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“I’m sorry, it’s just …”
“You don’t expect it with someone like me.”
I nod. I always thought he was impenetrable, hard as steel, cold to the bone.
But maybe he wasn’t always that way.
Someone made him that way.
“Life is cruel,” he replies. “I learned that lesson at a very young age.” He swallows. “And if people take something from you that’s precious … you annihilate them.”
He turns off the shower, but I’m far from finished with showering. Or from cooling down.
With a hard-on, he marches out of the shower only to return with dark-red towels. “Catch.”
He throws me one that barely covers my body, but I make do and dry myself off. He returns with one of his shirts when I’m about to wrap it around my body. “I don’t have women’s clothes, so this will have to do.”
It’s one of his.
I put it on, and it’s oversized for me but just big enough to cover my butt. But the smell … it reminds me of him.
A blush spreads on my cheeks.
When he walks off, I follow him back to his bedroom, wondering why we aren’t finishing him too.
But I’m far too busy gaping at his room, which is so different from Dylan’s. I’ve been here before, but it still doesn’t fail to mesmerize me. And now that I’m not being chased, I can finally have a real look around.
It’s dark and gloomy, covered in skulls, but the place is gigantic, with two big window panes in the back where a lofty bed stands. Across the room are several tables filled with half-filled liquor bottles and empty glasses—a testament to someone drowning in their agony.
I rub my lips together and walk through the room. Plenty of expensive-looking leather seats are scattered throughout, along with a bench and something that looks like a cross with straps on it. Every piece of furniture has a skull pattern on it. Exactly what I’d expect from someone who loves death.
I gulp.
In the back, near the window, is a wooden table with a small enclosure on top.
The creature inside it draws me in.
It’s a snake.
And it’s eating a dead rat.
“Nessie.”
I almost jump up and down from the scare.
He’s right behind me, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.
“Our pet snake,” he adds.
I frown and smile at the same time. “A pet?”
“Snakes can be pets,” he responds.
“No, I mean, you have a pet?” I snort.
His eyes narrow. “Is that so hard to believe?”
I shrug, still smiling because he’s right. It is kind of hard to believe from a frigid man like him. Though I suppose this kind of pet suits him perfectly, especially with that tattoo.
“Actually, no,” I reply.
My finger dips into the cage to touch her body, which feels strange.
“Do you want to hold her?” He lifts her out before I can even reply, then places her on my neck. “She won’t bite.”
“Gee, that’s a comforting thought,” I mutter, feeling her slither across.
He tilts his head and watches me for a moment. “You’re not scared.”
“No … should I be?”
A smile gently tugs at his lips. “Maybe you aren’t exactly the same as Eve.”
I make a face. “She was scared of snakes?”
I didn’t even know that. How did I not know?
He pulls Nessie off my shoulders again and places her back in the cage. “Maybe she didn’t tell you everything about her.”
I lower my eyes and sigh. “I wish she would’ve confided in me. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had to go through all this trouble.”
With a single finger, he lifts my chin and forces me to look at him. “Maybe there was a reason she didn’t. She was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
I shudder in place.
“Us.”
Too late.
FELIX
Her body erupts into goose bumps.
But I don’t want her to be afraid. We’re way past that now.
“She was also trying to protect you from the others,” I say.
Turning around, I grab my sweatpants from my stack of clean clothes and put it on under her watchful eye, knowing she’s probably staring at my ass. I don’t care.
“Others? Do you mean the Phantoms?” she asks after a while.
Suddenly, someone slams his fists against the door. “Hey! Open up!”
Dylan.
My fists ball.
“I’m not playing around. You’re having sex with her, aren’t you?” he growls.
“None of your goddamn business,” I rebuke.
“Wow!” He slams his fists on the door again. “You tell me not to and then you go around behind my back?”
Penelope looks at me like I’m making a fuss out of nothing with her arms crossed. “C’mon. This isn’t fair to him.”
She approaches me and holds out her hand.
I just stare back.
Suddenly, she lunges at me and steals the key right out of my pocket.
I try to catch her, but she springs right out of my arms like a fucking mouse jumping away from the cat, and she immediately runs to the door.
