Page 83 of Reaper and Ruin

I squeezed my eyes shut the moment the words were out of my mouth. They had my jealousy written all over them.

Because if I was being honest, it was me I wanted him fucking in the corner. It was me I wanted him to choose.

I wanted him to pick me over a job where other people got what was supposed to be mine and Violet’s.

But a lifetime of homophobia rang between my ears. Army’s and the other guys’ sly taunts about fags and cocksuckers. I tried to remind myself I’d already overcome this once. That the club wasn’t like that anymore, that War being with Scythe had set the tone for a new era and Whip and I were safe there.

But were we safe here? On the streets of a city we didn’t know? Where I knew men were still attacked in broad daylight for holding another man’s hand? Where gay clubs were targeted by hate and violence?

My brain was a mess, and I’d always been shit with words. And that tongue-tie only seemed to get worse when my feelings were involved.

Just like the first night I’d laid eyes on Violet, I was royally fucking it all up.

And yet my tongue wouldn’t move to say things that made it better.

Whip snatched the bag with his new shirt in it from the woman and then turned to glare at me. “Don’t worry, Levi. Your dirty little secret, that you like when a male escort touches you, is safe with me. I won’t try to hold your hand tonight. Or to kiss you. Or do any of the other things that have had you moaning my name and begging me for more every night.”

His anger speared through me like a flaming arrow.

He leaned in closer. “Tonight when we’re in that club, we’re nothing to each other. We aren’t in a relationship. We aren’t fucking. We don’t even fucking know each other. How’s that? That make you feel better?”

It didn’t. I opened my mouth, willing myself to say that to him. To explain that none of that was what I wanted, and all of this was because I was so damn jealous, and that I had these stupid fucking feelings that demanded he only be with us.

But he didn’t let me get any of that out.

He just went nose to nose with me, those steel-blue eyes boring straight into my soul, when he whispered, “Tonight I’m just the hooker you think I am.”

26

WHIP

Ifound X, Violet, and Harold at a coffee shop and dropped the car keys onto the table between them. “I’ll meet you at the club tonight. Take the car. I need to walk.”

They both stared up at me, their smiles fading at my clipped words.

Violet grabbed my hand. “What happened? Where’s Levi?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her he was in the fucking closet, being a homophobic asshole, but he was still the man she was in love with. I didn’t want to ruin that for her by bad-mouthing him.

Even though he was being a prick and fucking deserved it.

“I don’t know. But I’ve got a few things to do. Just need a couple hours. I’ll see you later.”

I pressed my lips to the top of her head and breathed in the honeysuckle scent of her hair, using her familiar smell to calm the storm raging inside me Levi had stirred up.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I loved her.

When she looked up at me with those big eyes, rimmed with dark lashes, all I wanted to do was scoop her up in my arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

But it wasn’t. Nothing was right. Nyah was missing. Someone was hunting us. And Levi was breaking my fucking heart.

That last one was my fault. I was the idiot who’d gone and fallen for an emotionally unavailable straight man, who’d had a few minutes of fun in dark corners with another guy. I should have known falling for him would end in nothing but pain.

Violet and X called after me as I left, but I just couldn’t sit there with them while a storm raged inside me. I didn’t know what I needed, but I could feel an implosion coming and I didn’t want to be around her when it happened.

She didn’t deserve the mess of me and Levi detonating whatever relationship we might have been building.

It had been a long time since I’d been in this city, but it wasn’t my first rodeo. Memories plagued me.