Page 41 of Hexed
My gaze flicks up to hers, my chest feeling heavy. “Something like that.”
She nods, sucking on her teeth. “So who was it, then?”
I cock my head. “Who was what?”
“The person who tried to kill you.”
It’s a bold question. And one that not a single person has asked me other than my pops, and even he doesn’t seem to give a damn, too worried that everyone’s out to gethiminstead.
I shake my head. “No clue. I’ve got a lot of enemies, so it could’ve be anyone, really.”
That delicious-looking mouth of hers pops open. “You didn’t try to figure it out?”
Embarrassment fills me. “I did. I just couldn’t fucking find them.”
I push my plate away, my appetite entirely gone now.This is why I don’t like talking about this shit.
“Well, no offense,” Venesa says. “But the actual story’s way more interesting than that bullshit one you tried to sell me.”
“She really sang at my club, though, after everything.” I laugh. “I wasn’t lying about that.”
“How generous of you,” Venesa deadpans. “She always wanted to be a singer, even though, if you ask me, she isn’t much of one. Uncle T used to pay off the school so she’d get the leads.”
“She ain’t so bad.”
Venesa gives me a knowing look. “Such a gentleman.”
“You’re right. I liked her voice, but I got tired of hearing it, so I took her back to my office and fucked her until she couldn’t speak. How’sthatfor a gentleman?”
I’m not sure why I say it or why I’m watching her like a hawk to see how she reacts, but when her eyes heat instead of turn cold, like maybe she’s imagining me fuckingher, well…that makes the tension ramp until the base of my neck goes hot and my dick grows hard.
My vision skims across her face and down her body, and I picture what it would be like to haveherbent over an office desk with that silvery-white hair wrapped around my fist like a leash.
Christ.
She grabs her Coke, pulling the straw between her pillowy red lips, and now I’m picturing what it would be like to slip my fingers between them, to feel her teeth indent my skin the same way they tear up that mouth of hers.
She takes a sip and rubs her neck before smirking. “Just like a man.”
I smile back because she’s right. I amverymuch a man right now, adogeven. One who can’t keep it together enough around her to lock away the most basic, primal parts of me.
“It was the start of a beautiful relationship.” I say it mainly to remind myself, and my libido, that I am, in fact, in a relationship.
“So…tell me something else, Lover Boy.”
My brows lift. “What’d you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Something real. Somethingno oneelse knows. Like…how’d you get your nickname?”
My stomach cramps. She’s out of her mind if she thinks we’re talking about me like that. I paste on a cocky grin. “I’d think that’s pretty obvious.”
A challenge lights up her gorgeous dark brown eyes, and she stares at me for a few moments, her fingers tapping on the table. Then she shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. It can’t be that easy.”
I don’t respond because she’s right. It isn’t.
“This is hardly fair.” She crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “I gave you that whole sob story about my momma, and you won’t even give me a small, little, insignificant thing?”
After standing up, I throw a couple of hundreds on the table and walk around to her side, then lean down until my nose brushes against her hair. “Well, that’s your first mistake, piccola sirena. Who ever said I was fair?”
