“Ha, I do. There’s you.” My shoulders hunch. “Besides, my dick’s not working, you know.”
“Does this have to do with a certain initiation you went to without telling me beforehand?”
My lips part.
So, I totally didnottell Cy about kissing the fuck out of Vaughn’s lips, sucking the blood off them, and not being able to get enough no matter how long I devoured them. Needless to say, he knows nothing about my attempt to extract Vaughn’s soul through his dick or that I was definitely the first guy he let do it.
Itotallydidnotmention that it was the best handjob I’ve ever performed or how many times I’ve dreamt about Vaughn’s lust-filled noises in my ear.
I just said there was an altercation during the initiation, which isn’t a lie if you think about it.
“It doesn’t take a genius to notice the change. You’ve had a fluctuation in libido and have become more prone to violence since then,” Cy says. “Will you tell me what thealtercationwith Vaughn was?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll just bitch and nag.” And for some reason, I don’t want to disclose intimate details, even if it’s to Cy.
Strange alert, by the way. I usually tell him all the fucking details, the small and the big, including rating my orgasms and the hookup from one to ten.
Not sure why I don’t want him oranyoneto find out about what Vaughn and I do in the dark.Didin the dark.
Once.
Here’s to praying it becomes a habit.Amen.
“As I should.” He sighs like an old man who’s three times divorced. “Seriously, he’s bad news, Yulian.”
“I know.” I grin.
“He outwits you.”
“Hey!” I kick him. “Are you calling me stupid?”
“You’re not stupid, but he has more intellectual range than you. Where you go with your gut, he follows logic, and that puts you at a disadvantage when facing him.”
“Then I guess we’ll see who wins. My instinct or his boring brain.”
He stands up, a frown appearing between his brows. “Yulian. This isn’t the time to play around. Your brothers are waiting for one misstep to take your place, and your father might be opposed to it now, but if you humiliate him—and as much as I hate it, you being found with a manwillhumiliate him—he’ll neutralize you, put one of them at the top, and marry off your sister to the highest bidder. And that highest bidder might abuse her.”
Fuck this shit. He’s just repeating Mom’s words now.
A searing pain explodes in my chest at her memory.
Thelastmemory.
Because she asked me to end it, and I didn’t. I let the obsession take over and abandoned her in her last moments.
“I’ll admit that Vaughn is also playing a dangerous game by baiting you,” Cy continues. “But he’ll snap out of it—his kind always does—and then you’ll be the one who’s hurt. Again. You’ll be the one paying the price.Again. When push comes to shove, he’ll throw you under the bus. Just like he left you to rot and die in that cave four years ago.”
I swallow, but it gets stuck somewhere at the back of my throat.
Right.
I started this whole thing so I could mess with Vaughn’s equilibrium. Smash his attitude, ruin his life. I intended to make him lose the love of his life, then give him no other option than to move, so then I could sabotage everything else—his studies, his friend group, anything and everything I could destroy.
Revenge.
