Bernadette.”
I refocus on his face, carved of shadows and sin, and blink in surprise.
Seeing Havoc murder number six on my list and cart his corpse off to the woods certainly didn’t. This though, it’s a shocker.
“You’re mad because I hang out with the people I’m supposed to be family with?” I clarify and Oscar grits his teeth. He waits as Vic comes down the stairs, as quiet as a cat. He watches us both again for several seconds before finally disappearing into his room. I hear him murmur something under his breath, but it isn’t worth the time or effort to figure out what it was.
“I’m mad because you kiss and fuck and fawn over them, after everything they’ve done to you.” Oscar pauses and rattles his long fingers against the countertop, like the inked legs of a venomous spider. He looks back at me. “After everything I’ve done to you.”
He pauses then, and the room gets real quiet as the song ends once again. It starts up soon after, but I can feel that pregnant pause like a punch to the gut.
“Are you upset because I fuck them …” I start, taking a gamble and lifting my palms to Oscar’s bare chest. Joining Havoc has made me brave. It’s only been a few months, but I’m surprised at how much I’ve changed. What will I look like after a year? A decade? “Or upset because I don’t fuck you?” I press my fingers to Oscar’s skin, and he hisses at me.
His hands snap up to grab my wrists, but he doesn’t push me away. Instead, he traps my palms against his skin. He’s burning up beneath my touch, and I’m finding it really hard to breathe.
“You wouldn’t want me to fuck you, Bernadette. I’m not sure I could behave myself.”
I snort at that, breaking a bit of that strange magic in the air. Oscar releases me, stepping back to put some space between us. His face tells me nothing, but his body is tense, his cock hard beneath his pj pants.
“You? The master of control?” I quip, watching him as he moves over to grab his mug again. “I highly doubt you’d have much trouble behaving. Is it just that you hate me more than you love me? Is that it?”
“Hate you …” he murmurs, sipping his tea and giving a low, cultured laugh. He’s extravagantly uncivilized, now isn’t he?
“You’ve said it before,” I challenge, giving Oscar a dark look. “You hate me. I get it. But why? Because I’m over your shit.”
He smiles at me, but the expression is sharp, cutting.
Without his shirt on, he’s a colorful mess of tattoos. His ink owns every inch of his lean, muscular form, a story made of blood and needles. Unsurprising, considering his soul is clearly crafted of darkness and pain.
“You’re bold, Bernadette,” Oscar says, stepping close to me once again and wrapping me up in his dark scent. He smells of danger and uncertainty, of wild, moonlit nights, and orgasms made of hot embers and poisonous kisses. I close my eyes as he cups the side of my face in long, elegant fingers, the fingers of a master pianist or a Renaissance painter. They’re warm, too, from the tea.
When I open my eyes, I find Oscar far too close to me again. We could kiss, if we were so inclined. But how could we be? When he hates me so goddamn much. He sets the tea down, adding his right hand to the other side of my face, touching me. Willingly.
“You, in Havoc,” he starts, letting a low chuckle curl past his lips like smoke from a slow-burning fire. “I’ve never wanted anything less.”
I reach up to slap his fingers away, but he catches my wrist with his other hand, holding me prisoner. Captivating me with gray eyes the color of a tumultuous sea, slow-moving but capable of unfathomable destruction.
“Should I be surprised by that?” I quip, my tongue as caustic and acidic as his own. We can have a verbal sprawl, me and Oscar. But I hope he knows I’ll kick his ass in repartee the same way I did with my hands around his throat.
“Maybe,” he bites back, smiling in just such a way that I feel my knees go weak. “Because I don’t think you understand my motivations, Bernadette Blackbird. You’re incandescent; I’m just trying to keep your flame from being snuffed out.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I snarl, quickly losing my patience with him. His hands