Page 63 of Cruel Games

She turned those pitiful eyes on Jackal, who howled with laughter. “Oh, hell no. I amnotcarrying a cat on my bike.”

Dingo threw his hands in the air and backed away from her, shaking his head. “Ihatecats. Count me out.”

“It’s violent, too,” Hilary added, her lips curling in a smug smirk of satisfaction.She was enjoying the apparent distress this animal’s care caused Ivy.“Who knows—might have rabies.”

“He’s notinfected,you bimbo,” Ivy spat, jerking her sleeves up to show old and new scratches along her forearms. “If he were, I’d already be dead.”

“Shame,” she muttered back, crossing her arms. “Either way, I’m not taking care of him for you. Not even if you paid me?—”

I shoved her aside as I made for the window, my body moving without my brain telling it to, confusion muddling my head even as I reached out to open the window further, my hand outstretched toward the beast in question. I didn’t say a thing to him, but he could recognize the wildness in me, perhaps, because he came in without any coaxing, climbing into my arms when I moved to pick him up. I tucked the cat into my coat and zipped him in, turning around to face the rest of the room with a perplexed glare.

“He just came to you, just like that?” Ivy asked, shock written across her face. “No protests, no bribing, no claws?”

I shrugged calmly, lacking the words to explain. Well, it wasn’t that I lacked them, per se, but saying it out loud was even more unimaginable to me than it would be to her.

Something compelled me to make her happy.

“Look, Dingo, Coyote’s a cat whisperer, now,” Jackal taunted, his lips spreading in a mocking smile. “Good luck riding with that thing in your jacket.”

“Good thing St. Clair likes cats,” Dingo grumbled, stomping behind Jackal as they picked up the few bags Ivy had filled with her most important belongings. “Just keep it the fuck out of my room.”

“Mine too,” Jackal agreed, staring pointedly at me. “I’ve got more than enough to deal with right now. And it’s got claws.” He shot a look over his shoulder at Ivy. “Just like its master,” he added, slipping out the door before she could throw something at him.

“I’ll be back,” she reminded Hilary, marching into the kitchen, where she tugged an envelope out of a box labeledscouring pads.At Hilary’s raised brows, she chuckled softly. “Figured the one place you’d never put your fingers was in a cleaning supply box. Looks like I was right.”

With that, she reached out, took my hand, and led me and the little furry passenger tucked in against my chest out the door, not even bothering to close it behind her.

Perhaps she was afraid of closing the door on her only escape plan.

“Let’s go, dog,” she mumbled, dragging me down the hall, her hand in mine the whole way to the front door.

I was almost sad when she let go before the other two could see.

And so it begins.

TWENTY-FOUR

JACKAL

I could putup with a lot. Moving a woman into our quarters after she strung me up and burned me with a cigarette, sure. Letting her and my wayward, confused friend bring a cat in the place, okay. But I drew the line at sharing a bathroom with agirl.

“Fuck no.”

I sat the beer in my hand down on the counter, giving her a pointed look as she leaned over the other side of the island and stared me down. No matter how long she stared me into submission, I wasn’t about to bend on this one. No fucking way. There were some things sacred to a man. My bathroom was mine. There was a reason we each had our own, sacrificing space for an office or personal gym or whatever else we could have had to build three bathrooms for three grown men.

“Dingo’s is too small,” she pointed out, leaning on her forearms, her tits about to spill out of the top of her shirt. “Coyote doesn’t have a closet in his.” She ticked off her talking points like they were supposed to make a difference to me. “You have a spare closet in your bathroom, extra counter space, and a shower and tub both. It makes sense.”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” I growled at her, leaning in until we were nose to nose. “I’ll kill for you. Grovel like some fucking pathetic bitch. I didn’t even flinch when I found that fucking furball in my bed yesterday.” My nose twitched as the furball in question let out a little howl from the other side of Coyote’s door, protesting his temporary lockdown. “Hell, kitten, I’d even let you have another go at this dick, as much as I’d rather stick it in a blender, or a pile of glass. But I draw the line at sharing my fucking bathroom withyou.”

Her lips spread in a slow smile, those blunted fangs of hers a pale imitation of my own impressive dental work. “I wouldn’t hop on your dick again if you were the last man on this planet.”

“Debatable,” Dingo muttered, coughing to cover up his slip ofthe tongue.

“Keep lying to yourself, kitten,” I shot back, knowing damn well she enjoyed herself when she had me at her mercy. “You’re just afraid to find out you like it more than you want to.”

“You’re a cocky sonofabitch,” she pointed out. Her nose scrunching up like a bunny. “But you’re still sharing your bathroom with me. I need a place to put my things, and it makes sense.”

“Fucking kick rocks,” I deadpanned, leaning back before she got the idea to reach out and get physical with me. My scalp still tingled where she’d yanked me around by the hair the other day, intent on causing as much pain as possible when she found out I’d used her fancy face towel to clean the blood off my boots. “I said what I said.”

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