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Lucas snatched the bottle from my hands, set it against his molars, and popped the cap off with his teeth before offering it back to me. Something fiery exploded in me as I stared at his fingers wrapped tight around the cold glass.
That shouldn’t have been hot, but…fuck.
“You think I want that now that your mouth has been on it?” I said, unable to muster up my usual venom. It was so embarrassing how uncertain I sounded.
When Lucas laughed, it wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’tnice. It was the kind of laugh you heard before someone died in a horror film.
“I think you’d like my mouth on more than this bottle,” he said. Vincent and Jason exchanged another amused glance, and I had the distinct feeling that I was being laughed at.
“Hey now, let’s play nice, kids,” Vincent said. “Why don’t you be a good girl, Jess? The cooler is right there.” He glanced behind me, his eyes widening pointedly. “The beers, please.”
Good girl. He really dared to say that to me. That phrase had a way of squirming deep into my brain and latching on, its poisonous bite making my knees weak and my palms sweaty.
A traitorous little voice inside me wanted to obey. It wanted to feel the satisfaction of giving in.
With a furious exhale, I tossed each of them a beer with the sourest expression I could muster. Just because I was obeying didn’t mean I was going to act happy about it. Lucas looked so damn smug as he took the bottle from my hands.
I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of another reaction. I avoided his eyes as I squeezed myself past him, trying not to deeply inhale his scent, but I got a whiff of it anyway.
Dark like black pepper, but there was a hint of something soft, like jasmine. It made me hesitate for a moment, my breath catching slightly as he looked down at me.
God, why did helookat me like that? Like he was enraged and fascinated at once. Or like he was holding something back…
I turned away from him, only to abruptly encounter another problem. A tall, pale, dark-eyed problem with a grin that ran an icy finger up my spine.
“I told them to be nice,” Manson said. I’d already caught my breath; but finding myself so close to him made me forget to breathe entirely.
His arms were bare and, like Lucas, he was far more heavily inked than when I’d last seen him. The twisted body of a snake was tattooed around his shoulders, the lines barely visible above his shirt collar. He plucked the beer from Vincent’s hand — who gasped with overexaggerated offense — then popped the top and handed it to me. “No drool on this bottle, I promise. I’ll punish these clowns later for their bad behavior.”
“Ohno, Daddy Manson isangry!” Vincent laughed. Jason clutched his heart, adopting a look of abject horror in Manson’s direction.
“Please forgive us, Jess,” he said, clasping his hands dramatically. “Tell Manson you forgive us.”
“No,” I deadpanned, rolling my eyes at their antics even though my insides were quivering to have them all so close to me. These men had trampled all over my pride the last time I’d seen them, yet no hook-up since had come close to replicating what I’d experienced with them — complete and total submission, if only for a night.
And Manson…
Manson had opened my eyes to a world I’d never known I so desperately wanted to be a part of.
I couldn’t look at his lips without remembering their taste. His eyes were intense; not heavy like Lucas’s or sharp like Jason’s. They were eerie, like a vague silhouette in the dark, a whisper in an empty house.
“You’re in my way,” I said softly. I pressed two sharp acrylic nails against his chest, giving him a little push. “Move.”
I’d called him Master that night, the last time I’d seen him. I could still remember how it had felt rolling off my tongue. How sweetly natural, how deliciouslyright.
But it wasn’t right. Me and him, me and them, could never be right.
Manson didn’t move. He spread his arms with a shrug and said, “Looks like there’s plenty of ways to walk around me.”
Sure, I could have easily stepped around him, but now it was the principle of the thing. He needed to movebecause I said so, and he wasn’t going to — for exactly the same reason.
Clearly, we would both just have to stand there glaring at each other until we died.
Manson searched my face as I stared back stubbornly, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Is it really that hard to give an inch, Jess?”
“Yeah, Jess.” Jason meandered closer beside me, sipping his beer. “Can’t even give an inch when Manson gave you eight?”
Manson snorted, utterly failing at holding back a laugh as my face tightened with embarrassment. “So youdothink about it.”
