Page 86 of The Villain's Beast

“Do you think I have Gideon too?” he asked, the question hot against my lips.

“You’d have to ask him.”

“Doyouwant to have him?”

“More than anything,” I admitted, slanting our mouths together and kissing any other questions out of his mind.

“What about Daren?” Bellamy asked, breaking to breathe. “Luca?”

“I’m a greedy man by nature, Bellamy.”

“I think I like that about you.” He smiled against the corner of my mouth and snuggled back into my arms.

“It’s not an admirable quality.”

“Would you sell me?” he asked.

A growl ripped out of somewhere deep and dark inside of me and my arms tightened around his slender frame. “Never.”

“Because you’re greedy.”

“Selfish,” I added for good measure.

“Very,” he agreed.

I held him like that until my knee began to ache from the awkward folded shape I’d twisted myself into. Until I remembered where I was and who was waiting for me downstairs.

“We need to go back to the table,” I told him. “We have to see this through.”

“What happens when it’s over?”

I dropped the back of my head against the wall and sighed, closing my eyes. I wished I had a better answer for him, but everything was unknown.

“Gideon’s father is dead,” I said quietly. “My father is removed from power.”

“But what happens?” he pressed.

“Gideon and I do the one thing no one else before us has ever been able to do.”

“What’s that?”

“We bring the Thorns and Roses together as one.”

Chapter 60

Daren

An awkward silence lapsed over the table after Bellamy and Fletcher left, quickly broken by Vince’s unnerving laugh.

“God,” he said, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Are all five of you fucking?”

“Not directly,” Gideon muttered.

“I’d love to know how you indirectly fuck someone, but you’ll have to tell me about it another time. Until then.” He returned his gun to the holster at the back of his pants. “I assume you’ll give Fletcher whatever he needs to satisfy his father?”

“I will,” Gideon agreed, glancing between Luca and me next. “Then he’ll share what he knows with your father, who will call up the debt. After that, I expect mine to show up so it’s important we maintain appearances for now.”

I knew what that meant. We both did.