Perversion (Perversion Trilogy #1)(28)

Apparently, I’d moved too fucking slow.

“You found out where I lived, came here, and decided to break into my room? For a cheap piece of broken tin?” he asks with a growl, looking to the floor where my locket rests on the carpet.

He cocks his head to the side and looks me over. His gaze trailing down my body sends chills rippling through me. His strong thighs are crushing my ribcage as he straddles me.

“It’s not that easy,” he says, his stare pinning the back of my head to the wood floor. My head is throbbing, and I realize it’s probably because I smacked it on the way down during my not so graceful grand entrance. “Besides, there’s more we have to talk about. Like you ripping off people at the casino.”

Shit.

Gabby was right.

I am fucking crazy.

However, the enormity of the decision to retrieve my locket from one of the most violent men in town doesn’t sink in until he’s straddling me with a gun aimed at my head. Apparently, my gun licking antics are lost on him. But I’ve got other tricks up my sleeve.

I always do.

The jacket and hood are gone. Grim’s shirtless. The ridges of his ab muscles flex with his every breath. The cords of his neck are strained, the petals of the black rose tattoo moving with each inhalation. His hands and chest are covered in grease. His white sneakers stand out amid the darkness of his black jeans slung low on his hips.

His hair falls into his eyes as he glares down at me. They aren’t glowing without being under the fluorescents in the alley. They’re not yellow like I thought, either, but more of a brown speckled with green that gives them a golden hue. They’re heated with anger, and something else I can’t quite make out.

Maybe confusion at the feeling passing between us because it’s muddling my thoughts as well.

“So, you decided to break into my house and take it back?” he asks like he can’t quite believe it himself. “You found me, so that means you know who I am?”

I nod and say the words with a fake yawn. “You’re Grim. The executioner for the Bedlam Brotherhood.”

“And yet you decided to come steal from me anyway,” he says.

I try and push him off me, but he’s got at least a hundred pounds on me. He goes nowhere fast, and I think I pull a muscle in my stomach.

“When you put it that way, you almost make it sound like a bad idea,” I hiss. “And I’m not stealing. I’m just taking back what’s mine!”

“Why is this thing worth risking your life?”

“Why do people keep asking me that! It just is!” I shout, my annoyance outweighing my need to toy with him to get what I want. I try honesty instead. “Inside is a picture of someone. He’s important to me.” I sigh heavily, blowing a strand of hair from my eye.

“And?” he prods, pushing the cool barrel of the gun against my forehead. “Why?”

“Because he’s the only person I’ve ever loved!” I blurt.

“Bullshit,” Grim leaps off me like I’m the one holding a gun to him. I sit up against the bed and catch my breath while he stands there in a mixture of shock and anger. “Nobody does stupid shit like this for a picture.”

He picks the locket up from the floor and tries to open it, but it’s rusted and there’s a trick to it.

There’s a scratch at the window. A large, striped cat leaps into the room and directly into Grim’s arms. The way he’s looking from the cat to me stirs up a memory. I glance at the locket in his hands, and the room begins to spin around me. My eyes darting from the locket to the cat to Grim.

He doesn’t look away from me when he says, “Not now, Mr. Fuzzy. I’m busy.”

I gasp. It can’t be…it…it is.

Tristan.





Twelve





My brain wants to hate the girl who broke into my room, but the barbaric, possessive attraction pulsing between us like a live-wire is gnawing at my rib cage and confusing the fuck out of my every thought. I know she feels it, too.

Her pupils are dilated, and it’s not just because she’s pissed off. Whatever this is, it’s probably some twisted reaction to her having the same unique eye color as Emma Jean. But I don’t have time to analyze it because there’s a bang on the door.

“You got someone in there?” Haze asks from the other side. “This can’t wait.”

I set Mr. Fuzzy down on the dresser and tug the girl up to a sitting position. I pull a bungee cord from my toolbox and use it to tether her wrists to the footboard of my bed.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asks. She looks directly into my eyes in a way that makes me want to blindfold her as well. She’s calmer now. The attitude gone. Mr. Fuzzy curls up on her lap and closes his eyes. I feel uncomfortable under the way she’s looking at me, like she’s seeing me for the first time.

“Whatever the fuck I want to do with you,” I grate. I tie a black bandana around her mouth to keep her silent while I go out to talk to Haze.

“What do you need?” I ask when I step from my room.

“Kinky shit going on in there?” he asks, trying to peek inside. I shut the door.

“Well, someone is tied to my bed,” I say without any trace of humor in my voice. “What is it?”