Gypsy Freak (All The Pretty Monsters #2)(10)

I sip my whiskey, content to hear her story as she just stares down at the bourbon in her hand once more.

“I didn’t expect to like her so much,” she confesses. “She sneaks up on a person like that. I have the dazzle. She has the sneaky razzle.”

She laughs bitterly, still not meeting my eyes.

“I’m the secondary character, after all,” she goes on, confusing me. “She’s the lead.”

Her voice wobbles on the end when her gaze lifts once more. She pushes her glass aside and props up on the table as she takes her seat once again.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask her softly.

“Because someone should know,” she says with a shrug. “Also, someone needs to know something has been killing me slowly.”

“What do you mean?” I ask in confusion. “Violet isn’t feeding on you, if that’s what—”

“She’s not feeding on me. You should figure out what her mother attached to her soul to keep ghosts away. And you should figure out why she did it.”

“Me?” I muse as I finish off the last of my whiskey and push my own glass aside.

I don’t even know if that’s a thing.

“You’re the Van Helsing. Isn’t it your duty to serve and protect or something?”

“Protection is a compulsion to a small degree,” I state vaguely. “Serving…not so much.”

Her lips tug up in a lopsided, sardonic grin. “Well, let’s get on with the part where you do serve,” she states abruptly as she pulls out two long ropes from the bag.

“What’s that?” I ask her, my eyebrows lifting.

“It’s so that you don’t get away too easily,” she states like it’s obvious, confusing me.

Before I can ask more questions, she pulls out an odd, terribly sewn leather contraption.

“She can thread a needle like a boss, but her sewing skills are…horrendous. Was she telling me the truth about her family once sewing for royalty?” she muses when I lift the leather harness thing and try to figure out what the hell it’s for.

“Yes,” I state distractedly. “It saved her family from annihilation. Her family was enslaved at one point and forced to create the most sensational fashion for the royal families of the throne, or of relation to the throne,” I add.

“Well…that’s a bit more morbid.”

“So is the vast majority of our past,” I answer absently. “What is this?” I ask, holding up the harness contraption.

She just grins. “It’s so I don’t get away too easily. I hate to rush things along, since it’s nice having a companionable evening with a man and talking about my favorite-ever person, but my time is dwindling.”

She snaps her fingers like she expects me to spring into action. I glance down at my lap and take in the fact I’m anything but aroused right now, even though she’s stunning. It’s…unnerving to plan to fuck a Portocale gypsy who is possessed.

Lifting the whiskey, I drink a few long chugs before putting the bottle down and standing.

Anna tosses the leather contraption and the ropes to the bed, and then looks over expectantly at me as she walks to stand right in front of me, craning her head back to stare into my eyes.

Those eyes are confusing me, because they belong to Violet, and Violet never stares up at me with that much desire and want. Probably a damn good thing, since this is all really fucking confusing and crazy.

“I’ve lived a long time, but fucking a ghost is a first for me,” I tell her when she slowly starts unbuttoning my shirt, showing care.

“I can promise you my expectations are extremely low,” she assures me.

She leans up on her tiptoes as she finishes unbuttoning my shirt, and her fingers skate across my shoulders as she pushes the shirt off slowly.

Leaning down, trying to get myself in the mood a few hours earlier than I planned to have to, I let my lips brush hers.

It still feels awkward, especially when she kisses me, her lips gliding over mine with no familiarity.

The kiss stops abruptly and she pulls my head down to whisper against my ear. “You can pretend I’m her,” she says in such a muted tone I barely hear her. “I won’t judge.”

This time when her lips touch mine, I kiss her harder, lifting her so that her legs wrap around my waist.

She moans into my mouth as I carry her to the bed, and I shut my mind off so I can stop overthinking it all and give her the send-off Violet wants her to have.

At least until a triplet set of creepy children land in the room.

My lips go still on hers, even as I avoid eye contact.

“Don’t mind them,” Anna says like she knows exactly what has me pausing. “I told them they could watch.”

I’m not really sure how my life has turned into this without any sort of warning.





Chapter 5





VIOLET


I’m staring down at Vance when I come to, and his arms are…tied to the bed…

His hips buck up, like he’s urging me to move, and I come to the jarring, mind-boggling, surreal realization that we’re decidedly in the middle of having sex.

He’s inside me. I’m wearing the leather harness that attaches my body to his—Anna’s design that I sewed.