Blaze (Virtues & Lies 3)

“Come on, Trouble, what are you going to do?” Casper takes a long, nonchalant breath. “To kill or not to kill? It’s not a difficult decision, Fleur.”

I swallow the water that pools in my mouth at the sound of my name from his lips.

“What are you waiting for?”

Pressing closer, he forces my arms to bend, my elbows pressing to the top of my belly. “You’ll only ever get one shot.”

It’s all a drawn-out tease because he knows I’m not going to do it. It doesn’t matter how much I want to right now…Casper is the only person I have left. And the idiot that I am likes him.

I want to blame the baby inside me and the hormones, but the reality is that it’s all me. I want him. But more importantly, I want him to want me. I want him to need me like he did that first time he fucked me. When I was the only thing he could use to punish the world for its monstrosity.

He should punish me for making him a monster. I knew the moment I saw the blood on his skin. I felt it in my gut. He was protecting us. It was obvious in the bleakness of his eyes and the tension surrounding him.

Whatever he did…was because of me. Because of who I am.

“Make it count, Trouble,” he leers, hands closing around my wrists and coursing to the crease of my elbows.

He’s so tall and so strong, even his scent is overpowering. He lowers himself down to my level, and a smirk tilts one side of his face as he breathes over mine, “It takes a monster to kill a monster.”

The minty sweetness mixed with the brine of his skin has me drawing closer, the gun pressed between us.

“Are you a monster or just trouble?”

A hand runs up my arm to my shoulder and then the base of my throat. His thumb brushes up and down, from the hollow to my chin and then back and again, pressing harder and harder with every stroke.

“Whose blood was it?”

Another laugh escapes him as he shrugs. “Does it matter?”

Yes…no…I don’t know.

“They were nobodies. They died like nobodies. And we live to see another day.”

He’s so blasé that an inkling of fear needles at me, but then I already knew Casper isn’t like the others. He has real demons, and I like them almost as much as I love him.

The fact he killed for our child only serves to make me need him more.

The hand still at my elbow lowers back to my wrist before going to the gun. His thumb pushes beneath my hand before the loaded magazine drops between us. Eyes never leaving mine, he pulls back. Then, turning the muzzle away, he pulls the slide back until the round kicks out, bouncing to the ground and across the wooden floor with a fading tap, tap, tap.

“You ever hold a gun up to me again, you better use it.” He walks away, towards the kitchen, leaving me with the useless weapon in my hand as the back door slams. And I want to chase him. I want to hunt him down, and I want to make him hurt me in any fucking way that means he’s touching me.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life is that hate, anger, and love…they’re all the same. They all mean you care.

Chapter 5

CASPER

Any other fucking person would do as they’re told. Any other person would let me do what I’m good at and try to ignore the what and the why and the how. But no, not Fleur. She’s always got to be digging for shit she has no business digging for.

Whose blood was it?

Why does it even fucking matter? It’s not hers.

You would think she would be gratefully quiet and cordial. That she would let me protect her without any interference from her.

I’m not dense or blind…

She’s a fucking nightmare, that’s what she is.