“Yes, boss,” she teased, turning and running from me and my lips lifted in amusement as I watched her go. If she wanted to play sub with me then I was more than willing to fill the role of dominating her.
I started counting loudly, walking down the corridor in my black sweatpants and giving her plenty of time to find a good hiding place as I moved towards the door to the office where Niall did the majority of his planning. For a man who had gotten so angry at me over trying to plan our attack on the Eden Heights facility, he could be utterly meticulous when he wanted to be. The difference in his approach on the two jobs would have been unbelievable if I hadn’t seen first-hand the chaotic way his mind worked. Sometimes I imagined his brain to be like a switchboard with a monkey running amuck, throwing the switches on and off at random and activating different traits and abilities with no motive beyond just wanting to see what would happen.
I knocked the door open, finding Niall at the desk, several pieces of paper which looked like blueprints strewn across it before him and what looked like the CCTV feed from the judge’s house playing on his laptop. The TV was on too, the newscaster beaming as scenes of laboratories played behind her and she gushed about the world being saved at last.
“They have a vaccine for the Hades Virus?” I asked when Niall failed to look my way, though I could tell by the way his arm was positioned that he held a weapon pointed at me beneath the desk.
“That they do,” he agreed, looking up at me and offering a predatory grin. “And our friend the judge just started sending invites out to his closest and wealthiest friends for a party he’s going to host to celebrate them all getting their shots.”
“It would be unwise to strike at him while he is in a house full of people,” I commented, keeping my face blank. I wanted the blood of the man who had harmed my chica loca to stain my hands with a feral kind of desire which got the demon in me purring and thinking up all kinds of brutal acts, but I didn’t want Niall to fuck up her attempt on his life with his wild inclinations.
“Yeah, yeah. Leave the planning to the expert, el burro. Don’t you have a game to be playing?” Niall asked as my gaze lingered on the blueprints before him. “Run along, children, Daddy is working.”
He shooed me towards the door and I bit back the retort I wanted to give him, focusing on what I would be taking as a prize for winning this game instead. Because Niall had a point. Daddy was home – which meant he was nice and close by in case I lost control of the dark in me and needed to be pulled back out of it again.
“Ready or not, here I come!” I called, heading away from him and striding into the front room where the rain washed against the floor length windows and nothing but silence awaited me.
I moved to stand in the centre of the space, turning slowly as I looked all around me, hunting for any subtle changes in the room which would give her away.
It only took me a moment to spot the small bulge in the curtain and I stalked towards it with my heart pounding, thinking about the prize I planned on claiming from her body as I went.
“Found you,” I purred, reaching out to tug the curtain aside, but the moment my fist gripped the fabric, Brooklyn leapt out from behind it, swinging a rolling pin at my head which I barely managed to duck.
She came at me again with a feral snarl escaping her lips, her reflexes so much faster than they used to be after all the training she’d been putting in and the rolling pin crashed against my forearm, making her laugh loudly.
“Can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread clam!” she yelled, twisting away from me and making a move to run.
I swept a leg around in front of her as she took off, taking her out and sending her crashing to the carpet where she rolled fluidly, putting more distance between us and swiping the rolling pin my way as I tried to close in on her before she leapt to her feet once more.
I barked a laugh at the game, her hair tumbling into her eyes as she danced from foot to foot, clearly meaning to run again.
I took a purposeful step towards her and she backed up but I took another and another, forcing her to swing her weapon at me and raising an arm to accept the hit.
The solid thump of the wood striking my forearm sent pain rattling up through my bones but as I surged forward, I managed to grab a fistful of her hair and jerked her to one side, pulling her off balance.
She started to fall and I twisted toward her, catching her hip and flipping her around so that her back was to me and the rolling pin in her hand became less effective against me.
I released my hold on her hair, grabbing her with both hands and shoving her face down over the dining table.
“I win,” I growled in her ear as I pressed my chest to her back, keeping her there beneath me and running a hand down her arm until I was pinning the hand with the rolling pin to the table and effectively disarming her too.
“Sometimes I lay in bed and dream about the way your cock felt inside my mouth,” she panted beneath me and I stilled as that mental image filled my mind, drawing back just a little and stupidly giving her an opening.
Brooklyn threw her head back with a wild laugh, cracking my fucking nose and making me release her as I placed a hand over my face and cursed, checking for a break.
She rolled over on the table, swinging the rolling pin at me again and I dropped my hand, smiling though the blood which had run down over my lips before swiping it away on the back of my hand.
“Is this you playing hard to get, mi sol?” I asked, stepping into her and taking a strike to the shoulder which would no doubt leave a bruise, though I refused to so much as flinch that time.
“I am hard to get,” she replied. “Impossible. No one will ever get me ever again.”
“Is that so?”
She swung the rolling pin again, making a move to back away across the table, but I twisted so that she just caught my arm with it once more, catching her knee in my grasp and squeezing the sensitive flesh there.
“Open your legs, chica loca, you can finish trying to kill me after I’m done tasting you,” I commanded, making her stop mid swing as her lips popped open and she glanced towards the door.
“You want to do that tongue thing to me again?” she asked, her pupils dilating and I nodded, taking hold of her other knee and shifting her legs apart for her.
“I want so much more than just that, mi sol,” I told her, my hands moving up her thighs so that I could push that little skirt up and reveal her panties to me. My gaze fell on her little pink thong and I looked up into her eyes again. “Do you like it when I make you come for me, Brooklyn?” I asked in a low voice, watching the way my words made her breaths get shallow and her chest rise and fall in the most beautifully tempting way.
“Yes, Dead Man,” she agreed, reaching out with her free hand to run a finger down the centre of the crucifix which was burned into my flesh. I shivered at the softness of her touch, fighting against the urge to smack her hand aside in favour of sampling this delicious torture.
“You tempt the demon in me like no other ever has,” I warned her as all of the things I wished to do to her body ran through my mind, the need to possess her consuming me as I fought to keep myself in check. “And that is a very dangerous thing indeed.”
“So why haven’t you been touching me then?” she asked, a note of vulnerability in her tone which made me look up into those electric eyes of hers and see the pain I’d been causing with my distance.