Page 20 of Revive
“Just so we’re clear, I’m not asking you to file a daily report or anything. I just don’t want to be unaware.”
“Got it.”
“So you’ll tell me?”
“If things get heavy with Xane? Sure.”
She smiled broadly then, before sitting up and stretching. “What’s in the bag?” She swivelled about so she was sitting facing him cross-legged, and nodded at the white plastic carrier Xane had left behind.
“Oh, right. Food. Xane brought us a takeout from Blackwater’s. We should probably eat it before it gets cold. That’s if you’re hungry.”
“Pass.” She beckoned for the bag.
Spook reached over and snagged the carrier handles. He set it down between them, and watched her expression grow bright when the scent of hot chips wafted up from the containers within. “Go for it,” he encouraged, pulling a single chip out and offering it to her.
Alle allowed him to feed her it, going so far as licking the grease off his fingertips, then dived into the rest of the contents, pulling out various boxes and containers and arranging them on the seat between them.
“We can be civilised. I can find plates,” he offered.
“Let’s be entirely uncivilised and just pick.”
“Yeah, okay.”
They did precisely that for a few minutes, munching in order to fill the stupid silence that seemed determined to embitter them to one another. “It was crap timing,” he ventured.
“Sure was, but at least he brought chips, so murderation doesn’t have to happen.”
“That’s good. I need him,” he reminded her.
Alle quietened him with another chip stuffed between his lips.
-7-
Allegra
Alle made a point of taking her time eating, not just because she didn’t want to wind up with indigestion, but also her thoughts were whirring like a tornado inside her skull. She still wanted to rewind the last fifteen minutes to the point where Spook was about to enter her, but simultaneously, she was jealous as all fucking hell. It made chewing and swallowing something of an ordeal. The food kept getting stuck in her craw. Hence, she’d downed most of the bottle of Fentiman’s pink tonic water before she found the gin packed along with it.
The issue was the ease with which Spook had melted into Xane’s embrace. There’d been none of the tension that existed between her and Spook. Not a speck of it. Only a display of gloriously intense gothic eroticism.
On the other hand, she was the one with Spook’s bitemarks on her thighs, not Xane. At least, she didn’t think so. Maybe she was wrong about that.
Fuck it, this was stupid! She could just ask him. They’d just agreed she could do precisely that.
“Does Xane have your bite marks all over him?”
Spook lowered the slice of pizza that was halfway to his mouth and peered at her, brows drawn tight. “No.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He put the pizza slice down unbitten. “I’m not saying he hasn’t in the past, but not presently. Luthor’s… never mind.”
“No, go on. Luthor’s what?”
“It’s one of the few things that he gets territorial about. Every time I’ve bitten him, and Xane’s really into being bitten, Luthor’s obliterated any traces of it. We all have our incendiary points.” He grinned as he spoke, as if caught in a memory, but he rapidly shook it off. “Are you really struggling with this, because I’m not sure I can—”
“Still wrapping my head around it.” But her chest wasn’t nearly so tight as it’d been moments before. He hadn’t simply agreed to what she’d asked of him, he’d done it. More importantly, it hadn’t felt awkward. It hadn’t felt like he was trying to hide things or hold back. “I’m probably overthinking things, and I guess I’m a bit narked that he walked in when he did. Like, I appreciate he brought food, but did it have to be right then?”
“Not sure that five minutes earlier or later would have been any better.”
