His eyes glower, his lips curling slightly as he leans in just enough to make his presence suffocating. “Well, for the sake of your pretty little neck, Angel, I hope you’re right.”
“I’m not your Angel,” I snap.
His smirk turns cold. “Oh, I fucking know.” His voice drops to a quiet, cutting rasp. “You already proved that to me.”
Chapter Nine
DAMIAN
Bridger slides into the seat beside me, his movements tense, deliberate. He leans in close, voice low, barely above a whisper. “It was Cody.”
I don’t breathe. I don’t blink.
The hum of the plane presses into my skull, a relentless vibration I can’t escape. My body tightens, bracing for whatever comes next.
A thin line of sweat beads on his forehead. “Mom left.”
A slow, burning heat crawls up my spine. The words don’t make sense. Not in the way they should. Not in the way that means she just went somewhere and will be back soon. No. This is different. This is worse. My gut clenches, breath locked in my lungs. “Where do you think she is?”
Bridger shakes his head. “Where could she possibly go?”
I know the answer. I know all the worst places. I see them, flickering in my head like a reel of nightmares, but if I say them out loud, if I give them life, they become real. I drop my gaze from his, swallowing the dread pressing up my throat. If he thinks I’m more worried than he is, this whole thing unravels. We can’t afford that.
I flex my hands into fists, try to ground myself in the present, but everything is slipping sideways, spiraling out of my control. I should be there. I should be home, handling this, knowing what the fuck is going on. But I’m not. I’m on a plane withher.
Lucky. Marlowe. Lo. Whatever the hell her fucking name is. She sits across the aisle, arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to disappear. She should. She should shrink down to nothing, vanish into the fucking air. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have to sit here, breathing the same space as her, hating her, wanting her, not knowing what the hell to do with either.
She’s completely oblivious to the turmoil raging through my veins, but she’s the reason I’m on this plane. She’s the reason all this is happening.Her and her thief of a father.But every time I blink, I see her standing in front of me naked. Her wide, striking eyes, her lips swollen from my mouth, her skin still marked by my hands. The one who said she liked dark stories.And then she was gone.
Just fucking gone.
And now I get why.
She’s got Vick’s blood in her veins. It’s like a goddamn joke. Like fate sat back with a smirk and said,here, Damian, take this and choke on it.I inhale sharply, trying to drown the rage under something else, anything else. But the moment I glance up, my gaze locks onto Lo’s.
She stares at me with an intensity that burns straight through my skin. Somehow, she’s got a snack in her hands, and the way she tears open the wrapper with her teeth is both mesmerizing and infuriating. It’s the same way she tore open that condom last night before riding me. I swallow hard.
“Sounds like you’ve got way more than a bakery robbery going on,” she taunts.
My muscles coil tight. “What are we, girlfriends now? Don’t talk to me.”
But I can’t look away.
She pulls a Fruit Roll-Up from the wrapper and slowly wraps it around her finger. Then she lifts it to her mouth and sucks the tip, her lips closing around the candy with obscene patience.
Is she doing that on purpose?
Is she trying to remind me about last night? About the way she moaned into my mouth, the way she begged, the way she let me ruin her? She sucked my cock like a fucking pro. Held my cum on her tongue like it was gold.
Heat licks up my spine, spreading through my veins like wildfire. My mind races, jumping straight to all the things Iknowshe can do with that mouth.
From the faint blush creeping up her neck, she remembers, too.
She leans back against the seat cushion, nibbling at the fruit rollup, her eyes hooded, teasing.
I can almost see smoke rising off my body as I ignite in flames. I imagine her lips pressed against mine again, her tongue exploring every inch of me, her teeth leaving marks that won’t fade for days. The thought of hate-fucking her consumes me. How depraved and filthy would it be? How far would she let me go?
I bet I could do a lot of things to her. I bet she’d let me.
