Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(56)

Good luck with that, airhead. Sex happened, and maybe it was good, or great, even transcendent, but afterward, there you were, in the bathroom, cleaning up the mess. Still alone, and staring into the mirror at the same screwed-up, ambivalent person you’d been before.

Pain cramped her inside. She missed their magic connection, craved it like a crack addict, but she would not give in to the temptation to crawl back inside that guy’s mind just because she could.

Just because it felt so damned good in there.

That wasn’t a good enough reason. She lectured herself in the harshest possible terms. It would be childish, rude. Creepy, even.

It was time to grow the f*ck up, and leave his mind alone.





14


The low murmur in the kitchen subsided into ominous silence when Miles walked into the room. Their ranks had grown while he’d been closeted upstairs with Lara. Kev McCloud had arrived, and Val with him, Tam’s super-spy lover, and the father of her baby.

They all watched as Miles grabbed himself a plate from the stack on the counter and pulled the heels of the loaf of Italian bread out of the paper bag, heels being all that were left. He scraped the dregs out of the rice pot. Snagged the last smallish steak, its juices congealed on the bloody serving plate. He tossed the final shreds of vegetables that clung to the sides of the skillet over the meager heap of rice, surprised at how hungry he was. He’d gotten out of the habit of food.

He sat down at a stool at the kitchen bar, since all the places at the kitchen table were taken, and attacked the small plateful of food.

Everyone was staring. He ignored them, concentrating on getting fuel into himself. He had an uneasy sensation that he was in for an ass-kicking. He was bracing for it. Fueling for it.

To their credit, they waited until he mopped up the last bits of steak and grains of rice with the last lonely chunk of bread. Trying not to look around pathetically for more.

Sean made the opening gambit. “So. How was it?”

Miles counted slowly down from ten before daring to raise his eyes from the plate. “What the f*ck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, don’t insult our intelligence,” Connor said.

“I don’t know what you—”

“Oh, shut up.” Sean’s voice was thick with disgust. “You come down to eat an hour and a half after we cook dinner. That’s your second shower, less than two hours after the first, you dirty, dirty boy. And when you put on Connor’s shirt before you went upstairs, it wasn’t off by two buttonholes, dick-for-brains. Wake up, already. Can’t you at least try to cover your own ass? You’re embarrassing me.”

Miles looked down at the shirt, appalled. “Aw, f*ck.”

“But the biggest clue is that guilty, dog-on-the-furniture look in your eyes,” Connor said. “If we took you outside and all took turns kicking the shit out of you, would it make you feel better?”

Miles considered his various responses in the split second that followed, among which was killing every guy in the room. A tall order, considering who they were. It would be quicker and more streamlined to just kill himself. Throw himself into the chasm that should be opening up in front of his feet right . . . about . . . now. Please, God.

But the chasm didn’t materialize, so he muscled himself past it.

“Fuck off, all of you,” he muttered.

“I can’t believe this,” Aaro said. “You extracted her from that f*cking snake-pit, and for what? To be your bed toy?”

“No! I do not have to justify myself to any of you!”

“No, you do not seem to feel that need anymore,” Sean said.

“I know it’s been hard on all of you, lately, not having your errand boy at the ready to jump and fetch and carry,” Miles said.

The silence that followed was flat and cold.

“Nobody expects anything from you anymore,” Davy announced. “At this point, we know better.”

“Cut out the guilt trip,” Miles said. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“Oh, I just bet you did, loverboy,” Aaro said, his voice taunting. “I bet you gave her your all. What, was the dungeon thing a turn-on?”

He didn’t even remember moving. Just landing with a crash, sprawled on the detritus of plates, food, silverware, paper goods. Pinned flat to the table by four very big guys.

He’d lunged across the table for Aaro’s throat. Without thought or hesitation, or even the faintest, most remote hint of ingrained socialization making a play to stop him. Like, what the f*ck?

So much for his unshakable calm, his emotional distance. It had gotten all burned up in the past hour, writhing in bed with Lara Kirk.

Aaro sat just out of reach, eyeing Miles over the rim of his coffee cup. He grabbed a paper plate, cut a big, gooey slice of German chocolate cake from a white bakery box and stuck a plastic fork into it. “Bring the chick some dessert. She needs the calories, now that servicing you sexually has just become part of her job description.”

Miles convulsed against the eight ruthless hands that shoved him down against the table again. “You’re a fine one to talk,” he retorted. “I don’t remember you holding back with Nina.”

“I hadn’t just rescued Nina from months of incarceration in a f*cking black pit of hell,” Aaro shot back.