Page 168 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

Chapter 34

Valek

Getting the fuck out of this bedroom would be the rational move, and I'm nothing if not rational.

The encounter is concluded. Data has been gathered—or whatever absurd justification Plague is still clinging to—and the appropriate next step is to extract myself from this bed, return to my room, and resume the carefully maintained distance that has kept me alive and functional until now.

Instead, I'm pinned.

Whiskey's arm is draped across Plague's back, and Plague is sprawled across Whiskey's chest, and somehow in the post-orgasmic rearrangement of limbs, my body decided to curl around Plague like a fucking house cat.

My chin is resting on his shoulder.

I don't remember putting it there.

Plague's breathing has gone slow and even, his lean frame rising and falling against Whiskey's broader one. He's not asleep—I can tell from the micro-tension in his jaw—but he's not moving either. His hand rests perfectly still on Whiskey's sternum, fingers splayed over the thudding heartbeat beneath.

Whiskey shifts and the arm that isn't pinned under Plague stretches out and flops over my waist.

I go stiff.

"Relax," he grumbles. "I'm not groping you. My arm's asleep."

"Move it."

He does. But his chest vibrates with a low chuckle. The movement jostles Plague, who makes a discontented sound and burrows deeper into the hollow of Whiskey's neck.

I watch him do it. The way his fingers curl into Whiskey's flannel without conscious thought, seeking something his mouth would never admit to wanting.

A tell.

In chess, that kind of involuntary movement loses you the game.

He'd kill me if he knew I was thinking about it. The thought makes me laugh quietly to myself. As if sensing it, Plague's eyes flick angrily to me from beneath his dark lashes.

"You passed the test, by the way," Whiskey says, because he's physically incapable of not speaking.

I lift my chin off Plague's shoulder. "What test?"

"Plague's test."

"His data collection?" I ask dryly. "It's a wonder I could come at all with the way he acts."

Plague rolls off Whiskey's chest and onto his back between us, staring at the ceiling. His expression could turn concrete into curdled milk.

"I hate you both," he says.

"He's just embarrassed," Whiskey stage-whispers to me. "He doesn't hate us."

Plague tries to elbow Whiskey in the gut but can't from this angle. His elbow jabs uselessly into the air like a wasp trying and failing to sting. Whiskey wraps around him and squeezes him hard enough to choke the air out of him, rendering the elbow-jabs useless.

I snort.

He curses at me in muttered Arabic like he's forgotten I can understand everything he says.

"Regardless," I continue, watching Plague struggling half-heartedly in Whiskey's arms while trying not to melt against him, "the evaluation isn't yours to pass or fail. It's Ivy's."

Whiskey props himself up on one elbow, pulling Plague with him easily. "Yeah, well. She already decided. But that doesn't mean we won't kick your ass if you fuck up."