A small smile tweaks the corner of his mouth and I’m not the only one who notices. Doc throws down his pen. “Wipe that fucking smirk off your face or I’ll kill you.”
Archie’s expression goes blank. “Yes, sir.”
Doc shoves a hand through his hair. “If you’re looking to us for protection from Parker, you’re stupider than your fucked-up face implies.”
“You don’t owe us anything,” Archie says. “Bill and I can take care of ourselves. But we did bring your boss’s girlfriend back in one piece.”
Doc’s blond brows shoot up. “My boss?”
“Elliot Morelli.”
“He’s not my boss,” Doc says through a tight jaw. “He’s my partner. And he doesn’t like rats any more than I do.”
Archie holds up his hands. “I ain’t a rat. A chance is all Bill and I are asking for. A chance in exchange for your girl being as pretty and pure as she was before Parker got ahold of her.”
Doc’s gaze finds mine. “Is this true, Tits? Did this ass-clown protect you?”
I think of the kiss with Emilia. How much worse it could have been if Bill hadn’t signaled at me to throw up when he did. I pray that he’s still alive. That Mr. Parker hasn’t taken his temper out on him. “Bill saved me. He and Archie both did.”
Doc sits back in his chair, his fingertips drumming the leather. Long seconds stretch past and just when I’m sure he’s about to tell Archie he’s dead, Doc pulls open a drawer and tosses a deck of Post-it notes at him. “Give me some way to reach you.”
Archie comes over to the desk to write on the pad, a big grin on his face. “Can’t thank you enough, Mr. Valente. You’re bein’ beyond generous.”
“Yeah, you can stop kissing my ass any time you want.” Doc points at the door. “Get the fuck out of here and if you talk to a single woman on your way out I’ll break your knees.”
Archie drops the pad back on the desk and turns to me. “Bye—”
“Keep looking at January if you wanna die.”
“Yes, sir.” Archie addresses the floor. “See you ’round Kitten.”
Doc hisses at him. As soon as the door shuts, he pushes back his chair. “Sly motherfucker.”
I recoil and Bobby smooths his warm hands over my shoulders. “Don’t be nervous, baby. We’re not mad at you.”
“Speak for your fucking self.” Doc strides toward me, grabbing my chin. His skin is boiling hot. “You okay?”
“I… I guess?”
He lifts my chin, urging me onto my feet. “He hurt you?”
I know he means Parker. “A little. Not really.”
Doc’s eyes narrow. “If he had, you would have deserved it, you reckless, manipulative, two-faced bitch.”
The insult winds me, as all of Doc’s insults do, but before I can defend myself, he jams his mouth onto mine. You couldn’t call it a kiss. It’s a clash of lips, a claim and a punishment. The kind of touch that Velvet House taught me leads to corruption.
My corruption.
Doc’s fingers are bruisingly tight and I can smell Archie’s blood on his face and his raw knuckles. His free hand grasps my right breast and I whine. Doc is disgusting and cruel, but I can’t deny the warmth that floods from his skin and from mine. The last time he kissed me like this was on my wedding day. But that was to show Mr. Parker I’d been stolen. That he no longer had any claim on me. What point is Doc trying to prove now? That he owns me? That even if he hates me, he will have my obedience?
His tongue thrusts into my mouth and the softness of it makes me moan.
You’re repulsive, I think,Repulsive and gross and mean.
But as his tongue flicks expertly against mine, my exhausted body lights up. Suddenly everything between my legs feels like soft ice cream. Bobby’s hand slides to the small of my back and I’m surrounded by both of them. Warm male bodies, so foreign and yet achingly familiar.
“January,” Bobby mutters in my ear. “You’re so beautiful.”
