Page 59 of Whips and Chains
“No. Why?”
I slammed my foot on the brake hard, sending him flying forward. He hit the back of my and Levi’s seats with a groan.
I shrugged at Levi. “Damn. Was kinda hoping he’d sail right through the windshield.”
“Hey! I heard that!” X muttered from behind us, pushing himself back onto his seat. Though it was a bit late now, since we were nearly there, he put his seat belt on and glared at me in the rearview mirror.
“Sorry,” I called back to him. “There was a duck on the road.”
“Reginald!”
I rolled my eyes, my irritation with X only feeding the desire in me to stab something. I stopped outside the destination Levi had given me. We were well out of Saint View, after taking theroad that led to the city. We hadn’t quite hit the city center, but we were in a shitty part of the outskirts. It wasn’t terribly different than Saint View, other than the fact the apartment buildings were a lot taller than the ones we had at home.
I cringed at a rat running across the alley in front of us, disappearing into a crack in the outer walls of the building we were watching. “This place is a hole.”
Levi nodded. “Did you really expect a man who was involved in a trafficking ring to live somewhere fancy?”
I peered out through the windshield at the people walking by on the street ahead of us, despite the fact it was after midnight. “I don’t expect anything. Ever. I’ve known violent men who were poor as dirt and ones who were richer than I could ever dream of. And everything in between. Expectations are what get you killed. And I prefer to remain breathing.”
Levi let out a long breath. “Fair enough.”
X finally dared to unclick his seat belt, even though we’d been stationary for more than a few minutes. “And where exactly do you fall on that scale, Whip?”
“On the scale of violent men? When you’re singing, pretty high.”
“I meant where do you fall on the richer or poorer scale? Because you live in that shitty little house in Saint View. But yet you drive this really nice car…are these leather seats?” He ran his palms all over them, then leaned in, loudly sniffing into the air. “What’s that I smell?”
“If you farted…”
X ignored me. “It’s the smell of someone who owns more than three matching forks.” He grinned. “You’re rich, aren’t you? Let me guess. Old-school money, but you wanted to prove to Daddy you could make it on your own. So you took the shitty house, but you couldn’t give up the car.” He patted me on the shoulder. “You’re doing it, Whip! You’re sticking it to the man!”
I pressed my lips together. “I liked it a whole lot better when we didn’t question each other’s personal lives. Let’s go back to that. Okay?”
“Sure.”
There was a beat of silence before X said, “Okay, I’m bored with silence. Tell me how many numbers were on the closing balance of your last bank statement?”
I groaned.
Levi twisted to look at me front-on. “We could be sitting here for a while before anything happens. We might as well talk.”
I glared at him, irritated by all the attention on me and the fact I was still sitting here in this fucking car, instead of finding out who was targeting us and putting a bullet through their brains.
And that was before I even started thinking about what Levi and I had done in the darkness of that room. My fingers wrapped around his cock had been…whatever. You could put that down to a heat-of-the-moment need to get off that had gotten out of control. I’d initiated it. I’d wanted it, and he hadn’t stopped it, but I wasn’t about to start questioning what we were over a quick rub and tug.
It was the way he’d grabbed the back of my neck that I couldn’t stop thinking about. The way he’d hauled me in with a groan and pressed his mouth on mine.
I didn’t know what that kiss meant. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The fact he was acting like it hadn’t even happened was pissing me off.
“Sure. We can talk,” I agreed. “About you. How about you tell us why you haven’t told Violet you love her yet? Why don’t we talk about how you’re scared she’s going to reject you, in favor of X, and so you haven’t said a word like a gutless coward?”
I didn’t care that I was being cruel.
I didn’t fucking want to talk about myself. Or where I lived. Or who the people in that photo were.
I just wanted to fucking put a knife or a bullet into someone so that pain was out of me and into someone else.
