Of Snakes and Men by Gadziala Jessica

Author:Gadziala, Jessica
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hope

I couldn’t sleep.

After I’d played with the dogs for a while—which, admittedly, was not like me—I’d busied myself with making some food, then stealing one of A’s books, and taking it up to bed with me.

Val, my ever-present, kind of beloved, shadow was with me, curled up over my feet as I tried to focus on the words on the page.

But all I could think about was the fact that it seemed like A was going to try to ambush an untold number of people all by himself.

I mean, yeah, he’d seemed armed. But still. One man against who-knew how many? It was a suicide mission.

I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter, that I didn’t care.

But the way I tossed and turned when I’d finally set the book with its swimming words down on the nightstand and tried to sleep told me two things.

It did matter.

And I did care.

“Damnit,” I hissed, making Val grumble as he moved to the other side of the bed.

Sick of my shit.

Hey, I couldn’t blame him.

I was getting sick of my own shit.

Or, rather, I was getting sick of the way I couldn’t stop thinking about Andres. About his hands on me, his lips on me.

About wanting more of him on me.

In me.

A whimpering sound escaped me as I climbed off the bed, pacing back and forth a few times, thinking I could, I don’t know, exercise the desire and anxiety out of my system.

This giant mansion of his, and no workout room.

I imagined busting my ass on a treadmill for an hour would run through all this pent-up sexual energy. And maybe get the blood flow back to my brain, so I could remember all the reasons that I didn’t, in fact, want to sleep with Andres Alcazar.

My gaze slipped to the clock.

Eleven-thirty.

The drop was supposed to happen at midnight.

He only had a half an hour.

Then what?

He died?

There was no accounting for the way that thought felt like a swift kick right to the gut.

Or he lived.

With blood on his hands.

That in and of itself should have been an ice bath to my raging desire.

But, I mean, who was I kidding?

Almost all of my loved ones had taken lives. Some, many. It would be hypocritical of me to fault Andres for something I had let slide my entire life from my family and friends.

On another grumble, I went into my bathroom, gathering up the small laundry basket I had, then going into the primary bathroom to grab his towels, and making my way down the stairs.

It felt strange, yet almost freeing, to walk around A’s house in something other than my uniform. In this case, just my t-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts that my cousin Billie had gotten me for my last birthday. I didn’t realize until I’d put them on that the pattern was not, in fact, just innocent flowers. Oh, no. It was little vaginas made to look like flowers.

Because of course it was.

This was Billie we were talking about.

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