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Panic set up a furious beat in Wiri’s chest as his heart raced. It didn’t help his headache and his finger throbbed. Seline rolled onto her back again and invited him to enjoy her, a beckoning finger moving in an enticing stroke of the air between them. “You’re really hot,” she purred. “And you have no idea how gorgeous you are.” The low chuckle in her throat heightened the tension.
Wiri gulped and tried to speak, his mouth dry and his words stuck somewhere between his brain and his throat. A stutter emerged. “I don’t need your objectification,” he managed. “This isn’t a period romance. Besides, it’s not your interest I want.” Thoughts of Phoenix consumed his mind. He wanted her to look at him in that hungry way, as though a moment devouring his company was all she needed.
A sigh passed through Seline’s pink lips and she shuttered her eyelids. “Come on, big boy,” she whispered. “No one needs to know. Just you and me satisfying an itch.”
The air moved around him and something brushed against his arm. He held his breath and forced his body to turn. A sharp inhale held a woman’s lightness, the pitch higher than a man’s guttural gasp of shock. Wiri floundered, expecting to see Leilah joining the audience to her daughter’s debauchery.
Instead, Phoenix gazed up at him, her jaw fixed and her eyes filled with dark swirls of accusation.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she was Logan Du Rose’s daughter.
Hit first and ask questions later.
She shifted onto her back foot with a natural grace born of practice, raising her fists in self-defence. He knew what was coming, but injury and exhaustion turned his feet into blocks of concrete and he listed backwards instead of getting out of her way.
Phoenix nailed him first in the stomach and then in the groin with the jagged knuckles of her balled right fist. Air locked in Wiri’s lungs and as the pain reached his solar plexus, he bent double and collapsed face first onto the floorboards.
Pure agony radiated out from the centre of Wiri’s body as he writhed on the floor. He drew his knees up to his chest and the bloom reached out to conspire with all the other sites of pain to create one giant throb. Closing his eyes, he prayed for it to pass, one pulse-beat at a time.
He felt the draught as Phoenix stepped over him, but lacked the ability to track her movements. Seline’s seductive chuckle sent dread into the remaining functional corners of his brain.
“Ah, is it little Fiona?” Her voice held an annoying, sing-song quality, guaranteed to stoke Phoenix’s ire. Wiri groaned, but both women ignored him, locked into their moment of truth.
“Fiona?” Phoenix spat the name, her voice wavering and her control gone. “There’s more of you?” Seline shrieked, a pained sound backed by shock. A thud betrayed her naked body hitting the floor in a jumble of bones. “Get up!” Phoenix snarled. “You filthy skank!” Seline wailed, and Wiri uncurled his body enough to screw his head backwards on his neck.
Phoenix held Seline by her auburn curls, hauling her onto her knees. Her expression held a darkness he’d seen when she returned from the fated summer camp. It seethed from her flashing irises and the furious set of her jaw. She dragged Seline across the room by her hair and forced her to step over Wiri before releasing her with a violent push. With quick, stabbing movements, she gathered Seline’s discarded clothing and threw it at her as she stood in the hall. The zipper of her jodhpurs caught Seline in the eye and she raised her hands to cover her face. Her nakedness acted as a flame for Phoenix, lighting the touch paper and sending her completely beyond her limits. Wiri covered his head as she leapt over him and cannoned into Seline, her fists flying like a lightweight boxer.
“Stop!” Wiri forced himself onto his knees and extended an arm towards the scrapping women. A bump signified Seline’s head hitting the wall. “Phoe, stop!” His spine gave a vicious twinge as he used the corner of the wardrobe to pull himself to a standing position. Seline had raised her bundle of clothing to protect her face. The nakedness she’d displayed with such divisiveness appeared jarring and vulnerable against Phoenix’s fury. She tore and punched with abandon, unleashing a pit of ugliness from somewhere deep in her soul. With her back towards Wiri, it seemed she’d forgotten him in her pursuit of Seline.
Wiri lurched for her and closed his arms around her torso in a pincer movement. She used everything she’d ever learned from her father, jerking her head back and aiming to break his nose. At the same time, she dragged the heel of her boot down his shin and dug it into the top of his instep. He held on, tightening his arms and closing his mind to the pain she meted out to his already battered body. “Stop,” he whispered into her ear. “I did nothing, Phoe. Just stop.”
She smelled of soap and hair conditioner. The floral haze rose from her clothing, underscored by the faint odour of sweat and dust. Her hair had escaped its ponytail, tendrils hanging across her shoulders with a layer of frizz she always hated. He wondered where she’d been to have missed her morning shower. Then he recognised the haze of cigarette smoke and beer hanging around her. He tightened his grip and felt her body lose its edge. A low sound in her throat mewed desperation and tiredness. “Let me go right now or I’ll really hurt you.”
“I know you can.” He kept his tone level, reasonable, a thread of pleading underscoring it. “But please don’t.”
“She’s crazy!” Seline found her voice, hauling her shirt over her head and pulling it down to cover her breasts. Her nipples poked through the fabric and Wiri closed his eyes, resting his chin over Phoenix’s shoulder.
“Just get out,” he growled.
“Oh, I’ll go!” she snarled, pressing her feet through the legs of her skimpy underwear. “I’ll make sure you’re not far behind me.”
“What does that mean?” Phoenix lurched forward and Wiri increased his grip, feeling her collarbone pressing against his forearm as he crossed his wrists.
“I’ll get him fired.” Seline jutted her chin forward and wiggled into her jodhpurs. “You can help him pack.” She retrieved her forgotten bra from the handle of Jet’s bedroom door and her body dipped in anger as she faced Phoenix. “Did you know he’s wanted for murder?” She jabbed her finger at Wiri. “He’s been here less than a week and he’s already behaved to type.” Her cackle echoed in the narrow hallway, and she turned on her heel. She strode from the house barefoot and slammed the front door behind her.
Wiri groaned and rested his chest against Phoenix’s back. “Yeah, because I’m brown,” he said with a sigh. Phoenix bowed beneath his weight. He hoped she didn’t go to work on breaking his fingers or use her heel to score his other shin.
