Page 48 of Serpentine

“Get you a new one. I threw it out. I assumed you wouldn’t be back,” Kylo says in apology.

I shrug. “No big deal. I was too wired to sleep and to go to the basement,” I tell him. His answering look tells me he knows just what I’m saying.

“Hey, I know you!” the redhead says, pointing at me. Her waving finger tells me she thinks she does, but she can’t quite figure out how she does. “You’re the girl all over the news feeds, aren’t you?”

I nod as my pulse picks up.

“Whit, leave her be,” Kylo grumbles, giving me a look as if to say he’s now doubly sorry.

“It’s fine. Yes, I am, but I don’t want that announced. I don’t want to go back to that life anytime soon,” I admit to her.

Kylo’s brows shoot up. “The kidnapped becomes the hideaway.”

“Stockholm syndrome, that’s what that is called,” Whitney says.

“You’re Whitney, right? Miles loaned me some of your clothes the other day. I promise I’ll get them back to you,” I tell her.

Sully saunters up, imposing, body stamping across the room as he hands me a beer.

“Thank you,” I say, and he nods at me.

“He doesn’t speak. He can’t hear, but he can sign. You’ll need to learn to if you’re staying. Don’t worry about the clothes, girl. No biggie at all!” Whitney says, green eyes glowing. “Also, don’t worry about anyone here leaking shit about you. No one would even dare utter a word about you to an outsider. Especially not after the show earlier.”

Kylo pinches Whitney’s leg, and she squeals before slapping him upside his arm. “What was that for?”

I laugh.

I like her.

Honest to a fault isn’t a terrible quality. “What show?” I ask, knowing what she had been referring to but wanting to check out how the rest of the club felt about it.

She rolls her eyes. “You and the Pres? Every girl in here was practically dying to be you, girl. He doesn’t kiss. Ever!”

Kylo eyes her sharply.

“What?” she says. “Not me, of course, love.”

She winks at me, and I laugh again. I’m leaning against the pool table, long forgotten in the revelry, and Whitney shifts off of Kylo’s lap to face me.

“Why doesn’t he kiss, anyhow? What’s the story there?” I ask them, dodging my gaze between them.

Kylo sips his drink, and Whitney looks to the floor.

“No one knows,” she finally says. “But girls have been shunned from the club in the past for just attempting to kiss him. Then here you come, like a hurricane of sex, taming him and shoving your tongue down his throat. It puts a target on your back. I’ll say that much,” she finishes.

I look at Kylo, and he nods once. His soft eyes tell me not to worry, but I worry anyhow.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” I tell her.

A moment of loud silence passes, the blasting music in the room filling the space between us.

Whitney takes a breath, and Kylo looks like he’s bracing for whatever she will say next, as if he’s fully used to her spicy mouth.

“So, you’re just cool with being their bait, then?”

Kylo throws his arms up, turning towards her with a salty look. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

“What?” she asks, shrugging. “She seems so comfortable with her kidnappers. It’s what everyone here is wondering. They took her to take the plan to the next level, right?”

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