Why shouldn’t they? They’re all dark and fucked-up and dangerous. Only a very special girl could handle us. Only a wicked angel could understand.
Shit.
Motherfucker.
I want to scream because I know I have two crappy choices: keep Bernie as mine (as she rightfully should be) or put our family and my friends over myself.
I’m going to have to share her.
I don’t like it, but then, I’m used to doing things I don’t like. Entertaining Ophelia, putting up with my father, digging up rotten corpses. That’s life, man.
There’s going to be a steep learning curve though. Can’t change a man in a night.
“Old habits,” Aaron says, before anyone else gets a chance to answer her. “We’ve been talking about you—but without you—since we were eight.” He watches her with an affectionate gaze as she moves into the kitchen. Without a word, I push the plate with the finished sandwich over to her.
Mine.
I’ll fuck my girl, feed my girl, kill for my girl.
“Thanks,” she says, hooking a saucy smile my way. My cock stiffens at the sight of her pretty lips curving up at the edges. “I could get used to this: my man making me a sandwich after sex.” I just bark a laugh out because I don’t care about things like that; I’ll make the sandwiches every time. Society is broken and twisted, so what do I give a shit about some old sexist rules? This thing between me and Bernadette is older than that, ancient, primal. “Still, I want to know why Oscar here is talking about me breaking up Havoc.” She bites into the sandwich as she glares at him.
He taps his inked fingers on the countertop and glares right back. Looking at him right now, I hate him with a passion for getting to see Bernie in her wedding dress before I did. I bet I know what he was thinking. He probably had that gleam in his eye, that wicked little glimmer that speaks to unspeakable things.
“He wants the rest of us to start dating, now that you and Vic are hitched,” Hael says, popping the top off the ice cream and digging through the vanilla for a stray cookie dough piece. See, that’s always been his problem: he isn’t patient enough. Take a bite of vanilla and wait for something good. I’ve sort of always figured he was trying to fuck Bernadette out of his system. Apparently, it didn’t work.
“This is what Oscar wants?” Bernadette clarifies, her eyes sliding over to Aaron and then, surprisingly, flicking to Callum.
“It’s not what I want,” Aaron says, tucking his hands into his pockets and looking down at the floor. He has red roses tattooed on his left foot that he stares at for a second before looking back up at Bernie. “You know that. I love you; I’ve always loved you. Legal marriage to Vic was for business purposes.”
“Watch your mouth, Aaron,” I growl out at him. Because I might start breaking faces, I decide to light up another joint. “Legal marriage to Bernadette is my fucking right. I’m the boss.” I take two drags and pass the joint to Bernie. She does the same, and on it goes, into Aaron’s hands. Oscar passes it without smoking, giving it to Callum, Hael, and then back to me.
There’s beauty in it, the ritual of smoking pot.
“Cal?” Bernie asks, like she’s genuinely curious. She’s stopped eating the sandwich, so I take it from her hands and finish it off as she wipes crumbs on the front of her borrowed tee. “How do you feel about it?”
“Depending on your answer, you’ll have mine,” he says with a soft smile. You’d never know by looking at him that he tied a couple up in their bedroom and gagged them earlier.
“My answer …” Bernie starts as I pass her the joint again. She crinkles her brow in thought, her pink-tipped blond hair mussy and frothing around her gorgeous face. I can smell her from here, too, like something sweet mixed with something urban. Fruit and leather, maybe. But summer sweet fruit specifically. I exhale and adjust my dick in my pants. Hael rolls his eyes. “If I said everything …” she ventures, and Cal’s smile rachets up a notch. He would fucking die for her, Callum would.
“Then you know what I want,” he adds with a bit of a shrug.
“You still owe me a blowie,” Hael decides to chime in for no reason other than because he’s a fucking dick. The look I give