Page 35 of Sweet Revenge
Shrugging, I said, “I don’t know. I thought so, but you’re the expert here.”
“I’m the expert in drug overdoses?” Daemon sounded puzzled.
“You said you’ve done this before,” I reminded him. Taking a step closer to him, I asked, “Haven’t you?”
“Sure, sure.” He cleared his throat, which made me wonder if he’d ever even drugged anyone at all. His face flushed a slight hue of pink. Had he drugged me? I didn’t think so. I remembered everything about that first night we shared together. I definitely hadn’t been out of it, like my brother was now.
“Do you need help?” I’d never tied anyone up before, so I had no idea if there was an art or a science to it, but I thought I could do something to help.
“If you wanna pull his arm over here and hold it for me, that will help.” Daemon took hold of Alex’s shoulder and flipped him onto his back, and I grabbed his arm and yanked it out from under him. Alex growled a little but barely blinked. “How often would you say your brother uses controlled substances?”
I stared at Daemon as he got into position to tie my brother up. He climbed onto the bed, straddling Alex, pulling his left arm over as I took hold of the right one and moved them together. “I have no idea,” I admitted. “But I’d say probably pretty frequently. I’m guessing it’s not the same sort of shit you put in those drinks, though. Wouldn’t that matter?”
“To a degree.” Daemon tied the paracord tightly, pulling it hard, and wrapping it around again and again. Yeah, this bitch was never getting loose. “I don’t think he’s going to keel over on us. He’s still breathing, though it’s shallow. I think he’ll be okay.”
Once his hands were tied, Daemon took another length of cord and used it to tie his legs together. Rather than just binding his ankles, he wrapped it around them and then laced it up the length of his legs, basically knotting him up like he was a fucking Christmas ham.
I watched, my mind wandering to other places. At one point, Alex coughed a little. Daemon stopped what he was doing to twist his head to the side. I figured that was in case the bastard started to puke, so he didn’t choke on his own vomit.
“Let him choke on his own puke,” I bit out. “I really don’t give a fuck.”
Daemon was sweating a little from the exertion of tying up my asshole brother. “I know you hate him. I do, too. But I kind of need him to live because I don’t have a plan B. So unless you have a plan B, baby, let’s hope he doesn’t die yet. After we get what we need from him, you can hope he dies all you want to.”
I shook my head. “I have a plan B.”
“What’s that?” He raised his eyebrows and grinned at me. Done with the hogtying, he sat down on the bed next to my brother and stared up at me. “What you got up your sleeve, sexy?”
I felt my cheeks warm at the compliment. How could he make me so horny just by looking at me? Even in this sort of stressful situation, the man knew how to turn me on. “We can just leave his rotting corpse here and run away,” I explained.
Daemon snickered. “So we’re back to that then?” He reached for my hands, and I gave them to him. He pulled me over, placing me on his lap.
“That’s right.” I snuggled against his chest, and he wrapped me up tight. “We leave him here and run away together, disappearing into the vast expanse out there, letting all the people swallow us up.”
“I wanna swallow you up right now,” he murmured, his voice vibrating through my body.
Ignoring his remark, I continued. “You’ve got a fake ID. We’ll get one for me, too. Then, we’ll go find an island home somewhere, someplace where no one knows us, and we don’t know anyone. And then we’ll make love in front of a roaring fire.”
That got a chuckle out of him, but I was serious. The urge to leave all of this behind and disappear was overwhelming, especially when my mind slipped into fight or flight mode.
“As much as I’d love a life where I could fuck you in front of a fire on a daily and nightly basis, that’s not the hand we’ve been dealt right now. We’ve got enemies to face, people to put in their place, bodies to bury. So, let’s get through this, and then, when it’s all over, we can focus on one another.”
I couldn’t help the heavy sigh that escaped my lips. I heard what he was saying, and I hoped that he was right, that we would be able to vanquish our enemies and then get on with our lives. Still snuggled against him, I asked the same question I’d asked a hundred times before. “Do you think it exists for us, Daemon?”
“What?” he asked, reaching up to run a hand through my hair.
“After. Our happily ever after.”
Sliding his thumb under my chin, he lifted my face to look into his eyes. “I do, baby. I really do. I’ll fight to make sure that you get exactly what you deserve, true happiness.”
A small smile lit my face as I leaned over to press my lips against his. At the moment, I couldn’t see how that could possibly be. But I trusted him, and I wanted to believe that when he told me he’d make it work out, he’d find a way. He always found a way.
“It’s time,” he told me with a knowing nod. “We’ve got what we need. We need to go back.”
Taking a deep breath, I nodded along with him. He was right. It was time to end this fucking thing.
CHAPTER22
DAEMON