Page 14 of Bound to Death

I’m such a good friend.

“Don’t you have a deposition to prep for your next trial? Or did you drag another poor victim home last night and leave him to wake up, disorientated and crying in your bedroom?”

She licked my hand, and I pulled it away with a nasty look her direction. Real professional of her. But then again, even at the office, Emily was a menace. Men had tried and failed to put her in her place, but she was a powerhouse. Gifted. An assetthey couldn’t afford to lose. That was my best friend. And even though I hated her right now, I loved her.

“What’s in this kitchen iswaaaaymore interesting than what’s in my bedroom, promise.”

Whichever poor bastard she’d tied to the bed last night, my condolences. He was probably enslaved, enchanted, bewitched, besotted—or whatever word you wanted to use—after a kinky night of being her toy. So, of course, she was already bored. He’d chase, and she’d forget his name.

I’d seen it enough times to know that Emily never got attached, and she liked her sex string-less. Spicy but detached. Full of kinks but no future. I couldn’t actually remember a time when she dated someone. Meaningless sex buddies, sure, but neverdate.Her general opinion of men was that they were only good for one thing. Sex. Anything else, she could do herself.

Fuck, I loved her, but I was going to murder her if Thanatos didn’t. Emily never read the room when it came to me. Which was a talent being a goddamn lawyer literally trained to do just that.

Typically, I told her everything. I’d bled my soul to her from the moment we met. She and I were two cold pieces of jagged glass that somehow fit together. Damaged, standoffish, dark humored with general contempt for anyone and everything. She might be bright and shinier than I was on the outside, but she was a sadistic queen who enjoyed putting men on their knees. And I, well…I just liked that she loved all the weird bits about me.

I didn’t get along with people. Barely had any friends at all. Not from a lack of trying, but people had a tendency to think my sarcasm was cause for concern and I was too quick to throat-punch an asshole who mouthed off. Not Emily. She laughed at my jokes, helped me dodge legal bullets, and was genuinelyhappy to just stay in with me for a glass of wine and serial murder documentary.

But Emily hadn’t believed that a bird was chasing me everywhere I went. She’d never believe I was fucked by a killer, or demon, or maybe the anti-Christ after he saved me from five ready-to-kill rapists. Besides, the less interaction these two had, the better.

Questions pressed on my mind like nails piercing flesh. I needed answers, and Emily was in the fucking way.

“You should go,” I started before my savior—killer?—quickly interrupted.

“Forgive me for intruding,” he asserted politely, but I got the distinct impression he didn’t mean any word of it. My bullshit meter was screaming.

Didn’t matter, though. Emily was quick to elbow me again and say, “Rude, Ash. He’s making breakfast. You can’t kick a man out who’s making us breakfast.”

“I meant you, Ems. Not him.”

“Rude times two. I live here.”

I saw right through her. She was going to play this like one of our usual arguments. Dirty. She’d go for the throat, and I didn’t know if I had the headspace left to fight back. But still, I had to try. Her life depended on it.

“Not for long if you don’t go find something else to do,” I warned, mad-dogging her with my best be-gone-with-you-woman stare.

We both knew she paid the lion’s share of the rent, and my words were an empty threat. But still, she played her role well, hand over her heart like I’d damaged it in the crossfire. “At least let a girl eat before she’s thrown to the curb, abandoned by theoneperson who owes her alotof fucking favors for the shit she’s gotten her out of…”

What a sly bitch.

Massaging her shoulders and leading her over to our thrift-find bar table, I dialed up the charm. “But of course she should. And this bitch…this bitch is super grateful for your continued help”—because I might end up in the looney bin, or worse, dead, if I don’t play my cards right—“and would never want to insult, belittle, aggrieve, or dismiss her nearest and dearest friend.”

“Pulled out all your fancy words for this one, did you, Ash? Nothing but synonym rolls for your girl here. I’m flattered.” Pleased with herself, Emily took a seat and dropped her chin on folded hands. “The bitch stays!”

I hated her so much right now.

The twitch of Thanatos’s lips was damning. He was having fun. Fuck him. Fuck him right back into yesterday. I couldn’t ask him a single goddamn question with Emily here, and by the acrobatics my face was doing, he knew it, too.

That look of his changed, though. In a single heartbeat, his secret smile and seductive onceover of my body set my skin on fire. It was the look of someone who’d seen you naked. And begging. Someone who’d figured you out in one night. Someone who’d not only pinned who you were, but every egregious kink living inside your head. And even though I should be full of rage, and rage only, the place between my legs had theaudacityto pulse with the memory of what that mouth—that stupid fucking gorgeous mouth—did to me last night.

His eyes roamed my loosely-clothed form like he owned it. Every fucking inch. His icy gaze was full of steadfast possession and the confidence he’d trace every curve, dip, and crevice again. Lick every stretch of exposed skin. Memorize my valleys and ridges, my wetness and softness. He looked hungry, and I felt violated, but in a way that made my pulse take off running for the forest, desperate to be chased. In an instant, I was back under him, his prey, his willing victim, his desperate sex kitten.

His little raven.

“Shit,” I accidentally said out loud, and his all-consuming stare finally slid away, back to the eggs he cooked with a gentleness a person like him shouldn’t possess.

Usually, Emily was perceptive as shit when I was unraveling, loose at the seams, and dangerously close to combustion. But obviously, the handsome bad boy chef, who might also just so happen to be a demon prince sent from the underworld, was enough to distract her from her usually astute Asha face-reading talents.

“Come here,” came his soft-spoken command when he turned back to stare at me.

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