I reached up to draw one side of his lips higher, frowning as I jammed my thumb into the corner of his mouth and tried to make it stick in a smile. But the moment I dropped my hand, his face fell and a little whimper rose in my throat.
“I miss your happies,” I whispered, tears rising in my eyes. “Are you all hollow inside? Just a big, empty cave?” I asked, resting my hand against his chest to try and find his heart. The thump of it made relief rush through me and I lurched into his body, pressing my ear to it to hear it thunder just for me. “Mr Heart,” I spoke to it, cupping my hand around my mouth to keep the conversation private. “Do you know where his happies have gone? Where can I find them?”
Niall’s arm slid around me and his chin rested on my head, a heavy sigh leaving him and I shut my eyes, breathing in his rich, masculine scent. One moment, two, three, fifty. I stole a whole bunch in the arms of a man who was promised to someone else, then I realised my tears were soaking into his shirt and I lurched away, wheeling around and wiping them out of existence before he could see.
“Face paint!” I announced, running from the room to where Niall kept a stash of the stuff in the kitchen. I grabbed the colour palette along with a cup of water, some brushes and sponges then darted back to the lounge with a smile on my face.
Mateo caught my arm before I could make it back to Niall and my heart rocked like a boat on stormy waters as I looked up at him. His gaze swirled with deadly intentions and his fingers dug deeper into my arm as I stood there, his throat rising and falling. He let me go just as suddenly, leaving whitened marks on my arm and taking two steps away from me as he scored a hand down his face.
“Are you okay, Dead Man?” I asked and he nodded once stiffly, but there was something going on behind his gaze which I couldn’t work out.
I jogged over to Niall, guiding him to a chair and pushing him down into it before straddling his lap and setting up my face paint things on the arm, bouncing a little in excitement.
“Spider,” he rasped and I looked to him with a big ass smile on my face.
“Shhh.” I pressed my finger to his lips as I continued to bounce then started work on painting his face.
I knew exactly what he was going to be, a big smiley clown. And maybe when there was a huge red grin painted onto his lips, it would sink into his skin and coax a real smile out of him.
I bit my lip as I concentrated, finding I was pretty good at this actually. Better than a squirrel with an artistic flare, that was for sure.
When Niall’s face was ghost white, I leaned in nose to nose with him as I painted his eyes black and drew a line through the middle of them that ran down each of his cheeks and up onto his brow. His large hands suddenly clasped my back and he pulled me even closer, our breaths becoming one.
I fisted my hand in his hair, yanking hard as I pursed my lips at him. “Stay still.”
“Okay, little psycho,” he exhaled.
I started work on his big red smile, making beautiful work of it as I painted it on. And when I was done, I leaned back to admire it, bouncing in his lap again in joy, drawing a groan of delight from him.
“Mi sol,” Mateo snarled from across the room, but I ignored him, bouncing more as I admired my work and Niall’s hands fisted in the back of my top.
“Stop,” he gritted out.
“Stop what?” I bounced harder and a curse fell from his lips a moment before I felt his cock grow hard between my thighs. Holy tits!
I fell still, realising what I’d done as my lips popped open. I did that. Me. I was a seductress, a temptress of the night, The Peen Piper.
Niall was staring at me, his clown’s grin wide while his lips remained flat, but as a silence echoed back to us off of the walls, he suddenly snapped, a booming laugh ripping from his throat.
“Jesus Christ, Spider.” He got up so I fell right onto my ass and he adjusted his pants, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders too. “Fancy you bein’ there in my lap when I got hard for my fiancée.” He stepped over me, striding towards Mateo and I gaped after him, his words slashing my heart open like he’d butchered it with a knife. “Where’s the big fella then?” He slapped Mateo mockingly on the cheek and Mateo bared his teeth like a wild animal.
“You mean Jack?” he asked and Niall nodded. “He’s in the basement where you left him.”
“Well go get him then, el burro.” Niall waved his hands at Mateo like he was an arrogant lord speaking to his house maid and Mateo didn’t move a muscle, his arms folding as he glared back at him.
“Do you know how many times and in how many ways I could have killed you in the past three days?” Mateo hissed.
“Not one, because I’ve had this in my pocket the whole time and you know it,” Niall said with a smirk as he slid the collar remote out. “And don’t you think I haven’t seen you trying to cut that thing offa ya neck, el burro. But lemme tell ya, it can’t be broke, and if you even get close to breaking it, I’ve set it up to keep shocking ya until you stop kicking. So, how’s about you head off to the basement like a good little donkey and fetch my new prisoner? I’ll even change the settings so you can go in there without getting your brains fried.”
Niall took out his phone and quickly did just that, adjusting the perimeter on the collar so that Mateo could go into the kitchen at last, and swept an arm towards the door in invitation for him to move.
Mateo fronted him out for several seconds before he finally turned his back on him and marched away towards the basement.
I pushed myself to my feet, my heart still bleeding from Niall’s comment about his fiancée. Had she been the one to bring him back? Had she been circling in his mind while he’d blocked me out and thought of her instead?
I wrung my fingers together, the quiet in the room pressing as Niall kept his back to me, but he finally turned my way, the wild light back in his eyes.
“Don’t just stand there pouting, little psycho. Come over here and play a game with me.”
I frowned, tiptoeing over to him, drawn by the lure of a game. Would it be tic-tac-toe? Rock, paper, scissors? Backgammon? Tag? Hopscotch? Kiss chase? Capture the flag?
He opened a drawer in a little cabinet beside him, taking out a penny and twisting it between his fingers. “This is my lucky penny.”
I gasped, reaching for it, but he snatched it away, holding it up to admire it in the light above my head. “You can have it if it lands on tails, okay?”
I nodded eagerly and he flicked it up in the air, catching it in his palm then slapping it onto the back of his other hand and showing me the penny.
Heads.
Dammit.
“Again,” I demanded and he chuckled, flicking it again, the coin wheeling high up towards the ceiling before he caught it and repeated the action.
Heads.
Dammit.
“Again,” I growled and he did so.
Heads.
Dammit.
“Again!” I snapped.
But Niall did it five more times and still tails didn’t come up, defying all the laws in the universe, even the wonky ones. I stared at him in dismay and he grinned through his makeup, almost wider than the clown smile painted across his cheeks as he rolled the coin over on his palm, showing me that heads were on both sides of the coin.
“That’s not fair,” I gasped in anger and his smile somehow grew.