“This isn’t funny!” Cato shouts, the words cracking with panic as the pen inches closer to his face. “What the fuck, Bash? Tell him the truth already!”
“The truth?” Xeni demands, attention whipping back to me. The air crackles as Cato continues to struggle, his veins bulging in his neck, but Xeni doesn’t look away from me.
“This isn’t… stop that!” I beg, my wide eyes darting between Xeni, Cato, and the pen creeping inexorably closer.
“But he’s keeping you from me,” Xeni whines, the sound petulant and chilling all at once, “and I want to know what he’s talking about.”
I set my jaw and force my eyes to stay on his. “No one is keeping me from you besidesyou. Cato and I aren’t together, so leave him out of this.”
Xeni’s eye goes round as Cato’s hand relaxes and the pen clatters to the floor. “You lied to me?”
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” I challenge.
His cheeks flush a deep crimson, anger and hurt warring across his features as he cups my face, thumbs brushing my skin in a surprising tenderness.
“Oh, darling, I never lied to you,” he whispers.
He dips his head as if to kiss me, close enough that his rum-scented breath mingles with mine, and I hate that I don’t stop him.
I hate how part of me still craves it even as the rest of me screams to pull away.
“Dom—” Cato starts, his voice cutting through the haze, but Xeni turns like a feral thing, teeth bared in a snarl stripped of all inhibition.
“Just go,” I say as I steer Xeni’s face back to mine with careful hands. “I’ve got him.”
Cato hesitates, but Xeni has always been impulsive, and when he’s drunk, he’s pure emotion. I can’t risk him hurting Cato.
“We’re good,” I insist.
“Alright,” Cato says at last, giving me one lingering, concerned look before closing the door behind him.
“You’re drunk and half-naked,” I say to Xeni, my voice softening now that we’re alone.
“I am,” he agrees with a brilliant, drunken smile that lights up his face like he’s proud of it.
“What did you do to Talia?”
He chuckles, low and self-satisfied. It rumbles against my chest as he pulls my face closer with surprising strength forsomeone so unsteady. Before I can react, his mouth crashes against mine.
He kisses me with hungry, breath-stealing desperation that tastes of rum and something uniquely him. For a heartbeat, I melt into the perfect way he fits against me, the familiar heat flooding back like muscle memory.
But sense slams back into me, and I nudge him away with a palm flat on his chest, feeling his heart racing beneath my fingers. His bottom lip pokes out in an exaggerated pout as the space opens between us.
“That’s enough,” I scold gently, though my voice wavers more than I’d like. “What did you do to her?”
“It was just a little… suggestion.”
“Suggestion?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he hums. “Isuggestedshe let me out, and she seemed excited. Then Isuggestedwe find the liquor, and afterthat, we decided to steal your shirt so I could smell like you.”
“And you lost your pants somewhere along the way?”
“Yesss,” he hisses with a grin before he backs up and lifts his arms in another wobbly twirl. The shirt rides higher, exposing those damn panties and the long, lean lines of his thighs.
Miles of pale skin are on display, and the alcohol steals some of his usual grace, but his movements are still fluid. I can’t help it as my eyes shift to the perfect dips on the sides of his ass and the swell between his legs.
“Xenesis,” I say quietly.
