Page 56 of Cruel Devil

“Read the fucking room.” Nyx shuffles to the edge of the bed and slides off, heading for the bathroom.

I prop myself up on my elbows. “What are you doing?”

She scowls at me over her shoulder. “I haven’t peed in days. Give me a fucking second, would you?”

The bathroom door slams so hard, it rattles an abstract artwork the villa’s interior decorator put on the wall. I’m surprised it doesn’t fall and shatter. I strip off my shirt, my dirty jeans, my boxers. I’m about to change into clean clothes when I hear the toilet flush.

Fuck this, I need a shower before I change.

Nyx spins around with a gasp when I open the bathroom door. “Are you fucking kidding me?” She’s standing by the basin, I assume washing her hands like a good girl.

“What?” I step into the shower. “It’s been days since I’ve had a shower. Give me a fucking second.”

She smooths the shock from her face, turning back to the basin.

I frown. “What are you doing?”

Her arms stop moving. “You don’t give up, do you? Like a dog with a fucking bone.” She barks out a laugh that sounds almost manic, and then strips off her dress, bundling it up and tossing it in the hamper.

I’d just turned on the faucet to hot when she faces me wearing only her black sports bra.

There are bruises on her body…and not all of them are mine.

Fury closes over my chest like a fucking bear trap. I can feel myself grimacing, can hear the angry sound coming out of my throat, but even when the water becomes scorching hot, I can’t move, can’t speak, can’t even fathom what the fuck I’m looking at.

Nyx tosses back her head, as if she’s somehow daring me to say something.

“He do that to you?” I sound like a goddamn caveman, but it’s a miracle my words are coherent at all.

Instead of answering, she strides up to the shower and slips inside with me. She reaches back almost absently to adjust the scorching water, and thank fuck because I was about to blister.

“Patrick said he was taking me to see Donny.” She glances to the side, grabs my bottle of body wash, and squirts some on her hands like this is some normal conversation we’re having and she doesn’t look like she was in a fucking car accident.

I jerk when she slaps her soapy hands on my pecs and starts rubbing me down. Her eyes are focused on her task, but she glances up at me every few seconds as if to make sure I’m still paying attention.

Christ, the moon could crash into Earth right now and I wouldn’t take my eyes off her. The water darkens her hair to brown, forms it into sinuous lines down her shoulders and breasts. I tug at the strap of her bra, but she shrugs her shoulder away from my fingers. It’s soaked through already, but maybe she thinks her breasts will distract me too much.

It’s highly possible. Even clothed in her snug bra, it only serves to emphasize what sumptuous hand fulls they are.

“Donny did this?” My vocabulary is still at Neanderthal levels, but I’m doing my fucking best. My entire body is shaking from the effort of staying where I am and not tearing out of here and back into that club with a fucking machine gun like Scarface.

She scoffs. “Donny’s dead.” She tilts her head down, eyeing some of the bruises. “When I saw his body, I realized Patrick was in on it. That’s when I started fighting.” Her eyes dart up to mine, ablaze with arrogance. “Took three of them to take me to O’Brien.”

“He was at The Foundry? Where? We searched every inch of that place.”

She laughs, gaze following her fingers as they glide down my stomach. Her hands stroke my muscles, working a lather over my skin. “He was in the warehouse down the street.”

“I had eyes on all the exits.”

“Not all of them.” Her face is grim as she slides her hands around my torso, pulling me against her. “There was a tunnel. Long enough to kill my feet in those fucking heels.”

“Christ, of course.” I grip her tight, sinking my fingers into her wet hair. “Probably used it to smuggle in alcohol back in the twenties. Must have been there for decades.”

She turns in my arms, points at the body wash. I take it mutely, soaping my hands and lathering it over her shoulders.

“He could have taken you away from me, and I wouldn’t even have known.”

“He doesn’t want me,” she mutters grumpily. “The only thing I’m good at is killing people, apparently.”

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