His head popped from around the curtain. “Is not.”
“Yes. It is. You can Google it.Afteryou get out of my house.”
That lower lip pooched out, his lip ring glinting in my bathroom light and I prayed to God he didn’t see my thighs press together. “I’ll make a deal with you. Since you so blatantly ignored my messages last night, tell me what I cost myself, and I’ll leave. Without my clothes, if you want another look at myGirthmaster.” He flashed a smile that showed every one of his straight white teeth and winked at me. I think I might lose my shit, and I can’t tell which extreme I’m leaning more towards.
“Oh, trust me, your Girthmaster doesn’t interest me at all. No matterhowexcited it is.”
Malek raised an eyebrow—the pierced one—and proceeded to try and make a liar outta me, taking that delicious thing in his hand and I didn’t have to look at it to know that he had a tight grip on it.
Cocky son of a—
“Your attention to detail’s always been good, pet. Your dishonesty, however…”
My dishonesty is about as good as my patience. I turned sharply and huffed my way out of the bathroom, stomping like a scolded child that just got told I couldn’t have the shiny new toy. Truth be told, I’m the one doing the scolding, and the shiny new toy is as good as mine if I wanted it. And damn it, I do. And I don’t. It would feel better to gut him, though I’m having a hard time convincing myself of that. His incessant chuckling isn’t helping. It’s raspy, and…breathy…and…
“Hope you take your coffee as black as your soul. Asshole.” He cackled then, muffled slightly by the music and the slamming of my bathroom door. I tried my damnedest not to smile when he started slaughtering the rest of the song, no sooner than I’d walked out—and he didn’t even need the serrated knife I’d left in there to do it.
This was, by far, the longest it’s ever taken me to make a pot of coffee. I can do this in the dark, with one arm, Armageddon throwing down, and three drops of water but…with that imbecile in my bathtub…naked and singing one of my favorite songs? I’m far fromjaded. And I already forgot how many scoops I’ve already put in this basket. I grabbed a blanket from under the setup my coffin sits on and covered my bare legs with it. Malek came strolling out in nothing but a pair of jeans a moment later, toweling off his hair.
“You’ve got some decent taste in music. That playlist is a literal pot of gold.”
I palmed my warm mug in both hands and sneered at him from over the rim. “Cute. Remind me again why you’re violating and murdering it at seven in the morning on a Saturday? In my house?” I tried not to stare while he walked barefoot into my kitchen like he owned the place and helped himself to the coffee with the mug I set out for him. He came back with the thing at eye level, grinning.
“Witch better have my coffee?”
“I like Halloween, and I collect priceless things. Why are you here?”
It shouldn’t have surprised me at all that he climbed, uninvited, into my coffin and scooched in next to me. I’m beyond caring at this point. I made room. “I came to see if you were serious. I’ve gotta feeling I know what you meant, but I hope I’m wrong. And I missed your sick smile.”
“I don’t have a sick smile with anyone but you. And you ruined a very expensive toy.”
Speaking of sick smiles…
“I did do that, but at least I was nice enough to bring you a replacement.AndI cleaned it.” Devil take my eyes for dropping right to his lap. His snarky grin faded slowly, and he stared into his cup. “I’ll understand if you don’t help, Seven. I came because I wanna know, yes. But I also came to tell you that if you decide not to…I’ll leave you alone. I’m thinkin’ I made an unguarded decision, dragging you into it, anyway. To be fair, though…you’re one hell of a fucking distraction.”
I stared at the side of his face until he finally turned it back to me. “Why me?”
“Why? Because you’re fuckingperfect. Whynotyou?”
Okay, so my whole life has been the complete opposite of this. I got passed over on every scale. I still do, if you wantthe truth. It’s become something of a normality to me, and I’ve become fine with it. I don’t have any self hate. I’m actually really happy with my life. The only thing that’s started bothering me lately is that it’s nothing if not a bit lonely sometimes. I can handle lonely. It’s just that…nobody tells you how hard it can be. Men usually keep a healthy distance from me, and here I am…sitting in acoffin, having coffee with a half-naked serial killer that’s in line to take over the Irish mob…and he’s notrunning. Neither am I. Nobody’s ever looked at me and thoughtperfectwas the right word. No one except my family.
“I’ll do it. I’ll help you. But I have one condition. Two, actually.”
His eyes lit up like a bright green flame.
“Name it.”
“Don’t ever wake me up like this on my day off again. And stay out of my drawers.” He sighed, poking his lip back out and it drove me mad.
“And the second?”
I was a little nervous about this one, but I’m not doing this without it. “I wanna meet her. Your sister.” His brows raised in surprise.
“I can’t decide if I’m excited or terrified about that.”
But he didn’t say no. That means that she’s real, and he’s not pulling one over on me just to get me to stay on his radar. But then…I don’t think I’ll ever be off his damn radar, regardless. I held my hand out.
“Deal, or no?”
