I lingered there for a moment, ignoring Mateo’s curses as he climbed from the truck too and just stared at her. My little psycho, all outraged and river-swept and here. Right fucking here where I could keep her safe. Not to mention the half-naked part which I was having a whole lot of trouble ignoring.
“Holy mother of a fucking goose,” I cursed, doubling over and clutching at my cock as it enjoyed the show a bit too much, swelling at the sight of her and damn near making me pass out from the combined pain of the healing tattoo and the new piercing once again.
“I’m not your mother goose,” Brooklyn growled from somewhere above me, but she was gone before I managed to catch my breath and look up at her again.
“Hijo de puta,” Mateo muttered, spitting at my feet and stalking after her, clearly giving in to the fact that I would just shock him and haul his arse inside if he didn’t do as I wanted. They left me with the beast man still tied up in the front seat and Brutus who looked seven shades of confused as he cocked his head at me from the truck bed.
“Out, boy,” I snapped at the dog through the window behind me, wondering what the fuck he was playin’ at, making me wait for him and pointing to the front door of the house which Brooklyn and Mateo had left wide.
The dog bared vicious looking fangs at me then leapt out, charging into the house like he was on the hunt for a kill and I smiled.
“Good boy. At least someone around here listens to me.”
I turned my attention to the giant in the front seat next, his cold, soulless eyes staring right back at me with a deep kind of intelligence that made me scowl. I didn’t need no clever men making themselves at home in my house. I didn’t need no men at all. Just my little Spider. But now she’d brought another stray home, and with the tenuous peace I’d formed with her following my arsehole display of mass proportions, I was afraid to rock the boat by turfing him out right away.
She said he’d saved her? Fine. That bought him one night of leniency with me. One night of mercy, fresh sheets and food in my home. But that was it.
I tugged the door open and jerked my chin at him in command. “Out.”
He surveyed me a little longer, his grey eyes dropping to my feet, taking in the gun holsters still strapped over my body and the desert eagles contained within them before shifting all the way up to meet my eye.
He held my gaze.
Not a flinch, not a blink, not a single emotion flittering through his pupils. Nothing. Man was as stone cold as me. Maybe even stonier.
Before I could lose my rag and clock him in the jaw, the big fella stepped outa the truck, unfolding himself from it like he was an origami figure or some shit and standing there before me all smug in the few inches of height he had over me. I couldn’t say I’d been forced to raise my gaze to meet another man’s at any point which I could remember, and I’d have been lying if I tried to pretend it didn’t irk me some.
“That way.” I pointed towards the open door and he strode away without a word, his gaze only breaking with mine once he’d passed me and I tutted loudly.
“If it’s a brawl you’re looking for, I could do with a workout,” I warned him as I followed him inside. “You won’t emerge looking so pretty after it though.”
Nothing. Stone, cold nothing. Not even a denial about the pretty comment. And he wasn’t pretty. He was rough and tainted in sin and full of dark promises, none of which would ever cause anything good to come of them.
I scowled at his back as I followed him inside. This wouldn’t do. Not at all. I needed to reassert my authority here and get the prisoners back to where they belonged.
I followed him into the kitchen as he tracked down the sound of Brooklyn’s voice while she jabbered on about all the things she’d been up to since she’d been gone, giving quite a lot of detail to the way she had choked her past tormentor with a twelve-inch rubber cock while not looking at Mateo at all.
There was tension hanging in the air between them. Tension I’d no doubt put there after finding her with his fucking cock in her mouth and accusing her of being a naïve little arsehole who had fallen for his tricks and let him use her.
He was probably salty about the way she’d run off and left him behind too. But hey ho, their drama wasn’t my issue.
I moved to the drawer on the far side of the room, grabbing the taser from it and ramping up the power to ‘might just kill a T-Rex’ as I eyed the big fucker my little psycho had brought home with her.
As a backup plan I grabbed a knife too then hid them in my pockets and slipped towards him like a thief in the night. Or a psycho in plain sight, but who cared?
He twisted towards me just before I made it to him, his reflexes almost sharp enough to beat me, but I’d been ready for it, getting a sense of him from the moment I’d first laid eyes on him. This was a tricksy one, that was for sure.
His meaty hand wrapped around my wrist half a breath before I slammed the taser into his side and I cursed as I was gifted a secondhand dose of the blast myself through the contact.
He toppled backwards, colliding with the door to the cellar, his death grip on my wrist bringing me with him as the two of us took a tumble down the fucking stairs.
I swore as I hit every damn step on the way down, the arsehole’s big body as fucking painful to collide with as the steps every time I crashed into it.
We landed in a heap and I groaned as I rolled off of him, leaving him twitching on the ground from the shock of the taser as I cupped my junk in my hand and tried not to black out from the pain of that big bastard slamming his knee into my freshly pierced cock.
“Fuck me,” I wheezed as I gripped the railing and heaved myself to my feet.
I moved across the room, unlocking my killing parlour, and taking a pair of bolt cutters by the name of Jim-Bob from the wall and returned to the behemoth who was still resting in a pool of agony at the foot of the stairs. I made quick work of removing the broken metal cuffs from each of his wrists, making sure he couldn’t turn them into a weapon somehow before tossing them and Jim-Bob back into my killing room and locking the door up tight again.
I hauled my sorry self up the steps one at a time before coming face to face with Brooklyn who stood at the top of them, her eyes narrowed and her hand on the doorknob as I fell still before her.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t just lock you down there, Hellfire,” she demanded, her voice all threat and no mercy in her electric blue eyes.
I wetted my lips, forcing my hand away from my dick as I took her in in the lilac jumpsuit she was now wearing, the thing covering her from neck to ankle yet clinging to every curve so perfectly that she practically looked naked before me.
“Pops,” I said, the sound of the big fella groaning behind me making me shift uncomfortably. I’d hit him with the taser again if I had to, but I would rather just get that locked door between me and him then give him a night of reflection in the dark instead.
“Truly?” she breathed, her eyes going all wide and her lips parting.
“I saw your kills,” I replied in a low tone. “Saw the way you’d pulled it off, how you made your demons suffer at your hand. It was a fucking masterpiece, love,” I admitted. “I told you I’d reward you once you impressed me. And I’m impressed.”
Brooklyn squealed with excitement, leaping on me and wrapping her arms and legs fully around my body so that I had no choice but to grab a handful of her arse to help hold her in place.
I stepped through the door while she hugged me tightly, sobbing something against my neck about how she still hated me, but she’d also really needed to hear those words after the day she’d had and I nodded.
I locked the door with my free hand before drawing one of my guns as I stepped further into the kitchen, unsurprisingly finding Mateo ready with a carving knife and a promise of my demise written all over his surly features.