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Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what I’m feeling.
I blow out a breath, eyeing the black letters on his arm.Strength through fire. Isn’t that the truth? Fires burn all around us, but they won’t stop me. “I’m beginning to think you’re right.”
He squeezes my upper arm, bringing me temporarily closer to him. “There are other things we can do. We have so many other things we can do, Eden,” he repeats like he’s really trying to drill the thought home.
I know he’s right, but I had my heart set on the easy path, if that’s what this even was. We would talk to the barista, maybe he’d break down and tell us he lured Dee out onto the docks and then drowned her. Sure, it would’ve left the Knights blameless, but I would’ve taken it if it meant finding out what happened to her.
I peer into Leo’s eyes, and a body just over his shoulder catches my attention, making me still.
The picture of this society’s feminine ideal walks lithely through the crowd, gripping a bedazzled to-go cup. Her raven hair lies in loose curls down her shoulder blades, and the perfect shade of red adorns her lips, making her appear sinister as she smiles cruelly at me.
Leo turns his head and follows Anne-Marie Kennedy as she makes her way to the leather throne he’d just been sitting in. “Isn’t this cute?” she remarks, taking in the both of us.
I almost forgot she was still attending Carnegie University. I’m surprised her stupid fiancé hasn’t asked her to drop out of school like he did with the Knights.
Unlike Leo, she doesn’t paint the picture of royalty in that chair. Instead, she resembles an imposter trying to look like someone important but failing. Her mouth parts, and she rubs her tongue against the backside of her blindingly white teeth. “Too bad I know you two fuck like dead fish.”
I stiffen at the gagging reminder that she witnessed our first time. Leo doesn’t miss a beat, though. “Careful, your jealousy proves yourself the pathetic cunt you really are. The only person that fucks like a dead fish is that new fiancé of yours.”
He seems to hit her right in the bullseye because she practically snarls at him in response.
Leo leans down next to my ear, his voice nothing but mirth. “The picture of sexually frustrated,” he teases loud enough for her to hear.
He’s trying to keep this light. He knows how I feel about the whole encounter, and I totally fucking get why he was confused after what I’m referring to asthe incident. I brought it on myself. I pushed him—pushed us—and neither of us had the willpower to step away.
I guess I was hoping that he would. Little did I realize, Leo doesn’t have the willpower to let go of anything he thinks is his.
Anne-Marie recovers gracefully enough. “I think my pussy will be looking better than ever when you find out what I know.” Her eyes shine with mischief as she peers at me, then back at Leo, pointedly dragging her gaze down the scars of his arms.
My hackles rise again. Instead of hiding his injuries from the Pound of Flesh ceremony, Leo wears them with pride. The cuts, the scars, they’re there for everyone to see, and trust me, everyone looks, their eyes glittering with unspoken questions.
“Nothing will make that stale cunt of yours enticing.”
She smirks, and I glare at her, wondering what she thinks she has up her sleeve. Anne-Marie grew up like the rest of us. If she thinks she has something, she just might.
“Vin told me what happened at the ceremony. He also told me why…” Leaning back, she smiles again before placing her lips at the mouth of her coffee cup and sipping the contents while staring at Leo.
Damn, this bitch really has a hard-on for him. And she’s calling her fiancé Vin as if that will make him sexier. Sir Franklin was most likely a better lay than him.
I return her fake smile with one of my own because she’s unaware that I know her filthy, disgusting secret. Oliver and I saw it all—wrinkly, old-man skin and everything. Yet, she has the lady balls to sit across from me the way she is now. The bubble of anxiety inside me that rose with her initial claim gets buried further and further down.
Leo nips at my ear, his voice lowering into a gravelly purr. “Joke’s on you again, Anne-Marie, if you think I don’t know why everything happened that night. That was just our version of foreplay.”
Her gaze darts between the two of us, uncertainty filling the gaping holes of her understanding.
Leo smirks with the best of them, looking condescending as fuck. “Oh, you thought I didn’t know Eden was behind the Pound of Flesh ceremony? That is the reason why you came in here all bitchy, right? Vincent… Vin?” he questions with a derisive sneer. “He told you he arranged it for Eden.” She squirms, and I swear, I can see the dark inner workings of Leo’s mind take over. If I peer down, I might even see the physical evidence of the pleasure this taunting brings him. “You should’ve seen how bloody the both of us were afterward.” He leans forward. “Newsflash. We both got off on that shit.”
“You’re…sick,” she blurts out, even though I can tell she doesn’t think it’s sick at all. She fucked an old dick for crying out loud. This girl is willing to do whatever she needs to get what she thinks she deserves.
“I take it back,” Leo remarks. “Jealousy does look good on you. Maybe you can drop by and watch us again sometime. It’s the most pleasure you’ll get now. Poor, misused Anne-Marie. Do you know what they do to unfaithful women in the Jarvis family?”
She swallows, the light in her eyes fading to something akin to fear.
I have to give her credit, though. She gathers herself up and sashays away as if she won this exchange, even though it’s as far from the truth as Leo being a kind-hearted soul.
As soon as she’s out of sight, a firm grip around my thigh and another on my arm move me until I’m in the air and landing with my knees straddling Leo’s lap. The air punches out of my lungs as he arrests me with his fierce stare. “What are you doing?” I move to scan the rest of the room but his grip bites into me, keeping me right where I am.
“Making sure you know that everything I just said to her was for show.” He burns his dark eyes into me. “I wouldn’t let her into our room unless I killed her first and she decided to come back as a ghost. Even then, I’d hire the Winchester brothers to get rid of her.”