I’m jolted out of my thoughts by Shelley’s question, and my eyes fly to Xav’s as he cocks his brow at me. So, he hasn’t told her anything, which is good, because I really can’t be fucked with playing charades over the table to figure out what the fuck he’s told her.
I take another sip before turning and saying, “What, sorry?” giving me a few seconds to think while she reels off the question again. I flick a look at Xav that tells him he’s skating remarkably close to ending up with his balls in a fucking jar before I turn my gaze to Shelley’s. “I’m on a gap year. Uni was just so boring.”
“What are you studying?”
Fuck’s sake, nosy bitch. “I’m rethinking my options at the minute.” I give her a tight-lipped smile and take another drink. I fucking hate feeling this uncomfortable. I stand. “I need the loo.”
Xav points behind him, and I nod before slipping out of the seat and watching Shelley drop back in and lean over the table to talk to Xav, probably telling him what a weird kid I am. I internally shrug and head towards the bathroom. It's down this really long, winding corridor that takes me upstairs and to the back of the building. Just as I’m about to walk into the ladies’ toilets, a drunk guy ploughs into me, rushing or stumbling out of the men’s toilet.
“Fucking watch it, arsehole!”
He grabs my wrist and drags me towards him. I glance over his shoulder and see there’s no one around. He pulls me against his sweaty body and leans against me, pushing his fucking rancid pork sword against my leg with his breath that smells like puke and three-day-old alcohol, with a tinge of fag smoke. Don’t even get me started on the B-fucking-O. I lose my shit.
I punch him in the throat till he’s gasping for air. I kick the men’s toilet door open and punch him in the chest, knocking him back inside before I kick him in the stomach. He doubles over. I punch him with anuppercut, sending him sprawling back into the cubicle. As his head bounces off the back of the toilet, he slumps unconscious to the floor. I click the lock closed and climb over the top.
“Dumb fucker,” I mumble as I walk out of the bathroom, leaving him to question his life choices when he wakes up and thinks he’s slipped while he’s off his head. “Dickhead!” I push out of the door and slip into the ladies.
I’m just coming out as Shelley greets me at the door. “Hey, you okay? You’ve been gone a while, and you look a little flushed.”
“Not feeling great. I’m gonna head home.” I smile as I walk past her. “It was nice to meet you, Shelley.”
She smiles, but I’m already heading back down the corridor. I don’t stop as I walk through the bar. I just nod in the direction of the door as I see Xav’s eyes searching for me. He goes to stand, but I shake my head, turn, and leave. I fucking hate bars. I fucking hate people, but most of all, I’m hungry. I should eat. There’s a pizza place nearby that could work. It’s not the fuel my body is used to, but it will save me cooking when I get back. I also need to see Jacob. I pause a second while I contemplate food or Jacob, and I turn and make my way towards the pizza place. I’m much better off going to Jacob’s later. There’s more chance of him being asleep.
A pepperoni pizza, wings, and a garlic bread pizza later, I’m stuffed and really want to crawl into bed. I feelfull and sluggish. I’m normally good with what I eat, but I had that for convenience, and I think I… liked it. It’s not something I’ve considered before, actually liking food. It’s fuel. I put in what I need, but I think I might like pizza. Although, I now just want to crawl into bed. The trouble is, I want to crawl into bed with my man and not my bed with Xav. I never thought I’d think that. Xav’s always been my comfort blanket when I was cold and scared as a child. He always sneaked in and wrapped his strong arms around me, holding me to him till we fell asleep. It’s the only way we sleep and always has been. Even now, with Shelley, he always comes home, and he never stays over, but maybe, just maybe, this would be good for us both.
I have everything I need tonight as I slip into Jacob’s house. The keys are in the bowl on the table, and I take an imprint of them all. It will just save time if I don’t have to pick the lock every time I come to visit. His wallet is on the side table beside the bowl, so I open it up and finger through it, taking pictures of all his cards and driving licence. I tiptoe lightly upstairs and push into his room. The door creaks slightly, and I slip into the shadow of the corner of the room.
He turns and gazes at the door, his eyes still heavy with sleep and unfocused. He lays back and turns onto his side, curling in on himself, his long, lean body sliding over the covers as his leg snakes out and slides up and down the covers in front of him till he finds a comfortable position.
I step out from the shadows and remove his phone from the charger on the bedside table. Now, with his back to me, I lift his phone and remove his SIM card,sliding the new one in. I download the programme from it onto his phone before placing his SIM card back in. I click on the icon on my phone, and it’s an exact copy of Jacob’s. Emails, messages, calls, everything a girl could need to keep her man… safe.
