Consumed (Devoured, #2)(40)

He smirks. “Since you have to know—they overnighted it to me.” To prove his point, he pulls me by the wrist out into the aisle of the bus and dangles a key fob over my face.

My thoughts shift to a few nights ago, at the Dallas show when he had locked himself in the restroom for the sake of a call. “How long have you been planning this?”

“A while.”

I shake my head incredulously. “Do you always have to be different?”

“Always.” He pulls me up against him, grinding his cock against the front of my body. The motion is rough, animalistic, and it makes me feel like the bus is spinning around. I try to touch him, but he holds my hand still. “Do you have to ask so many f*cking questions?”

Breathlessly, I nod. “Always.”

Our mouths inch closer, but as soon as his lips begin to skim mine, Sinjin coughs loudly. He’s bleary-eyed with his short black hair poking up all over the place. “It’s 6AM,” he complains, yawning. “All I want is a real bed, not to watch you two about to f*ck on the table I eat on.”

Sin’s interruption gives us the much-needed boost to grab our stuff so we can leave. I’ve packed an overnight bag with enough clothing to last me through tomorrow night. It’s small in comparison to Lucas’s enormous bag, but he carries both off of the bus. I tote my purse along with my Gibson guitar and my laptop, though I have no plans for music or work.

Or checking up on what’s being said about me via the Internet.

I shudder. “I will not think about that shit during this break,” I repeat as I walk slowly across the parking lot. “I will not think about Sa—”

“If you click your heels together, it might come true,” Sinjin’s teasing voice says from beside of me, and I yelp.

Once my heart has calmed down enough for me to speak, I turn and jab him in his bony chest. “Don’t. Do. That.”

Wincing, he runs his hand across the area my fingers poked. “You’re abusive, but I’ve got to say, I’m going to miss you while we’re on this break.” By the look on his face, I don’t exactly buy that, but I give him a sweet smile nonetheless.

“You’ll get to see me tomorrow night. And besides, I’m sure you have plans tonight.”

“Two actually. Scarlet and Bella.”

My arm has started to get numb, so I rotate the guitar to my other side. “You do know that the way you just said their names makes them sound like strippers.”

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe they are strippers?” His gaze slides past me to Lucas, who’s closing the trunk of his BMW rental. He cups his hands over his mouth. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Sinjin shouts, and Lucas shouts for him to screw himself. When he looks at me again, he looks pleased with himself.

“Be careful, Sinjin. And be . . . safe.” I start for the rental car, but he hooks his fingers around my shoulder. He nudges me around to face him, his green eyes suddenly serious and no longer teasing. “Okay, you’re freaking me out,” I say.

“Then I guess I’ll cut through the bullshit and give it to you straight. I’m not going to play dumb like I haven’t seen some of the shit that’s been posted online about you.”

Shuffling my feet on the asphalt, I release a laugh that feels and sounds like jagged nails being scraped over a chalkboard. “Scouring the gossip sites to look for yourself?”

The corners of his lips tighten. “Cute, but no. You left your computer open in the galley last night.” When my mouth drops open, he adds, “Look, it’s a f*cking invitation to look and, besides, I didn’t click on anything.”

I believe him when he says that. He’d probably looked up that awful website on his own computer.

“Thanks for going through my shit,” I snap. Across the parking lot, Lucas honks the BMW’s horn, and I spin around halfway to hold up my finger. Sinjin responds with an entirely different finger. “Okay, so what’s your point? Aren’t you the one who told me I needed to suck it the f*ck up?”

“I told you that you needed to suck the f*cking jealousy up. Dealing with crazy f*cks is a whole other ball game. Whenever we have a beautiful woman around, we’ll always have the crazies coming out right behind her. Case in point, Cilla’s alleged stalker several years ago.” He doesn’t expand on Cilla but instead shoves his hand deep into his pocket. When he withdraws it, he slips something long and slim that feels like a miniature flashlight into the palm of my hand.

“Bitches are crazy. Especially bitches that think they’re in love with Lucas-Fucking-Wolfe,” he says.

Opening my hand, I look down. “You want me to pepper spray someone?”

He smiles serenely. “Like I said, bitches are crazy. They know Lucas is in town and they go seeking him out.”

Gripping the pepper spray, I run my teeth over my bottom lip. This . . . gift from Sinjin tells me two things: That, even though it’s highly unlikely, the shit talking on the YTS message boards could always make a nasty turn into real life. And that Sinjin, in all of his sulky glares and rude comments, has been worrying over me.

When I open my mouth to speak, I choose to focus on the latter. “I’m touched.”

Narrowing his green eyes, Sin snorts. “If you get all sentimental on me, I’ll skip the hotel and take Scarlet and Bella to your compartment on the bus.”