“Truculent,” she bit out, her scowl darkening. “It means you’re quick to argue, aggressive for no good reason, and a pain in my fucking ass.”
“Again: kinky.”
She rolled her eyes so hard, I pictured them rolling in pleasure, pictured her chest heaving, her body trembling as it overcame her.
Jesus fuck, I was messed up. I blamed it on the way she looked at me the other night. And that fucking vest she wore.
“Start the damn game, Cobra,” she muttered, reaching forward to grab my spare controller and eyeing my screens. “What is this shit anyway? Stalking someone like the creep you are?”
“Like theprofessionalcreep I am,” I corrected, minimising programs and browsers and booting up the Switch. “I get paid for this.”
She made an inquisitive sound.
“Some of it’s for the Knights, scouring for listings placed advertising omegas, trawling threads and forums for pieces of shit bragging about hurting people. You’d be surprised how many idiots leave a trail of evidence through their own stupidity. The rest of the shit I do is freelance work.”
“Freelance work,” she repeated dubiously.
I glanced at her sideways. “Are you doubting my ability, asshole?”
“Yes. Completely. I never expected the wordsfreelance workto leave your vile mouth. OrBlossomwhile we’re at it.”
Of course she heard that. I leaned across the gap between our chairs and smirked, letting the smile bloom slowly, a threat that unsettled even some of my brothers in the Knights. “Then stop looking at my mouth,” I said in a whisper-soft voice.
“Stop putting it close to me,” she countered, pushing me away with her palm flat on my head, making me snort. “Next time you get that close, I’m stabbing something.”
“Jokes on you, I’m into that.”
“Of course you are,” she sighed. “Start the fucking game, nightmare.”
My grin grew. “I like that name a lot more than succulent.”
“I did not—” She pinched the bridge of her nose. Honestly, it was so impressive to see her do that when her hands were bandaged and splinted when she first got there, that I started the game without another taunt.
We were four races in—I’d won two and I was so fucking smug about the draw—when she flicked a glance at me, shifting in the chair, and began, “About that night.”
“Nope,” I immediately countered. I’d been waiting for her to bring it up. I saw that spark in her eye, and I needed to avoid it like the plague, like I needed to avoid the sight of those magnificent fucking tits in her shirt. I wasn’t the sort of man anyone with vulnerabilities should climb into bed with, let alonewhat Lynn had been through. I was a bastard and a prick, but I had limits. Lines I wouldn’t cross. “I don’t fuck rescues,” I insisted.
On screen, she hit me with a red shell, and I swore as she shot ahead of me. “Name one time when I expressed even a modicum of interest in jumping on your diseased dick.”
The word modicum unfortunately contained the word cum, so my dick swelled. God fucking dammit. “We’re not talking about this.”
“Come on,” she sighed like I was being ridiculous. “I’m just interested. We’re friend-adjacent, aren’t we?”
The wording made me snort. “Yeah, we’re friend-adjacent.” She was a pain in the ass and I’d yet to get rid of her, so yeah, we were something like friends. “But this isn’t something I want to talk about with a rape victim. It’ll just send you right back to that place in your head.”
Lynn flinched. Hard.
I sighed, my shoulders drooping. “Lynn.”
“Prefer you calling me asshole,” she spat. I knew that reaction, the instinct to bare your teeth and threaten, to cover up all the demons in your head.
“Lynn,” I said again, trying to catch her eye. “If you never say it out loud, it will kill you. Trust me.”
Her stare slid to mine, defensive, fury on the surface but fear underneath.
“It’ll chip bits off of you, day by day, until the only thing left is a feral animal.” I held eye contact, let her threaten me with her glare. “If you don’t face it, even just to give those memories the middle finger, you’ll lose the parts of you that survived that shitshow.”
“I didn’t ask for advice,” she muttered, flinching at the roar of noise from the finished game. I didn’t look to see who’d won. It didn’t matter.
