“You don’t need music,” I say, drawing her closer.
She steps back hurriedly, pulling her wrist free and letting out a huff. “I’m not dancing.” Her eyes flicker over my brothers. Then they flash back to me and narrow. “Not unless I get something in return.”
Cass whistles through his teeth. Apollo even stops messing around with the laptop long enough to look up at her with wide eyes and a slack mouth. Reuben snorts and rubs his jaw like he’s trying to hide his faint smile.
I tilt my head at her. “Do you really think you’re in a position to bargain with us?”
“Hang on,” Cassius says through a chuckle. “Let’s hear her out. What’s your offer, Trin?”
She replies without taking her eyes off me. “I want to know how you factor into all of this,” she says. An absent wave of her hand takes in my brothers, then the packages against the wall. “You’re older than them. And a teacher, which means you’ve studied at college, right?” She steps close, until the rose-scented wood of her rosary beads tickles my nose. “And you’re rich. So how did you wind up in that basement? How did you become a part of this?”
My eyes narrow. She gasps when I grab her jaw and squeeze dimples into her soft flesh. That sound ripples through me like a stone tossed into a pond. My cock starts paying attention for the first time today. I want to force her to her knees and make her swallow every rock-hard inch of me until she passes out from lack of oxygen.
I resort to fisting her hair instead, keeping her head in place. Fear turns her amber eyes a sullen bronze.
“For a dance from someone who can’t even dance?” I sneer at her. “I don’t think so.”
There’s utter silence from my brothers. Are they holding their breaths like she is?
I force a smile. “How about you dance, and I’ll consider not giving you five lashes for being such a presumptuous little slut?”
Cass snickers at the fact that I’m using his words, but I ignore him. Trinity is all I’m interested in right now.
She would be pissing herself if she knew how deadly it was to attract my full attention.
Her face pales. “Lashes? Just for asking—?”
“Six.”
Her lips begin to tremble.
I shrug, tilting her head back another inch as I close the distance between us. “We could demand worse things from you,” I murmur. My hard-on presses into her stomach, and her eyes flare wide. She tries to arch away from me, but I release her jaw and press my hand into the small of her back. “Dirty, sick things.” I grind into her even harder.
She shudders against me.
“Fine,” she says through her teeth. “One dance.”
My eyes fall to her lips. When she licks them, I almost kiss her just to taste her mouth.
Instead, I push her away and drag at my cigarette as I sink back into my seat. Then I click my fingers at her and again at the spot between us.
“Get to it then.”
She moves to the center of the room, and hesitates before looking over at Reuben. “Can I have another drink?”
Reuben doesn’t bother confirming with me first. Now that our business is done, I’m not anyone’s boss anymore.
We agreed a long time ago that we couldn’t all lead the charge and drew straws to determine our hierarchy.
Just because I drew the short straw doesn’t mean I dominate them twenty-four-seven. By now I know when to step back and let them have their fun.
Our blessed Keepers knew that too.
It was their responsibility to feed us, shelter us, keep us hidden. And, most importantly, to make sure we didn’t escape.
Keeping us tied up all the time damaged our young bodies.
Bruises became welts.
Welts turned into sores.
I still have kinks in both my ankles where the constant ligature of a too-tight rope altered my bone structure.
They were also instructed to keep our spirits up. Most of our Ghosts liked it when we fought back. But you stop fighting when you lose hope and our Keepers eventually figured that out.
So they made sure there was always a sliver of hope. Just enough to cling onto until our Ghosts’ next visit.
Once a day while we ate, they’d let us out of our bonds. In that hour we’d search every inch of our cage, just in case a Ghost had dropped something, or we’d missed something the thousand previous times we’d searched.
Apollo found a rosary one day. Reuben recognized it as the one his Ghost would wear. We drew straws to see who would keep it.
Rube lost.
Trinity folds her hands in front of her as she waits, making an obvious effort not to look at any of us. Which is probably a good thing, because even Apollo’s put away his toys to watch. And if she can’t feel Cass’s hungry gaze already peeling off that flimsy layer of fabric…
She takes the tumbler from Reuben and downs it in a rush. Her face scrunches up as she fights not to cough. She nods at him and hands back the glass.
“No music,” she says softly, as if to herself.
“You’re boring us,” I tell her, my chair creaking as I shift my weight.
She throws me a panicked look and quickly starts swaying her hips.
“Slower, little girl.”
I love the way her eyes flare when I call her that. But as if she picks up on the fact, she smooths her expression and instead closes her eyes.
A minute later, I bark out, “Enough.”
She stops, her eyes fluttering open as she whirls to face me. “What?”
“You’re terrible,” I tell her, shaking my head. “Cass, give me your belt.”
Her eyes go wide. She holds up her arms, one palm facing me and the other to Cass as he stands and starts taking off his belt. “No. No! I can do better. I just have to—”
“Here, I’ll show you,” Reuben says.
My lips quirk up. God, he certainly took long enough. He’s a clever fucker, but he’s so damn cautious you’d think he was simple.
I light another cigarette. Cass lights a joint. We pass them to each other as Rube gets up. Trinity takes a hurried step back when he looms over her, but then he grabs the back of her neck and hauls her back.
He slides his hand down her shoulder, her arm, and over to her hip. Then he takes her waist in both hands and swivels her hips in a figure eight.
“Loosen up,” he grumbles in his deep voice.
“I’m trying,” she mutters back, staring up at him like she’s wondering when he plans on snapping her neck.
“Close your eyes, if it helps,” he suggests calmly. “Pretend I’m one of those boy band idiots you girls are always crushing on.”
I’m smiling full out now, and it has nothing to do with the whiskey-and-weed concoction wreaking havoc on my brain.
Reuben and Cass were the only two of us that had something resembling a normal childhood after we escaped the Ghost House. I’d fought to keep us together, but we were all from different states. Rube and Cass went to foster homes in West Virginia and Georgia, Apollo back to North Carolina, and I stayed behind in Virginia.
It took years for me to find them again.
Reuben ended up in a foster home with three other girls, which we’ll never let him live down, especially seeing as he never fucked any of them. Although I doubt it ever crossed his mind. He became their big brother, and that’s the persona he stuck with. And he did such a good job, that foster family almost ended up adopting him.