Page 13 of Shai

He reached out, trembling fingers tracing the lines of the tattoo covering

my pec and following the line of the snake’s head. He licked his lips, trying for sexy and failing miserably. I appreciated the effort, though. “Are you really willing to take the risk of me being bitten by one of your snakes?”

I let out a breath, pretending to consider the notion. “You make a good

point.”

Relief flashed across his face, and he flattened his palm on my chest, the pad of his thumb finding my nipple and stroking it.

Coin still balanced on my other hand, I laid my fingers over the top of his, pressing it more firmly to my chest before dragging it lower, my grip forcing his fingers to curl around my crotch. I watched him closely. There. There, it was—the slight look of distaste that betrayed this as an act. To give him his due, he’d masked it quickly, but it had definitely been there.

I held his gaze, my cock swelling beneath the pressure of his fingers. He was good, but not good enough, not when I was used to studying and dissecting every aspect of human behavior. There was no need to ruin the game yet, though. I lowered my voice to a seductive whisper. “What are you offering, Elijah? Let’s be clear here.”

“Anything.”

My look of surprise at his words was genuine. If he’d had any sense, he would have started small and worked his way up to more. Only a fool offered everything straightaway, and I hadn’t taken Elijah for a fool. “So… I can taste you. I can fuck you. I can come in your mouth. I can come in your ass. I can fuck you with an inanimate object. I can stretch you as wide as I want to. I can use you in any way I wish? Because that’s what anything means. Is that what you’re offering?”

The muscles of Elijah’s face seemed to be fighting with each other. I waited, thrusting my groin lazily against Elijah’s palm. I let him feel the heft and weight of my cock, ensuring he knew that it was no tiny cock he was agreeing to take. The word when it came was so soft that it barely disturbed the air around it. I leaned forward. “Pardon? I didn’t hear that.”

I had to hold back a smile as his gaze lifted to mine, the rebellious gleam back in his eye. “I said, yes. Fucking, yes, okay.”

“Hmm… so, if I asked you to remove your clothes, lie on the bed and spread your legs for me, you would do that, would you? No argument? No histrionics? Just your tight little hole there for me to take.”

Elijah’s eyes closed for a second, his jaw set and tense as he struggled with the dilemma. “If that’s what you want.”

I gave one final thrust into his hand before releasing it and letting it drop. “Oh, it is what I want.” I let the silence hang there until it gained so much weight it was like a physical presence between us, and then I dealt my final blow. “After.”

Shock bloomed on his face and I laughed. At the same time, I flicked

the coin into the air. We both followed its progress as it turned over and over before gravity kicked in and it started its inevitable descent. I caught it on the back of my hand, slamming my other hand over it so that neither of us could see the result.

Waiting until Elijah’s gaze was firmly fixed on where it needed to be, I

slowly uncovered it, inch by slow inch. He drew in a breath, both of us staring at the clear outline of tails. I hid a slight stab of disappointment by jumping to my feet. “Tails it is, then. You and my vicious friend over there will have plenty of time to get better acquainted during the early hours of the morning.”

Elijah

FROM WHAT I assumed had been Shai’s bedroom, I’d been taken to another room, Shai leaving me with a silky-soft declaration that he’d see me later— half threat and half promise, or at least that’s how I’d interpreted it. It was a different room from the one I’d woken up in, the lack of a window jarring. It was decorated just as ostentatiously, though. After Shai’s departure, I’d waited a few minutes before trying the door. Locked, of course.

That left me with nothing to do but perch on the edge of the generously-sized bed and dwell on the events of the last couple of hours. Shai had killed a man, with a snake of all things. The same snake that Shai’s toss of a coin had dictated I would be left alone with.

All the clues led to me suffering the same horrific fate as the man who’d been bitten, the man who’d apparently been all too aware what the cost of running out on Shai was, and who’d attempted it anyway. There was definitely a lesson to be learnt there, and if by some miracle I survived the night, I’d like to think I’d learnt it.

He and McIntyre were clearly cut from the same cloth, but at the same time very different in their approaches. McIntyre usually displayed all the subtlety of a brick, his power coming from sheer physical force, like a boot, crushing ants beneath its sole. Whereas, even after such a brief acquaintance, it was already clear that Shai liked to play games, that he was far more cerebral. And in many ways that made him far more deadly. He wouldn’t squash the ants; he’d lead them to their demise in a way where they believed it had been the direction they’d been heading in all along.

I might have spent every day in McIntyre’s compound fearing for my

life from the physical violence he’d dispersed like it was nothing, but in retrospect it had been simple and uncomplicated, something easy to understand. Whereas, Shai… the way he looked at me, the things he’d said and done, had made it all too evident that I had far more to fear from him than violence. And I’d already underestimated him. I’d thought I could use it to my advantage, had even offered myself to him as a means of avoiding this… what was it he’d called it? A test. And what had he done? Laughed in my face, that’s what.

Heat suffused my face as I recalled the way he’d stroked my bottom lip

with his thumb, giving the act of drinking water distinct sexual undertones. And then there was the way he’d made me cup his cock, the flesh wasting no time in swelling against my fingers. If I survived tonight, that’s what would await me. If that was the case, did I even want to live through the night?

I was back to a similar scenario as the one I’d faced with McIntyre. I’d

chosen death, then. Yet, here I was, still breathing. Shai’s mother had claimed that her son was the embodiment of fate. Well, it seemed that fate still had plans for me. I just didn’t know what they were.

I lifted my head as the door opened, Shai’s smiling face filling the gap.