Page 11 of Kings & Chaos

Besides, something good had come out of my sleepless night. Namely, a plan of my own. I didn’t need them to figure out what had happened to Emma.

“Wow,” I said grudgingly as I looked down at the food, “this looks amazing.”

He pushed a bowl of perfect strawberries at me. “Have some fruit.”

I looked up at him. “Are you trying to say you’re sorry?”

He grinned. “I already said I’m sorry. We all did.”

“Not Neo,” I said, picking up my fork.

“Neo said he was sorry when he didn’t tell you to fuck off yesterday,” Oscar said.

I barked out a short bitter laugh. “Right.”

He reached up to tug on a lock of my hair. “That’s as good as it gets, tiger.”

The tug was probably supposed to be affectionate, but all it did was send a rocket of lust through my body, and I had a sudden memory of Oscar yanking my braid in the weight room while I had his dick in my mouth.

Fuck me. At this rate, I was going to have to change my underwear before class.

I bit into the French toast and closed my eyes as my teeth sank into the pillowy bread. Jesus. If all the hot dick in the house wasn’t my undoing, it was definitely going to be the food.

“Oh my god,” I said, looking at Rock as I tried to place the subtle flavor under the fried bread, maple syrup, and powdered sugar. “Is that… orange? And is this…” I scraped at the surface of the bread, which I now realized was coated in something. “Almonds?”

He looked stricken. “You don’t like almonds.”

“No, I love almonds,” I said. “I love… this. It’s incredible.”

Relief washed over his sculpted face. “Just French toast, kitten.”

I laughed. Because dammit, I was only human, and amazing food was the second-fastest way to my heart, right after mind-blowing sex. “This is notjustFrench toast.”

“If you say so,” Rock said, clearly pleased by my praise.

Guess I wasn’t the only one with a praise kink.

I polished off the French toast — I wasn’t about to be shy about my appetite with such amazing food at my disposal — and stood up to take my plate to the sink. I turned on the water to rinse it and put it in the dishwasher, but Rock stopped me.

“Leave it. Reva will be here today.”

Right. It was Monday, and Reva seemed to work at the Kings’ house every day during the week. She wasn’t always there when we returned from school, but she always left a spotless house as evidence of her presence.

“How often does she stay until we get home?” I was missing my mom, even though I’d never admit it out loud. She was a royal bitch at least half the time, and a simpering groupie to Roberto, Neo’s father, the other half.

But she was my mom. I’d never stop being surprised by how much weight that carried in my psyche.

“Only when she wants to poison us,” Oscar said from the island.

I laughed, remembering the day Reva left two trays of lasagna and Rock and Oscar had waited for her to leave to trash it.

I hadn’t believed them when they said she was the worst cook alive — until I’d tried her beef Stroganoff. It wasn’t an experience I was looking to repeat any time soon.

The mood in the room shifted as Neo came into the room smelling like soap and the cologne I sometimes smelled in my sleep. The fucker haunted mydreams, and I was torn between thinking a good hate-fuck would purge him from my system and worrying that it would only set me up for a lifetime of addiction.

“Still mad, Jezebel?” he asked, heading for the blender to make his smoothie.

“At you?” I asked. “Always.”

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