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He snorts. “She’s babbling. She’s nervous. He’s sitting on his ass, twirling a butterfly knife like a little shit.”
I can’t help my own chuckle as I cross the room and pull Phoenix toward me. He comes easier than anything, tipping his head up so I can kiss him. “Did you hear what Kane said?”
Phoenix sighs as he brushes fingers over my jaw. “Yes.”
“Do you mind that we’re keeping her?” It’s an honest question. His opinion has more weight because disturbing his carefully constructed home shakes him sometimes. It took him a while to adjust to me, and those early fuckups that had him tripping and falling were met with fury and violence. But he was angry at his situation, not me, and that’ll be the case with Alice too.
His brow is furrowed, but after a long beat, he shakes his head. “As long as she stays out of my library and out of my office, I don’t really care what happens to her.”
I think there’s more to it than that, but I don’t call him on it. Phoenix has never been down to see her, but that’s not really a surprise. He has been blind for twenty years now, but he still feels vulnerable around new people. Even if they’re at our mercy.
“Do you think Kane’s making a mistake?”
His eyes—prosthetic and unnervingly realistic, though they don’t move as freely as natural eyes do—somehow manage to lock on to my shoulder. “I don’t know. If he’s keeping her for information, then yes. She doesn’t know anything. At least, nothing that will be of use to us. Kane suspects that Alice isn’t Romano’s biological daughter. He ordered a DNA kit.”
Well. That’s a fucking plot twist if I’ve ever heard one. “Have you told our fearless leader you hacked his emails?”
Phoenix reaches for me, pulling my hand to his lips and kissing the center of my palm. “No. He’s not really happy with me right now.”
There’s always trouble in their paradise, so I don’t bother asking what it’s about. Instead, I just let him back me against the wall and kiss me until I’m all worked up. He’s a bit of a sadist, though, and I know he enjoys it when he cups my hard dick, then laughs and leaves me wanting right there in what’s soon to be our darling’s sanctuary.
If there’s ever one to find here in our own personal Tartarus.
Chapter11
ALICE
This has to be a trick.It has to be one more way they’re fucking with my head. After spending two hours with the redheaded psychopath who spent the entire time smiling at me as he played with a damnknife, James showed back up and told me I was being moved out of the basement.
I don’t really know what their game is, though I will say that the look of surprise on Ariel’s face seemed pretty genuine. He didn’t seem bothered, though. He just gave a look to James, then winked at me before disappearing down the hall.
He’s probably the scariest one of all because he looks very sweet—though I can see there’s definitely something unhinged in his gaze. But he’s all soft red hair and faded freckles, and he’s petite, though he’s tall.
I can’t really get a read on him, though. It’s almost like he wants me to think he’s dangerous—and I can’t figure out if that means he’s not and he’s trying to put up a front, or he is and he wants me to know it. At least with James, I can figure him out. He wants to fuck me, and I think he’s kind of attached to me, but I also know he’ll do whatever his boss—lover,whatever—tells him to do.
And then there’s Kane, who literally almost made me piss my pants. But I’ve known about him since I was little, and he’s every bit the monster under the bed my father described him to be. The only thing I’m not, when it comes to Kane, is disappointed.
I can’t help but feel like my body has betrayed me, though, because I can’t lie and say that I didn’t soak right through my panties when he called me a good girl. God, even thinking about doing something to earn those words…
It’s too much, especially for a woman like me who has never been touched.
I don’t think that’s going to last long, and a small part of me hopes so—and hopes that they’ll make sure I enjoy it because I’d rather not go out a virgin. I mean, it wasn’t for lack of trying, I promise you that—my father was a little overenthusiastic about making sure no one got close enough to give it a shot.
The few kisses I did experience—and the wet dreams that followed—told me I’d definitely enjoy myself the moment I got the chance. So it seems like it’s now or never, to be honest. I don’t have high hopes I’m going to survive this, even when James shows me to a very large, very cushy bedroom with a massive bathroom and a walk-in closet.
Again, I feel like the forest witch is just trying to fatten me up.
“Very little in this house is off-limits,” James tells me as he walks me back out of the room and down the hall.
Being trapped in a tiny basement for nearly two weeks didn’t give me much of an idea about where the hell I was, but I’m not surprised the grounds are both massive and—from what I can see out the window—in the middle of fucking nowhere.
“And I can just do whatever I want?” I ask him as we reach the bottom of the stairs. He walks me into what looks like one of those old-school English parlors, and I wonder if I’m still in the US with the way everything looks.
He opens the terrace door, then sweeps his stump toward the outside. I realize I haven’t breathed fresh air or let the sun on my skin in so fucking long. The clothes I’m wearing are basically someone’s pajamas. Flannel pants and a too-big T-shirt with a suspicious brown stain that’s probably blood. But I feel light and almost giddy as I step into a late, warm afternoon breeze.
“There are a few rooms that are closed for a reason. Mostly Phoenix’s library and his office.”
Phoenix. I’d heard his name before, but no one actually explained how many people were living here and what they did. The only people I’ve seen so far are James, Ariel, and Kane, so the fact that there might be other lurkers… I shudder as I shove the thought away.
