Nasty.
I wiped drool from the corner of my mouth with a frown, my nose wrinkling at a cloying smell tainting the air of my bedroom. Ugh. What was that? I lifted an arm to make sure the gross limey odor wasn’t coming from me.
“Ew,” I mumbled, rolling out of bed to wash the drool off my hand and rinse out my mouth. I never drooled. Couldn’t sleep deep enough for that. At least, not usually. I swished the cool water from the tap in my mouth and spat, opting to just take a shower in case I did actually smell like a fucking stale ass gin mojito.
At least the deep sleep brought with it some clarity and as the scalding water prodded my dead muscles back to life, a plan formed.
To be fair, it started forming the minute the fucking Crows decided to try to cut me a very one-sided deal. The little visit from Officer Vick just cemented it.
The way they saw it, I had two options.
Option one: take the deal and become their little plaything. Kneel.
Option two: be forced to take the deal by whatever devious bullshittery they came up with to try to force me into it.
Officer Vick had provided me an option number three, but honestly? I didn’t fucking like cops. Sixty percent were corrupt. At least thirty percent were power-tripping dickwads. The last ten percent were just fucking useless. Or stupid.
Biased? Maybe. But you haven’t been a starving kid living in a trailer with a crackhead mother and a father with a gambling addiction. Or maybe you have. And then you know.
I was going for option number four. It was time to take these Crows down a peg. If I’d been smart, I’d have taken photos of the stolen car that night with the guy in the shed. I’d have filmed Rook dragging him to the shed. Captured his screams on camera.
Two could play the blackmail game. I’d been focusing my attention on the wrong threat. Bri was a blimp on the greater scale. The Crows were the real enemy. They were the ones who deserved my attention. I’d find out every little thing I could about them. Their dirty secrets. Their plans. And then I would use that knowledge to buy my freedom.
It would take time, and I’d have to do it right, but it could be done. I just had to make sure I didn’t break along the way.
“You trying a new perfume?” Becca asked as I made my way into the living room, making a spectacle of plugging her nose. “Babe, that is so not your scent.”
My shoulders slumped. “You smell it too?” I asked, relieved. I was starting to think I was going crazy when it didn’t go away after the shower. It was somehow soaked into my blankets. In my pillows. Whatever I ate yesterday, I was never eating it again. Barf.
She poured herself a coffee from the elaborate chrome machine in the kitchen and pointed to a second cup. “Want one?”
I moaned, chasing the aroma of fresh coffee to the kitchen. “Careful,” I warned. “I could get used to this.”
She snorted, but set another cup under the weird coffee drippy thing and started frothing some milk. “Here,” she said, nudging the already made cup with her elbow. “Take that one.”
I took a sip, and it didn’t even matter that it nearly scalded my tongue. It was fucking divine. Like, call me religious because I might have just been converted to a devoted member of the church of Becca Hart Lattes.
“God.” I groaned, clutching the mug under my nose to inhale. “I’m going to steal you away from whoever you go see in the mornings and make you my coffee bitch.”
Becca barked a laugh but didn’t reply, instead eyeing my outfit. The usual knock-off jeans, softened by too many owners, paired with a long sleeve black t-shirt today. “No run this morning?” she asked as she finished pouring off the frothed milk into the espresso basted cup.
I shook my head. “Nah, I had to wash that stink off. Two showers in one morning goes against years of two-minute shower conditioning. Just can’t do it.”
“Speaking of,” Becca said, leaning against the counter to sip her latte. “Maybe close the oven after you’re done baking. When I got home last night it was hot as balls in here.”
I winced. I’d always been taught to leave it open, especially when it was chilly outside. It was a waste of heat to keep it closed. But I supposed that wasn’t a worry here, where the air temp was controlled to within an inch of its life by the crazy touchscreen panel by the fireplace. I probably only managed to make the AC work harder. I snorted. “Sorry. Habits.”
She smirked, getting that look she sometimes got that told me she didn’t really understand but was trying to.
“No worries. You saved me a cookie, so I guess I’ll let you off this once.”
“So kind.”
