Page 148 of The Devil We Crave
“Wow.” She pulls back from the pure vodka breath emanating from her youngest daughter. “Looks like someone had a fun night,” she says, waving a hand in front of her nose.
“She’s okay.” I smile when Bianca turns to me. “She’ll be pretty banged up tomorrow, but I think she’ll learn her lesson.”
“She’d better,” Aunt Bianca fumes.
Kratos grins and pulls my aunt into his side, which is always a hilarious visual given that he’s like a foot and a half taller than her, at least.
“C’mon, babygirl,” he chuckles as he leans down to kiss the top of her head. “We were young once too.”
My aunt nods wryly.
“Thanks, Achilles,” she sighs, raising her gaze to me. “Seriously. We really appreciate you making the trip into the city from all the way up at school.”
I shrug. “Not a problem at all.”
“Really? Saturday night on the Knightsblood campus?” Kratos winks at me. “I feel this probably pulled you away from certain…uh…socialobligations.”
Just the one.
I keep my mask perfectly in place. Behind it, my teeth grind.
The plans I had with Yelena tonight weren’t just the ones I texted her about, i.e., painting her pretty face and delectable tits with my cum before bouncing her on my cock like a good girl.
I mean, yes, all of that was firmly on the agenda too.
But something else was, too.
Like telling her some truths I’ve been debating telling her.
Like trying to put into words how the chaos in my head goes quiet when she’s near me. How my fascinations have turned into something I’ve never felt before now that they're focused on her.
But then I got the scared, slurred phone call from my little cousin, locked in the guest bathroom of some high school party she was at in the city. She wanted to leave but was worried about everyone seeing her “like that”, aka, drunk as a fuckingskunk, and wasreallyworried about what her parents would say if she called them. And since I was her very favorite older cousin…flattery will get you everywhere…could I pretty please come get her?
The answer, obviously, was yes.
So I left campus, canceled my plans with Yelena, and drove into Manhattan to menace some high school boys into staying the fuck away from my drunk cousin.
Bianca rolls her eyes and elbows my uncle, making him chuckle deeply.
“What! The kid’s a rockstar on campus,” he grins, clapping a heavy, tattooed hand on my shoulder. “And he was lucky enough to get his uncle’s killer looks!” He winks at me. “I bet there’s a line out the door?—”
“Kratos!”
He laughs and then glances down at Eva with a sigh. “All right, all right. I guess we should get Ozzy Osbourne upstairs.”
“Can you stick around for a while?” Aunt Bianca smiles and gives me a hug. “I feel I haven’t seen you in forever.”
I shrug. “Sure, I’d love to hang out.”
Kratos scoops a still-snoring Eva into his huge arms and turns to me. “Make yourself comfortable, man. We’ll get this one to bed and then come back down.”
I’m grabbing a beer out of their fridge when I hear the roar of a serious sports car engine outside. Then the front door swings open and bangs shut again.
“Is she here?!”
I walk into the front entryway and find Selene shrugging off a light jacket and looking anxiously around. When she spots me, her brows knit. “Achilles?”
I smile. “You got a drunk bathroom call, too?”
