Page 46 of Carry Your Debt

As it were, Dio had practically needed to carry me back to my room at the Delphi—a neutrally-owned and operated Underworld hotel whose Symposium guests were shielded by the law ofHospitiumuntil checkout time on Monday morning.

Six mini-bar bottles of vodka. Apply head directly to pillow. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Now, for some reason, I’m being forced unwillingly into consciousness. All while I still have both an information hangoverandan actual hangover.

With a pained groan, I roll over and reach to wake my phone.

10:51pm.

Uggh. The fuck?

I’m still dry swallowing a handful of Tylenol when the pounding sounds out again, only louder. This time, the noise is obnoxious enough that it whips those last lingering brain clouds into a full-blown cell system.

I swear tofuckit better not be Dionysus. Not when the man has key access and strict instructions that include no booty calls before midnight.

Snatching up my copy of the room key with a muttered curse, I stomp over, ready to scan open the secure door and gift whoever’s interrupting my battery recharge with a striking new asshole.

I’m not exactly sure who Iwasexpecting when I yank back the handle, but it most certainly wasn’t the guy I so brutally hit and quit just yesterday.

Yet there he is—blond surfer curtains falling across a troubled brow as he white-knuckles the top of the doorframe. There’s an oddly disquiet air about him, like the taste of ozone on your tongue right before a storm.

Andfuck.

Me.

His mask is gone but he’s still wearing that fucking corset.

“Hermes,” I breathe, trying to whip my features back into something resembling blatant disinterest. Then he leans forward, and suddenly ‘disinterest’ is the last thing on my mind.

The move stretches every one of his visible muscles in the most obscene ways possible, bringing him so close that we’re practically sharing breath.

It would besofucking easy just to give in and meet him all the way. Dig my nails into his shoulders. Run my tongue over that small cluster of violets tattooed over his heart. Bite those candy nipples until they’re red and swollen.

But what I see lurking behind his freckled, hazel eyes gives me pause.

It’s the same thing I’ve been seeing there all night.

Somethingwild.

Andhurt.

This is the third time in only twenty-four hours I’ve been faced with this haunted look of his. Trying to banish the image doesn’t seem to help either; it only seems to pinch at something else instead. Somewhere deep behind my sternum, and with cold, probing fingers that remind me of Sebastian.

Talk to me about the Rox Boys.

“You left me,” he states in an unnervingly flat tone.

I forcibly swallow, trying my best to ignore the ache in my skull.

And my chest.

“At the beach? Yes, and I did try to warn you.” The words feel paper-thin as they leave my mouth and I push my tongue against the inside of my cheek, trying to stave off the weird ache of it.

He must have known the likelihood that his coming here would end in rejection. And still, he hunted down my location and sought me out.

“That you don’t do feelings?” Hermes prompts, more defensively this time.

The echo of Midas’s poison joins Sebastian’s frost.Made any new friends?

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