“You have something to ask.”
“How the—”
“You’re all squirmy and having trouble focussing, so it’s either that or…” His voice trailed away, his eyes jerking up as someone came into the room. We both turned to see Lucas in the doorway.
“I’ll come back. I need to work on that key change in the second part of—”
“Sit down,” Billy said.
I watched the muscle in Lucas’ jaw work as he looked from me to Billy and back again. He sighed, then shook his head and moved past me so he could connect his bass to the amp.
Bloody hell, he was big. It felt like he towered over me as he stood there, and the feeling wasn’t especially alleviated when he sat down. All of the men were in freaking amazing shape, rippling with lean muscle, but Lucas was something else. Those pale blue eyes met mine, catching me taking in those massive biceps that popped as his hands went to the instruments.
“And what are you doing here?” he said, his tone anything but friendly. The slight frown on his face deepened as I raised the camera.
I got him clearly focussed in the viewfinder, wanting to capture the exact moment of his reply, then asked, “Why do you dislike me so much?”
Click, click, click.
I caught the primary irritation in response to my question—his gaze sliding away and down, him hissing in frustration, his fingers tightening around the lacquered wood. Then the secondary wave coming as I persisted in photographing him, rising and shown in the flash of his eyes—that crackle of lightning I’d seen before, appearing and disappearing. The viewer of this shot would pass it off as lens flare or some other photographic bullshit, but I knew it for what it was now—evidence of what he was. I caught the clench of his jaw, that wild tumble of honey blond hair as it trailed down his back, the flex of those mighty arms, right up until the point he reached out and blocked my view with his hand. I put the camera down, not wanting his bloody fingerprints on the lens, and had to jerk it back from his grip. I took a quick look at the glass and saw it’d been saved from smears by the hood.
“Well?” I said. If I wasn’t going to be able to take shots, I may as well get answers. His eyes jerked up to meet mine, and they hardened exponentially.
“We don’t need you,” he replied.
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t explain the hostility.”
“We don’t want you here.”
“Ah, now that’s patently untrue,” I said, leaving the camera on the bench and getting to my feet. He watched me with hot eyes as I moved towards Billy and planted a hand on the wall beside him. He lifted his head like a flower does to the sun, those dark eyes sparking with amusement. He played all the while as I leant down, the tempo picking up the pace as I got closer and closer, my eyes sliding over to where Lucas sat, simmering.
Fuck, Billy was quick. Striking like a snake, the guitar was sidelined and I was yanked down on his lap, my focus entirely on him now that my back was to Lucas.
“Playing games?” he said, his arm like iron, holding me still when I struggled to get up. “I’m probably not the best one for that. I don’t have the…requisite make up. Stop struggling, it just makes me harder.”
I froze at the velvety menace in his voice. I wasn’t sure if he was going to fuck me or kill me, and it was difficult to care either way. He stared at me, and I was powerless to do anything else but stare back.
“You filled me up before, something I haven’t felt since I was a kid, so I’ll be gentle. I’m not a pawn or a tool you might use. You can’t play with me. Or rather, if you do, you’ll find yourself strung up and strung out in the most pleasant of ways.”
“Let me go,” I said between gritted teeth.
“Make me.”
People had been talking about my power since I’d transitioned, how apparently, I stank of this strength. Billy seemed to find my pathetic struggles completely hysterical, particularly when they grew more and more frenzied.
“Someone’s preceptor needs to do more than teach you how to handle multiple cocks. Fight me, little butterfly. Show me your teeth.”
If he’d hope to stir me to greater heights, that fell flat. That cold, hard, hungry part of him I’d spied during the interview stirred behind his eyes, fixing me in their gaze, keeping me as quiet and compliant as a mouse before a snake. He shifted underneath me, making sure I knew just how turned on this made him, while all I felt was fear.
He’d be able to do anything he liked to me right now, I realised, and felt only colder for the thought. He’d be able to contort my body, push whatever he wanted wherever he wanted, and while I’d be screaming inside, I’d let him. He nodded slowly, as if I’d shown my true worth. That all these little delusions I had about building a career, finding my place, becoming something more than just fragile Kira kept in her very lovely cage for her own benefit, were all just dust in my mind. His gaze started to roam now, as if now that he’d caught me, it was time to inspect just what he had. A pleased little smile played on his lips as he reached out with a free hand, a slender finger outstretched to make contact with my hardened nipple.
I thought of my father, the contract, the Rutherglen, and his railroading of me to just where he wanted me. Of people fussing and helping and boxing me in, too afraid to let me be for even a minute. Even Liam’s highhanded bullshit. I was halfway tempted to climb on the idiot when we got back to the bus tonight and just rut him into leaving me the fuck alone. All this emotion started grey and dreary, like the ruffling of ashes by a slight breeze, but that quickly passed. As if summoned, a flame roared inside me, filling me with a harsh golden light, a light that crackled at the end of my fingers. Billy’s grin didn’t change when I broke his hold with an effortless twist, grabbing his wrists and shoving them up against the wall.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I said.
“Waking you up. You’re not a butterfly. I had a taste of you, and there’s something a whole lot more inside you that those decorous little Hartley boys don’t want to deal with. Something hard and wild and vicious. And you’ll need to be at court tonight. Ask me to be your minder.”
“What?”
“Ask me.”
“Be my minder tonight?”
“Yes, I will, and I’ll give you something else, something I’ve never given anyone.” He grabbed my hand, gently now, and slid it against the warm skin over his heart. “You can ask me for anything, and if it’s within my power, I’ll give it to you. Remember that, because I won’t say it again, and I won’t remind you.”
“Why would you—”
“Because you took the ache away. Lucas.”
I was spun around, still sitting on the hard lump in Billy’s lap but facing the bassist.
“What now?” he snapped in response.
“Liam is right. This is the way. The sooner you work that out, the better.”
The man just shook his head and then stormed out of the room.
“I’m going to unlock every damn bit of that power of yours,” Billy whispered into my neck, sending shivers down my spine that just made him groan. “I’m going to make you a fucking goddess.”
I had no idea what the fuck any of this was. Billy was mercurial, I got that, but there was something more. Some kind of otherness going on, on top of our already strangeness. A million questions hovered on my lips, but an ebullient Jake appeared at the door.