Wicked Hunt (Dark Hearts Book 3) (22 page)

Damn.
We would need to have more talks. I wasn’t sure I agreed with his change of direction. Maybe I should threaten to spank him?

I thought that through some more.

Maybe not.

Sounded dangerous.

I squeezed my legs together, surprised at the need that’d surfaced. Imagining him not just spanking but whipping me had caused a
very
nice sensation to emerge.

I’d thought those masochistic desires a side effect of being a collectable. Perhaps I was wrong.

Mavros

It was close to lunchtime but we were all tired from sun, sex, and falling overboard, especially Zorie. She woke when I stirred, and mumbled something.

“I’m getting up. You can stay there a bit longer. I thought we could all have French toast and bacon, plus whatever else is in the fridge, out on the balcony for lunch.”

“Sounds wonderful.” She smiled. With her red locks tangled all over the pillow and even on Grimm’s arm where he’d tucked it over her, she looked like a mermaid come to life.

How had I gotten so lucky?

Even Grimm, yeah, I wasn’t going to fuck him but this arrangement suited me. I’d never had a man I could talk to, be friends with, who really knew me.

“I thought you were going to pull out a contract,” she whispered.

“Almost.” I reached over and played with her mouth then traced along her jawline. “I wanted it all clear. It didn’t seem right to go on fucking you as if it were a temporary thing I had in mind.”

“It was weird. But I liked that you decided to ask. I agree. We did need to settle what we were doing. Even in the middle of it all.” Zorie rolled her eyes.

“With Grimm ready to ass-fuck you?” I grinned. “Yes. I suppose it was odd. I thought it best to have you off balance.”

She blew a raspberry. “Sure and it was all planned so well. She drew my hand to her mouth, licked my skin, then pulled my hand higher and sniffed me.

“Are you smelling me? And I’m weird?”

“You are and, yes, I was. You both smell sooo good. You know....I want to say thank you too. Though I guess we all made a lot of mistakes, this has ended well. I finally feel...” She screwed up her mouth. “Safe and where I want to be.”

“Good.”

“I think this is going to work out.”

“There was a boy I talked to at the markets in Bangkok. I asked him what love is.”

When she only blinked at me, I continued.

“I asked that of many people in a few countries. I was confused, couldn’t stop thinking about you and Grimm...and us. The other answers I’d gotten didn’t work for me. The boy said that love was when you found someone you couldn’t imagine ever being apart from. Simple. But right.”

That had hit home for me.

“It’s sweet.”

“I realized that was how I felt about both of you, and I decided I would sacrifice anything to bring you both home safely.”

“A very wise boy. Hey, you’re making me tear up. Not fair.” She wiped under one eye. “Hearing you say that makes me even surer this is going to be good for us all.”

“Despite knowing what sort of man I am?”

Grimm spoke up, his mouth muffled by her hair. “He means he’s an asshole.”

Zorie laughed. “Yes. You both are sometimes.”

“What? Maybe Mavros was right about the spanking business. I can see the appeal.”

The sheet moved where his hand must be and Zorie yelped and frowned back at him. “Don’t forget I can disassemble a Glock.
And
put it back together.”

“I think we both like you dangerous.” I kissed her. It was true. Part of the appeal of Zorie to me was her differences from other women. “But I love all of you.”

“Love? You said the love word.” She gasped and her eyes widened, very deliberately.

“I did.” I nodded slowly a few times. “I used to have an aversion to that word.”

“Should we make you say it daily as a penance then?” Grimm levered himself up onto his elbow.

“No.” I took Zorie’s hand and placed it on my chest, then put mine over her heart. “I love you. I love you. I love you. There.” Grimm was looking at me skeptically. “Maybe you too, just a little.” I pretended to reach for his hand.

“Fuck off. Try hand-holding with me and I’ll hit you again. I
will
do this.” He put his hand on Zorie’s breast near mine. “I love you.” He kissed her head though she screwed up her eye and peered at him.

“You two.” Zorie sighed and shook her head.

“And you, Mavros, I will...” He slowed.

I raised my brow. “Kiss, fondle, have my babies?”

“Love, but in a brotherly way.”

I nodded. Grimm was being serious and if truth be told, this was making me feel the sting of held-back tears. “Brothers,” I agreed gruffly.

“
If
we were brothers who had the same hot woman in their bed. You, darling.” Again he kissed her.

“Awww. I may be blushing. That was just awesomely nice, both of you.” She smiled and this time I could see the tears. “This is
so
perfect.” Her voice had gone squeaky then died away into a whisper.

“I’m glad I said that word.”

Grimm snorted. “Daily. Daily use, that’s the way to get you over that love-o-phobia.”

She squeezed my hand before I pulled it away.

“You know, there’s something else. Maybe...” Zorie pursed her lips in a lopsided way. “I’d like if maybe we could all talk about what happened in Thailand, one day?”

There was more to her question than some small thing. Reminiscing was definitely not what she wanted. I could feel sadness and fear deep inside her. Neither Grimm nor I had been up for discussing this while we circled her like stupid wolves.

My “Absolutely,” came at the same time as Grimm’s “Yes.”

“Whenever you’re ready to,” I added. “We should talk about it. Make sure the bad things are banished.”

“Yes. That would be nice.”

Nice. Uh-huh.
Zorie was concealing her reaction, but we’d sort this out with enough patience and time. I’d had a few nightmares of my own. I owed them both. It had been my revenge that’d started us all on this insane journey.

