Despite my confusion, I melted in his arms. I clung to him, not wanting to lose contact with a single inch of him. There was more than one way to win submission from an underling.
“You’re not angry?” I murmured.
“I’m reminding you of your place.”
Carl’s toy. I’d almost forgotten. I moaned a little, both turned on and frustrated that he was completely avoiding the issue.
His hands kneaded my back, working through my shirt, then slipping under my shirt and digging into bare skin. I arched my back, leaning into him.
“I can’t go back to what I was.” I gripped his hair in my fists, holding his head to me while he traced my throat with his tongue.
“I know,” he said, his voice low. “You’ve gotten strong. You could move up.”
Inside, I froze. Carl didn’t notice. His hands were working their way to my front, to my breasts. I gasped a breath and tried to think straight. “Move up?”
“You could challenge Meg. You could take her place.”
Then it was like he was necking and groping someone else. I was still clinging to him, but I gazed over his shoulder and my mind was detached. Suddenly professional.
“You’re not getting along with Meg, are you?”
He went still. His hands stopped groping in favor of simple holding, and he pressed his face to my shoulder. He didn’t say anything. He just held me.
I smiled a little. It was such a revelation, the idea that Carl was having relationship problems. Idly, I scratched his hair until he let me go.
He moved to the nightstand, opened a drawer, and took out a business-sized envelope. He handed it to me, only then raising his gaze to mine.
Inside, I found photos. Blurry photos taken on a full moon night, people and wolves running together. One of them was me. These were copies of the photos Rick had given me. The ones Arturo had used to hire Cormac.
“You?” My voice was tight with hurt. Whoever had given these photos to Arturo had probably also put up funds to pay Cormac. Whoever had done that wanted me dead, but wanted to keep their hands, and maybe their teeth and claws, spotless. If it had been Carl, it had probably been the money I’d been giving him that had gone to pay Cormac. That was too terrible to think about.
“Meg,” he said. He stood close to me, speaking low, but sex was gone from his manner. “She said she gave them to Arturo because she was jealous of you.”
“Jealous, of me?” She was Meg. She was beautiful and strong.
“Of the success of the show. The attention. The attention from me.” He looked away at that, probably the most human gesture I’d ever seen Carl make. Like he was admitting that he’d been using pack dynamics as an excuse to sleep around. Like for once he realized how odd it was, this in-between world we inhabited.
“You know what this means?” I said. “She sold me down the river. She practically gave me to Arturo on a silver platter—”
And it suddenly occurred to me that maybe Carl told me it was Meg so that I’d get angry enough at her to challenge her. That he was manipulating both of us, so he could get her out of the way without getting his own paws dirty. This was assuming I’d actually win if I challenged her. I didn’t want to think about that.
But Carl’s brown eyes were so hurt, so lost, and I didn’t think he could fake that. He’d never been able to disguise his anger or lust. He wasn’t good at masking his feelings, or faking them. He was a brute-force kind of guy.
“What did you do when you found out?”
“We had a talk.” That was a euphemism. So, had they had the usual kind of ass-kicking talk, or had they had the kind of talk that Carl and I had been having a minute ago?
“What did she say?”
“She said she was sorry. She’ll back off.”
“That’s it? Just like that, she’ll back off?” I didn’t know who to be angry at. Was she really sorry or was Carl making excuses for her? Why didn’t he do anything to her for this? “Maybe I should have a talk with her.”
“Maybe you should,” Carl said. Slowly, he leaned in, his lips brushing my cheek, moving to my mouth.
I turned my face away. I shoved the photos back into the envelope and gave it to him, then left the room before he could throw a tantrum.
For a heartening moment, I thought I was going to reach the front door and escape without anyone stopping me. I touched the doorknob.