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I hiss and throw myself at him again, but Sade’s arms block me before I can reach him.
“You stop fucking antagonizing him,” he growls at Carlton, who holds his shovel-like hands up and backs away with a grin on his face.
“Hey, just stating facts here.”
“And you,” my brother says to me, hauling me backward. “You’re into this woman, I get it, but you’re also a King for fuck’s sakes! Where’s your control?”
“Look who’s talking,” I let out through my teeth. “You’d have his fucking head if he talked about Justine like that.”
That gives Carlton pause. I can see it in the way his eyebrows dip over my brother’s shoulder.
“Is that what she is to you after all?” Sade says, quieter this time. “What Justine is to me?”
I sidestep Sade and stare directly at Carlton.
“She’s mine. Fucking mine. Officially. That’s all you need to know.”
“Fuck me,” he grumbles. “If you two psychos aren’t full of surprises.” He jerks his head toward Sade. “This one obsessing in secret about the scholarship girl, and you going from an emotional cripple to risking your place in the organization for a piece of ass.” He scoffs but, surprisingly, I don’t hear judgment in it. Which is why I don’t immediately react with violence.
I’ve always been a wild card for the Kings, but Carlton knew at least how to deal with that version of me. Right now, I’m an entirely different beast. All of us have been chosen for our savagery, our cunning and our borderline deranged resilience to pain, but Carlton and Chase are the least volatile. They’re supposed to keep the rest of us under control. That’s always been a challenge with me, and since Eva it’s even more so.
“What’s your deal with the philosophy professor exactly?” Carlton says, taking a few steps forward with his hands up. “Because you’re not just using her against Romano, so don’t give me that shit. You would have shared her with your whole gang of bikers if that was the case, you would have had them fuck the answers out of her. Instead, you make her off limits for everyone, and you go berserk whenever a man touches her with a single fucking look. You defend her honor when people talk shit about her, and you kiss her in front of the entire campus to make a point.” He stops when he’s almost toe-to-toe with me. “And now you’re talking about breaking off the engagement the Elders arranged for you, which is suicide. You must realize that this woman has you wrapped around her little finger.”
I don’t contradict him.
It’s not like he’s wrong. She does have me wrapped around her little finger, and I fucking love it. If I didn’t admit it before, I might as well do it now—from the first time I fingered her against her apartment door I became hooked. Maybe it was her mystery that pulled me in, the fact that I couldn’t get quite deep enough. Then it was the fact that I couldn’t get to whatever secret Romano had on her to keep her compliant.
But then it was more than that. It was the depths in those blue eyes, the ocean of vulnerability that I glimpsed behind her forbidding outer shell. The exquisite feel of her skin, her natural scent of orchids—my mother’s favorite flowers, and a scent that takes me back to a childhood I remember only in snatches—, the taste of her arousal on my tongue.
I tilt my head to the side, staring at Carlton with a homicidal grin.
“All you have to do, Wilde, is to always remember that she is mine. Come anywhere near her, and I split your skull open. Scare her or make her feel in danger, and I spill your guts. Get a hard-on looking at her, and I’ll cut your balls off.”
“She is becoming your weakness,” Carlton warns. “You’ve never had one of those before. You’re becoming a liability for the Kings. You’re already making mistakes.”
“No mistakes. I know perfectly well what I’m doing. And my next step is moving in with her.”
Carlton stares at me like I’ve lost my mind, then he bursts into laughter. “You are fucking insane.”
“First of all, I’m making sure that Romano can’t use her for his plans, which stresses the fuck out of him, and he’ll start making mistakes. His only chance to talk to her will be when she arrives at his ball—as my date.”
Sade steps between Carlton and me, his dark eyes shimmering with worry.
“You said that before. But bringing Eva to the ball as your date is gonna start a shitstorm with the Elders.”
“I don’t care.”
“That’s your dick talking,” Carlton interjects, but just as I get ready to bite into his jugular, Sade replies in my place.
“No.” More than worry imbues the hard lines of his face now. “I’m afraid it’s his heart.”
***
Eva
MICAH HASN’T BEEN HIMSELF lately. At first, I thought it was because he regretted kissing me in front of the entire campus, but apparently the contrary is the case. We ride to campus together every day, and every day he walks into the entrance hall with me, our fingers interlaced.
And every day he kisses me in front of everybody, and we sit with the others at lunch like we’re as much a couple as Sade and Justine are.
