Page 142 of Cruel Pleasures
Unable to resist myself, I dip my head and lick at her jaw. My teeth scrape the soft feminine line that curves into her upper jaw and I say, “I shared you last night. But make no fucking mistake, it’s me and me alone who owns you.”
That seems to light the fire inside her. She snaps out of her lusty trance. Her hands come up to push at my chest. “You didn’t share me. I agreed to be shared. And how many times do I have to tell you?—”
I kiss her on the mouth again. More gently though still dominating. No gesture of affection from me will ever be missing the dark tinges of who I am deep down. Imani understands this even if she pretends otherwise.
“You want to be mine, minx,” I whisper. “Just like I want to be yours.”
“I came down here… your mother… she just died.”
It’s my turn to back off the heat that’s burning between us. At yet another mention of Mother, I’m no longer on the way to sporting a giant hard-on. I’m back to the many conflicting thoughts I had earlier when coming down here to take her apart in the first place.
Turning away from Imani, I set back to work. She studies me for a second and then joins me at my side.
“I’ll help you.”
“Go upstairs. Go back to sleep with Ryu.”
“I want to help.”
“I’m digging her grave. She’ll be buried by the hydrangeas she loved so fucking much. More than she ever loved me.”
The bitter words slip out one after the other before I can censor the long-held emotion. My resentment over the fact that my mother was not only completely insane, but she never loved me. She hated my guts with so much intense passion that she’d spent various parts of my life attempting to kill me.
Imani frowns, sensing my verbal mistake, then touches my arm. “Let’s start moving her out to the garden.”
Mother’s parts are piled on top of the rolling table I often use when working, and we wheel her out through the double doors in the west wing. We encounter more bodies long dead, splayed out on the floor in hideous brownish stains that’s dried blood.
Once in the garden, I grab shovels from the staff’s supply room, and we begin digging a hole. We work in silence under the bright, watchful beams of the winter sun. The air’s cold, though by the end, we’re slicked with sweat anyway.
“Shall we?” Imani asks, glancing at the hole and then the table of body parts.
“We shall. Toss her in.”
Together, body part by body part, we dispose of Mother in the hole we’ve dug up. Dirt gets everywhere, caked in our fingernails and on our clothes. I step toward her and use my thumb to wipe off a smudge that’s wound up on her chin.
“Did you have any idea? About Kaden?” she asks.
“That he was my brother? And the Owner was my father?” I laugh as if both revelations are jokes. “I had no clue. I always assumed my father was never around because he was dead or abandoned my mother for being batshit crazy. I didn’t realize he was the man running the secret society I was a part of.”
“Why do you think he never…” she trails off.
“Told me? You heard her. He detested her—and me by extension, apparently. Kaden was his first born. The son he wanted. I’m sure that played a factor.”
“Do you think Kaden’s aware?”
“I don’t know, but if he were, I’m not sure it would change anything, minx. We usually stayed out of each other’s way. Except for when he helped me that time in boarding school.”
“When he pulled you aside after the incident?”
“He taught me things. Techniques I still use now.”
“Maybe a part of him sensed you were his younger brother. Even if he didn’t know.”
I stroke her cheek, more preoccupied with her pretty face. “It’s not something I’m going to trouble myself with considering he’s never coming back.”
“And you know that with certainty?”
“If you’re asking about your friend,” I say, my thumb smoothing a pattern along her cheekbone, “I don’t think she’s coming back either.”
