Page 60 of Made in Malice
“I will, thanks,” I tell him, then climb into my car. Maybe she’ll come back once they are gone, but when I notice Mickey just sitting in his own car, as if he’s waiting for me to leave so he can, I finally get going.
I’m barely focused on the road the entire ride home, my mind on the woman and what she could have meant. Surely it’s not about the Morningstars. I’m certain they aren’t much older than me, which means they probably weren’t even alive when my mom left, so what the heck could she be talking about?
The guard at the bridge raises the gate as I approach, proving it’s the car and not Lucian driving that allowed me quicker entrance to the island.
My phone vibrates in my pocket when I reach the gate to the estate. If I weren’t alone, I might be embarrassed about the way I jump, but I use the time it takes the metal entrance to peel back to look at the screen.
Unknown: Program my number so you can keep your end of the bargain. Night, night, Nova.
I glance into the rearview mirror, wondering if the timing of his text is a coincidence or if Nox knows I’m home. I’m thinking it’s the latter. I’m tempted to flip him off, but it seems childish. He probably wouldn’t be able to see through the windows, and he hasn’t really done anything to piss me off like his brother has.
As I glide down the smooth drive all the way to the coast of the island where the house sits, an eerie awareness settles in my stomach. The most reasonable answer to my question of why it’s dangerous for me to be here lies straight ahead. I knew before coming here that there had to be a reason my mom left and never looked back, but I never thought it was because she was in danger here. I just thought maybe she didn’t agree with their rules or something mundane, but Alden hinted that it could be more, and Lucian is convinced my grandparents had something to do with the death of his parents. What could they be hiding?
I look up at the house. Several of the lights are still on, even though it’s pretty late. As I scan the windows, I notice a curtain to the left shifting as if someone was just peeking out at me. Now more than ever, I need to know why my mom left and stayed away. My life might even depend on it.
LUCIAN
“She’s home,” Nox says with his thumbs cruising along his phone screen. He must have been watching the camera feed at the gate. I was reluctant to leave her alone at work like he suggested, but he said she promised she would tell him if anyone fucked with her if I did.
There’s a part of me that wanted to say fuck it anyway and show up there just because I can—hell, I want to get her fired because she has no business working in a fucking bar, letting everyone look at her—but Nox’s reasoning of letting her start to trust us might work in my favor, because I need her to ruin the Umbras since I can’t just get rid of her.
Not that just making her disappear hasn’t crossed my mind, because it has, along with other thoughts like keeping her here, locked in my room, so I could use her whenever and however I wanted, which have been plaguing me since I laid eyes on her. Of course, my thoughts were a little more cruel then, but now I find myself wondering how many times I could make her come before she begged me to stop, or what her teeth would feel like sinking into my lip and cock.
“I texted her my number,” Nox adds as if he’s telling me as an afterthought.
At least he’s not holed up in his room or sleeping so much that I have to worry if he’s even eating and taking care of himself.
“How are we going to get around the no mingle rule?” He tosses his phone to the side, not expecting her to text back, or maybe he’s just distracting himself so he doesn’t keep texting her. His question finally registers, and I get irritated, not at him, but at the fact that we have rules at all. We’re the founders, we can do whatever the fuck we want.
“Cooperation between families is encouraged.” I purposely pretend not to understand his question.
“I’m not talking about cooperation, and you fucking know it. We want her,” he states with conviction.
“We want to fuck her.” That’s all I’m admitting right now.
“You want to own her,” he counters, reminding me that we don’t have any secrets, but when I admitted that, I wasn’t thinking clearly. It pisses me off that he brought it up. “I think I might like to be owned by her.” Nox is actually smiling, which throws me for a loop.
“Jesus Christ.” I tip my head back and look at the ceiling. Sometimes, I forget we’re opposite sides of the same coin, but images of my lamb leaning over me with her hand in my hair, pulling my head up to meet her pussy while she grinds against me to ride my face, don’t seem so out of the fucking question.
“You like the idea!” Nox accuses. I can’t tell if he’s in my head or if he just knows me that well. Probably both.
“Not the way you do,” I defend lamely.
A pillow hits me in the side of the face. “Well, you better pull your head out of your ass and quit being such a dick then, or we might never get to find out what it would be like. Besides, she saved your ass. Who knows what would have happened if anyone but her found you that night.”
“Nothing—nothing would have happened because I wouldn’t have let it.”
“You couldn’t even fucking walk, let alone convince someone you weren’t drunk off your ass. It could have meant you losing the seat, and you know I don’t want it.”
“They can’t even tell the difference between us. Even if you had to take the position in name only, I would have fulfilled the duty,” I admit somberly. She did save my ass. Even after I was a dick to her and made her fall, she came to the house and asked for help.
“She can tell the difference between us,” he boasts as if it’s something special, and I hate to admit it, but it is.
“So what, I’m supposed to kiss her ass now?” I scoff.
“No, I’m pretty sure she likes fighting with you, even if she doesn’t know it yet, but she flinched when you reached for her, like she thought you would hurt her, and that’s not okay.”
“She makes me want to strangle her.”