Page 126 of Striker

Nowmy cheeks heat. I shift, sitting upright to lean against the cold metal headboard. Striker’s eyes move from Cora to me and his brows knit when he sees me wince.

“Or maybe after dinner,” he says.

“So we get you for dinner too?” Cora asks, slinking over to him, hips swaying. When she stops in front of him, he grips her waist and brings her down onto his lap.

“And lunch,” he says, nestling his face into her messy hair. Her eyes move to me, like she’s checking my reaction. I smile, lifting a brow. “And breakfast tomorrow too, if you can handle my company for that long.”

My belly dips. That sounds…

I’m not sure how that sounds.

Oddlydomestic?

I sink back down into the bed, heart thundering as what he’s saying cuts through my mind, fragmenting into a million different thoughts. Splinters of all the information I’ve nearly drowned in slices into my lungs, air suddenly hard to suck in.

“What next?” I ask Striker, inhaling deeply to center my racing thoughts. He lifts his head from Cora’s hair, a strange expression passing over his features.

It feels odd knowing him, being familiar with him in so many intimate ways, but not knowing how to read his expressions.

“We have breakfast.” He smiles, biting his lip. My body aches, but I want to take that lip between my teeth as I sink down onto him again.

I shake the thought from my head. It would be easy to stay here. Live in whatever it is we’ve just created, pretend bad things don’t exist beyond these walls, but I want to know their plans.

“So we aren’t going to deal with this?” I ask.

Striker helps Cora to her feet, tapping her bare ass as she walks toward the armoire. “Right now, we’re going to have breakfast.”

I nod, pulling the covers up around my chin. It’s obvious we can’t go back, at least not yet, but we have to at some point. I have to deal with this. With my father and all this knowledge living in my head.

I need to deal with Clyde.

There’s no way he doesn’t know about my father’s….Hunts. He’s been with my father since he began Rune Corportations, helping guide him. Clydehasto know about the lodge. That has to be why he always told me I would be bored or hate to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere with zero cell reception.

Zane.

Fucking Zane. He has to know, too.

My stomach churns.

“—if you want to,” Cora’s saying.

My gaze snaps up to her. Her brows raise like she’s waiting for an answer.

“Sure,” I say, not even caring what I’ve just agreed to. Anything would be a nice distraction from the chaos in my head.

Cora grabs a dress, then pulls one of mine out of the armoire. “What’s for breakfast?” she asks, sauntering over to the bathroom, Striker tracking her every move.

Last night, he barely touched her. I think I’d like to watch him fuck her.

“Reaper made pancakes,” he says, rising from the chair.

“Reaper?” Cora and I say at the same time.

The one and only time I caught Reaper in the kitchen over the last few weeks, he was making a sandwich. He dropped everything, knife clattering to the plate, and left the room, leaving it and everything else on the counter when he stalked out. Like my presence was enough to disgust him to the point he lost his appetite.

Now, I know that’s not true. Not with how he fucked me last night. He's craved me as desperately as I craved him.

A chuckle breaks free as the image of him standing over the stove, flipping pancakes in his mask, fills my head.

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