Page 135 of Property of Necro
Perching a hand on my hip, I roll my eyes. “No, you don’t.”
“Fine. I don’t. But it’d be nice. You could be bakin’ in the kitchen with Mama like you were this morning, and I could slip up behind you and stick it in.”
Amused by the silly man, I roll my eyes again, with more umph this time. He could do that now with my t-shirts, but he won’t. He respects Mama too much to put him through that.
“Do you ever think about anything other than sex?” I tease, pulling off my purple dress in favor of a black one with intricate lace and a plunging neckline. It’s far shorter than the last, hitting me mid-thigh. It almost looks like lingerie, but not quite.
“Sex? Yes. You? Never.”
Always with the flattery.
“You’re ridiculous,” I tease.
“Ridiculously obsessed with my woman. Hell fuckin’ yeah, I am.” Rot does a twirly thing with his finger for me to do a full three-sixty in my dress. For the full effect, I reach into the deep V and pull my tits up. My nipples pucker, and you can see the outline of my piercings through the tight fabric, but it holds them in place.
Rot damn near drools as Coffin acts far cooler about his appreciation of my new outfit. Those eyes soak me in, and his subtle smirk tells me all I need to know—it’s a keeper. I don’t know why they bought me such nice clothes or what I’ll use them for, but I’ve never owned anything this… expensive. I don’t even know if that’s the right word. Quality? Yeah. We’ll go with that.
It’s been two weeks since I woke upin a coffin, and I still haven’t seen Necro since they slid him into the back of the SUV. They won’t allow it. But I’m waiting for the day they do. Patiently. He needs time to recover, and they won’t admit it, but I know I’m the reason he tried to kill himself.
And I have to live with that.
I can’t lie and say it doesn’t sting because it does. But Necro’s had a rough life. If I didn’t set him off, another woman would have. Or so I keep telling myself, so I don’t think about it too much when I’m lying alone in my casket at night, wondering what he’s doing in his room beside mine. Reading? Wishing he were dead? Wanting to talk to someone? Regretting the day he ever met me?
The curiosity is killing me.
Figuratively, of course.
I want to know.
I want to talk to him, to see if he’s okay, to see if he needs anything. But I can’t. I’ve asked, and the answer is always, “No. Not yet. Soon.”
With Rot being his typical self, a mixture of sweet, perverted, and scatterbrained, Coffin has softened around the edges since my return. He smiles more and feels lighter. I don’t know how else to describe it. He’s been present, and while I know he’s happy I’m here, and we don’t want to kill each other all the time, he hasn’t fed the beast since I’ve returned, and that has me worried.
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Because it will.
It always does.
We can’t live in this utopian bubble forever.
We’re in a weird honeymoon stage. I think that’s whatit’s called. I’ve seen couples in it before, I just haven’t experienced it myself. It feels a whole lot like a calm before the storm. I don’t trust it, just like I don’t trust most things.
In the mornings, we have breakfast together. In the afternoons, I spend time between Rot’s office and Coffin’s barn, or cooking with Mama. I stay busy. There’s always sex and good company. I now have a seat at the dinner table between my guys. But that chair at the head remains empty, and the longer Necro’s gone, the more heartsick I become. His quiet presence soothed me. Sitting in his office, reading. His leg against my side at dinner. Just knowing he was there, watching. I feel like I’m missing a limb I never knew I had.
The void lingers like a physical entity as I continue to try on the clothes Rot ordered—mostly dresses, a pair of leather biker-chick boots, leggings, dark denim jeans, and Crocs, both fuzzy-lined and regular ones. About fifteen pairs in all. No shirts, no bras, and no panties either.
“I don’t know where I’ll wear all this.” I drop another dress in the pile of keeps and pick up another.
“When we take you on dates or visit Doc’s,” Rot explains as if I should already know that. But how? Dates have never come up before.
Feeding my arms through a pink frilly number, I spin to face him. “Take me on dates?”
“Yeah. We’ve been talkin’.” He gestures between Coffin and him. “We wanna do that.”
I don’t understand.
“Take. Me. On. Dates? Me.” I point to myself. “Like… you want to date me?” Since when? I’ve never been on a real date. They’ve never been on a real date either. At least, Idon’t think so. Well, maybe Coffin has. But is it considered real if you plan to kill your date afterward? I wouldn’t think so.
