipping Dimitri without his consent. Her eyes were silently asking my permission to come in.
I nodded before focusing back on my screen. Requests had piled up in the few days I’ve been cast out of here…I wouldn’t even have to pretend I was working.
“Hi,” she said, stopping next to her usual armchair, the one that Carter had occupied when we arrived a couple of hours ago. “Kai told me you were here. With Carter. Is everything okay?”
“How does he know Carter’s here?”
“He just suggested it. Apparently, you guys left together from your apartment this morning…”
I muttered a curse, typing on my keyboard furiously. “People—Kai—should mind their own businesses.”
Ann gulped, sitting hesitantly on the very edge of the cushioned seat.
“Well…I asked him. I knew he was going to your place this morning to introduce his old friend and—Well, it’s been a while since we last spoke and…I don’t know. I’m still not sure why you’re mad at me, and I miss you, and—”
“I’m not mad,” I said with a long exhale.
I knew she had nothing to do with the whole chip in the uniform thing.
After all, Marcus was probably right; Ann only oversaw the medical side of things, and that matter had nothing to do with it.
“I mean, I was a little. But I think I was just…freaking out. With everything that happened with Dimitri, and the chip…I don’t know who to trust anymore. ”
That seemed to hurt her. Me, not trusting her. But she only squared her shoulders and nodded. “I understand.”
The silence was awkward, none of us really knowing what to say after that. But it only took her about two minutes before she talked again, surprising me.
“Do you want to hear the latest gossip?”
My eyebrow arched up. I didn’t like gossiping. Then why was I suddenly so intrigued?
“Is there ever a day where people don’t put their noses up everyone else’s asses?” I groaned. “Ugh, you know what? Yeah. Tell me. That’ll make me forget my own issues for a bit.”
She grinned, leaning forward until her hands were on the edge of my desk, her face close so she could whisper.
“It’s a two part gossip. Two days ago, Marcus beat the living crap out of one of his fellow guards before reporting him to Kai.”
My jaw dropped. “What? Why? He didn’t tell me about that.”
“Of course he didn’t! You guys are friends now. The scum made very inappropriate comments about you. Overly descriptive, from what Kai told me. Marcus lost it before he brought his unconscious ass to Kai’s office, filling an extensive complaint.”
So that was one of the reasons he asked me to deal with my damn pheromones. Well, that and the fact that he apparently had an inappropriate thought too…
I managed to hold my shudder of disgust. “Why did Marcus report it to Kai? Isn’t Carrie the one overseeing everything guards related?”
Ann nodded. “She is, yes. But Marcus did assault him, and both of them are demons, so he had to go to Kai first. Then it was in Kai’s hand to decide to report the whole thing to Carrie—which he did, and that brings us to the second part of the gossip…”
She turned her head with narrowed eyes when she heard Carter cursing at the very back of the Archives. He was definitely too far and too immersed in his own task to pay us any attention.
“It was kinda late, so Kai went to her house, because unless there’s an emergency, Carrie doesn’t do overtime. But she wasn’t there.” She wiggled her eyebrow, leaving me more confused than ever.
“O-kay?”
“So he thought, maybe there was some kind of emergency. After all, we still haven’t heard from—well, you know.” Yes, I knew. “Anyway, he went to her office. And the big dummy that he is didn’t even bother to knock before he barged in.”
I winced. It wasn’t hard to believe Carrie hadn’t been too pleased about that. “She must have been really mad,” I said, picking up my cup.
“I guess she would have been if she hadn’t been in the middle of an extremely loud orgasm.
” The coffee went up my nose as I coughed.
“I know, right?” She muffled her giggle by plastering her open hand to her mouth, but her eyes watered from her contained laughter. “But that’s still not the whole thing.”
Could she really shock me even more?
“Who would have thought that Jeremiah was such a kinky little beast in the sheets?”
“Oh. My. Almighty Daddy,” I whisper-yelled, placing my cup back on my desk to cover my mouth with both hands.
“Well, I guess sheets isn’t the right word here after all. But a desk is as good a place as any.”
That was it. I burst out in laughter, falling backward against the backrest of my chair as Ann snorted, a poor attempt at containing herself once more.
“I never would have thought,” I finally said.
I had never interacted with Jeremiah for more than ten words at a time. He was objectively attractive, but I pictured him as a stuck up angel. Not as mean as Carter, but…boring, maybe? A far cry from Carrie’s abrupt personality.
“Me neither! And I’ve known them for decades. Who knows how long it’s been going on?”
I thought about it. It would explain why she’s been in her office in the middle of the night when Arc went to tell her he was leaving with Dimitri. Maybe he too had to witness that strange sight.
Maybe Jeremiah was into BDSM. Carrie definitely looked like the type of woman to take charge…
“So that’s who he’s been seeing,” Carter mused from not as far away as I assumed he was, startling both of us.
Ann’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, her mouth opening and closing in clear shock.
“I-I—Don’t listen to private conversation, you dense fig!” she stuttered. “I swear you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
Carter shrugged, strolling to the chair next to hers, a box of files under his arms that he placed on his knees as he sat. “Good thing I remember a little from the internship you forced me to take at the hospital. I’m sure I could have found a way to make your frail heart start again.”
“It’s not funny!” She swatted at his arm and Carter…smiled? Weird. “If I died, even for one minute, Kai would skin your ass.”
Carter rolled his eyes, but made no comment. Ann cast me a glance that meant something between “Can you believe this guy?” and “I thought you guys hated each other, why is he sitting here?”
And I had no idea how to answer it.