Page 120 of The Dollhouse

His other hand curled around my throat, and I stared up at him, into those devilishly dark eyes, breathing evenly, not even a little scared at the display of aggression. “I like it when you get jealous,” I whispered. He got all rough and possessive. It was hot.

“I told you,” Roman whispered. “You’re mine, Zoey Marbella. Every inch of you is mine, and that includes those lips.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know, and I’m not arguing with you about it. I am yours, one hundred fucking percent. I saidhekissedme. It was just a quick peck. I didn’t kiss him back. Considering Willow came to the party and tried to turn him against me and he denied her, I’m choosing to take it as a win. You can be as jealous as you want, but I’m not done here yet.”

Roman growled, but he slowly released his hold on me, taking a step back. Together, he and Carter looked like they wanted to kill poor Wyatt. Two tall, strong men, ready to make another boy disappear for me. Or because of me.

Whatever. Semantics.

“My sister is going to try playing dirty, but I want to be ahead of her. Next weekend, we’re going to have dinner with my parents and, hopefully, her. If you didn’t like the fact that Wyatt kissed me, you’re definitely not going to like the next part of my plan.”

And when I told them what my plan was, it was exactly as I expected. They fought with me, grumbling and arguing, trying to convince me that it would just be better to rid the world of my own family. Roman and Carter were both dying to get back to business, to return to their homes and the Dollhouse, and while I had to agree that I missed the Dollhouse, we weren’t done here yet.

“Lake is going to try coming here Sunday. If he does, that’s when I’m telling him the plan… and about the kiss.” I didn’t want Lake thinking I was hiding anything from him. When you had more than one boyfriend, more than one relationship you juggled at a single time, communication was the key to everything.

I started to walk out of Roman’s room, but Roman’s voice called out, stopping me dead in my tracks: “And where the fuck do you think you’re going? Do you think I’m just going to let you walk away from us with the taste of that boy still on your lips? No, turn around, Zoey, and drop to your knees.”

My eyes closed, a smile growing on my face. Oh, these two. What was I going to do with them? Besides drop to my knees and let them do whatever they wanted to me, I mean. Because, duh, of course I’d follow Roman’s orders here.

They were angry. They were jealous. They were everything I needed and more.

Chapter Eight – Lake

I was able to get rid of my Sunday shift. It wasn’t like I didn’t need the money—could always use the money—but I needed to see Zoey more. It was almost insane how much I missed her, how much I thought about her while she was gone. To say she had taken over my mind the moment she left would be the year’s biggest understatement.

That wasn’t to say I didn’t think about her when she was next door, or in the same city as me. I thought of her all the time. It’s just, when she left, it turned into a constant thing. Talking to her on the phone every night, even though it was a video chat, wasn’t enough. I missed having her next to me, feeling her skin on mine, holding her close. I missed cooking her breakfast, even though some might consider it more of a lunch, after she worked late at the Dollhouse. I missed it all, and I had to do everything in my power to go visit her.

Though my motive for going to Hillcrest was mainly a selfish one, I also knew it had to be hard being back there, doubly so since all she had were Roman and Carter. Don’t tell them what I was about to say, but they weren’t the nicest guys around. They weren’t the most understanding. They were the opposite of kind and gentle, and even though she claimed to like it rough, I knew Zoey needed a firm but soft touch every now and then. A listening ear. A kind heart. Someone to remind her that life wasn’t only full of coarse actions and rough love.

Zoey might not admit it aloud, but she needed me. She needed me as much as I needed her. I never knew what my life was missing until Zoey burst through my walls. Although, if I was honest, I’d admit I had a crush on her the moment I saw her.

I mean, that pink hair. That confidence. That smile. There wasn’t anything about her I didn’t like.

I loved her. I loved her so fricking much it was hard to think straight. Impossible to focus on classes and homework and work when she was gone, to the point where my grades so far this semester had suffered a bit.

Yet another reason why I had to see her, had to pull some favors in at work in order to go to Hillcrest on Sunday. Get my dose of Zoey and hopefully start being a little more focused on classwork. If I started failing, my mom would kill me. She’d also blame Zoey.

They hadn’t met yet, mostly because I knew what my mom would say. Zoey wasn’t the kind of girl I’d brought home before… although, really, I never liked bringing home girls anyway. No one could ever stand up to my mom’s scrutiny. But that’s the thing about Zoey: she wouldn’t care if my mom didn’t like her. As long as I loved her, she would be happy.

And so was I, hence why the two most important women in my life hadn’t met yet.

Don’t even get me started on how my mom would react if she ever found out Zoey had two other boyfriends in addition to me. She’d flip her lid, go completely insane. She’d try to pull the mother card and forbid me from the relationship. That might’ve worked if we were all in high school, but we weren’t. We were all old enough to make our own decisions when it came to who we were with.

My mood was great when I got in the car, input the address to the house Zoey and the others were staying into my phone, and started driving. I left after breakfast, which meant I’d get there in a few hours. I would’ve left the night before, but I worked too late, and by the time I got home and showered, the day was done. Plus, I had a bit of homework to do, so I chose to get that done instead.

As the scenery changed, as the miles added onto each other, the excitement grew. I could feel it in my bones.

I was going to see Zoey. It felt like I hadn’t seen her in years, even though it had only been weeks. Regardless, time passed had been an eternity. Every minute away from her felt like an hour, and every hour felt like a day. Amplify that to weeks, and you had… well, a math problem I didn’t want to figure out this early in the morning.

I didn’t know what I expected as I crossed the city border into Hillcrest, but it wasn’t immediate mansions and well-manicured lawns and cars that cost as much as four years’ worth of college tuition at the local college I was going to. Zoey had told me what kind of place Hillcrest was, but I guess I didn’t believe her. A place like that just seemed… unreal.

But apparently it was very, very real.

Seriously. I thought places like this were only in the movies, or those TV shows about rich housewives getting into dirty stuff like drugs and murder and laundering money. It shouldn’t have come as a shock to me, but I couldn’t stop my mouth from falling as I drove by a few mansions that looked more like castles than anything else.

I went deeper into Hillcrest, finding the house and pulling into the driveway. I parked the car and got out. My vehicle was definitely out of place here, old and rusted in places. Not the kind of car anyone in this city drove. I stuck out like a sore thumb, but you know what? That was okay. I didn’t think I wanted to belong in a place like this. It still blew my mind that this was where Zoey was from, this was the city she’d grown up in.

Crazy.

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