Page 51 of Pleasure & Prey: Vol. 2

No, my brain tells me spitefully. You fell for the chainsaw wielding cannibal. Much better choice. Good job.

But at least my ex-cannibal is sweet, with a smile of gold and a personality to match.

As if he can feel my eyes on him from the other side of the kitchen island, Virgil turns to survey me, his eyes never leaving my face. “Does she know what you plan to do to him?” he asks, nodding in his head in my direction.

“Oh yeah,” Wren assures him, stuffing another piece of toast in his mouth. “She’s feral for our little chef. Don’t you see those marks on her neck?” He smiles, beaming in my direction when I reach up to self-consciously touch the marks. “She doesn’t mind a little murder.”

“Is she coming along?” Virgil’s question nearly makes me choke on a raspberry, and Jed shakes his head, looking a little nervous.

“No. She doesn’t need to,” he promises, looking down at his plate. “I don’t want to do that to her. Especially since it doesn’t involve her.”

“You sure it doesn’t?” Virgil definitely freaks me out. “You sure she’s going to be okay when you come home covered in blood and cut up the body in the shed?” It’s almost like his eyes are daring me. Challenging me to speak up.

It’s uncomfortable, to say the least.

“She doesn’t need⁠—”

“What would I do if I did come?” I demand, unable to stop myself. “I can’t help you kill the guy.” I’m just barely learning to wrap my head around all of this. Especially now that I’m sitting in the middle of a fucking meeting between three men looking to kill the brother of the man Jed previously butchered.

This is all starting to feel like a nightmare. And more than a little fucked up. The only thing to complete my day would be for fucking Brenda to call again.

“Moral support,” Virgil replies shrewdly, cutting off another protest from Jed. “Could you do that?”

Looking away from him, I slant my gaze toward one of the windows as I stir the berry compote around my plate. I don’t know. I don’t know, and that’s the problem. If I’m as in love with Jed as I think I am…shouldn’t I know?

They’re quiet for longer than I expect them to be, but it’s Wren that finally breaks the silence by saying something about knowing where the guy’s truck is parked. Apparently, Tyson Miller’s brother is just as stupid as Tyson had been, and none of them are in any way worried about consequences, or not being able to find him.

It almost sounds like they’re just looking to put a hit out on the guy.

Thankfully, none of them ask me anything else while they talk. Their plans filter in and out of my ears, and all I can do is stare at my cooling food while my heart and brain go to war over what I should do. Obviously, Jed won’t hold it against me for not going. For being here with my head in his pillow and his blankets over my head.

He doesn’t think I have it in me to go.

And frankly, neither do I.

The scrape of Wren’s chair has me looking up, and I watch as the taller man twists, spine cracking as he stretches languidly. “I’ll be back,” he offers lazily, like none of this is a big deal to him. Like it doesn’t matter. “Let me look into some things. Find out if he’s still around where his truck is. You coming?” He looks at Virgil, who nods and stands up as well.

“If you want the company,” the man murmurs. He looks at me again, and once more I see that challenge, that look, that says he wants more from me than I’m pretty sure I can give.

In response, I narrow my eyes and stuff a strawberry in my mouth. The corner of his mouth twitches upward, before he follows Wren to the door and closes it swiftly behind him, leaving me and Jed in the room alone.

“You don’t need to go with us,” Jed promises, still riled up from telling his friends about the confrontation in the restaurant parking lot, and now me being crept up on in the fog. “Seriously. It’s going to be a mess, and it won’t be entertaining. He doesn’t deserve it quite like Tyson did. I don’t want⁠—”

“What if I do go?” I ask, biting my lower lip hard. “What if I just…went?”

But it’s just words. Just a question, because I know for certain there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to get my ass in a car and go on a murder trip with my boyfriend and his two best friends.

Not on my life.

24

When the Jeep crawls to a stop outside of a dilapidated old building that definitely looks like it’s falling apart, my stomach doesn’t get the memo. It keeps going, plummeting toward the ground, and I can feel the bile crawling up my throat to lodge a protest in my mouth.

Please don’t throw up, I beg myself, hands clenched against my leggings. Please! God, I don’t want to vomit all over Jed’s lap, my lap, or the ground. I’m pretty sure the last of those options would be especially bad if they’re going to commit a crime here today.

I suck in air, only slightly aware of how Jed is watching me with undisguised worry on his face. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, but not vomiting is, unfortunately, the bigger problem right now. No matter how much I want to play it cool and tell him I’m more than fine.

I am so not fine.