Hideaway (Devil's Night, #2)

by Penelope Douglas

Betrayal was unforgiveable.

CHAPTER 19

Unfortunately, after last night, I’d seen everything else, and I knew what she hid now. Arousal wound its way through my body.

Whatever. I wasn’t getting fucking married, and even though I no longer needed access to the hotel, I really loved having access to her. I liked her.

“Did you know that out of Michael, Will, and Damon, Damon was the first one I met?” I told her. “We didn’t all become friends really until high school, but I knew Damon long before that. We were both confirmed here when we were ten.” I looked up and around again before meeting her eyes. “Together. Classes every Wednesday.”

Well, I wasn’t going to be the one to educate her. I came here every Wednesday, the same day of the week we had our classes when we were ten, for several reasons, the most important being I knew this church was significant to Damon.

We weren’t partners—not yet.

My smirk fell. “Did he see you in it?” She nodded, looking all too pleased to admit that. “He even got my underwear size correct. Although I don’t think there’s really enough fabric there to call a G-string ‘underwear.’”

My foot hit the kneeler, but there was also a wooden chair, and I pulled the door closed, sitting down in it and bringing her into my lap.

The last time we were here together, she heard everything. Everything I didn’t want people to know. And I wanted one person who knew me. I didn’t want that tainted between us simply because I was afraid of what she would think. I needed her to understand.

“I couldn’t be with a woman, Banks. I couldn’t touch them. I couldn’t drink or smile or hardly eat. I couldn’t do anything that would bring me pleasure, because I wasn’t worthy.”

“We put Rika through such hell last fall,” I admitted. “We blamed her and targeted her, put her in danger and scared her. We terrorized her, Banks.”

“She saw me the worst I’d ever behaved, and she still talked to me. Still listened. Still wrapped her arms around me and fuck it . . .” I choked out, tears welling. “We just, the three of us, needed that moment. Each for different reasons, but she made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore. She made me feel wanted and strong. And it brought me a little peace for the first time in a long time.”

“But you . . .” I buried my nose in her neck, smelling something heady and fragrant. “You make me feel driven. You make me hungry and on fire and wanting to slow down time instead of wanting to rush through it. It’s you I look for when I walk in the doors in the morning. Not her. You.”

This was what I wanted. What I always wanted, since the first time I’d seen her. Someone who knew me and wanted to dive with me.

And I was still in prison when I got out, living like a machine so I wouldn’t make any mistakes, and I wanted to fucking feel something. I wanted to push and pull and fight and fuck and own this whole goddamn world again.

“You weren’t built for them,” I said in her ear as I reached around and rubbed her clit. “Not Damon or Gabriel or anyone else. You were made for me, and I want you in my bed tonight.”

God, I wished I knew what was in her head at that moment.

Pleasure swept through my entire body, and I felt dizzy as I rested my forehead on her back.

“Vanessa arrived early,” she said quietly. “She’s here in Thunder Bay.”

CHAPTER 20

It was time to meet Vanessa, and I didn’t want him in this house with her. I didn’t want her anywhere near him. Why did he come?

But they locked eyes and just stared at each other for a minute as she slowly closed the door.

I darted my eyes to him, watching him take her in as if he was actually considering her.

This wouldn’t end well for me, but God, it felt good. And I couldn’t stop myself.

“I fed them to the dogs,” I said.

“She knows how to be disciplined, though,” he added.

I blinked long and hard. That wasn’t anyone’s business. Not here, not now.

“Ask her to take off he...

Oh nononono

Kai hadn’t seen me without the gloves. Not since I was seventeen, before I was “disciplined.”

“There’s a plan here,” he told her, speaking softer. “You have to trust me.”

“Why are you allowed? When did you move in with this family? You weren’t sleeping with Damon, because you were a virgin with me, so what was he doing with you, huh? Who exactly are you?”

He held them tightly, staring at the backs of my hands. Only one had the cigar burn on it.

“You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” Kai choked out, sounding solemn.

“Do you want me to marry her?” he asked. “And this will be us? You, my little sidepiece whom I sneak off to fuck in the middle of the night. Huh? You’d like that?”

“See how long he wants you. See what happens when you try to crawl back here, because you know how I reward disloyalty. Go.”

“Damon has something on me!” Kai said, cutting her off.

CHAPTER 21

Leverage. He’d said I was leverage.

“You need to talk to him,” she told me. “You backed him into this corner. Take some responsibility.”

Yeez rika, like she doesnt owe u anything really

Yes. Yes, I knew that. Even if Kai put away his anger and Natalya was alive and well, Damon was still coming.

“If you ask Kai not to hurt Damon,” he told me, “then he won’t. All you have to do is ask.”

Someone could have stuffed his body in a furnace, taken his phone, and was now doing the creepy Saw thing where they ask you if you want to play a game, but really, you have no choice, so you play before you’re chopped up by a meat slicer in a slaughterhouse.

Because of everything you make me feel.

Am I really just leverage in this cat-and-mouse game between you and Damon? Just a tool?

shaking his head. “Just give me ten minutes, okay?” he said, looking just as weary as I was. “Just give me ten minutes with you, and then we can get serious.”

I have clothes in the bedroom, so find whatever you want to sleep in, and I’ll grab some food on my way back up, okay?”

I’d always worn my brother’s stuff, because that’s what he gave me to wear, but I smiled, putting on Kai’s shirt. I wanted to feel his clothes on me and his smell around me.

“She’s not equal!” Michael shouted.

“She will never be equal!” he went on. “She will always mean more than you.”