My lip curls, half smile, half hunger. Bastard knows exactly how to get under my skin and drag the heat out of me.
“How long was I out?”
“Long enough to sound like you were gargling demons and drooling like you missed your last meal,” he replies, stretching lazily. “Don’t worry, you didn’t miss shit. We just arrived.”
I lift my head and peer out the tinted window. Nothing but shadows and silhouettes. Looks like we’re on a bridge, but it’s too dark to be sure. My head bumps against the glass as a shimmer appears through the trees.
“Is that… a waterfall?” I ask, and immediately regret it.
A beat passes. Then, “Did you just ask if thereal-ass waterfalloutside the window isreal?” I glare at my own reflection.
“You’re so fucking dumb sometimes,” I whisper to myself.
Dash turns in the front seat, brow cocked. “She’s a ten, even though she talks to herself like a certified lunatic.”
“If I wasn’t crazy, I’d be boring.” I stick out my tongue and flip him off. “Try again.”
His soft laugh dances in the silence just as the SUV slows. “We’re here,” Wyck says from the front, voice sharp. He kills the engine. A second later, all the doors swing open in perfect sync.
I smirk.If I move, you move… just like that.Vibes.
Before I can swing my legs out, Wells is already there, hand out, protective as always, pulling me into him like I might vanish.
I don’t hate it.
Not when his arms wrap tight around my waist and his fingers slip under my shirt to brush bare skin.
A spark jolts through me.
“Wells,” I breathe, giggling like some drunk schoolgirl. My chest presses against his.
“I didn’t do nothin’,” he says, smirk carved into marble.
“Would you two get a fucking room?” Ryan snaps, stomping past us. “Better yet, book a damn suite and toss a GoPro in the corner for the rest of us to watch.”
I snort. “Why not just give me the corner room with the thin walls? Ilikebeing heard. Watched. Worshipped.”
Ryan gags. “You’re such a damn whore.”
“Yeah, but I’mtheirwhore.” My grin is wicked.
Laughter spills around us, slicing through the tension that’s been strangling the night. For a second, I forget about the masked man. The chase. The violation. For a second, I feel like I belong again.
Until Wyck’s voice snaps like a whip.
“Enough.” His command silences everything. “Shut your mouths so I can fucking speak.”
Ryan immediately goes quiet. “Sorry,” she murmurs.
Wyck doesn’t respond. He just grabs my hand like it’s his by blood and drags me away from Wells, from everyone. Possessive. Untouchable. Mine.
“This will be our new home.”
We stop at the foot of something massive. Something biblical. A building so tall it scrapes the belly of heaven, stretching upward with cathedral arches and broken-glass windows like it once knew saints, and watched them burn.
“What was this place?” I ask, breath catching.
Wyck doesn’t even flinch. “An asylum.”
