Page 31 of Savage Fire

There were five women sitting at the same table where she and Fang had shared their meal the night before. Five gorgeous women, all with different features, different styles, and differing expressions on their faces. One brunette, three blondes, and a redhead.

Three of the women…. Shit! What the hell? They were the same women from that day at the grocery store. Why were they in Fang’s dining room, picking at pieces of toast, and sipping coffee like they belonged there? And where the fuck was Fang?

Stunned, her feet frozen to the spot, she flinched when two women—a blonde and the ginger—turned toward the doorway and noticed her. One of the women grinned with a weirdly welcoming smile. The other one, the redhead, glared at her with barely restrained malice.

Fang had some explaining to do. Hewouldfucking explain, and it had better be a good explanation, one that made the quickly growing stabbing sensation in her chest go away.

One of the women staring, the one with the malignant gaze, turned her nose up, her lips curling in undisguised disdain. Like she’d smelled something awful and Tessa had apparently rolled in it.

“Hey!” the smiling one called, making the other three turn toward her. Now, she had five strange women staring at her from Fang’s dining room table. Three of which she’d seen with Fang before. Three of which she’d remembered he’d treated like his next meal. It was clear now that he’d fucked them—all of three them. And probably the other two as well.

Five of Fang’s ex-fuck buddies sitting around one table like a goddamn quilting bee, there to discuss their personal experiences in his bed over coffee.

“Seriously, what the fuck is going on?” she demanded, her voice cracking with barely restrained anger.

“Shit!” she heard from the kitchen, jerking her head around to see Fang standing at the peninsula between the kitchen and dining room, his big body tight with tension, shirtless, his jeans zipped but not buttoned, his hair a mess from bed, and a pained look on his face. A painedguiltylook. He pressed his hands into the edge of the countertop, the veins in his forearms pronounced from flexing, his knuckles turning white, his jaw working like he was fighting the urge to jump over the barricade and get to her.

“Javier,” she hissed, and the women at the table gasped, “you had better tell me what thehellis going on right now! Who are these women? What are they doing here?”

“Come, darlin’. Sit down, Fang will explain everything to you after you’ve had something to eat.”

Tessa turned back to the women, glaring at the one who spoke; a blonde, dressed in designer jeans, a white blouse, with tidy hair, manicured nails, and perfectly applied make up. She looked to be in her mid-thirties—the professional type.

“I’m not hungry,” she drawled, her voice flat.

“That’s alright, but I still suggest you take a seat. This won’t take long, but it’ll be a lot.”

Unable to think beyond her need to breathe, Tessa moved robotically toward the table, pulled out the seat furthest from the other women, and slid into it. Perched at the very edge, her body strung tight, she let her gaze shift from the blonde, and boldly meeting the gazes of each of the other women. Even the one glaring. She glared right back. She could take the bitch, easy.

The first blonde spoke again, “I’m Libby,” she offered, pressing a delicately boned hand to her perky chest. Then she pointed to the brunette next to her. “This is Sipha, that’s Anise, then there’s Lacy, and the one glaring at you is Stella. She’s been here the longest, so she tends to get territorial.”

Been there the longest. Territorial. What the fuck did that mean?

Tessa didn’t acknowledge the other women, instead she turned back to Fang who’d donned a t-shirt he’d dug out from somewhere. He was leaning against the end of the peninsula, his eyes pinned to her. Something like wariness and uncertainty in his expression.

“Explain. Now. I deserve that fucking much,” she spat, her body thrumming with anger and hurt. Anger that he would dare put her in whatever this situation was, and hurt that, after what they’d shared the night before, he hadn’t prepared her for this. It felt like an intervention. Six people, one of her, and all staring at her expectantly.

Fang pursed his lips, his nostrils flaring like he was angry. What the fuck did he have to be angry about? She was the one facing down a gaggle of women he’d fucked. And was probably still fucking if their general right-at-home nonchalance were any indication. They were in his house, at his table, at seven in the morning. They weren’t just fuck buddies. It was like they were right at home—

Suddenly the décor, the feminine feel of the place, all the room—too much for one man.

They lived there. In that house. With Fang. Bile rose into house mouth, and she barely swallowed it in time.

“You all live here. Together,” she stated, the words like sour Skittles, dropping from a mouth too full.

Two nodded, two had the courtesy of looking sheepish, though the malicious bitch Stella shrugged, smirking.

“We love living with Papi Fang,” the one Libby had called Lacy chirped, her eyes wide and glowing. Like a freaking puppy.

Tessa couldn’t wrap her head around it. She chanced a glance at Fang, who’d come to stand by the table, a few feet from her, his hands braced on the back of the one named Sipha’s chair. He looked ready to pounce, to snatch her, and tie her down.

Fuck that. Fuck him! She tensed to spring from her chair and beat feet to the door and outside where she could breathe, where she wasn’t face to face to face to face with something she knew would hurt like hell…once the shock numbness fell away. But the twisted part of her that had been exposed to the sickness and ugliness and heartbreak of growing up in a household with a man who’d seen nothing wrong with betraying his own wife with other “wives” wanted to believe that this was different. That she was wrong about what it all meant. That Fang wouldn’t dare bring here there, fuck her, then shelve her in with other women. Like a fuck doll he could pull out whenever the mood struck to bang a big and tall blonde. Like Jacob had done with her mom, and Anna and Maureen and Mina and Carin. And had planned to do with her. Hell no. She didn’t run from one fucked up situation just to fall into another. No way. She’d escaped Jacob, abandoning her own mother, just so she wouldn’t be one of many, just so she could have a shot at being someone’sone and only.

And she’d foolishly believed that was Fang. He’d fucking let her believe that. All that bullshit about being exclusive, of making what they had real. He promised her she wouldn’t regret giving herself to him, trusting him, sharing herself with him.

Never had she regretted anything more.

She shuddered, the whole of her jerking. Sick boiled in her guts, writhing like a serpent of tension and disgust.

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