Two cold lumps pressed to my back.
“Fuuu-uck,” I hissed, twitching as she walked up my back, her feet like blocks of ice.
Instead of helping me, Gedeon hoisted his leg over mine, gripping my bicep to lock me in place. “Do his nape too.”
Her toes danced along my shoulder line, and I could swear winter’s rain pattered my skin. Shudders rocked through me, but her giggles were like a soothing balm for the ice burns she was causing.
“Evil birdie,” I mumbled and bit Gedeon’s chin. His end-of-the-day stubble pricked my tongue, like the acidity in a strawberry a day or two away from fully ripening. His grunt of surprise lured my grin out. “And a wicked, wicked kitten.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Do you need a refresher on how I treat foul mouths?”
The said mouth dried out. If the punishment was going to be similar to the one he’d given on the roof back at our compound, then a thousand times, yes.
Gedeon chuckled. “You should see his eyes,” he told Kali. “Like a puppy’s.”
“That’s because you stole the speech from our pretty boy. It’s the only way he can communicate now.” Plastering herself to my back, she threw an arm over my waist and squirmed until her leg found its home over mine. “So this is what it’s like to be the big spoon.” She kissed my neck, the caress so gentle I hummed. “I like it.”
I finally understood why she claimed to be suffocated any time we sandwiched her between us, yet I wouldn’t trade this for anything. Soft yet toned curves at my back, a hard body at my front—heaven. “It’s like I’m the filling of a chocolate bar and you’re my waffles.”
Gedeon groaned, and I barely contained myself from swallowing the sound.
Kali mindlessly stroked the scars scattered across my abdomen. “What’s a chocolate bar?”
I caught her wrist. “You’veneverhad a chocolate bar?”
“No.” Her murmur was as faint as the glow of streetlights pouring out of the two kitchen windows.
I was going to lay waste to Ilasall. Raze it so thoroughly nobody would be able to recognize the foundation afterward. Weed out the ruins like the malevolence they were.
“Imagine the best chocolate croissant in the world and now multiply it by a thousand,” I said. “That’s a chocolate bar.”
Gedeon’s palm came to rest on top of Kali’s, and she didn’t withdraw. The simplicity of their peaceful co-existence eased the ire swirling in my gut. I might’ve had peculiar inclinations, certain tastes, “proclivities,” as Gedeon would describe them, but no one slipped my vengeance: nor people, nor cities. And particularly not the seven Heads controlling Ilasall.
“I will get you one tomorrow, after the ceremony,” Gedeon promised her, and my contemplation flew out the window. Had I heard him right?
“Just one?” To ravage one chocolate bar and not reach for another was a criminal act. And Gedeon had figuredIneeded treatment for a foul mouth. His own beckoned a lesson on how to enjoy dessert properly. “I won’t ever play with your dick again if you get only one.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Will a dozen be enough?”
“See? You don’t need to make deals with him. Just threaten his cock,” I told Kali, then licked the tip of his nose. He was as delicious as her. Slightly bitter, but like with coffee, you needed a balance. Some sugar to sweeten it, but not too much or you’d lose the flavor.
And his grunt and her giggles were the perfect combination.
35
GEDEON
Asilver car screeched to a stop before me, the wheels as spotless as the gable-roofed house Conall had assigned to us behind me.
As the front passenger’s window lowered, a bright flash of teeth met me, and I cursed my luck. I knew that look of Damia’s all too well.
An omen of trouble to come.
“Well, hop in.” With her dark forearm resting on the window frame, she clacked her nails on the passenger’s door. “Don’t you glare at me. It’s already noon. We gave you plenty of time to sleep in.”
That they had. Awakening this morning to the bitter aroma of coffee Kali was making in the kitchen while Zion lay sprawled beside me, trapped in the duvet, a sheen of sweat gracing his forehead, had been so idyllic despite our unresolved issues that I had feared I would crumble from the sense of peace.
A blond beard popped up beside Damia, and Conall waved from behind the wheel. “Hey, man.”
