Snow and the Seven Men (Seven Ways to Sin 1)

“I’m not suggesting—”

“You don’t even know what you’re suggesting!” Dan interjected. “You’re only thinking with your heart.”

I had no answer for him, mostly because I knew he was telling the truth.

Instead, I stormed out of the office and headed into the kitchen, yanking open the fridge to stare inside.

I wasn’t hungry, not with the weight of Bash’s rock meatloaf in my stomach, but I wanted to be closer to Sasha somehow and being in the kitchen reminded me of her. In my mind’s eye, I saw her bouncing around the room, humming softly to herself, despite the pain in her leg, happiest in her element.

Her element was taking care of us, and ours was taking care of her. We fit together. How can Dan not see that?

But I knew it wasn’t that he was blind to it. No, he was probably in just as much pain as me, even if he hid it behind the guise of work.

I slammed the fridge door shut and sank into a stool around the kitchen bar, drumming my fingers against the countertop. I could see her sprawled on her back, the seven of us on her, tasting her skin, our mouths on her as her cries bounced off the kitchen walls.

What are you doing right now, Sasha? Are you missing me as much as I miss you?

Oddly, I felt like she should answer me, like she could somehow reach out psychically and give me an answer.

I sat up then.

She wasn’t far away, not really.

Maybe I could pop by and see how she was doing.

A quick glance at the clock on the stove told me it was after midnight and such an excursion was out of the question but maybe in the morning?

I knew what the others, particularly Dan, would have to say about that but did I really care? I just wanted to make sure she was happy, safe, and comfortable. Ah, who was I kidding? I wanted to see if she’d changed her mind and was missing us.

We’d shared something that none of us had ever shared with another woman, not even Collette. Collette had toyed with our emotions, broken our hearts, but Sasha, she’d done her best to unite us, and she’d succeeded—even with me who made it the most difficult.

It couldn’t be over yet. I just couldn’t accept that.

20

Sasha

The pain in my leg woke me, and I instantly looked around for one of the boys, but it took me a full minute to remember where I was.

Disappointment filled me, adding to the nausea in my gut as I sat up and looked toward Queenie’s bed, but she wasn’t in it.

Not that I expected she would help me if I’d asked.

Not that I wanted her to help me in any way. I could take care of myself. I would just rather have someone else do it.

My brow knit with pain. It hadn’t been that bad last night or the night before, but I remembered what I’d teasingly told Dan about endorphins and sex.

Looks like I’m back to old fashion painkillers now, I thought grimly, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and padding across the cracked linoleum floor toward the door. I didn’t even know what we had for pain there, but I seemed to remember a medical kit of sorts in the bathroom. I hoped I wouldn’t have to hear sex noises from Frick and Frack when I went out there.

At least I’ll only have to listen for two minutes, I thought wryly, shaking my head as I made my way into the common area.

It was dark, but I saw the glow of a computer screen in the labs. Instinctively, I paused when I realized Queenie was up and speaking to someone via video conference. She hadn’t seen me, and for some inexplicable reason, I didn’t want her to, either.

I hung back in the doorway of our shared room, wincing at the weight on my leg and shifted against the doorframe to take the pressure off.

I strained my ears to listen, wondering who she was talking to at that hour, but it occurred to me that there was a five-hour time difference with New York.

“…doesn’t apply to us,” Queenie was saying as I eavesdropped. “No one needs to know, Silva.”

Andrea Silva was Queenie’s superior at Mirror, Mirror.

Her voice piped through the computer.

“The EPA is on my ass,” Silva insisted. “You’ve got to do better about hiding your findings. Are you sure your team is under control? What about Snow? If she gets wind of this—”

“Don’t worry about Sasha,” Queenie said with a confidence that made a chill rush through my body. “She might be lucky, but it can’t last forever.”

“What does that mean?”

Queenie chuckled and shook her head. “She doesn’t know anything about our methods yet.”

“Yet?”

“Silva, you need to trust me. Just handle the EPA, and I’ll deal with Snow.”