He shakes his head. “She doesn’t want to be here, Fiz, she’ll never want to be here. Sure, I can keep her here, it’ll be easy, but what life is that? What’s the point? To have someone by your side every day you know full well doesn’t want to be there? That shit’ll wear you down eventually.”
He’s feeling rejected. He’s feeling unwanted. He’sfeeling.
Holy shit. My emotionally unavailable best friend is catching feelings.
I shake it off. “Once you win the bet, you’ll wear her down. You got that irresistible charm when you want to, Cade, you haven’t exactly shown her that yet.”
Caden sighs. “Because she’s a fucking brat.”
I chuckle. “While that may be true, she’s got spunk. She’s got intelligence, she’s got beauty, she’s gotpotential.Why don’t you step out of that little egotistical superior box and try to get to knowher?”
“Because there is order in this world. There’s a hierarchy and there’s respect. She ranks low, and as for respect…” He shakes his head. “Girl doesn’t know the meaning of the word. She’s so not what I want. What I need.”
“Oh, Cadie.” I reach over and slap him on the shoulder. “I think she’s exactly what you need.” He glances over at me again and I see the bewilderment in his eyes. Bless him. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” I wink at him, and he rolls his eyes. “For now, just focus on winning the bet and tying her to your life forever.Let her in, Cade. Trust me. It’ll pay off.”
He grunts, and I let his shoulder go. The guy has the emotional intelligence of a slug and it’s adorable. He’s feeling all the feels and he’s scared. Murdering some people today is exactly what he needs. He can exorcise some of the pent-up frustration in a healthy way.
We pull up to the location a while later and we load up, both of us conjuring our no-nonsense-all-business demeanour that always gets my dick hard.
Caden leads the way to the house, and once we’re inside, my stomach falls. Shit. Well… the more the merrier, right?What could go wrong?
CHAPTER 29
ELODIE
Ihate this new tension with Alfie. It’s so foreign and strangling I can no longer breathe properly around him.
I’ve never been with a man where it hasn’t been forced. I’ve never experienced genuine pleasure. Never got the chance to explore what I like. And the more Alfie touches me during our workouts, the more he catches my eye from across the room, the more I crave him. I long to discover what he looks like when he loses himself in a woman. In me.
Someone like him should know he can do so much better than me, and he clearly does, not that it makes it hurt any less.
I’ve had enough rejection. I’ve finally taken the hint. Whether Alfie likes me back or not, he’s made it crystal clear he’ll never act on it. My fractured little heart can’t take any more. I’m hanging by a thread as it is.
There are only a few days left until The Hunt now. I’ve followed Alfie’s advice; I’ve eaten as much as possible, lifted as heavy weights as I can, but I know time’s not been on my side. There’s not much improvement I can make in two weeks. But I have more of something than Caden does. I have smarts. I don’t exactly know what goes down during this weird ritual,but I know it’s something I can outsmart Caden with. He’s a man, after all, a man who’s going to be juiced up on pure primal hormones. All he’ll be seeing is prey to hunt, fuelled by a caveman instinct to track and kill. I have intelligence, strategic thinking. I can outplay him.
I can easily tell how close we’re getting to the full forty days. Fiz’s comments about my body and pussy are getting filthier by the day, and Caden’s glances at me are getting longer and more menacing.
Alfie’s downing coffees and RedBulls like water, and his jitters are the worst I’ve ever seen. Any rattle in the kitchen causes his shoulders to rise to his ears. He was working on his Lego tower last night and abruptly yanked the socks off his feet. When he caught me staring, he just mumbled, “They felt weird.”
He’s so like my brother it’s almost uncanny. As awkward as it is between us, being around him still feels familiar. It brings me to a homely place in my memories where I still had Lewis. Before he was torn from my soul and I was thrown into the zoo with these animals.
For the first time since I moved in here, the zoo’s empty. Alfie’s not taken his eyes off me unless it’s been to let me sleep, but he left me alone ten minutes ago. Caden and Fiz have been out on a job all afternoon and Alfie got called away for an emergency from Russell. It’s why I’ve got a quiet moment to filter through these confusing feelings about him. It makes me vulnerable, liking him this way, but he doesn’t have to know how deep that actually runs.
He told me he trusts me as he was leaving, but he’s leaving Bruiser here as an incentive to behave. As if he’d been trained to keep human prisoners. Looking at him now, I believe it.
It’s more than enough. Alfie leaves me in the kitchen, having a stare-off with the brute. Bruiser watched Alfie leave, now it’s just us two. Yes, I’ve been staring at him for ten minutes whileI daydream about Alfie. Because I’m paralysed. I’ve got on their good side from all the treats I’ve bribed them with, but I know where their loyalties lie. If I ever reached for the front door, he’d have my fingers severed between his teeth in an instant. I’ve never been alone with any of them before, and I’m feeling the effects of not having Alfie here as a buffer.
Bruiser finally comes up to sniff at me, and I back off until I crash into the counter behind me. What was it Alfie said? Don’t let them know you’re afraid.
I fish around blindly, not daring to take my eyes off the dog for a second, until I feel the jar by the stove. I grab a handful of treats.
“This what you want?” I say, “Will this make you back off?”
His tail starts wagging, long tongue flopping out as he pants. A hint of a smile plays on my lips as I dangle the treats just above him.
He reaches up and gently takes them from my fingers.
I finally let out my breath. He inches closer to me, a softness in his eyes that feels welcoming.
