“What do you mean, someone broke into her apartment?” I glare at Knox. On one hand, I shouldn’t fucking care. But that persistent side of me that wants to claim her—publicly—rears its ugly head again.
He lifts one shoulder. “She called and seemed pretty upset. She wanted Willow to find somewhere else to stay…”
“Because her being alone in that apartment is a good idea.” Sarcasm is my default when I’m trying to hide my real feelings. It’s not a great sign that it’s choosing to come out now.
“Listen, man. Steele offered to go pick her up and bring her here. It isn’t ideal, seeing as how we’re in party mode…” He gestures to the beer bottle in my hand. “But whatever. She can hang out in one of the rooms upstairs if she wants.”
Violet didn’t call the police.
Which probably means she thinks I’m behind it.
I frown and shake my head. Then the first part registers. Steele went to get her? Steele offered?
I didn’t think I’d have to knock his teeth in, but I will if I have to. Happily.
Jesus, when the fuck did I get like this? All twisted up on the inside?
“When did he leave?” I bark.
Knox shrugs, but there’s something else there. A glimmer of triumph.
“You ass,” I groan. “You did it on purpose? Because of the bet.”
He snickers. “I can’t give you a leg up in this competition.”
No doubt he doesn’t care that Violet sucked Steele off at the stadium. If Steele opened his mouth anyway. I push my bottle into his hand and storm toward the door. I don’t really care what Steele wants—I need control over this situation.
I need to kick the shit out of Steele and remind him that there’s only one reason why Violet went down on her knees for him. Because I allowed it.
I get as far as the foyer, and then the front door opens, and Steele and Violet enter. She looks around and finds me almost immediately, then her gaze shifts away. Black leggings, and white sneakers. Under her unzipped coat, she wears an oversized blue Hawks shirt that hides her curves. Her hair is damp and braided, hanging over her shoulder. Not a speck of makeup, and definitely no hint of what happened between us not too long ago.
“You can stay in my room if you don’t want to hang out with us,” Steele offers.
“Thanks,” she murmurs, shedding her coat. “But I think I want something to relax.”
“I’ve got what you need,” I interject.
Her gaze flicks to me, eyes widening in surprise. I pull her jacket from her grip and tip my head, indicating that she should follow me. She does without a word. Her attention is fixated on my back. Her focus makes me feel like I’m stepping into a warm bath.
I lead her to the stairs and up, then down the hall to my bedroom. Knox has the largest, with its own bathroom. Steele, Miles, and I all share the one in the hall. I guess she’ll just have to deal with that.
She follows me like a lamb to slaughter, all the way into my room. She lets me close the door behind her and toss her jacket onto the bed.
“Sit,” I order.
She doesn’t. She stays in the center of the room, looking around like she’s never seen a guy’s room before. Maybe Jack was a different breed and never let her go over to the house he shares with some of his football buddies.
My room is neat and organized. It reflects my mind. I don’t like chaos, I don’t like uncertainty. And Violet is the biggest uncertainty I’ve faced. She’s unpredictable.
In here, I know where everything is. My desk is clear of papers, notebooks, and textbooks. The pens and pencils sit in a mug that says Number One Hockey Babe that was a gift from a nameless puck bunny. A thank you for an orgasm, probably.
The walls are cream, my bedspread quilted, dark-gray and soft. White sheets—I’m not a monster, and I’m not sixteen anymore. Black sheets are a red flag… and I go out of my way to eliminate all the red flags that might make someone run.
Well, not Violet. She had the chance to run because she’s seen past the veneer, and she knows what my family is capable of. When it comes to Devereuxes, you’re either in our good graces, not worth our time, or you’re our enemy.
Violet seems to have the uncanny ability to waver between all of those things. Exiled but worth my time. An irresistible enemy.
“You don’t have any artwork,” she says. “No pictures, even…”
I consider what I know of Violet Reece. I did some digging this week, just simple internet searches that gave me a variety of information. An article in the Times had a few quotes from her after a performance of Don Quixote with the Crown Point Ballet. She was raised by a single mom who sang her praises in public. Dad wasn’t on the scene, although another search turned up an obituary for him.
Violet was seven when he died.
She grew up in Rose Hill, New York. The same town I grew up in, although we went to different high schools—her the public one a town over, me to an elite private school. She lived in a house that would sell for a fraction of the price of my dad’s in the current market. It’s not a particularly bad neighborhood, but it’s isolated. The homes are old. I took a tour of it on a real estate website, clicking through staged photos. Still, even the real estate company couldn’t completely erase Violet.
She had a purple room with a waterfall mural on one wall. Her two dressers were white with sky-blue tops, the paint chipped and worn. The drawers looked like they had seen better days. Her twin bed was made, the white-and-purple comforter tucked tight enough to satisfy a military drill sergeant.
Where her mother and her went after that is a mystery. But her childhood was in that old house.
I wonder what year she met Willow Reed. Knox thought it was in high school, but I crave to know the details that I can’t get from a search. The first public photo of the two of them wasn’t posted until their junior year. And then there was a slew of them shortly after that, from summer at a pool party, their arms looped around each other’s waists, all the way to starting at CPU together.
Violet was thinner then. Her neck seemed longer, more slender. More breakable. She stood with the same grace that she does now, but there was more self-assurance.
I took that from her. I ground her down into whatever she is now.
And right now, she’s moving toward the one thing I actually care about: a family photo album.
It’s pure sentiment that made me keep it. That made me haul it all the way from New York to Crown Point. There are photos of my mother in there, smiling into the camera. Her on her wedding day, her expression happy and content next to my tall, brooding, asshole father. Her pregnant. Her with me as a baby.
