Captivated (Deep in Your Veins 6)

Sam frowned. “What kind of complaint? That you’re shagging Max when she’s not? Because that’s her actual problem.”

Jared snickered, sliding his arm around his mate’s shoulders.

“I know,” I said, stifling a smile. “But she’s still stewing over what happened in the restroom.”

“What exactly did happen?” asked Sam.

I gave her a quick rundown of the incident, excluding the finger-fucking part of the story of course.

Sam let out a low whistle. “If Jared said another woman’s name in bed, I would slice off his balls and force-feed them to him.”

He winced. “I’d like to think you’re kidding and you’d never do such a thing to me under any circumstances, but that would be wishful thinking, wouldn’t it?”

Sam sniffed. “More like delusional. But you have no room to whine—you knew you were mating a crazy bitch.”

He grinned. “You’re right, I did.”

“I’d be just as mad if Max had done to me what he did to Ursula,” I said. “I’d feel seriously humiliated, too. I can see why Ursula created this big ‘it’s Paige’s fault for playing Max’ story in her head—she needed to justify confronting me because she knows that, in truth, this wasn’t my fault. And maybe I should have handled it differently, but I was pissed that she’d taint Alora and Evan’s party that way. I was hoping to keep the whole thing confined to the restroom. And yeah, okay, I played with her a little. But I didn’t hurt her. I just held her by the throat a little too tight.”

“I’d have done worse,” Sam readily admitted.

“As part of the crazy bitch thing yeah, baby, you would have.” Jared slid his gaze to me. “We take any complaints seriously, but this one won’t go anywhere. I’m not sure why Ursula thinks that your being part of the legion means we’ll feel that you shouldn’t have retaliated. If someone gave her that impression, they were wrong to. We don’t believe that just because someone’s a member of the legion they should have to walk away from confrontations. And if we created such a rule, people would take advantage of it.”

“Much like Ursula thought she could do,” said Sam. “That was her fuck up. She doesn’t have a case, Paige. You tried walking away. She blocked you each time. She also grabbed you, so it’s no wonder you grabbed her right back. None of which she mentioned that night when she came running over to me saying that you and Max were fighting in the restroom.”

I felt my brow crease. “She didn’t tell you that she and I had argued?”

“Nope. She made it seem like she’d just stumbled upon you and him duelling. Who won?”

My lips flattened. “He managed to restrain me, but not until he’d cheated and used his gift—we agreed we wouldn’t do that.”

An impish twinkle danced in Sam’s eyes. “I got the feeling I interrupted … something when I knocked on the door. Your voices sounded kind of strange.”

I fought to keep my expression neutral. “It was a duel.”

“Of tongues, maybe.”

“No, it was an actual duel.”

“It was bloody foreplay. Me and Jared still do it sometimes.”

He frowned at her. “You always whip the tips of my ears. Hurts like a son of a bitch.”

Sam tossed him a sideways glance. “Just be glad I don’t whip your balls.”

He winced at the mere idea of it.

Sam looked at me. “Anyway, I’m sorry for interrupting the foreplay session. I hope you at least had one happy ending before I knocked on the door. If not, I’m sure you’ve had plenty of them since then. You know, I was surprised you’d agreed to a fling with Max. I got the impression you were looking for more than that.”

Not wishing to go into detail, I merely said, “It’s not so much a fling as a temporary arrangement with a super short expiry date.”

Sam gave a slow nod. “Ah. Well that’s crushed my hope that something serious might come out of this.”

“He’s not looking for ‘serious.’”

“Most blokes aren’t. Jared wasn’t. He wanted to add me to his collection of consorts when I first arrived. He actually set the three women up in a nice apartment—yeah, they lived together, if you can believe that.”

Looking incredibly uncomfortable, Jared cricked his neck. “I got rid of them for you, remember?”

“You did, even though you only wanted sex from me.” Sam cut her gaze back to me. “That’s the point I’m making. Just because a bloke isn’t hoping for more than a few jumps in the sack doesn’t mean he won’t change his mind.”

She had the right of it there. But after all Max had revealed to me so far about his past … “I don’t think Max will oh so suddenly come round to the idea of a real relationship.”

“I’d like to disagree, but he’s a stubborn little shit. And old habits die hard, don’t they? We can get used to being alone and convince ourselves we’re happier that way when, really, we just don’t want to step out of our comfort zone. Ain’t that right, Jared?”