I Hate You #2
It didn’t go unnoticed to anyone how affectionate the Brit’s smile was towards me, or how often his hand seemed to find purchase on my body—always touching or caressing within perfect view of everyone else.
The least amused was Phillip, but very few would know any better.
To an outsider, his usual assholery was plain as day.
But to Sloan and I, it was evident in the barely-there twitch in his neck he wasn’t happy about how often Sloan touched me.
Serves him right.
“Ever heard of hiding in plain sight, V?” the asshole Hunter remarked, chuckling in a way that made my heart miss a beat.
But the Austrian’s eyes were stone-cold and calculating my every emotion, tearing apart my poorly constructed facade of nonchalance, determining what was really in my heart, and it was the entire reason I couldn’t let our eyes meet.
He’d know how much I missed him; know how much I wanted to hate him but never could.
Know how my heart yearned for him, and how his return had settled the acidic burn living in my chest every day since I abandoned him to his fate.
But I’d never let him see that in my eyes.
I wouldn’t let the douche-canoe off that easy.
I wanted to break him, even just a little, for how conflicted he made me.
For the fact that now I was caught between two, all because he left and made room for someone else.
Eyes on Sloan, I touched the gently smiling Hunter’s hand in full view of Phillip, making sure that nothing about my hand over Sloan’s was hesitant or lacking affection. It was a bitchy move, but one the asshole deserved.
Sloan was my strength, had been for weeks, and he eased the trembling in my body with a single touch of his hand over mine.
Calmed a rampant pulse sure to destroy me.
Soothed an erratic heart, which suffered every time I looked at Phil.
From the way his hand wrapped around mine and his azure eyes glinted, the Brit knew it all.
Thank Buddha for this sweet, gentle man...
After sneaking a glance at the Austrian Hunter, it was evident the move had done its job. Phil’s eyes had a dangerous glint in them and his jaw was impossibly clenched, just seconds from breaking teeth.
“Can you relay to the bastard in the corner that I don’t need his snarky-ass response? You’re plenty capable of answering a question I asked you, Sloan.”
Sloan’s mouth tilted, his face expressing how little it bothered him to be used to stoke the other Hunter’s flames.
Squeezing his hand and letting my fingers cling to his, I silently apologized to the other Hunter, wishing my desire to punish Phillip didn’t mean tossing the Brit in the middle.
His answering smile suggested he wasn’t the least bit angry about it, and the gorgeous man even added a small kiss to the top of my hand for extra oomph.
I owe you one, Sloan, you fucking saint.
Sungho, who I was told knew about our vendetta against the Organization and could be trusted, sat in an armchair nearby, smirking.
I caught the smile when I peeked at him through my peripheral.
The rest of the group was huddled in a corner, watching the car crash that was my love life in real time like it was a trashy reality show.
They didn’t even try to hide their gross interest in what I’d do next to systematically destroy the Austrian for everything he’d done to me.
The bastards were eating it all up.
I hadn’t been open about what I was feeling, but most picked up on the tumultuous relationship I had with Phillip and how attracted I was to Sloan at the same time. At the end of the day, I was a girl wrought with a broken heart, and I didn’t do a good job of hiding it.
Tiff and Mia were joined at the hip, and their whispered conversation didn’t go unnoticed by me. “I love this new feisty V. She’s all bite and no bark. The asshole deserves every bit of poison she spits at him,” Tiff conveyed with a wistful huff.
Mia, nodding, aimed a solemn stare my direction. “I have a few tonics we can slip into his drink.”
Claude outright cackled. “Poor dude wouldn’t last long against one of Mia’s tonics. Not even an all-powerful, vampire hunting monster like him can evade its effects.”
As if none of it affected him, Phillip kept his focus on Sloan and me. He caught my sideways glance, and I internally cursed my curiosity. The lift in his mouth suggested Phillip knew all too well I was struggling.
Then it dawned on me. “There’s a plan, isn’t there?”
Phillip made a sound in his throat, clearly approving. “There is.”
“The mission is a ruse,” I voiced slowly, piecing it all together.
Sloan nodded emphatically. “Kris, Sungho, and the pack will go after the coven like initially planned. But while they do, we’ll take a little trip to one of the Organization’s facilities.”
“For what?”
Sloan shook his head, indicating he wouldn’t share what our true agenda was in front of anyone else. Which meant that whatever we were about to do was going to get us in major trouble. By my deduction, it was likely to do with what resided in my blood.
So this is going to be fun.
My lips lifted for the first time since Phillip arrived. “So, we’re about to do something very naughty. I’m game.”
Phillip rose from his seat and then took a knee in front of me. Without realizing it, my eyes found his and I couldn’t look anywhere else. An expression I’d never seen on him distorted the lines of his face, and it made it difficult to stay angry at him.
“Once we do this, there’s no going back,” he stated, voice rattling deeply. “Are you ready, lass?”
You could cut the tension in the room with a knife, but the second our eyes met, there wasn’t any other answer I could give him. All the rage and bitterness melted away when his gorgeous face came into view.
“Yes,” I whispered, closing my eyes when Phillip cradled my jaw in his palm, “I’m ready.”