Burned, стр. 57

“Mine,” Barrons says flatly. “You will never go there. You have a problem with Mac, you work it out with me. I am her shield, I am her second fucking skin.”

Whuh. I don’t currently need one but it’s kind of a turn-on.

Growling, Ryodan pushes up and is out the door so fast, I freeze, uncertain who to stick with. Then Barrons makes my decision for me by taking off after Ryodan, and I have to run to keep up with them. I scowl down at my shoes. Though my boots have rubber soles, they’re still making noise. Fortunately, so are theirs.

I have no doubt where Ryodan’s going and I’m not missing it.

If Lor thinks this means he doesn’t still owe me a favor, he’s wrong. He got nearly the full two weeks he bargained for.

Barrons ratted him out. Not me.

26

“Under my thumb, that Siamese cat of a girl”

“You are, hands down, the hottest fuck I’ve ever had,” Jo tells me as she collapses back on the bed, laughing. Her short dark hair’s a mess, her makeup’s gone, she’s slick with sweat and kinda glassy-eyed from lack of sleep.

And one damned hot fuck herself.

“God, where do you men come from? Are there more like the nine of you out there?”

I’m not going to say it. I don’t say stupid things like, “Better than the boss?”

Her face tightens and she closes her eyes. I kick myself mentally. There’s not a whole lot going on up there right now so kicking it doesn’t take much. Like, one foot and two toes. Not even the big one.

Jo’s been in my bed for twenty-four hours straight, leaving only to eat and piss, before climbing back in and going at it again, one second a tigress spitting fire, the next snuggling up to me, a tiny slip of a woman under one of my arms, cheek on my chest like I’m not the bloodthirsty monster ancient cities called the Bonecrusher, who gorged on blood and death for breakfast and fueled their worst nightmares and lived by the motto “If you can’t fuck it, eat it, or use it for a weapon, kill it.”

I’m also not going to skim her mind for the answer she didn’t offer. People think we can read thoughts. We can’t. We just hear what they’re thinking real loud, some of us better than others, on top of their brains. Humans give stuff away all the time, practically tattooing their darkest secrets in neon on their skulls for anyone to see. Perverse fuckers. If they shouldn’t think about it, they do. If they should think about it, they don’t. “What the fuck do you mean ‘not a chance’?” I bellow indignantly.

She props herself up on her side, elbow bent, cheek resting on a dainty fist, and stares at me with fascination. Her short spiky hair is sticking straight up around her delicate face and she looks abso-frigging-lutely delectable. “What are you doing? Reading my mind? Can you do that?”

She not as disturbed by the possibility as most humans. I unclench my jaw and growl, “You could have taken out a goddamn billboard as loud as that last thought was.”

Her eyes sparkle with delight. “Can you help me find things in there? Maybe create a filing system?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

She drops back on the pillow, smiling. “I’ll make it worth your while. God, I can’t tell you how glad I am that I took Mac’s advice and came here! She was right. You are just what I needed.”

“Mac told you to fuck me? As in sent you here?” I’m having a hard time deciding what I’m most pissed off about: that she thinks the boss is hotter or that Mac took advantage of my supposedly Pri-ya state by lining up her friends to score an epic fuck. Women.

“I’m so glad you won’t remember any of this,” she says cheerfully. “I can say anything. Do anything. Do you know how freeing this is? I may stay here for weeks!”

It’s like the thousandth bloody time she’s said the same bloody thing and I’m getting bloody sick of hearing it. I’m so glad I came to see you! And even gladder that you won’t remember any of it! Fuck that noise. I’m remembering every goddamn detail.

“Exactly how is Ryodan hotter?” I don’t believe he is. “What does he do that I didn’t?” I can’t believe I just said that. But I’m doing all kinds of shit I don’t do lately, getting trapped in magic, making deals with Mac, screwing a brunette for the first time in forever.

See, I got this hierarchy, and if blondes knew about it, they’d probably stop lining up at my bed. The lighter the blonde, the more perfect the roots, the less tempting they are to keep around. No woman over twenty-five is still platinum to the roots. Just ain’t happening if the babe ain’t Fae. The kind of woman that dyes her hair platinum is on the prowl for exactly what — and all — I’m willing to give: a fuck.

The darker the hair, the more complicated the deal. If she’s not obsessively maintaining her roots, her nails, her clothes, she expects things like discussions, dates, disclosures. Bloody hell, she wants respect. Which I’m all about giving. I respect them the entire time they’re sharing my bed and I treat them great when they’re not, flirting them up, telling them how beautiful they are, while pointing them at the next man to help them get over me. I even get food for their kids, medicine and shit, ’cause times are tough. But if one of them starts to get clingy, I suddenly got a whole lot of work to do. Like, in another country.

By the time you work your way down the hierarchy to a brunette, you got yourself a woman who knows who she is, likes it enough that she ain’t gonna change, and is probably gonna try to change you, if push comes to shove.

Pushy, that’s what brunettes are. Even the dainty, fragile-looking ones.

Big-boobed blondes are all about the fun, the sparkle, the bling, the heat, the moment. I love ’em. I’m bugfuck crazy about ’em. They keep my life simple and sweet. They don’t inspire any of the feelings that made me the Bonecrusher.

“It’s not what Ryodan does,” Jo says slowly. “It’s more what he is.” Her eyes take on a serious sheen. “He’s like, unbelievably brilliant, ten steps ahead of everyone else all the time.”

Bullshit. He’s not that smart. I beat him at Triad. Once. About ten thousand years ago.

“I used to think he didn’t care about anything or anyone, but he does. Just not me. His passion runs deep. That’s why he’s always so controlled.”

Give me a motherfucking break. He’s controlled because he’s a control freak, plain and simple. Damn near every time he moves us, he ends up running the empire: king, dictator, or rutting pagan god.

“I think he’s the glue that holds you guys together. You’re his family and he’d do anything to preserve it.”

Okay, so she’s right about that. We had some dark times. Without the boss, I’m not sure where we’d all be. Scattered across the globe, if not galaxies. Living alone. Living hard. But he forced us to stay together. And we’re glad he did. Well, most of us are.

“I see how he feels about his world and I want to be one of the parts he prizes. I want to be worth fighting for. Worth the same kind of effort he puts into the things that matter to him. Like Dani.”

I don’t tell her no human matters to the boss like Dani. “What the fuck does any of this have to do with sex? You aren’t talking about hotness, babe. You’re talking about wanting the man that doesn’t want you as much as you want him, and probably only for that reason. Boss is no fucking prize.” Chicks. Christ. They just don’t get it sometimes.

“Ryodan’s—” She breaks off and shakes her head sharply and I see the moment she decides to lighten it the fuck up—thank you! — but then she goes and screws things up by saying with a soft laugh, “Well, for one thing he’s not blond.”

I glare at her suspiciously and shove a hand through my blond hair. I refuse to believe a woman—any woman — practices my hierarchy in reverse. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”