Page 60 of Eye Candy

Mike pushed off the wall, uncrossing his arms as his face twisted into a scowl. His hazel eyes landed on me, and he frowned, but he didn’t say a word. All he did was turn and start walking to the car parked on the street at the end of the alley.

I followed after him, but I did turn and glance at Fang over my shoulder as I went. Fang was watching me walk away with a smug, self-satisfied smile on his face. Before he disappeared inside the building, he gave me a wink.

Mike said nothing, not until after I was in the car and he was pulling out onto the road. He grumbled out, “Why does he call you princess?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.” Mike shot me a look after that, and I fought the smile that tried to surface on my face. My body was still riding a high from all of those orgasms, though it had cooled a bit. My skin was no longer on fire, at least, so it shouldn’t be too obvious what we’d gotten up to.

“You were gone for a while.”

“He had a lot to say.”

All Mike did in reply to that was grunt, as if he didn’t believe me.

Hey, if he was going to act like what we did had never happened, then so was I. It shouldn’t matter to him if Fang and I got up to certain things when we were alone. There shouldn’t be a jealous bone in his body.

I couldn’t get Fang out of my head as he drove us home, and it took until I was safely tucked away in my room to feel the starting pangs of something else.

Guilt.

Guilt over letting Fang have me while Kieran was in a coma in the hospital. Guilt over wanting anyone who wasn’t my Devil—Kieran, Mike, and then Fang. Guilt over thinking it was stupid for me to want them all, to want a harem for myself like Lola.

I didn’t like the guilt. It was an unwelcome visitor in my life, but try as I might to push it away, it never faded completely. It hung around me, coiled around my neck like a choker, a constant reminder of how messed-up my life was.

That was when I decided I needed to have a little fun.

Chapter Nineteen – Laina

I visited the hospital every day. Mike didn’t come inside the room while I sat with Kieran, which was fine. It let me shut the door and come clean to Kieran about a few things. Namely the feelings I was starting to have for him… and Mike… and Fang.

And, because he was still not conscious, I also told him in a hushed whisper about how I wished my Devil would come back to me.

I got no answer, of course.

The days passed until Friday rolled around. I didn’t tell anyone what Kelly and I were planning. Not my dad, not Tessa, and certainly not Mike. My dad and Tessa would try to stop me from going, while Mike would grumble something about needing to come with me to make sure I was safe, blah, blah, blah.

Whatever. If I couldn’t go out and have a little fun, get some real stress-relief, then what was the point? Why bother living if I couldn’t enjoy myself every once in a while?

Kelly was going to park down the road, wait for me to slip out of the house and find her, and together we’d return to her campus, where she’d take me to a college party. I wanted to loosen up, stop worrying about everything, and have some fun.

Fun was something I severely lacked in life right now.

Kelly was trying to get me to apply to the college next semester, and maybe I would. At least it would get me out of this house for a few hours every day, give me something else to focus on. Hell, I could even move into the dorms and completely get away from my dad and Tessa. Not sure where that would leave Mike, but seeing as the guy was still holding firm to the belief that I was nothing more than a job to him, maybe that’s what was best.

The only one in tune with his feelings was the guy who’d replaced his own teeth with metal fangs, ironically.

After dinner, my dad tried to have a sit down with me in my room, which was just ridiculous. He still wore the brown suit he’d worn to work that day, his hair slicked back. “Laina, it’s looking like the gunman was hired by someone else, but he’s tight-lipped as to who. Whoever it is is still out there. I need you to promise me you’ll be careful.” He said it like he knew I was going to sneak out tonight, which was frankly annoying.

I was sitting on my bed, doing my nails, acting bored. At least I only had eight nails to do now. I planned on wearing a single glove over my left hand tonight to hide the fact that I was missing two fingers, so hopefully the other people at the party wouldn’t know who I was.

They were college students. I doubted they gave a single shit about watching the news and local politics.

“I’m surprised you haven’t tortured the details out of him,” I spoke matter-of-factly.

My dad blinked, clearly not expecting that to have come out of my mouth. “Laina, it’s… with him in police custody, there’s only so much we can do.” Trying to act like the police weren’t just as corrupt as all of the gangsters in this city. Right. “I don’t want you to think I’m not doing everything I can to catch the mastermind behind this, same with your kidnapper.”

“I know, Dad.” I shot him a look over my hand, wishing he would get the hint and leave.

He stared at me. It was because I was wearing my contacts. He’d done a triple-take the first time he’d seen me wearing them, and each time after that, he tended to hold my stares a bit longer, like it took him longer to see through my contacts, at the real me. Like it was harder to remember I was his daughter or something.

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