Page 45 of Kings & Carnage

The only thing I liked more than Neo calling me a good girl was when he called me a good girl with his cock in my mouth.

I scrambled off his lap and retrieved the shopping bags, setting them next to him on the floor, and he spent the next fifteen minutes unpacking his purchases, which included several outfits for me and some things for Rock and Oscar.

"Thank fuck," Rock said, taking a package of underwear and stack of jeans and white T-shirts out of Neo's hands. "I owe you.”

"It was selfish," Neo said. "I was going to throw myself over the falls if I had to hear about your chafing balls one more time.”

"I never thought I'd say this," Oscar said, "but I’m equally happy to see the underwear.”

“Dinner's ready," Rock said, opening the oven and removing a sheet pan with slices of white bread that he'd buttered and sprinkled with garlic salt. "And I use the worddinnerloosely.”

My stomach rumbled at the smell of tangy tomato sauce and buttery garlic bread. "It smells good to me.”

Rock bent to kiss me, his tongue darting out to tease my lips before he pulled away. "You're either very easy to please or you have a terrible palate.”

We spent the next hour eating dinner and giving Neo the details of my conversation with Mrs. Giordana. Then he told us about his conversation with Hawk and Oscar and Rock asked a bunch of questions about the guns.

"I called Rafe on the way home," Neo said, pushing away his plate.

"Why Rafe?" Oscar asked.

"We can't stay here," Neo said. "Not without our computers and stuff. And even if we had them, the Wi-Fi blows. These binders are all we've got to figure out what happened to Emma and the other girls and we can't do any research here.”

“You’re saying we're going back to the house?" I asked.

"I'm saying the house is the best of all our shitty options," Neo said. "From what you said, there's no smoking gun inside those binders. Figuring out what's going on is going to take a while, and school starts again in two weeks.”

"I can't even think about school right now," I said.

Oscar reached for my hand under the table. "I get that, but Neo's right. We're at a disadvantage here, even with all of Daisy's help. We're better off at the house, where we have access to our tech and more control over who comes and goes. We’ll figure out what to do about classes.”

"I love the idea of going home, but I don't love the idea of making it easy to find us," Rock said. "Especially after those assholes broke in before we went to the island.”

"That's why I called Rafe," Neo said.

"It would take a small army to adequately protect the house," Oscar said.

"Which is why we’ll need to stay here a few more days," Neo said. "It'll take Rafe that long to pull together the resources we need.”

"I'm surprised Rafe will even give us any of his men after what happened," I said, remembering the three of his men that had been killed during the home invasion that had sent us to the island. “But I'm guessing you're going to tell me he owes you a favor.”

"Or five," Rock said.

I sighed. There was no point trying to unravel the mystery of the Kings and their lives before I'd come to Aventine. Maybe someday we’d have the time to really talk, the way new lovers talked.

Right now we were too busy trying to stay alive.

"How long will it take Hawk to deliver on the guns?" Oscar asked.

"A day or two," Neo said.

"Won't we be back in the house by then?" I asked.

"Hard to say," Neo said. "It depends on how long it takes Rafe to get enough men to cover the woods around the house. I'm not risking a repeat of that fucked-up home invasion. But we’ll need the guns anyway.”

"You already have guns at the house though right?" I asked.

"I think this is one of thosethe more guns the bettersituations," Rock said, picking up my plate and taking it with his to the sink.

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