my order. Trinity waves a limp hand.
“I really don’t want—”
My eyes slide to Cass. “Tell Apollo to search her room. Make sure she’s not hiding anything.”
Cassius is on his feet in a second, loping to the exit like a panther that’s finally spotted something to pounce on.
“Hey!” Trinity sits forward, her tits bouncing behind that pathetic film of a vest. “You can’t do that!”
“We can do whatever the fuck we want,” I growl.
She stands in a rush and charges after Cassius, and I’m less than a beat behind her. I grab her shoulder, hauling her back. Her vest rips as she twists to knock away my hand. Then she’s fumbling with herself, trying to cover her bare naked breasts.
“Ooh, can it wait?” Cassius croons from the exit, his voice moving closer. “Her roommate might spot him—?
“That fucking queer?” I snap. “Jasper won’t say a word. Trust me.” My eyes never leave Trinity’s, not even to look at her tits.
“Fuck,” Cassius mutters, and then there’s just the swish of the drape.
Trinity tries to draw the torn halves of her vest back over her chest, and flinches when I tell her to stop.
“How close are you with Gabriel?” I ask, stepping up to her. She moves back until her shoulders collide with a bookshelf.
“We’re…friends.”
“He ever fuck you?”
Her eyes go wide, and color instantly suffuses her cheeks. “What? No! He’s…he’s my fucking priest.”
“Was,” comes Reuben’s voice. He thrusts out her glass, now half-filled with whiskey. “Now he’s nothing.”
“He’s still my friend,” she says, ignoring the booze. “He’s never done anything to—“
“So he’s never touched you?” I close the distance, snatching the glass from Rube’s hand on the way.
“No!” Her eyes sparkle with anger.
I grab her chin, force it down, and tip the glass against her lips. “Drink.”
She turns her head, spilling whiskey down her throat and bared breasts.
“I’ll lick that off later.”
At this, her body goes rigid. That same light sparkles, but this time it’s not anger. It’s not even fear.
Weed’s really good at several things. It makes you chatty. Happy. Hungry. Horny.
This little thing in front of me must be so fucking confused right now with her body throwing so many conflicting signals her way. I want to believe her.
“I saw you with him,” Rube says as I steer the glass back to her mouth and wrench open her jaw. “You’re more than friends.”
She doesn’t get a chance to reply, because I’m pouring whiskey into her mouth. This time, she catches it. Swallows it. When she coughs, some it sprays on my face.
I tear off what’s left of her vest and use it to wipe my face.
She starts crying.
Those big fat crocodile tears insult me.
I jerk her forward and bring the flat of my hand down on her ass with a solid thump. Her tears cut off in an instant. She sniffs, still trying to cover her tits, but no longer being pathetic about all this.
“We never—I’m not—” She chokes on whatever she’d been going to say and hangs her head.
“But you want to,” I say.
Her eyes dart up, still brimming, but she blinks away the tears before they can fall. “No.”
“Of course you would.” I slide a hand to the small of her back and draw her with me as I move to the couch. She comes with me, unresisting but unsteady. “Handsome fuck like that.” My stomach churns, but I swallow down the bile that comes up and keep going. “You must have imagined what it would feel like?”
“No,” she lies, her voice barely a whisper.
I sink onto the couch and draw her down with me. She takes her original seat, and glances warily at Reuben when he comes to sit beside her. He holds out her glass, and she lets out a forlorn little sigh.
Finally, the fight is over.
That last shred of resistance drains from her body. Her eyes dull to sullen gold as she drops the arms she’d been using to cover her chest. We don’t look. Right now we couldn’t be bothered with her tits. It’s her mind we’ve been trying to lay bare.
She was right. We didn’t bring her down here to fuck her. We came down here to interrogate her.
Torture never works.
Victims will say anything to get the pain to stop.
Weed and alcohol, though?
The combination leaves them helplessly compliant.
She lets Rube feed her the last inch of whiskey. When she shudders as the booze hits her throat, her convulsion reaches me through the seat cushion. Before I can stop myself, my hand’s around her throat.