Mr. Bad News
Something was different. Something had changed.
I wasn’t sure what, but the way Phillip looked at me didn’t feel the same as before. It settled in my throat, then my chest, manifesting an anxious tick in my body. It tickled across my flesh and put my mind into swirling chaos.
Look at me getting all poetic again.
The second Sloan was gone, Phillip’s every glance demanded subservience.
It was the feeling of a long-reigning king whose commands would only be met by eager compliance, or appropriate punishment would follow.
Each time our eyes connected, electricity raced the length of my spine and my heart couldn’t catch up.
It was exactly like being in the midst of battle.
Never knowing whether you’d be the one to claim victory or be struck down where you stood.
Funny thing was, I wanted to submit to him.
It was exhilarating, and I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t wholly spellbound by the air the self-centered bastard put out.
I walked a tightrope between losing myself entirely and maintaining the person I once was.
Not that there was any way to go back after this.
I’d become something new, something transformed and quickly evolved.
It would be immature to think I could go back to the way things were before I discovered the truth about myself and the ones I loved.
So, it wasn’t just him who was different over the last week. Something had clearly changed for me as well. I struggled to put a name to it, to identify the thing that was different—or the many things—but very little in my head made sense these days.
I was starting to miss the inner ramblings of a normal teenage girl who only stayed up late at night to fight vamps.
These days, it felt like a whole world was sitting on my shoulders.
Nothing was the same. It was all new and uncomfortable.
Half vamp. Half human. Half…magic? Wait.
What was three divisions? Like, that one really obnoxiously long decimal number?
Whatever. I’d just go with I was two-thirds fucked up.
So, I gave myself over to the one thing that did make sense between us.
I traced colorful ink, mapping its shape and path with my fingertips.
I smoothed palms over petal-soft flesh and hard muscle.
I tossed away anxiety and deep-thinking and instead took solace in the comfortable heat of Phil’s body.
I chased pleasure and reveled in overpowering sensation that never failed to distract me.
My fingernails tore into flesh that instantly mended and my hips rocked down, my backside meeting Phil’s firm thighs in several hard smacks. Moisture painted my hands and every place our skin met—a sinful greeting of two people who never seemed satisfied.
Our pace never slowed. Every position perfectly transitioned to the next. Every orgasm was lost to a sea of unending ecstasy.
Phil never stopped to give me time to recover.
He slammed into me, lifting my leg and lunging forward like it was his intention to go right through me.
But I lived for the sensation of his dominating touch.
I craved this. Craved him. I couldn’t get enough of it, and I voiced my appreciation like saying it over and over would make sure I never lost it.
The lure of sexual distraction was easy for me now, after I learned how to give in and not look back.
After I put my trust in this thing between the Austrian and I.
After I acknowledged it was everything I needed and wanted at this moment, and no one, not even that little voice in my head, could convince me to stop.
It was a freedom I never realized I craved or needed; one I’d be stupid to squander for no reason but because others may scorn me for it.
Who cares when reality would most definitely come a-knocking soon? I might as well make the most of enjoying myself in these moments.
It wasn’t until I flopped back, covered in sweat and breathing for no reason but out of habit, that I finally had a minute to think about anything that wasn’t how intoxicating Phillip’s body was.
Good thing neither one of us required much in way of sleep these days. I’d never recover from our sin-saturated nights of pleasure otherwise.
The abrasive, hard-nut-to-crack man beside me followed the valley of my torso with his fingers, head propped up by a tattooed arm. His intense blue eyes devoured every naked expanse of me, as though it was the other Hunter’s intention to burn the sight into his memory.
Licking my lips, I captured his hand and stalled his ticklish descent. “We need to talk.”
Emotion I couldn’t identify came into his eyes before it was quickly gone. “About?”
“About how you seemed extra salty around Sloan this time. Or about how you didn’t once mention that I might have magic. Or maybe the reason why you went full beast the minute we got into this room.”
I expected him to laugh it off. But when the sweat-soaked Hunter didn’t, his jaw clenching like he was holding back, a nervous tension seized my chest.
