Page 43

I could still feel the ghost tugging of my hair as he directed my mouth where he wanted it on his thigh, leaving a glossy trail over his tattoos.

Fuck. I needed to restart therapy. Actually, if something was wrong with what we’d done, I’d rather live in denial than give it up. Because sex with him was invigorating. Too bad the aftermath was turning out to be shit.

When I sank to my knees in the kitchen to give him a blow job, it had been out of frustration. Kenji’s tease of a video had only added to the pent-up emotions Caleb had given me the night before, and I wanted to make him pay for the way he’d made me feel.

It was as if he’d stolen me away, only to place me in a corner to be forgotten. Like a bird with clipped wings that had been put in a cage.

And I wanted to test whether he truly didn’t give a shit about sharing me. Not because I felt Caleb cared about the sanctity of this marriage. He’d forged the fucking license, for God’s sake. He just didn’t seem like the type of man who liked being denied, and for as many times as he said he didn’t want to fuck me, I’d felt that hard dick of his during our argument.

Giving Niko a blow job was supposed to drive a wedge between them or get a reaction. Anything other than stirring up these weird butterflies inside. After we both saw stars, he completely shut me out.

I’d had plenty of one-night stands and hookups before. Usually, I wanted to come and get the hell out. But this time, I felt…sad when Niko didn’t want to lock me away in his room. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what it was I was feeling.

He’d cooked me a fresh omelet. Even added extra salt, which I hadn’t realized he noticed I liked from the last time he fed me. If it didn’t taste like an ocean shit on it, I wasn’t eating it. But he said as few words to me as possible the whole time. It didn’t feel like he was trying to ghost me. It was more like he was trying to get some space between us. Brick himself off from me.

That was a day and a half ago.

I’d holed up in my room, only leaving to grab something to eat. Niko might’ve been avoiding me, but he’d made sure there was something in the fridge for me to heat up in the microwave. Whatever the three of them were busy doing, they didn’t include me, and it was pissing me off.

“Ugh. You’re literally a killer. How did you manage to catch feelings after one fuck?” I mumbled into the down pillow. Feelings seemed too strong a word to describe what I was experiencing for the big guy. What did it say about me that I wanted to set a man’s balls on fire for smiling at me, but then put a man’s balls in my mouth for kidnapping me? And feeding me.

I’ll take she needs help for five hundred, Alex.

Maybe I was so starved for any type of affection that the second someone was kind-ish to me, I folded like a damn chair. Enzo had really fucked me up on the relationship front.

I’d retreated to my room as soon as I finished shoveling egg in my mouth; the silence had been too much for me to stand. But all I’d accomplished since was throwing a pity party. Literally under my blankets.

Well, and tapping their phones and emails. Kenji’s number wasn’t the only thing I’d taken from his phone.

Today, I’d start doing shit, even if they weren’t including me. But first, I needed clothes. I’d been living in dropped-off borrowed shirts. And almost as important as clothing, I needed some of my shit. Laptop, burners, and cash. Most of that was held at my safe houses, but I still wanted to have something on hand in case I couldn’t get to one of those right away.

I’d staked out what their security looked like. There didn’t seem to be any interior cameras, which was a good thing for me. The only visible way in was through the elevator, which required a key card. They should’ve hired someone better to do their security system because the thing with keycard systems was that they could be hacked.

I was tired of sitting on my ass. If they didn’t want to give me any information, I’d find it myself. The fact that Enzo hadn’t tried to reach out made me nervous. There was no way in hell my uncle would let the stunt the boys pulled go unpunished. Even if he couldn’t touch them, I’d still suffer the consequences.

Unease turned in my gut at the thought as my hand wrapped around the lever of my door, easing it open.

Silent hinges were a thief’s wet dream, and this apartment had ones that were as quiet as church mice. Across from my room, two more sets of double doors lined the hall. My guess was that they must be the guys’ bedrooms, but there weren’t any clues telling me whose they might be. I also wondered why the third bedroom in this hall was a guestroom. I gnawed at my bottom lip, debating which room to try first.

I decided to go with the one closest to mine, so if someone came back, I could quickly get the hell out of Dodge. I wiggled the handle, surprised to find it was unlocked. Before I even moved far enough into the room to get a look at it, I knew who it belonged to. The scent wrapped around me like a hug. A hug that was meant to strangle me—spicy and rich. If I thought my room was impressive, Caleb’s was flat-out exquisite.

Shit, maybe I should ask to share a bedroom.

The entry opened up into a room that was painted charcoal gray from floor to ceiling. The wall his bed sat against looked like some type of dark stone, and his bed was cognac-colored leather with black bedding that looked so soft I wanted to drop face-first in its pillowy goodness. But what really took my breath was the giant art prints he had hanging around the room. Black and white paintings of the mug shots of New York’s more notorious gangsters.

I tiptoed my way through his space, careful not to disturb anything. Caleb felt like the type of man to notice when someone had been in his room. The nightstands were bare other than a journal and a frame. Gingerly, I lifted the frame, curious about what Caleb would have deemed important enough to display. The corners of my mouth inched upward at a gangly looking Caleb with his lanky arms wrapped around the shoulders of a pubescent Kenji and Niko. Niko was smaller than he was currently but still massive compared to the other two. And Kenji looked so…bare without all the artwork on his skin.

My smile slipped when I noticed that it wasn’t just the boys in the photo. Somehow, I’d missed the slight girl standing in front of them, arms wrapped around Caleb’s waist. I frowned at the spike of jealousy that shot through me. All four looked so happy. I couldn’t help but wonder who she was and why Caleb had chosen to frame a photo that included her. There were memories etched into this photo. Memories I wasn’t entitled to but found myself still wanting to know.

A throat cleared behind me.

I reacted purely on instinct. Crouching and moving my hand to my hip, but I didn’t have my gun or my knife.

“There a reason you broke into my room?” Caleb asked. His tone was neutral, but his eyes narrowed on the frame still clutched in my hand.

“You can hardly call it a break-in when I literally opened the door.” I rolled my eyes, pretending my heart wasn’t still in my throat as I stood. “Who is she?” I asked as he plucked it from my fingers, setting it back on the nightstand. His proximity sent electric shocks coursing through my body.

Jealousy clenched in my gut as he looked at the photo with affection before sliding his piercing gaze toward me. “Don’t worry about who she is. It’s you I’m married to, right?”