Waving the last set of guards away, I marched quickly down the long hallway, stopping just before the red door at the end. Jeffers and Liv’s door. At the moment, Jeffers was meeting with his large battalion of ragtag guards he liked to call his army, and Liv wasn’t at his side. I hadn’t been able to find her at any of her usual hangouts, so unless she’d disappeared off the face of the earth, she was here, right beyond this ridiculous red door. Alone.
Folding my arms over my chest, I kicked the door with the toe of my boot, once, twice, then pulled back and waited. Light footsteps could be heard, the sound of them carrying through the wood. The locks clicked and then, as the door swung open, I tensed, readying for the fight that was probably coming.
Instead, Liv grinned when she saw me. Wearing nothing but a man’s flannel shirt wrapped around her, she let it fall open, baring her breasts.
“Eagle.” She greeted me happily, the drawling accent she usually tried to hide out in full force.
I sniffed the air. Yeah, she was drunk. And drunk Liv only ever wanted one thing. My dick.
I glanced over my shoulder at the two guards stationed halfway down the hall, finding both of them leering at us. Rolling my eyes, I looked away and shoved Liv inside, then used my boot to slam the door shut behind us.
I hated their place. Once Liv had shown up, she and Jeffers had commandeered the nicest and tallest building smack dab in the center of Purgatory. They turned what had probably been offices into a headquarters for the guards, then claimed the entire top floor all for themselves.
Like me, Liv hoarded, but she hoarded useless shit. The large space had been cordoned off to resemble an actual apartment complete with a dining room, living room, bedroom, and bathroom, even a non-working kitchen. And maybe it would have been a decent place if Liv hadn’t gone off her rocker decorating with everything she hoarded—the wide variety of rugs ranging from oriental to ’70s shag, a half dozen couches with mismatched cushions, and art in every form she could get her hands on. Paintings covered every inch of the walls, and sculptures took up nearly as much space as the furniture, while miscellaneous junk had been strung from the rafters. Dream catchers, wind chimes, you name it, Liv had it hung somewhere.
“I knew you’d be back,” she slurred. Shrugging her shoulders, she let the shirt slide free. As it fell to the floor and she gave me her back, she shimmied out of her underwear and made a big show of kicking them across the room.
Liv wasn’t a beautiful woman. She was stick thin, her features pointed and exaggerated, and had an overall mean countenance. And then there was the fact that she lacked the one thing men loved about women—there was nothing smooth or soft about her, nothing inherently innocent or that oozed femininity.
I guessed it was why she decorated herself. The pink hair, the piercings, the skimpy clothes, it was all her desperate attempt to draw the attention of men who wouldn’t normally have given her a second glance. Not that it mattered to me either way. I didn’t fuck Liv for her looks; I fucked her for one reason and one reason only. To scratch an itch, an itch that so far only she had been able to adequately scratch for me.
Funny thing, though; I wasn’t itching for it today. Hadn’t been itching for it in a while, actually. I was here for another reason—to make sure Liv stayed the fuck away from Autumn. Because Autumn was the sort of female you protected. Smooth and soft—crazy, yes—but innocent as fuck and very feminine.
“You threatened her,” I said.
“Where do you want me? Here?” Liv pulled herself up onto an old-school chopping block set up as a kitchen table. Spreading her legs, showing me everything I’d already seen a hundred times before, she rolled her hips, beckoning me.
“She has my brand,” I gritted out. “You can’t touch her.”
Liv’s eyes narrowed. “Fine, so you don’t want to fuck me on the table.” She hopped down and sloppily skipped her way across the room, then dropped down on one of the couches.
“Here?” she asked, patting the cushion beside her. “Or maybe like this?” Sitting up, she turned around and folded her body over the back of the couch. “You wanna fuck me like a dog, E, show me who my master is?” Lifting her ass up in the air, she giggled manically. “I know you want to.”
Want to? No. Figured I would have to? Yeah.
I’d known this was going to come down to one of two things—either I kept fucking her to keep her off Autumn’s back, or I turned around right the fuck now and never came back, and let the dice land and roll where they must.
“And look,” Liv cooed, her ass still in the air. “You can see Jeffers from the window.” Glancing over her shoulder, she gave me a sickeningly sweet smile. “You can watch him while you fuck me.”
I stared at her, feeling both disgusted and turned on. She knew my favorite flavor of fucking. Sick. Raw. And with a big old helping of pain. Hers or mine, it didn’t matter.
“You’re fucking twisted,” I growled.
And you’re not?the voice asked.You left that sweet girl at home so you could come here and do ... this?
My teeth ground together.Shut up.
The voice laughed, a sharp and biting sound that made my insides curdle.There are other ways,it said.You know there are other ways.
Kill her?I shot back.I can’t fucking kill her; you know I can’t. If I killed her, shit would go bad for me, and if it went bad for me it would be worse for ...
Autumn,the voice finished.And that’s the real problem, isn’t it? That’s the real reason you’re here.
A vision of Autumn and Adam at the garage earlier today invaded my thoughts. The way Adam had been looking at her; the way she had been looking at Adam.
I was protecting her.
You were jealous.
