Page 21 of Snag (Conduit #2)

“Reck!” she snarls. “Stop fucking around. I want your dick in me. I want your come dripping from me.”

Under her slightly-too-tight grip — and the image she’s shoved into my head — my dick finally starts to harden.

She hums contentedly. The noise slithers down my spine.

The cu-sith has retreated deep into my mind.

That should be a relief. But I look down at Zaya’s upturned face, pumping my fingers in and out of her and making swipes at what I’m hoping is her seriously uninterested clit with my thumb, and I can’t reconcile any of what is happening with what I actually want.

This is not the Zaya I want.

This is not the Zaya who ruined me for all other potential hookups, and for any other intimacy, the first time she slid her tongue between my lips.

The first time she ground down on my ridiculously hard cock with only our shorts between us.

The first time I slipped my fingers into her bikini and watched her come on my hand, nearly fucking coming myself just from the press of her energy.

This isn’t the Zaya from the picture I’ve hoarded all these years — covered in layers of decryption so the Authority techs couldn’t accidentally stumble upon it during their biannual mandated sweeps — because when my fucked-up life was too much to bear, I just needed to look into the eyes of my dead soul-bound mate.

Each time I gave in to that need, I swore I’d never do it again … yet I never could bring myself to outright delete the photo of my Larkspur looking at me as she orgasmed.

Zaya yanks me by the dick, lifting her leg up over my hip and trying to line me up. “Lift me,” she commands. “Fuck me against this wall.”

Moving with intent before I even make the decision, I fucking tear her sunglasses off.

The purple eyes that meet mine are so pale they’re practically white.

Zaya’s irises are ringed in darker purple, almost black, but then abruptly fade into a light lavender barely indistinguishable from the outer whites.

The severely bloodshot whites. Her pupils are sharp pinpoints, not blown out with any level of desire.

“What the fuck is wrong with your eyes?” I snarl.

Zaya twists my rapidly deflating dick in her hand harshly, though I barely feel anything. “This is what you want,” she insists. “This is what you’ve always wanted.”

I start to pull away, knocking her leg off my hip.

Straightening against the wall, she clenches both legs tightly around my hand to stop my retreat, partly trapping my fingers in her barely damp cunt.

“You don’t want me,” I say, trying to regain some control. “You never wanted me, Zaya.”

My own lie slithers over me, cutting deep.

My … lie?

Zaya grabs the back of my neck, using it and my dick as twin levers as she yanks me against her. As if she’s going to try to stuff my soft dick inside her despite my unwilling body.

She’s way too strong.

I grunt, rearing back and shoving her harshly against the wall to get her off me.

Her sharp nails dig into my skin, deep enough to draw blood. Essence slithers over the back of my neck, over those wounds. Malignant, cloying essence that …

Is she trying to push me? Compel me?

“What the fuck!?”

The cu-sith suddenly presses forward, sloughing off whatever the fuck this cunt is trying to do to me. That’s the second or third time she’s tried that trick.

“You’ve been fucking manipulating me?” I snarl, grabbing her by the neck and slamming her head against the wall.

Zaya moans dramatically. Then she deliberately sucks the blood — my blood — from her sharply pointed fingernails. She writhes against me with my deadened dick still clasped in her hand, as if in the throes of passion.

Lie. Lie. Lie.

“Um … Reck?” A sweet, Southern-tinted voice emanates from farther up the corridor, from the direction of the hotel lobby. “What are you doing?”

Heart suddenly pounding, I jerk my head toward the newcomer, having already recognized the voice but completely thrown by the context.

Precious stands at the end of the hall. “Who is that? Reck?”

My little sister is not alone.

Zaya fucking Gage stands next to Presh. I know she’s Zaya because she slowly lowers her sunglasses, and her eyes are blazing purple nebulas. The same as they were in the room at the motel.

And I can feel her … I can feel that desperate draw to her. That terrible connection that I hoped was truly gone.

I can feel the cu-sith trying to tear through my skin to get to its mate.

Just like in the motel room, the real Zaya completely ignores me.

She cocks her head, leveling her gaze on the impostor. The impostor with my shriveled dick in her hand and with my hand wrapped around her neck, choking her. Lightly, but still.

Zaya Gage ignores me as if I’m completely unworthy of any acknowledgment.

And I am.

I am unworthy.

I always have been.

Precious’s eyes narrow with accusation. Her chin quivers as she clearly catalogs the many levels of my current betrayal. The depths of my depravity.

The malignant creature pinned by my hand to the wall cackles, incredibly pleased. Her gaze is riveted down the hall, as if I also suddenly don’t matter in the least, even with her neck in my bruising grip.

“Hello, little awry,” she croaks, grinning madly. The smile is too wide, cheeks stretched. “Or should I say … hello, sister. Nice to finally meet you in person. I’ve been waiting for you, so patiently, all day.”

She means Presh.

She’s claiming a blood relation with Precious?

I’m nothing … I’m just … bait?

I wrench my hand and my dick away from her. Then, stumbling a couple of feet, I spew blackened vomit all over the wall and floor.