Page 56 of Cruel Games

Her hand slammed over my mouth with the force of a fist to the jaw, and I fell backward on the couch, taking her with me in a last-ditch attempt to gain the upper hand. As I’d hoped, her skirt flew up and bared her pantiless ass to Jackal, who suddenly looked like he was in immediate need of relief.

Coyote, from his vantage point in the kitchen, just growled as he slapped the steak in his hand down on the hot skillet, sending oil flying everywhere because it was too fucking hot. His eyes were on the shapely curve of Ivy’s ass if I was right about his line of sight.

The reddening of the tips of his ears said I was.

“I’m going to go take a shower and tend to these new burns I have,” Jackal mumbled, sliding off the couch like a human slinky. In seconds, the degenerate had hidden himself behind a locked door, putting up literal and figurative walls between him and the woman who’d invaded his space.

That left me and Coyote.

With Ivy.

Yay.

I had grown tired of toying with her, so when she pulled away, feigning disgust, I let her go, watching as she retreated to the relative safety of the armchair a few extra feet away from me.

If she thought she was the only one here who could play games, she had another thing coming.

“Where do you plan to sleep tonight, sweetheart?” I asked, knowing full well her options were limited. I could guess where she planned to sleep—or rather, not sleep, as I suspected would be the answer. She didn’t trust us to stick to our word. And I mean, realistically, who could blame her?

“I don’t,” she offered simply, licking her lips as the scent of perfectly seasoned steak wafted through the room. “I can’t trust you heathens to not try and kill me in my sleep.”

Coyote grunted in the kitchen but seemed to be back to his old, wordless self, moving around a cutting board with adangerous affinity. He held a knife like the Blackwood brothers did, with skill and precision, every cut perfect and measured. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was taking lessons from those butchers on the side.

“You can’t go without sleep forever,” I pointed out, a frown drawing my brows together. “Or do you just plan to pass out standing up, holding that fucking pistol in your hand?”

She glanced down at the gun in question and shrugged. “I didn’t think it that far ahead, honestly.”

A moment of vulnerability in an otherwise invulnerable woman. I had the feeling tonight, she’d surprised herself just as much as she had us.

The sun had begun to crest the horizon, shining through the kitchen window like it did every morning. Ivy, though, threw her hand up and shielded her face, as if it burned to look at.

“Oh, no, don’t tell me you’re a vampire.”

Her jaw hung open, and then she burst into a fit of laughter, nearly falling out of the chair as she clutched her stomach and wheezed.

“Oh, my go—hahaha, fucking hell, that was a good one, I—hahahahahaha, ow, my side hurts.” She brought the gun up and pressed it to my temple, all the joking gone from her body as she rose from the floor like an elegant viper, poised to strike. “Don’t do that again.”

“What,” I asked cooly, even though the gun at my head had me a little worried. “Make you laugh?”

“Act like we’re friends.” Her pout deepened, and I wondered if she even knew what a friendwas.“I don’t need any more friends. Especially not you three.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” I muttered, already angry at myself for even trying. Clearly, she wanted nothing to do with us as people. To her, we were just a means to an end, scum that deserved to die for something we’d done to a bad man.

My jaw dropped, pieces coming together one by one all of a sudden.

“Coyote.”

In the middle of switching a finished steak from his pan to the cutting board on the counter, the man hesitated, his eyes resembling those of a deer in the headlights of a car at night. He was paralyzed and confused, unsure whether to stay or run.

“Jackal’s room. Now.” I turned to Ivy again, narrowing my eyes. “Watch the stove so nothing burns.”

“I told you I’m not your cook—” she started to protest, but the words were lost behind me as I dragged my brother in arms into our third’s bedroom, locking the door behind us to keep prying ears as far away as possible.

Jackal strode out of his bathroom as soon as we walked in, not a stitch on him, save for a towel wrapped around his head. And that didn’t help much, all things considered. He realized he wasn’t alone and did one of those slow blinks, taking in the scene before him with a puzzled frown.

“What the fuck are you two doing in here?”

Coyote just looked away, but I couldn’t. My brain was stuck on his state of undress. I hadn’t actually thought he was going to take a fucking shower for real.

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