I lean over him slightly, taking in the way his long, dark blonde lashes flutter under the slight breeze of my breath, and I exhale across his cheek. He’s so goddamn beautiful, it makes my chest ache. I lean down and kiss his cheek.
“You’ll be mine soon enough.”
I stroke my hand across his face, and his eyelashes flutter at the contact before I turn and leave the room. Leaving my heart behind me… for now.
Xav
Chapter XII
Vic made a quick exit from the pub, and when Shelley came back, she said she wasn’t feeling well and left. I’m hoping it’s just because she’s antisocial at the best of times, so we head back to Shelley’s.
She’s older than me. I’m not sure by how much, but then again, I don’t actually know how old I am. I know I’m older than Vic. She was a baby when she came to The Collective. I can’t have been very old, but I can remember. I know there were others that came and went. I didn’t understand what was happening back then, but as we got older, we were kept in what can only be described as a bunker from hell. We were taught self-defence, languages, computer studies, murder, torture and seduction. We were separated into specialities. Mine is computers, seduction and languages. Vic’s was seduction, torture, and murder, as well as tactics andmanipulation. We both have the same basic skills, but the rest is over-compensated.
I remember one of the younger ones being killed when he wasn’t fast enough to outmanoeuvre our trainer, and the sword pierced his neck. he bled out on the floor. We were just pushed towards the other side of the room and continued our training. I was Father’s favourite, and that gave me special privileges. Vic wasn’t so fortunate, but only Vic and I were left at the end of training. There were more after Vic till the experimentation was expunged. The government programme was shelved due to lack of conclusive results, so Father being Father, he branched out and used us to forge alliances and create vacuums, leaving room for him and his cronies to slide in and fill them, essentially making them all very rich men.
Shelley, she’s a good-looking woman for her age, but she’s a mark. She’s an in. A detective with loose lips and a high sex drive. I… fulfil her needs. I blow her mind, and she lets slip anything I may need to make sure Vic and I stay safe. She’s not a sanctioned mark, but she’s an intelligent one to have, and we need all the help we can get. We’ve been at this game our whole lives, and we intend to win.
Shelley’s slightly tipsy as she pushes into her house. She has a few kinks—fuck, she has a fuck ton of kinks—that I help her out with. They’re not the kinks I’m into myself, but I’m trained in so many that I don’t actually know what I like or what I’m programmed to like.
The Collective would like us to be well-rounded when it comes to the amount of debauchery we can expertly facilitate. Shelley flops back onto the bed andflicks her shoes off as I kneel at the bottom. She’s wearing tights which are fucking grim as fuck, but she has a thing for them, the way they feel against her skin, the way it feels when I rub my hands over them, but mostly the way it feels when I rip them off her, so I make a show of caressing her feet, ankles and thighs before ripping them off from the toes to her hips and she groans as she unbuttons her blouse. She’s leaning up and watching us in the large mirror behind us. She never watches me, always the mirror. I pull her foot towards me and lick from heel to toe. I need to make her putty in my hands, and this is a surefire way of doing it. I weave my tongue around her toes, sucking each one into my mouth before popping it out and moving on to the next.
She groans as my mouth pops off each one. I nip and lick up her leg till I reach the shredded tights, taking hold of the gusset and ripping them clean off. She shudders and bites down on her lip, where her eyes never stray from the mirror. I bite down on her thigh either side before biting hard on her pulsing, throbbing pussy, sucking through the fabric of her pants as she writhes and thrusts against me. I rip her pants off, flip her over, and drag her hips up. She flicks her gaze to the mirrored wardrobe doors that line the side wall as I push her face down into the bed, leaving her bare to me. I pull her cheeks apart and lick all the way up and push into her tight arsehole as she’s starting to pant.
I spear my tongue in and out, look over to the mirror, and wink at her, and her skin pebbles as she groans, pushing back into my face. I pull back and harshly flick her clit with the back of my nail, causing pain to shoot through it, resulting in her screaming outbefore I dive my face back in, spreading her cheeks roughly with my hands before spearing her with my tongue again. I take my middle finger and wipe it gently around her quivering hole, so close but not close enough for her as she tries to chase my hand. I pull back and flick her clit repeatedly as she screams out into the empty room, never taking her eyes off the mirror. I turn and meet her gaze.
I hold out my middle finger, barely touching her quivering hole, and she just nods.
