Page 49 of Wicked Devotion
I exhale deeply once I step into the house, only to run right into Red who came downstairs to check on us.
“You good?” he asks, squeezing my injured arm with a worried expression on his face.
I must have wronged someone in my past life. Maybe even an entire village.
“Sure, just need to take a fuckin’ piss,” I say as calmly as possible, adding a terrible, forced laugh.
Red lets go of my arm and ushers me toward the curved stairs. “We’ll talk later?”
I nod before I dart up the stairs and down the hallwayuntil I reach our room. My heart races in my chest, relief flooding my body the moment I close the door behind me.
It doesn’t last long.
Just when I step inside the bathroom, the door opens. Heavy footsteps echo through the room, and I stop in my tracks.
“Where are you going? And in such a hurry, too. How impolite.”
Three seconds. That’s how long I give myself to get my face back under control. I turn around, and Logan looks at me just like he did in the jungle. With narrowed eyes, staring me down like he has laser vision.
“Can I have a minute to go to the toilet, or do I need a fucking permission slip?”
“You don’t need to piss,” he states.
“Aha.”
“You complained about your water tasting like shit, so you didn’t drink a lot.” He takes a step toward me, his eyes darkening. “Probably sweat out the amount youdiddrink.”
“So you’re monitoring my water intake now? What am I to you, a Tamagotchi?” Subtly, I try to inch closer to the bathroom without him noticing.
“No. Just an overgrown idiot who can’t take care of himself.”
“It’s getting ridiculous,” I groan. “I’m going to go to the fucking bathroom, end of discussion.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Logan snarls, and all of a sudden, he’s standing right in front of me.
The makeshift bandage slips, and when I catch myself glancing down at my arm, I realize the grave mistake I just made.
19
LOGAN
Max’s thought process is audible. He keeps on looking from me to the bathroom and back, calculating if he could make it there before I reach him as if I would hesitate to kick the damn door in.
“Don’t you dare,” I say when he starts taking quick steps toward false safety.
“I’ll be back in a second, I promise.”
He angles his body away from me, and as I see blood seeping through the fabric of his jacket, mine begins to boil its way through my veins.
We’ve had this discussion once, and until now, I thought I had made it pretty clear what I think about him behaving so recklessly. I believed he understood what would happen if he kept anything secret from me. That openly laying out the consequences of disobeying my orders, especially if this leads to endangering himself in the process, was enough to keep him from doing shit like this.
Apparently, Max has a pretty but empty head.
Stalking over to him, I slam the bathroom door openbefore I grab a fistful of his hair. He yelps but doesn’t try to get away from me. At least he’s not that dumb.
All the air is pushed out of his lungs the moment I shove him against the wall, and before he even remembers to breathe, he bares his neck in a fucking delectable display of submission. Fear flashes over his irises when our eyes meet, so beautiful it’s almost enough to distract me.
With my free hand, I pull on the fabric of his damp and battered combat jacket. Hard, until the sleeve rips and exposes a blood-soaked bandage Max must have made out of his shirt.
