Kings of Chaos (Dirty Broken Savages #1)(28)

The air seems to thicken, making it harder to get a full breath. My heart is beating fast again, but this time it’s not from anything even remotely approaching fear.

My nipples are hard through the fabric of my shirt, and I know he can see that, too. I want to arch against him, or drag him down to me, but I force my stupid hands to stay put.

“What about you?” he murmurs. “What’s your favorite position? Wait, don’t tell me.” He studies me, his eyes tracing over my face and then down lower, as if he can read me like a book.

“You say you want to be on top,” he says. “So you can control the angle, the speed. So you can feel like the feisty bitch you are. But really, you’re the one who loves doggy. You just want someone to shove your face in a pillow and take you. I can tell.”

“Just try shoving my face in a pillow and see what happens,” I shoot back.

He grins. “Oh, don’t tempt me, wildcat. I can handle anything you can dish out and then some.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

He gets closer to me, and if I leaned up a bit, just a little bit, I’d be able to kiss him. It would be so easy. It feels like all the tension between us that started in that stairwell when we were grappling with each other is building to a peak, to the point of no return.

We’re just a hair’s breadth away. All one of us would have to do is make a move, but neither of us go for it, trying to wait each other out.

Ash dips just a bit lower, bringing his head down like he’s going to kiss me—but he pulls away at the last second, pushing up onto his knees and climbing off the bed with the same ease as with which he climbed onto it.

“Have a good night,” he whispers, flashing a crooked grin. “I hope your dreams will be sweeter now.”

He winks as if he’s the reason I’d have sweet dreams, then strides from the room, closing the door behind him and leaving me alone in the darkness.

My heart is still racing, and now that I’m alone, I can feel the edges of my nightmare creeping back in. It’s one of those dreams that doesn’t trickle away with distance from it, and the details of it all are still stark in my head. Probably because most of it was from memory.

Ash’s presence still lingers too, even though he’s gone, and I feel unsettled and off balance.

I’m not going to be able to sleep like this, clearly.

Sitting up, I rummage for the bag I stuffed into the drawer of the bedside table when Ash showed me to this room earlier. It has all my essentials in it, the things I’d grab if I needed to run and run fast.

I find the razor blade in the bottom of it, tucked carefully away in its plastic case. The metal is cold and solid in my fingers, and that’s already a nicer feeling than where I was a second ago.

I pull one leg out from under the covers and trace the raised lines of old scars with my free hand before finding a clear patch of skin and drawing the razor across it.

The pain hits me, sharp and impossible to ignore, and I suck in a breath, closing my eyes as it settles in. It’s grounding, and I keep going, marking up my leg and drawing blood. There’s something about the pain and making the neat, sharp lines that settles me, and I sink into it, cutting again and again until I feel better.

As I grab a tissue from the nightstand to wipe off the blade, I think back to Ash’s parting words. A humorless laugh gets stuck somewhere in my throat, and I shake my head. It’s a nice sentiment, and his presence did manage to drag me out of the cold grip of my nightmares for a little while, something I wouldn’t have expected.

But even so…

My dreams are never sweet.





12





RIVER





THE NEXT MORNING, I wake up late. At least this time there aren’t any lingering nightmares to fuck with my head, and I know where I am when I open my eyes.

I get dressed quickly in shorts and a tank top and head downstairs, determined to keep acting like I own the place and not show any uncertainty around these guys. It might be their house, but they dragged me here, so I’m going to make the most of it.

The first person I see is Ash, grumbling as he steps out of one of the downstairs bathrooms. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him not wearing a shit-eating grin, and I lift an eyebrow at him in question as I come to a stop.

“Don’t start,” he grumbles, scowling a little.

“What crawled up your ass and died?”

“Your fucking dog,” he says. “You didn’t say he wasn’t house broken.”

I just shrug. As far as I know, Dog has never even been in a house before. “What did he do?”

“He shit at the foot of the stairs, and I stepped in it when I came down this morning.”

His lips turn down in a pout, like he expects some sympathy, and I just laugh in his face.

“Dog!” I call. “Come here!”

Even though he’s definitely not trained to respond to commands, the dark brown mutt comes trotting over, his tail already wagging. This is probably the most attention he’s ever gotten in his life.

“Good boy. Very good.” I pet his head, and he looks up at me with adoring eyes. “You want some breakfast? Let’s see what we can find.”

“Pest,” Ash grumbles. “That’s what I’m gonna start calling him. Because it’s what he is.”