Page 77 of Whips and Chains
I couldn’t stand the weight of that, hanging around my neck like a second noose when the first one was already killing me slowly.
I shook my head. “No. No killing. He’s mostly harmless. He’s just a narcissistic asshole who wants money. He’ll get bored and disappear when he realizes I don’t have any.”
X pressed his lips together in a way that made me think he didn’t agree.
I really didn’t want any more killing or death on my hands.
Unless it was the person who was watching us. The real person who was responsible for Toby’s death.
They were going to die slowly and painfully, and I was going to be the one to do it. Toby’s death wouldn’t go unpunished. I refused to let that happen.
But Travis wasn’t worth breaking a nail over, let alone anything more.
“I really don’t want to think about my shitty ex-foster brother,” I admitted to X.
“I could go down on you instead?”
I laughed. “I have to finish my shift. And anyway, I’m kinda still mad at you for what happened last night.”
He raised an eyebrow, the one that had a scar running through the middle of it. “You weren’t very mad when you were coming around my cock.”
I glared at him. “No, I meant more about you introducing yourself to people as the licker of my pussy.”
“Where’s the lie?”
“You don’t need to make that your whole personality, you know.”
“I respectfully disagree. Offer still stands to go down on you right now before you finish your shift…”
The thought was incredibly tempting. My insides clenched at the very thought of having him down on his knees, my leg over his shoulder, his tongue on my clit.
The fact I wouldn’t be thinking about Toby, or how I was going to pay my rent without him, or Travis walking back into my life at the shittiest time possible sounded appealing.
X was all smug bastard. “You totally want me.” He linked his hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall again. “You’re already mentally planning our wedding, aren’t you? Just you, me, Reginald, and Harold, on some sort of tropical beach somewhere warm…we might have to plan it around Reggie flying south for the winter…”
I pushed up onto my feet. “I like you distracting me. Nothing more. We aren’t getting married on an island with a wild duck and an ugly cat as our witnesses.”
He pouted at me. But disappointment never seemed to register with X for long. He just bounced from one thing straight into the next. “Fine. But I do want to take you somewhere. There’s no ducks or cats, so it won’t be as good as our wedding, but I think you’ll like it anyway.”
I moved past him to the sink and squirted soap into my hands. “Where?”
“I want you to meet my family.”
I jerked my head up so fast I was pretty sure I gave myself whiplash. “Your…family?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow night, if you’re free…”
X was a psychopath who had murdered a man right in front of me. And not just in a regular sort of gunshot-to-the-chest way. No, he’d stabbed him repetitively until there was blood and guts and who knew what else all in a pool at his feet.
I’d let myself forget that more than once, but never had that memory been clearer than when he was standing in front of me, asking me to come home with him to meet the parents who had raised such a monster.
I opened my mouth to make an excuse. I was washing my hair. Or walking the neighbor’s dog. Hell, I should have been packing a bag for Bermuda and getting the hell away from him.
He dug his teeth into his bottom lip, and then his hands into his pockets. He couldn’t hold my gaze and stared down at his feet.
I suddenly realized he was nervous.
And that was such an uncommon X characteristic that it stopped me dead, mid-refusal.
