The face paint is cold as she smears it on my cheeks. She drops her voice to something covert and serious. “You and me need to have a conversation.”
“About…?”
“About how I’m going to kick your ass.”
Seems fair, but—“Why, exactly?”
“Dove is a badass. Got that? But she’s also a sweetheart. She falls in love easily and she gets fucked over easily. Are you following me?”
“Yes, but?—”
“She doesn’t need a boyfriend right now. Or a significant other. What she needs now is an unattached, emotionally distant dildo. Which I thought you were.”
“Put that on my gravestone.”
“Except I’ve been watching you. The wayyou look at her with those big, eager puppy eyes. I need you to turn off the puppy eyes.”
I nod slowly. She clearly sees me as a threat right now, and she’s not going to hear me if I tell her that hurting Dove is thelastthing on my mind. “I’ll do my best.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I’ve got my eyes on you, dildo.”
“I can see that.”
“Dildo-Baggins.”
“Can I get you some water?”
She snaps the cap back on her tube. She climbs off me and spins around to Dove. My face feels wet and messy with whatever Ophelia put on it. Princess is much more exacting about her lines, and Dove has a few nice, precise glitter-swirls on her face.
“Break!” Ophelia punches her fist in the air. “Let’s fucking go!” She grabs her pillow and lets out a roar loud enough to wake the Valkyries. Princess follows her and the two dive back into the fray, smacking each other with pillows as they go.
Dove comes over to me. Her fingers slide into my hair. It grounds me. “That’s a good look on you,” she tells me.
I tilt my head up to look at her. “She’s going to be fun to pick up off the floor later.”
“It’s her birthday,” Dove says. “She can get as sloppy as she wants. Those are the rules.”
Her hand comes up, cupping the side of my neck. Her thumb very gently puts pressure in that hollow space between my throat and my jaw, reminding me who is in charge, and my brain activity immediately kicks down a couple notches.
“Be nice,” she tells me.
I am notnice, I am the furthest thing from nice, but I canbe obedient, and the inner-brat in me shuts the fuck up with Dove’s hand on my throat.
“Dove?” A man’s voice. From the Mad Max fever dream of the chaotic bar, a couple emerges and approaches us. He’s a burly redhead with his arm around a petite blonde, her hair pulled back into a too-tight ponytail. He has this wide, wolfish grin when his eyes scan over Dove.
I stand, immediately putting myself between him and Dove.
I don’t like the way he’s looking at her. It sends my nerves on end.
“Holy shit,” he says. “It is you.”
Dove’s hand moves to her mouth. Her voice comes out like a bird chirp. “Hey…uh. Holy shit! Shawn. What are you doing here?”
Shawn. The name is like an injection of ice water in my veins.
I know all about Shawn. The so-called dominant who claimed Dove, played with Dove, and broke Dove’s heart.
Fucking. Shawn.
