Heartless - Jade West Page 0,29

pushed me back down in my seat, dropping his humor.

“Jesus Christ, Luke. You’ve got feelings for her. Are you out of your mind?”

“No!” I spat. “What the fuck are you talking about? I never have fucking feelings for anyone. It’s you who’s out of your goddamn mind.”

But he was shaking his head. “Nah, I’m serious. This isn’t you, pal. She’s done something to you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I hissed, but he wasn’t believing me. I could see it in his stare.

I wanted to believe myself, and I should have. The concept was absurd. Never once in my life had I had feelings for anyone, let alone anyone with even the hint of a Constantine connection. I didn’t do emotions, let alone the fluffy bullshit of falling in love and all that crap. It was weakness. Nothing but weakness. People were flesh with a price tag. Nothing more.

“It’s all right, you know,” Hunter carried on. “Seriously, just spit it out. Whatever needs saying.”

“You’re not a goddamn counselor, Sparro. Nothing needs saying,” I countered, but he gestured to the clock above his fireplace.

“Not quite what you showing up here before nine on a Sunday morning is telling me.” He smiled. “I turfed Melissa out for this, you know. I was planning on at least one fresh round of fucking her ass before she left today.”

“Melissa?” I asked. “The bitch from behind the bar at the Aegean?”

“Don’t change the subject,” he said, and joined me on the sofa, kicking back with his hands behind his head.

I forced myself to speak, for my own sanity. At least if Sparro knew about my bullshit choices then he stood a chance of keeping tabs on me if I lost my head again.

I told him about Tinsley’s ball, and about how I’d grabbed Elaine in the bathroom. I told him how she’d wanted me, even through her fear. I told him how I’d liked it, even if I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself.

“So, what happened next?” he pushed when I was done with the ball recounting. “Did she call you for a date night?” He laughed at the prospect.

That’s when it got awkward. That’s when I should have shut my mouth for good and bailed on out of there.

“I got access to her calendar through Alto. Her personal calendar.”

“What the fuck?” His whole body spun in the seat to stare at me. “You got access to her personal calendar? They’ll skin you for that, your side as well as hers. If they find you’ve got access to it–”

I cut him off at that.

“It’s a fucking calendar. Nothing more.”

“Yeah, and a swipe at an inroad into the heart of the Constantine world. They’ll come after you with full fucking force.”

He was pointing out things I already knew. It was redundant speech but still he kept on telling me how raging mad my father would be, and just how attacked the Constantines would feel through something so concrete in its intentions.

I’d wanted to track her down and destroy her. They’d know it. They’d react to it. It was a big statement, and I’d known it. I’d known the risks.

It wasn’t anywhere near the severity of me sneaking into the Constantines’ private party, but that didn’t seem to matter shit to Hunter. There was more concern than that in his tone . . . he was too astute for his own good.

“You tracked her down already,” he said, and there was no question in it.

“Yeah, I tracked her down already. I was intending to wipe her out.”

He shook his head. “Nah, you weren’t. Tell yourself that all you like, but you were intending to do a shit ton more to her than wipe her out.”

“I did fuck all to her in actuality,” I told him. “I tracked her down to some shitty downtown bar and stalked her from the sidelines, enjoying every little sniff of her ignorance. Then it gets even better.” I paused to soak in his expression of crazy. “I followed her to some shitty apartment of some friend of hers. It seemed the perfect backdrop to take her out, slowly.”

“And to fuck her,” he said.

I finally admitted the obvious. “Yes, and to fuck her. I wanted to break her apart and use her for the thrill of it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I still wasn’t quite sure of the answer to that, so I shrugged, and carried on admitting my idiocy.

“I don’t know. Maybe because she wanted me to. Maybe because it would’ve been too easy. Maybe because I want