Had I done that? Had I bitten him? I tasted the copper in my mouth.
Yep. I totally had.
We stood face to face. A foot apart. Both breathing unevenly.
I didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t mean to …”
He was the first to recover. “No worries,” he said. “Feeling better?”
The rage was gone, but my body was in an altogether different state of high alert now, the kind that involved a bed and nakedness.
A slow clap interrupted the moment.
I stared at the teenager in the beanie hat standing on the opposite side of the street.
“That was fucking hot.” He plugged his headphones back in and walked off.
I locked gazes with Mal. His mouth twitched, and then we both burst into fits of laughter, and just like that, the tension was defused.
“You kissed him?” Cora stared at me, wide-eyed. “But you abhor him. You think he’s skanky with all the women parading in and out of his room. You find him despicable.”
I had used those words, but, “He’s not despicable, exactly.”
I changed into my comfy sweatpants and picked out a cream, long-sleeved T-shirt. The material was soft against my skin. Worn and comfortable. It was good to be back. I needed food and bed and not to think about Mal and the way he’d kissed me. Thoroughly.
“Wait,” Cora said. “Rewind here, babe. Your exact words to me only a week ago were that he was a walking dick. Just a dick that likes to stick its head in every hole.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
“No.” She held up a hand to stall my words. “Those were your words.” She grinned. “You just kissed a dick. With tongue. You tongued a dick.”
“Fuck you.”
Cora closed her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and waggled it about in the air.
I pulled the tie out of my hair and ran my fingers through the silken strands. “What are you? Twelve?”
She crossed her arms and arched a brow. “You want to fuck him, don’t you?”
“Pfft. He kissed me, okay. He instigated it, and I responded because I needed to get the anger under control. That’s it.”
“So, you didn’t get the fanny flutters.”
I grabbed the hairbrush and began dragging it through my hair. “Nope.”
“Liar,” Cyril said from his position on the bed.
There was a hole somewhere he was using to sneak in. I needed to find it and plug it. “You know, I liked it better when you couldn’t talk.”
“I could alwayss talk, you just never lisstened. My advice is, let your hair down, have sssome fun. Mal can be your friend with benefitsss.”
“Sorry, can’t understand you, with all the hissing and all.”
He made a strange wheezing sound. Wait, was he laughing at me?
“He’s right,” Cora said. “Isn’t your hand getting tired of all the wanking?”
I dropped the brush. “Fucking hell, Cor, is nothing sacred anymore?” I sniffed. “Besides, I picked up Errol today, so I’m all good.”
“Who’s Errol?” Cyril asked.
“Fee’s plastic cock,” Cora said.
I refused to be embarrassed. There was nothing wrong with getting yourself off, and Errol was really fucking good at it. And like hell would I become one of Mal’s women. I wanted more than that from a bedroom partner. I wanted love. Okay, it sounded sappy, but there it was. Romantic, old-fashioned me.
“I don’t need a fuckbuddy.” I winced as the bristles of the brush snagged on a tangle. “I’m fine. I have it all under control. Strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man to get off.”
“And the anger?” Cora said. “How is that?”
My hands faltered mid-braid. “I’m dealing.”
“What if Mal hadn’t been with you?” Cor asked the question that had been running through my mind. “What then? You said it was bad, like you would have lost-your-shit-berserker bad.”
And that had only happened once before. I mean, I’d had the rage, but this episode would have been one of epic proportions.
I set the brush down on the dresser and turned to face her. “I don’t know, Cor, but I’ll deal with it. I just need to not get so worked up.” My smile felt fake.
She gave me a skeptical look.
The anger had started a year ago after Aunt Lara died. But Cor had always been there to curb it. To calm me down. And now, I had my bodyguards, my shadows. But what happened when the rage hit me when I was alone? Part of me whispered that there was something wrong with me, but I squashed it. I didn’t have time to have things wrong with me.