After her eyes closed and she snuggled closer to Grimm, I quietly rolled out of bed and left them to sleep.

When I heard Zorie softly talking again, I paused just outside the door.

“Are you slow, today? You haven’t told me you love me as many times as Mavros said it.”

“I do that every time I bite you. See.”

At the burst of squealing and the sound of wrestling, I shook my head and smiled. I’d leave them be. I still felt like the outsider. That would change.

I’d found where I should be, after many years in the wilderness stumbling about. Making money and screwing a harem of women hadn’t brought me happiness. Whereas this? With Zorie and Grimm? I wanted to be with them forever, if they’d have me.

And if they changed their minds? Damn. No, for once I wasn’t going to plan that far ahead.

My hint that I would be more sadistic in future hadn’t scared Zorie as much as her behavior suggested. Her arousal had been obvious and Grimm would know that too.

One of the benefits of our mental connection was that lying was difficult. And when it was sexual arousal, she had no hope of concealing it from me.

I figured she’d forgotten that. Tomorrow I would take great delight in reminding her how red I liked making her ass, and other parts of her.

I showered and dressed in shorts and T-shirt, as was the sensible thing here where sweating was the national past-time, and wandered out to the balcony. I stood there watching the sea, the clouds go past, the birds fly overhead, and a small, sleepy possum climbing a tree off to the side. Despite the rising sun and it almost being midday, the beach below had twenty or so men and women sunbathing or playing with their children. Sandcastles galore.

I hadn’t made one of those since my childhood.

I felt fitter than I ever had in my life. My biceps strained at the sleeve of a shirt that’d been loose a month ago. Jogging with Grimm and swimming was doing me some good.

I checked my phone when it buzzed and found a message from Kim.

Sorry. I won’t be refunding your money. We’ve not found him.

Which meant they hadn’t found Wolfe’s body. I shrugged and tucked the phone away in my shorts. Between Zorie and myself, we had more than enough funds to live like kings and queens.

I stretched, rising to full height, and I smiled at the sky. This new life was going to be good, for all of us.

At a sound behind me, I turned and saw Grimm standing, shirtless, in the bedroom window, also admiring the scenery. He waved and I waved back, then he walked deeper into the room.

I resumed watching the beach and the sea.

Every woman on the beach was climbing to her feet, turning to look back at the house, or standing already and looking. My heart did a little skittery beat.

Life might be more interesting and challenging than I’d thought.

Was this why the doctor had let me on board the Medivac plane? Why some things had progressed smoothly when I expected bumps in the road, after we came back to Australia?

I was going to have to educate Grimm. Those women had been looking at the bedroom. It wasn’t me, it was Grimm.

Was he some sort of Pied Piper of women? If a mesmer could affect all women...it might be catastrophic. Perhaps Zorie wasn’t affected by this change, but I couldn’t tell yet. It was lucky that Grimm was a sensible man and devoted to her.

As long as the beast in him stayed quiet, we could do this...as long as no one else had this weird permutation of the mesmer infection.

A bad man with this sort of power over women could do terrible damage. He would, theoretically, control half the population of the world.

Maybe a vaccine was a good idea after all.

I cracked my knuckles and thought about how that would pan out,
if
a vaccine were possible. It had pluses. It had minuses. I wasn’t keen on the minuses.

I should go in and get breakfast started. That was another change these two had induced in me. I liked cooking for them, sometimes. It was a pleasant way to get conversation going. Talking...I found I was smiling, I’d not even had conversations like I did with these two much at all before, not since I discovered I was a mesmer. I’d been so very young and it’d distorted my life and how I interacted with people.

This had begun with a visit to a restaurant. Curious, how such a small thing could have led us all the way to this. On any one day, paradise or disaster could be just around the corner yet most people never saw it coming.

I’d definitely found paradise.

This is the end of the DARK HEARTS trilogy.

Read the next section if you’d like to learn a little more about what I hope to write next

– a spin-off story.

Thailand, months before.

The crane motor had been shut down merely an hour ago, or so Ngoen had been informed. The foreigners had been brought up from the missile silo and driven away. There were no sounds from below, though Ngoen peered over to check. He hoisted his assault rifle onto his shoulder and resumed his small patrol. There were four of them now, and soon another four men would arrive.

Knowing the monster had been shot was good but no one had seen his corpse.

Patrolling here at night would be worse.

Dawn was coming soon, lightening the sky with pinks and purples.

The two ropes must come up also. He called over two other men and began to haul on the ropes, winding them into big coils on the ground. There was blood on the rope in great gobs and clots, and strands of it stuck to his hands. He wiped it off and kept working. Considering what he’d heard of the state of the foreigners, that wasn’t odd.

They were lucky the monster hadn’t eaten them.

When he picked up his rifle, he noticed the faint outline of a set of footprints leading away, across the concrete. The outline was in blood. Big feet too.

If it was Wolfe? He looked about, nervous.

No, someone would’ve seen if it was him.

They said Wolfe was big enough to dwarf the sun and that he ate women.

He checked the magazine of his rifle. Wolfe was just a story. Besides, he, Ngoen, was a man not a woman.

Some fans have already started a #TEAMWOLFE hashtag.

With such a terrible past, he will be difficult to write about but that also makes him interesting and a challenge, because I can see him in a romance.