I fisted my hand in his hair, yanking hard as I pursed my lips at him. “Stay still.”
“Okay, little psycho,” he exhaled.
I started work on his big red smile, making beautiful work of it as I painted it on. And when I was done, I leaned back to admire it, bouncing in his lap again in joy, drawing a groan of delight from him.
“Mi sol,” Mateo snarled from across the room, but I ignored him, bouncing more as I admired my work and Niall’s hands fisted in the back of my top.
“Stop,” he gritted out.
“Stop what?” I bounced harder and a curse fell from his lips a moment before I felt his cock grow hard between my thighs. Holy tits!
I fell still, realising what I’d done as my lips popped open. I did that. Me. I was a seductress, a temptress of the night, The Peen Piper.
Niall was staring at me, his clown’s grin wide while his lips remained flat, but as a silence echoed back to us off of the walls, he suddenly snapped, a booming laugh ripping from his throat.
“Jesus Christ, Spider.” He got up so I fell right onto my ass and he adjusted his pants, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders too. “Fancy you bein’ there in my lap when I got hard for my fiancée.” He stepped over me, striding towards Mateo and I gaped after him, his words slashing my heart open like he’d butchered it with a knife. “Where’s the big fella then?” He slapped Mateo mockingly on the cheek and Mateo bared his teeth like a wild animal.
“You mean Jack?” he asked and Niall nodded. “He’s in the basement where you left him.”
“Well go get him then, el burro.” Niall waved his hands at Mateo like he was an arrogant lord speaking to his house maid and Mateo didn’t move a muscle, his arms folding as he glared back at him.
“Do you know how many times and in how many ways I could have killed you in the past three days?” Mateo hissed.
“Not one, because I’ve had this in my pocket the whole time and you know it,” Niall said with a smirk as he slid the collar remote out. “And don’t you think I haven’t seen you trying to cut that thing offa ya neck, el burro. But lemme tell ya, it can’t be broke, and if you even get close to breaking it, I’ve set it up to keep shocking ya until you stop kicking. So, how’s about you head off to the basement like a good little donkey and fetch my new prisoner? I’ll even change the settings so you can go in there without getting your brains fried.”
Niall took out his phone and quickly did just that, adjusting the perimeter on the collar so that Mateo could go into the kitchen at last, and swept an arm towards the door in invitation for him to move.
Mateo fronted him out for several seconds before he finally turned his back on him and marched away towards the basement.
I pushed myself to my feet, my heart still bleeding from Niall’s comment about his fiancée. Had she been the one to bring him back? Had she been circling in his mind while he’d blocked me out and thought of her instead?
I wrung my fingers together, the quiet in the room pressing as Niall kept his back to me, but he finally turned my way, the wild light back in his eyes.
“Don’t just stand there pouting, little psycho. Come over here and play a game with me.”
I frowned, tiptoeing over to him, drawn by the lure of a game. Would it be tic-tac-toe? Rock, paper, scissors? Backgammon? Tag? Hopscotch? Kiss chase? Capture the flag?
He opened a drawer in a little cabinet beside him, taking out a penny and twisting it between his fingers. “This is my lucky penny.”
I gasped, reaching for it, but he snatched it away, holding it up to admire it in the light above my head. “You can have it if it lands on tails, okay?”
I nodded eagerly and he flicked it up in the air, catching it in his palm then slapping it onto the back of his other hand and showing me the penny.
Heads.
Dammit.
“Again,” I demanded and he chuckled, flicking it again, the coin wheeling high up towards the ceiling before he caught it and repeated the action.
Heads.
Dammit.
“Again,” I growled and he did so.
Heads.
Dammit.
“Again!” I snapped.
But Niall did it five more times and still tails didn’t come up, defying all the laws in the universe, even the wonky ones. I stared at him in dismay and he grinned through his makeup, almost wider than the clown smile painted across his cheeks as he rolled the coin over on his palm, showing me that heads were on both sides of the coin.
“That’s not fair,” I gasped in anger and his smile somehow grew.
“No, it ain’t. It’s swung in my favour every time, love. I always win, see? Life is like that too. I’m the master of it, not you. You live in my house, you play by my rules, and if you’re a good girl, I’ll grant you the gift of my never-ending fortune. But if you ever try to bewitch me, Spider…” He tutted, shaking his head and taking hold of my chin as he pinched the skin. His eyes were the darkest of nights and a coldness fell across his face like frost. “I will personally drag ya to the stake and burn ya.”
My throat bobbed and I pushed out my lips indignantly as I realised what this was really about. The one thing he cared about above all others, the thing that he hoarded like treasure and guarded with the might of a beast bound to protect it. Coco Pops. The real power in this house. And he knew, the moment I got my hands on them, I’d be in charge.
If he thought he could scare me off, he was underestimating me. I’d been hunting for them every chance I got, and I wasn’t going to back down ever. One day soon, I’d be the queen of the Pops, and he’d be giving me that shiny little unfair penny too when I took a seat on my throne.
“Game on, Niall,” I said with a grin and his brows pinched in confusion.
“That ain’t a challenge.”
“Game. On.” I brushed past him, heading off to find my Dead Man and AJ, the sound of a commotion carrying from the basement.
I hurried to the open door, jogging down the steps, finding AJ there smashing up the bed I used to sleep in. I gasped as a huge piece of it hit the wall and Jack swiped up a leg of it, using it as a hammer to smash the rest of the bed. Mateo stood close to him with an assessing look on his face, but didn’t intervene.
I’d tried to come see AJ a banana bunch of times in the last couple of days, but I kept being Mateo blocked, my Dead Man telling me it wasn’t safe. But I trusted Angry Jack with my life. He was my big boulder man, he’d never hurt me.
Mateo caught my arm as I went to step past him towards Jack. “Go back upstairs, chica loca,” he commanded, but I wasn’t going anywhere.
“He’ll listen to me,” I said firmly. “Let me go.”
Mateo’s mouth twitched like he wanted to force me to obey him and return upstairs and my clit tingled from the beastly look on his face.
Niall appeared out of nowhere, barrelling between us and forcing Mateo’s hand off of me as he ran at Jack, whacking him over the head with a saucepan. Jack whipped around with a bellow of rage, his face twisted with some horrors playing out in his head and I knew they were fuelling his angries. I’d seen him like this when we were in Eden Heights a load of times, seeming quiet for days then snap, crackle, pop, he went on a rage spree, destroying everything around him like he wanted to break the whole world.