“Besides, if I wanted to do something to you, do you really think Zero would stop me?”
“If I safeworded, yes.”
“So you don’t trust that I’d stop myself if you safeworded?”
No, but then that was part of the thrill. Logically, I was hot for Zero because I trusted him. Illogically, I was hot for Vandal because I didn’t trust him.
“I can control myself.”
Could he, though? “Always? Unsupervised?”
“Bitch.”
I wanted to be offended, since he was obviously serious, but it had only made me hotter.
“If I cared what you thought of me, I might be offended.” He got out of the truck and grabbed his satchel from the backseat, then went into the cottage without waiting for me.
I slid down out of the truck, not sure if I wanted to follow him in there while he was in a snit. What would he really do though, if it wasn’t in the heat of passion? I doubted he’d beat me outside of a sexual context.
Cautiously, I tiptoed into the house. As I entered the kitchen, he grabbed my wrist before I’d even properly seen him. He forced me into a chair.
His face was so close to mine he could have kissed me. Or bitten me.
“Stay.”
He strode off into what sounded like his office, and I sat the way he’d told me to, not sure if he was just being a dick, or if this was a sex thing. I needed a fucking interpreter for this guy.
When he came back a few minutes later carrying a big stack of paper, he slapped it down in front of me.
“What’s this?”
“I figure you might as well see how I did with this round of edits.”
“You want me to read your book? Now?”
“Why not? You’ve already said you don’t want me to fuck you, so let’s get back to work.”
He sat down across from me, looking at me as though he planned to watch me read every word.
“I might need more of the document,” I warned him.
“Because you haven’t read any of it, right? I almost forgot.” He snorted in irritated amusement, and I glanced down at the first page. I hadn’t realized how quickly I got sucked into his prose until a purple pen clattered onto the table at my elbow.
I looked up at him. “What’s this for?”
“In case you find issues.” He nudged the pen against my elbow as though prompting me to take it in hand.
“Not red?”
His shoulders hunched. “Only my father gets to use red.”
From his guarded expression I could tell it wasn’t something I should tease him about. I picked up the purple pen and kept reading, trying not to pay attention to how he was staring at me. When there was a small stack in the read pile, he shifted abruptly in his chair, knocking me out of the narrative and back into reality. I looked up at him, annoyed at being interrupted.
“Is there a problem?”
He leaned across the table, grabbing the purple pen from my hand and, by extension, removing the end of it from my mouth. Had I been chewing on it?
“You’re not making notes with it anyway,” he said gruffly, eyeing my mouth.
I ignored the new burst of weirdness, considering it was a pattern with him.
I sank back into the story, trying to work out the connection between Jamison and his newest victim. He seemed almost infatuated with her, but unlike his usual victims, there didn’t seem to be any reason for him to want to kill her. Usually, when he chose a victim, there was a damned good reason, and they deserved it.
Vaguely, I heard the door close behind me, but I didn’t pay any attention since Jamison was right behind Veronique in the art gallery. Veronique thought she was alone in the building.
I wanted to stop and figure out how he was managing to build tension in the scene using his word choices, but the storyline swept me along.
“How’s my girl?” someone whispered in my ear.
His girl?
I meant to object but only gasped, not sure if I was Veronique or myself, stuck between the book and the real world. A mouth followed the curve of my neck, opening wide, exhaling a fog of hot breath onto my skin. My head tipped to the side, giving him better access—giving him dominion over me and my body. His mouth closed over my flesh and sucked, like a sensual vampire looking to seduce and to make a willing meal out of me. Ugh…his tongue was making me stupid.
“How did it go?” Zero asked, pulling away from me and going to Vandal, leaving me feeling like an overcooked noodle trying not to slide out of my chair. He leaned over Vandal and their lips met, the kiss deep and sensual. Vandal made an animalistic sound and tangled his hands in Zero’s hair. He pushed him down to kneel on the floor, not breaking their kiss until Zero was between his knees and he’d unzipped his pants.
Without even a token objection, Zero took Vandal’s cock in his mouth, opening wide as Vandal pumped into him.
Whoa. Fuuuck.
What was a girl to do in this situation? Was I supposed to pretend this wasn’t happening and keep reading? Sure, the book was awesome, but my concentration was only so good.
“Do I taste like your little girlfriend?” Vandal asked nastily.
Zero broke away and gazed up at Vandal then over to me. I met his gaze even though I was blushing, and my first instinct was to glance away. I needed to know how he honestly felt. I didn’t want to mess things up between them, even if they were only sexual partners out of convenience.
“I thought sex was a hard limit for her,” he said as though Vandal might have pressured me into doing something I didn’t want to.
“She changed her mind while we were at the signing.”
He made it sound like seeing his popularity in action had changed my mind.
“Actually, I decided that down by the beach a few nights ago. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t the Stockholm Syndrome talking.”
“You fucked her at the signing?”
“It was a little more complicated than that. We got interrupted just as things were getting interesting, then I realized we should probably be waiting for you.”
Zero smirked. “So that’s why you were already hard when I walked in. And here I thought maybe you’d missed me.”
“Miss the bane of my existence? Hardly.” He looked like he was about to say something else but was interrupted by Zero going down on him again. Vandal sucked in a breath. His head fell back, and his eyes closed with a look that bordered on pain.
“Fuck. You’re so fucking perfect,” he said, the words murmured and almost incomprehensible.
Zero took him deep into his mouth and chuckled evilly, making Vandal reach behind him to grip the back of his chair. I was pretty sure that Vandal was always the top in their arrangement, but at the moment he barely looked in control of himself, let alone in control of his…bottom?
What was it about the sounds of a man’s pleasure that were so hot? Maybe because most of them tried so hard to hold back. Every curse and gasp was like music.
I leaned over the manuscript in front of me to rest my elbows mid-table so I could see better. Zero apparently knew exactly what Vandal liked, so I paid attention, shocked at how relentless his technique was. I tended to play more—to tease—but there was no fucking around here. I could tell Vandal was trying to hold off his orgasm, but he was helpless against Zero’s expertise, and soon he was swearing in a filthy, obscene litany that was almost sexier than the sight of two hot guys finding pleasure together and the intimate sounds of Zero’s mouth.