It takes me all of two seconds to realise I’m on a mission to hunt down my cowboy as I venture further down the dark hallway, back towards the party.
CHAPTER TWELVE
COOPER
Isee her searching for me as I hide in the shadows at the edge of the dance floor. Kaitlin Bravencourt was a pawn in my game, and it couldn’t have worked better than it had. My Dove thought I didn’t know she was behind me listening at the bathroom door, but I could see the cloud of arousal descend across her beautiful face in the mirror on the hallway wall when I told her nemesis what I liked to do to a woman. I may not have said it directly to Ebony, but it was for her. She is the only woman I want beneath me, and soon enough I’ll show her how true a statement that is.
‘This is a watch-only mission. No fuck-ups.’
Caleb’s words ring out in my head, but they don’t linger long enough for me to regret my decision to follow her as she makes her way across the room. She’s had a few drinks and probably wonders why that pill her roommate gave her isn’t taking affect. Caleb and I had switched out whatever pills Megan had stashed away in her underweardrawer on our first recon mission into her apartment when we’d installed our cameras. The buzz of our homemade drug will at best give her some extra vitamin C to stave off a hangover. I stall, stoic and unmovable amongst the throngs of partygoers, when a rowdy guy from her drama class seizes her roughly up into his arms by her waist. She wriggles to get free and plants her feet back onto the ground, almost falling over as she stands, that deer-in-headlights fear flitting across her face for the briefest of moments. His hand on her waist has me seeing red. She smiles kindly and holds out her hands to keep him at bay as she makes her excuses. Severing his touch as she bats his hand away, he paws at her hair drunkenly, his hips swaying to try and coax her into a dance, but she doesn’t give in. Shaking her head, that smile growing uneasy on her tight expression as she looks around at the people pushing her back towards him. By the time I have stalked my way through the crowd, she is on the other side of the room.
“Don’t touch what isn’t yours,” I whisper-growl into the drunk guy’s ear before I grab hold of the fingers he had on her waist and twist until I feel them snap. I relish the fold of his weakening body as the pain likely radiates up his arm. I’ve been tortured enough that at the right angle, this fucker won’t be able to hold his own dick to pee for at least a month. The thumping music drowns out his garbled scream, and I’m gone before he can twist to see who I am, his intoxication working in my favour as he holds his shaking mangled fingers to his chest.
No longer caring about that douche and his roaming hands, I turn to find her.
I watch as she slumps tiredly against the far wall, I want to hope the frustration pinching her eyebrows together is because I’m eluding her. She accepts a red cup from her roommate as she passes with her boyfriend in tow. I’ll berate her for not knowing what’s in the drinks she’s offered later when I have her tied up and at my mercy. She seems to have zero care for her well-being, and that has to change. I have no problem shadowing her and breaking fingers or necks where I need to, but when the bodies start piling up, someone’s sure to notice.
Why is it so easy for me to lose all sense of cognitive thinking around this woman?
Time to coax my Dove into her cage.
I saunter past her, slowing my steps so my scent permeates the air under her nose. Our Ebs relied so heavily on her senses back when we were kids—her vision impaired from a brutal right hook from her foster father, or her mouth tinny with blood from a particularly bad showdown with the Police Chief’s son when she denied his advances. She often commented how much she loved that Caleb and I were her feeling of home, and it’s exactly why we haven’t changed our signature aftershaves since we were fifteen. Caleb would never admit it, but the drawer full he bought in bulk when we arrived home was for her benefit.
I don’t need to look back to know she’s following me; the reconnection of our souls has been strengthening since the day I first saw her standing out front of Hells Haven University—that uneasy hesitancy marring her face as she glanced around at all the unfamiliar faces. I was sent to beher shadow, to watch over our Dove, and that’s exactly what I did.
Until now.
Now just watching isn’t enough.
I need to feel her under my fingers. I need to note all the ways our Dove has changed in the past six years.
I let myself into the walk-in closet that is barely big enough to swing a cat. Pulling out my phone, I imagine her pacing outside the door—deciding whether it’s a good idea to join me. I’ll give her a minute maximum, and then I’m dragging her in here myself. That bloom of heat that coloured her cheeks as I reeled off what I would like to do to a woman, what I’d love to do to her, it was hard to miss. Reaching up, I loosen the bulb hanging from the ceiling to mask my face—the red strip lighting lining the covering above my head just enough light for me to make out what’s right in front of me. I have just enough to reel off a text before the door opens behind me. I straighten and pocket my phone for now, fingers twitching, desperate to reach out and run them through her hair. The pull to manhandle her, to mark her as mine, is almost too much to bear when she’s this close.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” I whisper gruffly with a wicked smile curving my lips, glancing over my shoulder at her as she whimpers in response.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
COOPER
Pulling the door closed, she lunges for me, and I melt as her body crowds mine, her fingers tangling in the hair at my nape as she hungrily devours my mouth with hers.
Fuck, it feels too good.
Tongues warring, all the blood rushes to my dick. A squeak of surprise bubbles up out of her throat as I pull her against me, letting her know what she does to me. My fingers dig into her full hips, the need to leave my mark on her when this is all over is clawing at me relentlessly as I apply more pressure, and she groans into my mouth with rapid panting breaths. I pull back, the red light above painting her features with a soft glow as her eyelids grow heavy.
“More. Please,” she says breathlessly, and who am I to deny her? I ravage her like she is the elixir of eternal life and press her up against the wall roughly, pinning her there with my thigh wedged between her legs as she rides it, hernails raking over my neck and splitting the skin as she works herself up into a frenzy.
I needed this. I needed her.
“Cal. Coop.” Her voice is so low it’s barely audible. I wonder if my mind has concocted the little war cry of mine and my brother’s names as she plummets closer into the depths of her oblivion. The threat that this is all an illusion, seeing her writhe uncontrollably in search of the release only I can give her, fills me with fear. I’ve spent so many nights dreaming of her. I’ll wake up any second now. The sigh of relief that tumbles from my lips, when she tugs my hair at the nape of my neck so sharp pain prickles on my scalp, lets me know I’m very much awake and here, a mess of tangled limbs with her.
An idea strikes me.
I had every plan to draw this out. To tease her. To torture her. But it’s impossible to ignore how right this feels. Caleb needs to see how beautifully our Dove cries out for us.
Chances are he may kill me, but if anything is going to get through to him and prove that she’s ours—it’s this. I spin her around, her back pressed up against my chest, her cheek against the wood panelling of the door. Kicking out her ankles with my booted feet, she widens her stance like a good girl without protest. She’s considerably shorter than I am at 5’4, so I dip forward as I slide my phone from my pocket. Pushing her hair over one shoulder, my warm whiskey-soaked breath skates over her throat bared to me. I can’t help but preen as she shudders, her palms fisting and then relaxing against the wood either side of her headas she obediently waits without restraint for what I’m going to do next.
“You taste like strawberries and sin, my d…arlin,” I say between nipping kisses to the column of her throat. I cut myself off before I call her my Dove and ruin this entire thing. She can’t know it’s us just yet; I wouldn’t want to go against Caleb’s ordersandfuck up our entire plan all in one evening. “On your knees,” I order flatly, and she turns to face me, head dipped to the ground as she lowers at my feet silently.
