As I allowed Griffin to dry me off and then wrap me in a fluffy towel, I smiled at him.
Down on a knee to dry my legs, he gazed up at me.
Then he slid open the two halves of my towel, parted my folds, and trailed his tongue up the entirety of my slickness.
I bucked and gasped.
He licked his lips.
“Fair’s fair,” he murmured in that deep rumble of his as he rose, a wolfish gleam twinkling in his eyes.
I stared deeply into them.
I saw him and only him.
There was no one else.
21
Time for a Motherfucking Reckoning,
I Tell Ya
Even though our lovemaking was—justly—interrupted, Griffin’s reverent kisses and touch were sufficient to erase much of the night’s earlier traumas. I emerged from the shower emboldened, my courage replenished, ready to face the dead body stinking up my bedroom.
Or so I thought.
So fully was I convinced thatI had thisthat I didn’t even take a moment to steel myself for the sight before striding confidently from the en suite bathroom while towel-drying my hair.
The sight of Magnum’s corpse, though sprawled precisely where I expected it to be, proved to be like a slap to the face, a crack hard enough to make my ears ring and my eyes sting with pricking tears.
There, mere feet away from me, beside the bed where I let go of all my defenses to be vulnerable and sleep, lay incontrovertible evidence that a literal psychopath had come here to exert his will over me, one way or another. His flaccid dick resting against his thigh was disturbing proof of all that he’d meant to steal from me: not just my consent and the sacredness of my body, but alsomy decision whether or not to grow life within my womb. If he’d gotten his desire, to him I would have become no more significant than an incubator for his latest science experiment. The fetus wouldn’t have been mychild; he wouldn’t have viewed him or her as precious at all. I wouldn’t have become amother, ready or not for the role. I would have become an unwilling perpetrator of a jillionaire’s terrors. I would have contributed to an awful cycle, subjecting another life to what my friends and I had so far endured, if not much worse.
Layla’s hand landed on my bare shoulder above the towel at the same time as Griffin’s.
Her eyes were big as they studied me.
That she didn’t rib me or Griff for getting it on, and made no additional mention of Pound Town, could only mean that I was wearing my shock on the outside.
My eyes smarting, I smiled shakily.
Griffin rubbed reassuring circles along one shoulder while Layla chuffed in disbelief.
I sucked in a deep, nurturing inhale. My eyes, all on their own, roved away from my best friend to Magnum, my thoughts once again careening along the course he’d tried to set for me.
she said with a glance over me at Griffin.
When she steered me toward my walk-in closet, I let her.
she said.
Brady added.
Layla nodded.
I muttered.
