Page 7

Shaking my head once, his eyes meet mine in the glass and he nods. “Then let me shut off your mind in a different way. You have to get some sleep.”
Unlikely. Sterling didn’t phone fast enough this morning before we heard the news. After six weeks of silence there’s a new body, which means the CGS or the Copycat or whoever isreallyresponsible for all of these deaths is active again -
I squeal, my thoughts interrupted when Vinny scoops me up and moves us out of the bathroom. He carries me through the bedroom where I’ve left the sheets and pillows half on the floor, moving with ease down the steps in Emeric’s home. Instead of fighting I cling to him, pressing my cheek to his chest and idly rolling the dimple piercing against his skin. It gives me something to focus on as we move.
Sunlight bathes the house in an afternoon glow, and I squint against the light. The scratch marks on Vinny’s chest are hidden, but I see another red line by his neck and wince. I’m really taking out my fears on him while I dream, and they might just be scratches but they are marks I never meant to put there.
Vinny doesn’t falter once as we head downstairs, his arms tightening for a moment as we swing into the kitchen. He sets me down on the counter beside the coffee pot, pulling his phone out to toss it away from us to the other side of the sink. Grabbing a mug from the cabinet, he turns on the machine to brew a cup before returning to me.
He’s successfully distracted me if nothing else, winking before he kneels beside the counter. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Trauma. I don’t care if it’s 3 in the afternoon. I’m starting my day officially with the taste of you.”
God, I slept all day. Vinny kept the room dark enough I didn’t even notice what time it was, and when I saw the clock I thought it was the early morningnotthe middle of the day. My nightmares are really taking a lot out of me.
My shoulders drop as he speaks, and I let myself fall into his game. Vinny is the one drug I’m not afraid of becoming helplessly addicted to. He tugs up my loose-fitting shirt and I lose focus when his tongue traces over my center.
Dropping my head back, I don’t even care when it bangs on the cabinet behind me. I slide closer to the edge to allow him more access, opening my legs wider as my eyes fall shut. This is the kind of dream I want to have, not the ever-present nightmares.
His tongue darts out, teasing my clit as I settle back into the counter. This is becoming a routine; when he can’t soothe my fears at night because I can’t escape my mind, he makes my heart beat faster with his talented tongue to erase the worries. His hands come up, sliding beneath the t-shirt to palm my breasts as I gasp.
Vinny grazes his teeth across my pussy lips, making me buck against his face. It’s the tease of pain, the little hints of what he could do if he really wanted to, that makes me a frenzied mess rocking against him. I don’twanthim to hurt me beyond repair; it’s the restraint that turns my skin to fire.
He hums, and I moan as I adjust and try to get him to give me more. I think he’s going to go easy on me today, my fingers dragging across his head as he worships me on the countertop, his tongue sliding into me as I moan above him.
But like always, he has something else up his sleeve. “Remember what you told me?”
He hardly pulls back, the words spoken between my legs with his eyes turned up, my shirt nearly hiding his expression. I look down at him, digging my nails into his scalp for the question.
Thisis what he wants to do right now?
Swallowing, I shake my head. “N-no.”
God, that sounds pathetic. My legs are bouncing, his teasing doing nothing but working me up. I’m not even close to an orgasm, and usually he’s so good at getting me there. He simply raises a brow, leaning in again to kiss my pussy before pulling back to stand.
I wait. He’s going to pull his cock free and fuck me, or bend me over the counter this morning, or maybe push me to my knees…
But the longer we stand together, the distinct sounds of the coffee maker in the background, the less certain I am about what he’s doing. I look around, almost afraid of what he’ll say next. “Vinny?”
He taps my chin. “Trauma?”
I swallow, my legs twitching. I can’t close them when he’s still standing between them, and he lazily reaches out to trace his fingers over my clit again. It makes my eyes roll, but I’m still trying to focus on what he’s aiming for. “What are you doing?”
He leans in, his nose almost brushing mine. “Reminding you why you loved being a group of three.”
His words bang around in my head, my brows slowly drawing together as he teases me. “But Alastair-”
“Isn’t here,” he agrees, staying in my bubble. My arms lift to their own accord, wrapping around his neck. “That doesn’t mean I don’t see what you desire, darling.”
My eyes flash, a mix of lust and guilt building in my chest. I know my nightmares are a little… unorthodox, and the broken part of me confuses my trauma with lust, desire, and pleasure.
I can thank Alastair for fucking me up.
His other hand reaches up, tracing along my jaw until he cups the back of my head. “It doesn’t matter to me where your kinks came from, Jo. Be it a monster or a lover, I’ll give you all that you need to feel free. If you want to be the center ofattention in my world, know you’re already there. And I think you already know that you’re the fixation of others too.”
I swallow again, reaching out to grip his wrist. “Are you… do you mean Sterling?”
He rocks forward a bit, his cock proud and hard beneath the boxer he wore to bed. I’m close enough to the edge of the counter that I can just feel him rubbing against my center, and all I want to do is slide off of the counter and impale myself on him. His hand at the back of my head tightens, pushing me in closer until our noses touch. “You don’t have to let anyone in who you don’t wish to. I didn’t offer Sterling anything that isn’t mine to give. I told him the door is open, and he’s on the way. He can catch us fucking, or doing nothing at all.”
My core pulses with need at the offer. My husband gets me sometimes better than I do. I dig my teeth into my lip, unsure what I truly want.