Page 33 of A Worthy Opponent
Instead, I’m fighting not to shake.
This time, when I thrash, he releases me. I bolt from the bed, practically running to the bathroom and closing myself in. I lean against the door, breathing hard. What the hell iswrongwith me? I press a shaking hand to my chest. My heart feels like it’s trying to break through my rib cage. I can’t catch my breath. Is this what dying feels like?
A knock on the other side of the door. “Tink.”
“Leave me alone.” I sound just as desperate as I feel. Worse, there’s a thickness to my voice that mirrors the feeling clogging my throat.Oh no.
“Open the door.”
“No!”
I actually hear his sigh over the blood pounding in my head. “We need to talk about this.”
“The fuck we do.”
Another pause, longer this time. Finally, he says, “I’ll give you thirty minutes. When I come back upstairs, you either open the door or I break it down.”
I hear him walk to the elevator, hear the doors whisk shut. Only then do I slump to the floor. What the hell is wrong with me? Hook systematically broke me down last night and then swaddled me in tenderness while I recovered. There isn’t a single damn thing he could do this morning that would top that scene.I’mthe one who initiated things.
My body isn’t listening to logic, though. My fight or flightresponses are all tangled, pushing for me to act and act now, screaming that I’m in danger. I can’t combat it because Iamin danger.
For the first time, it’s not what Peter might do to my body that I’m afraid of.
It’s what Hook could do to my heart.
Chapter 13
Hook
“You’re not focusing.”
Nigel isn’t wrong. Twenty minutes into this meeting to go over anything pertinent that went down last night and my mind keeps wandering back to Tink up in my bedroom. How she woke me up with a demand to give me a blow job. And then promptly bolted and locked herself in the bathroom.
I shouldn’t have left her like that. She was obviously out of sorts and fucked up, but I can’t be sure that staying would have helped more than it hurt. Which is why I’m sitting here, listening to my cousin go over information that I can guarantee I won’t retain. I drag my hand over my face. “Sorry.”
“How are things coming with her?”
I huff out a rough laugh. “How do you think? Fighting or fucking. Those are the only two modes we have.” Fucking isn’t on the menu right now, either. I’ve laid out my terms, and I’ll be damned before she convinces me to walk them back. I’m the unstoppable force to Tink’s immovable object, and I have to be the one to win. Too much rests on it.
Though I’d be lying if I said fucking her had anything todo with securing the territory against further coups. The marriage was enough to get that ball rolling. No, I want Tink on her knees for me. I want her. Full stop. That’s reason enough for me.
“You could try talking to her.”
I give him the look that deserves. Nigel sighs. “Fine. Fuck. Do what you want. I’ve already put out the news of your wedding. Had some of the kids talk it up on social media, too, in case he’s monitoring that.”
Hard to say. Peter was always a traditionalist, though I suspect it’s because he doesn’t trust new technology. Social media makes the rules more fluid and can get the unwary into trouble, especially when they move through the shadows like we do. Illegal activities and the publicness of the internet do not go well together.
“He’s got people watching us. One way or another, he’ll know she’s here soon.” If he doesn’t already. The knowledge gives me a petty level of satisfaction. Everything of his is mine now. His territory. His people. Even his woman. Tink having belonged to Peter at one point doesn’t make the list of reasons why I want her, but the truth is less important than perception.
A challenge of one monster to another.
Nigel leans back and stretches his arms over his head. “I’ve already reached out to Hades to negotiate having our people pick up her stuff.”
“Good.” It might make her feel more secure to be surrounded by her shit. And she’s got her clothing business to take into account. That won’t stop just because she’s living here. She’d gut me if I so much as suggested it, and I’m not cruel enough to carve away one of the things she fought so hard to establish in her independence. Especially when it’s presents an opportunity to be such an asset.
That doesn’t mean she’ll be able to move around with thesame ease she used to. She’s no longer an employee of Hades and in possession of a neutral place as a result. She’s mine, and there are legions of strings that come with that new role.
I file that away as one more thing we have to talk about. Fight about. The same fucking thing.
