Gray prowled in front of me like a caged lion. He held out his arms and made a choking gesture in my direction.
But his fury only brightened my mood. His anger poured over me like sunshine as I raised my eyebrows and said in my most innocent voice, “Grayson, what’s wrong? Aren’t you going to share with the class?”
“You know what’s wrong!” Gray said before trying to push out the door.
“What did you do?” Z asked, bouncing on his toes in excitement, amusement making him wake.
I slid to the side of the bed and stood. I stretched leisurely before answering. “I just gave Gray a taste of his own medicine. You know how he made my arms shrink yesterday? Well, I gave him a shrinky dinky. Every time he tries to touch it—” I held up my thumb and forefinger. I whistled as I made them get closer together.
Gray literally bared his teeth at me.
“Oh, and Gray? Just so you know, you can’t unravel it yourself. Yeah. I wrote in a little complication so that only one of these fuckers can unravel it for you.”
Z whooped and jumped in the air as Gray turned to stare in horror at our crew, all of whom were howling so hard their faces ranged from red to nearly purple.
“A million bucks—” Gray started.
“Not even for a zillion!” Z crowed.
Gray turned back to me with eyes of fury and I couldn’t help myself. I burst into the most girlish, gleeful giggles.
They say laughter is the best medicine. That morning it was true.
25
I spent the day brainstorming with the guys, enjoying watching rich boy Gray take turns begging them all for help.
Evan eventually gave in—I knew he would—in exchange for a favor one day.
“Dude. Fine. I’ll kill someone. Anything. Just gimme my dick back.”
I chuckled at the table as we went over blueprints I’d hacked for Matthew’s Institute, brainstorming more ways to restrain a vampire. Andros and Z both offered to use their magic, but I didn’t want to risk them. A vampire’s bite was said to slash your arteries. Chances of survival were slim.
“We’ll think of something else,” I told them, at five, when I decided I needed a mental break.
“Bath?” Malcolm asked with a gleam in his eye, but I shook my head. Evan’s confession had made me realize that my guys deserved more from me. And there was one guy I’d made a promise to that I had to keep.
I went upstairs and spent the next three hours planning the perfect surprise.
I leaned over my dresser in the bland, cramped room I’d called “home” for the past three days—the longest that the guys and I had been able to stay in any one place since we’d been on the run. I smoothed out the ripped strip of pillowcase over the wood. Then I grabbed my wand, my ink well, and a small, thin parchment that was no thicker than a Post-It note. I dipped my wand in ink and started to write on the little strip of paper. The spell took shape as I wrote, burning up the parchment nearly as fast as my hand could write, culminating in golden sparkles. Those sparkles sank into the jagged strip of pillowcase, turning the material black and impenetrable.
I closed the inkwell and placed it and my wand inside the top drawer of the dresser, hiding them away. Then I tested my homemade blindfold on my eyes. Perfect.
He wouldn’t be able to see a thing.
I glanced around the room one more time, ensuring everything was in place, before I left. I shut the bedroom door carefully behind me before I walked up the dim hallway, then down the stairs, toward the kitchen, where my ‘victim’ sat at the table with the rest of my crew.
Malcolm was the first to notice me, like he always did, his light blue eyes turning my way just a fraction of a second before everyone else’s. He stopped the game of cards they were in the middle of and just stared. His look made the other guys turn. That was when the wolf-whistles started.
“Hayley! Looking good!” Zavier called out. “Strike a pose!”
I rolled my eyes but complied, shoving my hip to the side so they could ogle the way the jeans I wore cupped my ass. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t seen before, I only had so many outfits on the run, but I’d magicked up a deep purple tank for the night— the shirt dipped low, and all the guys at the table noticed, even Andros, the hulking silent giant. I’d also left my hair down. My dark brown hair swept back over my shoulders; my orange streaks were back for the evening with a temporary spell. When I decided they’d stared enough, I said, “Ok, show’s over. I need to kidnap one of you.”
My eyes zeroed in on my target.
Zavier dropped the hand of poker he held and shoved his chair back across the linoleum with a loud squeak. “Yes! I’m the victim. For what?” He stood, but he wasn’t really concerned.
He should have been.
I drank in the sight of him. He was so hot in his typical basketball shorts and grey wifebeater, his muscles and full sleeve of tattoos on display. His straight black brows arched as he took in the heels on my boots and let his coffee-colored eyes roam up slowly until he realized I had a strip of cloth in my hand.
“Are you turning me in?” he asked with a chin jut that meant he’d seen my blindfold. He held out his wrists dramatically, ready to be tied or cuffed or whatever he’d mistaken the blindfold for, and said, “I didn’t do it, Officer, I’m innocent!”
“She’d be a good naughty officer,” Evan commented from his spot at the table. The other guys muttered their agreement.
I ignored them and kept my focus on Zavier. “No, but if you want handcuffs involved, that could be arranged,” I snarked with a wink.
“Hey!” Gray grumbled at us from his spot leaning against the butcher block kitchen counter. “No fair. I call handcuffs as my thing.”
“You would,” I simply rolled my eyes at the tall, handsome black man, though the thought of his gravelly voice in my ear as he cuffed me gave me a thrill.
Gray pouted at me until I pointed a finger and said, “Your entitled rich boy is showing.” Then he turned away and fiddled with the police scanners on the counter, pretending to listen to the chatter instead of all the razzing the guys started to give him.
“Better watch out,” I warned the rest of them, making eye contact with Evan, who’d made the last comment. “Gray might just write a spell to put you all in handcuffs too. And I’m pretty sure you won’t have as much fun in them as I will.”
That set off a whole round of booing, but Gray’s smile was worth it. I gave him a wink too. Then I grabbed Z’s hand and said, “Come on. It’s date night.” I led him away from the catcalls, past the cache of guns we kept in the hallway at the ready, up the stairs, and halfway to my bedroom. I stopped in the middle of the dim, dingy hallway and presented him with the blindfold, saying, “Get down so I can put this on you.”
Z’s naughty smile nearly made me give up on this whole “seduction” thing he’d insisted on. That smile alone made me want to take him right there in the hall—when Zavier smiled, morning dawned and birds sang and the world lit up.
But then he knelt on one knee.
Lust nearly toppled me. Staring down at him, watching him bend to my will as he got to his knee and held still, hearing his intake of breath as I stepped forward and wrapped the blindfold around his straight dark brows and playful eyes, feeling his cheeks curve into a grin when I nudged the black band down over his face … all of it got to me. My throat was tight when I ordered him to turn so I could tie the strip of cloth behind his short, dark brown hair. All of it gave me a thrill I hadn’t expected—a sensual thrill.