Page 10 of Deathless
“We can’t let that fly.” Torr slid a glance over to me. “They’re testing boundaries. Seeing how much they can get away with when you’re not around to crack the whip.”
“Or they’re trying to take initiative and impress me,” I countered. “We could learn a lot by watching all three parts of the Sisterhood.”
“I wouldn’t advise that,” Torr said. “That’s probably what the cult is hoping we do, and we don’t need to be more divided.”
“That’s what I’m thinking too,” LJ said.
“So, this stays between the three of us.” I stood from the tree stump. “I want you both to keep close eyes on those two fighters. Especially the Saint.” When the two of them nodded, I added, “Let everyone know there’s going to be church tonight. We’re going to handle the Sisterhood as a club, nothing changes that.”
“You got it, Prez.” Torr headed for the back door to the house and reached to hold it open just as Devin came out.
“Hey, Dev,” I greeted.
“Hi.”
Torr and I watched him go by before exchanging curious looks. Devin was fully dressed with his hair up in his normal topknot, but we both noticed something different about him.
The tall fighter’s cheeks were flushed. His lips were redder and more swollen than I’d noticed before. His hair, normally without a strand out of place, was a bit mussed like he’d just tied it up carelessly. His eyes even looked brighter, warmer than his usual cold detachment. And was that asmile?
I stared. Straight-up gawked as Devin laid out his throwing knives on the stump I’d just been sitting on. His lips were definitely pulling at the corners, a secret hidden smile as he checked his blades’ sharpness before getting started on target practice.
“Did you get a blowjob or something since we last saw you,” Torr looked at his wrist as if checking a watch, “like an hour ago?”
The hidden cheer in Devin’s expression faded away. His dark eyebrows slashed down, mouth pressing into a frown. “How’s that any of your business, Torr?”
“It’s not, I’m just being nosy. I mean, the only thing that sets my mood on a total one-eighty is a good ol’—”
“Come on.” I cut him off with a punch to the shoulder, surprising myself. “Not everyone’s sex life is a casual conversation. Leave him alone.”
I ignored both men’s surprised expressions as I headed into the house.
4
HUDSON
This was the best day I’d had in a long, long time. I couldn’t stop grinning at the ceiling, couldn’t stop thinking back to what had happened on this bed a few hours earlier. And thinking ahead to when it would happen again.
Sure, things were better in the last two weeks since I’d been freed, but they hadn’t beengood. Not until Devin came in this morning and offered something I didn’t know I’d needed. I’d gone from feeling like my body was still undertheircontrol, an automated machine dialed in to perform on the scheduletheysubjected me to. Then Devin put the control firmly back in my hands, and I felt like something I hadn’t been in years.
A person who could make choices.
Someone with the freedom and permission to explore a partner’s body. Devin had encouraged me to touch him anywhere, do anything to him. I was so confounded by the freedom and the trust that I had barely known where to start.
All the while, he never made a move to touch me. His hands, with those long slender fingers, stayed under the back of hishead the whole time. Except when his fists curled to grip the sheets at his sides, that was.
I wasn’t ready for him to touch me, not yet. But I was starting to think it might feel nice when he did. Kissing him sure felt really, really nice.
“What is happening to me?” I laughed to myself, covering my eyes as if to hide myself from the empty room. I was a teenager with a crush again, but this bright, bubbly sensation in my chest felt so weird despite how good it was. Like I’d been injected with a drug and it was some foreign substance making me feel this way.
Three hard raps came to my door, knocking me out of my daydreaming.
“Devin?” I called hopefully.
“No, this is Dr. Corwin. I just wanted to come up and introduce myself.”
My good mood deflated into sour disappointment along with a healthy dose of anxiety. I didn’t trust this man, least of all because he was a stranger. Most of all because he came at the behest of that woman, Rori.
“Hudson?” the man called through the wood. “Would you mind opening up for just a moment? I’d like to put a face to your name.”
