Wolfe licked his lips. “I told you she’d be into it.”
Thay’s voice went dark against my cheek as he took a hard turn onto the shelled driveway that led to my cabin at the edge of the sea. I nearly stopped breathing when he hit the brakes, my hands grasping his arm to keep myself from being thrown against the dashboard.
“Is that what you want, Daphne? For me to go?” Thay called my bluff, daring me to say the words that sat so prettily on the tip of my tongue… Which, of course, I did not, because I would never.
“You are insane,” I pushed off of him, worming to scramble out of the door, but he held me by the hips.
“I thought you liked that about me,” he arched a brow, gliding his rough hands up the slope of my neck until they were around my throat. “Don’t you, Daph? You prefer it when I don’t play by the rules… especially when it comes to you.”
My brain trembled, the swell of his voice hitting the pressure along my windpipe, threatening to burn me alive.
“Now tell me the truth,” his thumb ran north before finding my chin. “Say that you left me.”
A drunken feeling sank into my bones when a string of violent words reached my lips. “After you say, you’re mine!” I countered, breaking every rule.
Thay’s lips twitched in defiance. “No,” he said, simple and bladed. “Not until you stop being a fucking liar.”
“Let me go,” I squirmed, throwing my weight in every direction. I forgot this man takes down literal monsters twice my size every day.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I pounded along his spine when he flung me over his shoulder and kicked in the cabin frontdoor. “Hey,” I growled. “I work here! You can’t just go around breaking shit.”
“Aw, Daph,” Thay mocked, flinging me onto the middle of the kitchen table. “You forget,” his fingers slid up the back of my thighs to scoot me to the edge, when his chest skimmed over the heave of my breast. “I do whatever the hell I want.”
Thay’s hands curled up and over the waistband of my leggings when Wolfe stepped into the darkness, closing the busted door with a labored shove.
What, was he just going to watch?
“No!” I growled, swatting Thay’s touch away in one fell swoop.
Thay’s eyes flashed wide before falling into a low, bellied laugh.
“No?” he questioned, cocking his head to the side, and it was hard not to notice the way the shadows clung to his form, shifting and moving with each flex. It made it difficult to breathe. To think. “As inyou don’t want me to touch you?”
The words called my bluff, making every muscle in my body tense.
“Maybe you would rather Wolfe touch you instead?” He withdrew, placing both hands in the air in mock surrender, correcting his posture as he peered down at me. “Why don’t you ask him, Daphne?” Thay blinked. “Ask him to touch you.”
The table’s craggy ridges dug into my spine when I shifted to my elbows in a silent scowl.
“You, after all, love the motherfucker,” he lowered his head over my mouth. “How about you show me how much?”
Wolfe did not motion to save me; he only crossed his arms, shifting his weight against the doorframe like the ghost he’d always been. I exhaled, feeling everything swirl.
“Asshole!” I shoved against Thay’s stomach, the flat of my hands meeting the burn of his flesh.
When Thay fell back, he did not prevent me from jetting off toward the bathroom, nor did he say one word when I turned to slam it shut.
I didn’t think twice before I climbed inside the empty bathtub. I needed a second to breathe. To process. To…
“Nope!” Thay barreled through the door, slamming the knob into the drywall. My eyes flashed from my knees when he crawled into the cramped space to yank me upright.
“I think you might have finally lost your goddamn mind,” I growled, falling back against the bathroom tile.
“Yes,” he agreed, stepping into me. “But you know that happens when your fucking heart gets ripped from your chest, Daphne!” He braced against the flat of my stomach, where my breath moved like clouds.
“You’re not dead, Thay,” I reminded. “Just a prick.”
He tugged my wrist up over his ribcage and leaned into it, guaranteeing I felt all of him and the way he broke. At once, the sick pulse screamed into my blood, twisting into me like a dying star.