“Sloane,” I warn.

“Was it your own shit you flicked, or someone else’s? Regularly? And like…why?”

Her diabolical mask falters when I lean forward and brace a hand to either side of her knees. “You’re lucky you’re injured.”

Sloane gives me a smug little grin. Fuck, I want that smart mouth and those plump lips wrapped around my cock so badly it aches. “Oh yeah?” she snarks. “Why’s that?”

I drift closer still. Push into her space. She resists the urge to sink deeper into the cushions as her breath hitches. My hand folds around her throat, one finger at a time pressing into her skin, her pulse like music beneath my palm. She shivers when my lips graze the shell of her ear. “Because I’d bend you over my knee and spank that perfect ass of yours until it glows. And then do you wanna know what I’d do?”

She gives me a shaky nod. Three uneven breaths. “Yes,” she whispers.

“I’d teach you a lesson about wanting. About wanting to come so badly you have to beg for it.” My cock hardens as Sloane’s blood surges against my fingertips. “And once I was sure you’d learned that lesson, I’d teach you about wanting to stop coming so badly you beg for that too.”

Sloane’s hummingbird pulse sets my blood on fire, her faint ginger scent marred by sweat and blood and her lingering fear. I wonder if she realizes how easily I could crush her delicate windpipe. I wonder if she thinks about how she’s caught in the grip of a killer who is just as deadly as she is.

“You’re trembling, little bird.”

In a flash of movement, I let her go and tower over her. My cock begs for relief as I take in her blushed cheeks, her rapid breathing. Her fingers graze her neck, a light trace of motion across her pinked flesh as though she misses my touch.

When her eyes meet mine, I give her a dark grin, one full of confidence. Full of promises. “Maybe you should start practicing your begging, love. Might not bring you back a drink otherwise.”

Sloane’s huff of an exhaled breath is answered by my wink before I turn and stride away. It’s hard to not look back. Flushed and flustered Sloane might just be my favorite version of her yet.

Of course, I do look back, because I can’t help myself. Just one glance. A sly smirk that I throw over my shoulder, and I burn the image of her undisguised want into my memory.

When I get to the kitchen, I take my time to rummage for drink options, settling on the bottle of Weller’s Antique Reserve bourbon, not because it’s what I actually want, but because it’s the most expensive bottle of alcohol in the house and that little shit Fionn deserves to have his pricey booze stolen after the nickname fiasco. Rose is sitting at the dining table, the lights dimmed and a row of cards laid before her.

“I didn’t take you for the Solitaire type,” I say as I set the glasses on the counter and pour the first drink. Her glance at me is fleeting.

“Tarot.”

“Clearly,” I say flatly. Her gaze flicks up to me again, a faint smile tipping up one corner of her lips as though in apology for missing the joke with her distracted focus.

“Want a reading?”

“Hard pass. Not keen on tempting ghosts or some shit. Don’t need more bad luck.”

Rose shrugs, flips over a card from her deck. “Suit yourself.”

She examines the cards. A crease deepens between her brows as her eyes shift from one to the next. Another dog-eared card is flipped, her silence drawn out with her assessment of its hidden meaning.

“So…” I say, and she doesn’t look up as she turns another card. “You’re staying with my brother? How long have you two been going out?”

“We’re not.”

“I thought you said—”

“—that ‘maybe I’m his Girl-chick?’” Rose doesn’t look up as she snorts a laugh. “Yeah, ‘Man-guy’ didn’t sound real solid either. No offense.”

I glance to where Sloane sits in the living room with her left shoulder slumped, her focus on the phone balanced on her right knee. “None taken,” I mutter.

“How long have you been…” her eyes slice up from the cards and roam over me, and then, “pining…?”

My hand drags down my face as I groan. Something tells me there’s no bullshitting Rose. “A long-ass time.”

Rose looks down at her cards and nods sagely. “Yeah. Thought as much. Well, you’re welcome, in that case.”

“For what?”

“My serendipitous presence in this charming abode,” she says, sweeping a hand toward the living space. “Fionn has the primary bedroom. I have the first guest bedroom. That means you, my friend, get to share a bed with your Girl-chick over there.”

A burst of both excitement and nerves flood the chambers of my heart. I run a hand through my hair and look toward Sloane as she scrolls through her phone. I’m not sure if she’ll want that. Or if I should take the couch. Or if I can make myself take the couch. Or maybe I should just sleep on the floor. But I’m also no saint so there’s no fucking way I’m doing that.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

Rose snorts. “Exactly. Shoot your shot, bro.”

I shake my head and huff a laugh at the little she-devil, but her attention is absorbed by the cards spread before her in the shape of a cross on the left, a line on the right. Her head tilts. Her brow furrows. Her fingers dance above the row of images, their meaning unfamiliar to me. “So, you got her into this whole fucked-up shoulder, bootprint face situation?”

“I…I guess. Yeah.”

“Some kind of…game…gone wrong?”

The bottle nearly slips from my hand. I set it down next to the glasses and take a step toward the table. “What?”

“A game,” she repeats without looking up. She points to a card of a man wearing a wreath and riding a horse, another wreath encircling the pole in his hands. Her gaze travels over the remaining cards. “A game of life and death. There’s suffering. Secrets and deceptions. Illusions,” she says, her voice grave as her thumb touches the edge of a card whose title at the bottom says ‘The Moon’.

“I thought I took a pass on a reading,” I say in a wary voice that’s little more than a whisper.

“You did. The cards disagreed.” Rose shrugs. “They do that.”

I find myself at the opposite end of the table, my eyes fused to Rose as she taps a finger next to the top card in the row on the right, a metronomic tick of time.

“The Tower,” she says. Her finger rests on the faded gold lightning that strikes a stone tower. “Destruction. Or liberation. What does it mean to you?”

Her eyes are nearly black in the dim light as they settle on me. My mind reeling, my only answer is a shake of my head.

“A tower of stone,” she says, not looking from me as she taps once on the card. “It should be strong. But built on an unstable foundation, it just takes one lightning strike to bring it down. Chaos. Change. Pain. And when your world crumbles around you, the truth is revealed.”

“And what…you think what happened to her is the lightning strike?”

Rose looks away to Sloane, a thoughtful frown passing through her expression before she turns her attention back to me. “I don’t know. Maybe it is. Or maybe that strike is yet to come.”

And though her gaze shifts away when Fionn comes striding through the door, Rose’s words remain like barbed hooks snagged deep into my thoughts. They refuse to let me go.

I make introductions. I go through the motions of explaining what happened, answer all my brother’s questions as he examines Sloane’s shoulder. We don’t linger in the house, and within twenty minutes, I’m gathering her up to bring her to Fionn’s office. But when I look at Sloane, it’s Rose’s questions that still remain. Maybe they were always there.

Did I ever really free her?

Or will I be her destruction?

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