After the wedding day, I couldn’t find another picture of my parents together.
She picks up the leather-bound book and runs her palm over the front. It’s stamped with Devereux on the front, in simple, slanted font. A gift from my cousin on my mother’s side on my sixteenth birthday.
That was the last time I saw anyone from her family.
“Put that down,” I snap.
She doesn’t. She flips it open to the first page, and a photo of my mother and me—one at a water park, if I remember correctly—stares back at her.
Her eyes move as she takes in every single detail, and I’m stuck in the middle of the room. Unable to snatch it out of her hand, unable to order her to drop it again.
She flips the page, and I catch a glimpse of a wedding photo. The cake-smashing one. Candid’s that my cousin printed. I don’t have any professional photos. Nothing father-approved. I can imagine her standing off to the side, raising the disposable camera to her eye. The scrape of the dial, loading the film into place, and the click-and-flash.
The noise rings in my ears, and when she turns the next page, my muscles unlock.
I stride forward and grab it, slamming it shut and dropping it back to its spot on the low bookcase. I grab her by her throat and walk her backward, until she hits the wall. Her eyes widen, and her lips part.
“Don’t touch that,” I hiss.
The breath goes out of her in a quick exhale, and she lifts her hand to hold my wrist.
“What’s wrong with a few memories between friends?”
I curl my lips into a sneer. “I know my friends. You’re certainly not one of them.”
“Am I your enemy?”
“You very well may be,” I retort. I haven’t decided yet—but I don’t tell her that. Instead, I increase the pressure. Her pulse jumps under my fingers, but her expression doesn’t change. “You went with Steele.”
Her eyes narrow. My grip isn’t so tight that she can’t speak. Not yet.
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Call me ,” I growl.
“You don’t even like—”
I squeeze, cutting off her words. Her lips move soundlessly. I live for this control over her, and I wait for the spark of fear to come. Because I want to keep pushing her, even when she’s trying to drive me away. Someone broke into her house, but that won’t fly.
I’ll make sure the whole fucking world knows Violet belongs to me.
“There is no like.” I lean in and brush my lips along her cheek, sweeping back toward her ear. My tongue flicks out, tasting her skin. She smells like wildflowers. “I don’t have to fucking like you to own you. There’s no affection between us. You’re mine. Your mouth is mine. Your cunt is mine. Every fucking thought that runs through your head belongs to me.”
She shudders, and I let up long enough for her to breathe. I miss her expression, because I bite her ear and she shivers again. I press my body to hers, pinning her with more than just my hand at her throat, and let her feel how hard she makes me. How her helplessness turns me on.
I bite her ear again, rougher, and then move to her lips. Her lower lip was bleeding earlier, but there’s no sign of it now. I take it between my teeth and tug, and she gasps. Her pulse is a hummingbird’s wings beating against her skin. It singes my fingertips. I bite until the metallic taste seeps across my tongue, and then I bite harder.
She whimpers.
The sound drives me fucking wild.
I release her throat and attack her clothes. I shove her leggings down and her shirt up, exposing her breasts.
No bra.
My mind blanks for a second. Her breasts are perky, smooth and pale. Her nipples pebble. I stare and lick my lips, tasting her blood again. My cock is so hard, I might explode on first contact. But there’s urgency, too, and it seems to infect her as much as me.
She unbuttons my pants and pushes them off my hips. I step out of them and look down. Her panties are white. The picture of innocence. For a split second, I wonder if she’s a virgin. I dismiss it almost immediately. Her ex-boyfriend wouldn’t have let that pussy remain untouched for two fucking years.
I tear her panties off. The material rips easily, and I lift the fabric to my nose. I let her see my expression when I inhale her scent, and my cock twitches.
“Mine,” I repeat, dropping the material to the floor and hoisting her up.
She locks her legs around me, and I slide into her with one thrust.
God, she feels like heaven. She’s wet and ready, and her head falls back against the wall when I pull almost all the way out. I force myself back inside her. Her cunt clenches at me, tight and hot. Perfect. Fucking perfect.
I fuck her like a madman. Her spine hits the wall with every movement. Her breasts bob. I lean down and bite her skin, leaving a trail of wet marks as I home in on her nipple. When I have it between my teeth, she shrieks.
If that isn’t the best sound I’ve heard. I could live for those screams, tinged with pain and pleasure. A combination.
I release her thighs to slip my hand between us. I pinch her clit, twisting it and tugging. I play with her harder than I’ve ever fucked a girl before, and I still feel deranged. Like this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Her nails rake down my back, and I shudder when she grips my hair and forces my head up. We lock eyes. I see everything she wants me to see and more. How every stroke deep inside her is hitting a special place that makes her eyelids flutter. How the pressure is something new, something twisted.
I ease up on her clit and rub fast, shallow circles. My balls tighten, and I pound into her faster. Harder. She lets her head fall back when I pinch her clit again, and her cunt clenches around me as she comes.
Her mouth opens and closes, but she doesn’t give me that scream. She doesn’t say my fucking name, but she shakes and trembles and grips my biceps so tight, I think I’ll have half-moon cuts in my skin when we’re done.
Sweat rolls down my back. Between her breasts. We’re both panting.
I bury myself inside her and go still, ecstasy sweeping down my cock and exploding inside her. I grip her to me as I come, knowing full well that there’s no barrier between us. I didn’t give her a choice—and she’s not going to get one.
There’s no going back.
