Page 71 of Devil's Iris

I’ll peel his skin from his flesh strip by strip while he screams for mercy he’ll never receive.

The violent fantasy does its job, cutting through my fog of arousal. My muscles relax marginally as I imagine various creative ways to make the bastard pay.

Pliers to pull out his teeth. Blowtorch to?—

She rolls over.

Her warmth hits me first, followed by that intoxicating scent that’s pure Leni. And then she’s wrapping around me like I’m her personal pillow—her hand sliding up to rest on my chest, her head tucking perfectly under my chin, her leg draping over mine with the familiarity of years instead of minutes.

My breath catches and stops. Her warm exhales tickle my neck as she breathes, and I go still, my heart pounding so loudly now I’m afraid it will wake her. But she just sighs contentedly and burrows closer, her fingers curling into my shirt like I’m her anchor in whatever dream she’s lost in.

I don’t sleep. Not a second. Not with her body pressed against mine like this. Not with every breath bringing her scent deeper into my lungs. And definitely not with the insistentthrobbing ache of my cock that refuses to get the message that I can’t do a damn thing to relieve it.

Time crawls by with excruciating slowness as I blink up at the ceiling. I try to return to my violent fantasies—cutting off fingers, breaking bones, creative uses for car battery—but it doesn’t work.

Because she’s a restless sleeper. Just when I start getting lost in a particularly satisfying torture scenario, she shifts in my arms, tightening her grip, her hair tickling my chin, making my cock weep with precum and dragging me right back to square one.

It’s torture.

Sweet, agonizing torture that makes me question every decision that led to this moment.

By the time dawn starts creeping through the blinds, painting golden stripes across the bed, I’m still lying there. Rigid. Wide awake. Half in love and half in agony.

Then finally, she stirs one final time, stretching languidly over my chest as she mumbles incoherently. I watch intently as her eyes flutter open, those slate-gray orbs eerily pale in the morning light.

I inhale sharply, and her gaze lands on me, hazy and more than a little confused. I try for a smirk, to play it casual, though I’m pretty sure it’s closer to a grimace. “Ah… finally awake, my littletentatrice?”Temptress.

25

LENI

His words take a moment to sink in, and when they do, I scramble away from him like the mattress just spontaneously combusted. My body betrays me instantly—limbs tangled in sheets, graceless, panicked—until I go tumbling off the edge, hitting the floor with a bone-jarring thud that sends pain exploding up my left hip.

Oh God. Oh no. What did I do?

“Shit—are you okay?” Romero asks, leaning over the side of the bed, but he doesn’t look even remotely okay himself. Not that I have time to worry about that. There’s a much more pressing issue at hand.

“Don’t look!” I shriek, grabbing frantically for the covers and yanking them over my very naked, very exposed body.

How the hell am I naked? What happened to my dress? My underwear?

Did we…?Oh God, what did we do last night?

He raises a brow at me as he rolls off the bed, and relief trickles through me when I see he’s fully dressed in pants and a shirt.That’s… that’s good, right?

“Do you remember what happened yesterday?”

My head feels like it’s been split open with a sledgehammer, but I force myself to focus, trying to pull up memories through the fog of what must have been a spectacular hangover. I remember everything up to the moment we went casino hopping. “When did you show up?” I wonder out loud, but even as I ask, the fragments start assembling themselves into something resembling coherence.

Romero and his brothers appearing at the roulette table.

Me saying a bunch of things I should have kept locked in my head forever.

Strong arms carrying me to the elevators while I—oh God.

And then… heat. Waking up restless, peeling off my clothes, and the immense relief afterwards.I took my clothes off myself.

“You remember, don’t you?” There’s something knowing and dangerous in Romero’s voice that makes my stomach flip.