Phillip’s eyes strayed away from my body and instead focused out the window, where morning light was already breaking across the horizon. “What do you expect me to say, V?”
That was new.
“Something clever?” I tossed back, suddenly uncomfortable with how serious he’d become.
Phillip sighed to himself, then fitted his arm under my shoulders before bringing me into the curve of his body. “I’m not always so clever. Sometimes I’m just as ignorant as every other man out there.”
A lump formed in my throat, so it was hard to swallow. “Lies. Who are you and what have you done with Phil?”
Finally, Phillip laughed and the tension in my chest eased. “Would you believe me if I told you I don’t know anymore.”
“Believe that you’re Phil, or believe what you’ve done with him?”
His eyes rolled, and I sucked in a relieved breath.
“We’ll start first with why I didn’t mention what Cassius said.
” He carded a large hand through his wet locks, the dance of his chest muscles distracting my eyes for a second.
“It’s not that I don’t intend to tell him. We haven’t confirmed anything yet.”
“And?”
Phillip’s hot sigh painted my forehead, his hold on me tightening. “And it’s pointless until we have.”
“Then, is that what you were so salty about? Not being able to tell Sloan what we learned from that Dark Fae bastard?” I moved cautiously before wrapping my arm around his waist and inhaling the Austrian’s deeply masculine scent.
The embrace was somehow more intimate than previous ones, and I didn’t want to risk saying anything that might make Phillip pull away. I enjoyed the way it felt to be in his arms, close to the slow pound of his heart.
“Not really.”
“That’s not an answer,” I complained, tracing the valley of his pecs with a finger.
“I thought we’d gotten past all this cryptic bullshit you like to pull.
” I lifted my head, resting my chin on my hands over his chest. “You need to start telling me shit, Phil. I might be younger and maybe not be as smart or as clever as you are, but I’m also not stupid. ”
The sides of his mouth twitched upwards. “I feel like responding to any of that is a trap.”
“It is,” I confirmed, smirking. “But one you should just go ahead and walk into. I’m not backing off.”
Phillip groaned and threw his head back into the pillow. “I know better than anyone you mean that.” My victorious smirk finally won the dude over. “Fine.”
As he absently guided his fingers through my hair, Phillip let loose another breath and bent an arm under the back of his head.
His expression bled away to melancholy. It was a look that stole my smile because it was the first time I’d ever seen it on the Austrian.
It was the expression of a man torn apart by loss.
It was a moment stolen by heartbreak, and it was hard to look at.
“I was in love once,” Phillip started quietly.
Oh, shit.
Here it was—the moment I’d worked so hard for. But something in my heart reacted to the statement. Pain stabbed into my chest, and the acidic burn of emotion reached my throat. I couldn’t understand it at first, but I wasn’t given time to dwell on it.
Phillip went on despite my internal dilemma, “She wasn’t half vampire like you and I. Instead, she had Fae blood.”
She was a magic-user? So, they really did exist. Magic-using Hunters were also who killed my parents, so it was a bitter pill to swallow hearing that he’d known all along.
“She was kept in the same facility as I was, so, naturally, we became close. We were treated, at best, poorly, and we took comfort in each other’s company.
Over time, she and I were the only thing keeping the other person sane.
But interaction was strictly forbidden with the outside world, and even more so internally.
Thankfully for us, it wasn’t easily mitigated, so we found ways to keep in touch. Her magic was one of them.”
The sad glimmer in his eyes was like a dagger right into my heart that never stopped attacking.
“For sixty years, she was my everything. I did what the Organization asked to earn my release, as did she. It was the only way we’d secure a future together.
Then the time came and we bought this home together.
She and I saved every last dime and worked for the same people who imprisoned us for nearly four decades just so we could have something of our own in this godforsaken world.
While we were given separate partners and assignments, we always managed to meet here whenever we got a moment. ”
This home. As in the same one I was presently lying naked inside of. This home was the treasured haven where he kept the trophies of every step he’d taken over two centuries of life, and where he’d spent special, hard-fought alone time with the love of his life.
Fan-fucking-tastic.