I stay silent.
“Serial Murderers and Their Victims.”
My skin grows clammy, and I can feel the blood drain from my face. “Outside the door?” I check, my voice hoarse.
Lincoln nods, so slow.
“That’s not from Blackwell’s,” I say honestly. “It’s mine.”
FIFTY-THREE
NEVE
“What are you getting?”
“The salad.” I close the leatherbound menu and stare off into the cavern of the dining room’s private table. We are sheltered from the noise of the steakhouse, and our waiter is prompt—three lemon drop shots each, after I convinced the boys to try them.
The image of the torn text is stuck in my head, and I don’t even know what it looked like in actuality. Lincoln refused to show me.
“Is that what you really want?” Faust’s low words.
I flick my eyes to his and tilt my head. He’s on my right, Sylvan on my left in the circular booth. We are certainly not making use of all this space the table and room affords.
“Excuse me?”
Faust opens up the menu in front of me, his thigh nudging mine under the table. In a black sweater that hugs every one of themanyfucking muscles he has, he looks delicious. And the leather mini skirt and fishnet tights I’m wearing are not enough clothes to feel as if I’m not on fire.
“Out of everything, is it what you want?” he asks quietly, nodding toward the menu, but his dark eyes come to mine.
I cross my arms over my chest and Sylvan’s hand grabs the back of my neck, possessive.
“You know,” Sylvan says, his lips against my ear. “If you want to have us both tonight, you’re going to need your energy.”
My lips part and Faust watches me with a soft smirk on his full lips.
“Who said I wanted either one of you?”
Sylvan squeezes my neck. “I thought we were past these games.”
My heart knocks against my ribcage. I want the distraction.
I want Cyn and Tylone tonight at Castle Darling, and Karter and Edmond, too. Turns out, they know each other, and when Cyn asked if Karter could stay with us because she was feeling freaked out with her roommate away, she wanted Edmond to come along, too.
Faust only seems to want what I want, even if that means making his castle an inn.
“I do want you,” I confess, and I’m replying to Sylvan, but I’m staring at Faust. “But if I eat too much, I’ll feel too full, then I won’t want either of you because I’ll be bloated and feel gross.”
Faust gently traces his fingers over my cheekbone, but his gaze is ice.
It feels as if all three of us are holding our breath as my cheeks heat and my heart pounds fast inside my chest. I could tell him to fuck off, back up, and he would. But with the textbook, my brother missing, my best friend coming to the castle—seeingmewith both boys tonight while we hunker down to avoid a murderer—I need someone else to be in control right now.
With my confession, the thing I always think about—calories and safe foods and bad foods, the math I constantly run in my head—I feel vulnerable.
“Pardon me?” Faust asks coldly.
Sylvan bites at my ear, and I sit up straighter, pressing my knees together.
But I’m not afraid of them. “You heard me,” I say, not looking away from Faust. “I know you’ll say it isn’t true, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling it.”