Becca swirled the coffee in her mug. She looked amazing in whatever the thing was she was wearing. A one-piece black romper with a long gold necklace and cage heels. But then, she always looked like a supermodel next to me. It was a wonder the Crows didn’t take an interest in her instead. She wasn’t like the other girls here, either.
Then again, maybe they had. What did I know?
“So,” Becca started, a mischievous gleam in her brown eyes. “Has Josh texted you yet?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
She bit her lower lip. That wasn’t what she wanted to ask. I could tell she was holding something else back.
“What?” I hedged. “Just spit it out. Is the guy a creep or something?”
Becca pursed her lips. “No, it’s not Josh. It’s just…people are saying they saw you in the elevator yesterday. With the Crows.”
The flash of betrayal in her eyes cut me to the quick. “Oh.”
“Oh?” she pressed.
“Look, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you to freak out.”
Her brows lowered, worry creasing the skin between them.
“See?” I said. “You’re already freaking out.”
She smoothed out her expression and gingerly sipped her latte. “Well, what did they want? Someone said they saw Corvus literally fireman carry you into the elevator.”
I gritted my teeth.
Becca set her mug down with a clatter and crossed her arms over her chest. “They’re dangerous, babe.”
“They wanted me,” I admitted before she could say anything else. “They said they’d make what I did to Bri Friday night go away if I agreed to fucking bow down to their reign, be a good little girl and keep my pretty mouth shut unless they asked me to open it.”
Bri’s face screwed up into a scowl. “And you didn’t take the deal, did you?”
“You think I should’ve?”
“Hell yes, you should’ve. I’d take sit down and shut up over possible jail time any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Never mind that your refusal means that you get to keep them as your enemies, too.”
Heat licked up my neck, making my body shudder. “I’m not like that. I can’t just…”
“Fuck. You’re right.” Becca huffed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re right. It’s not my call to make. I just don’t want to see you run out of here or worse, you know?”
I didn’t know, but I was trying really hard to accept the fact that someone, a friend, did actually want me here. A smile beat back the frustrated heat still trying to find a toehold in my veins.
“I know. Don’t worry, Becks. I’ll handle it.”
I always handle it.
“Taurus,” she said suddenly, her eyes widening before a sour look took hold. “No, wait, that’s not it, either.”
“My birthday’s in—”
“No,” she interrupted, her mug clattering back down onto the counter as she reached over and slapped a palm over my lips before I could finish. “Don’t tell me. I got this.”
I laughed against her hand, and she pulled back, chewing her bottom lip as she considered me.
“Good luck with that,” I muttered, finishing off my coffee. “While you stew over it, can I have another latte?”
I went into homeroom expecting to have to deal with the Crows, knowing it was likely they would try to corner me after class was through again, but…that didn’t happen.
As I walked in, a full two minutes before the second bell, I found only a lone Crow there waiting for me. Grey met my gaze as I entered the room, tipping his head in greeting.
“Morning, AJ,” he whispered as I slid into my seat and I turned to give him a warning scowl before settling in for the day’s lecture. He said nothing else to me through the entirety of first period.
And then the following day, it was only Rook. He didn’t speak a word to me, though I could feel his hard gaze on the back of my neck. Could hear the chink of metal as he spun his lip ring with his teeth.
Thursday it was only Corvus, and I realized they were all switching out through the week. One in class, to collect assignments, maybe to keep an eye on me, and the other two off doing god knew what.
That was what I needed to figure out. I got the sense something big was going down. They would be here to terrorize me every chance they got if there wasn’t something monumentally more pressing that needed to be handled.
I had to up my game.
Corvus all but ignored me Thursday. He seemed so distracted. His face a pinched mask of focus.
As if that weren’t strange enough, I was still waiting for Bri to hit back. She hadn’t made a single move even though I’d turned down the Crows.
And I hadn’t received a single text from the unknown number in days. I wasn’t foolish enough to think it was a coincidence that I stopped getting the creepy messages at the same time as the Crows being too busy to continue trying to make my life hell.
It would be too much a coincidence, right?
It had to be one of them.
By Friday, if I were being honest with myself, I was fucking bored as shit. Frustrated that I still didn’t have anything worth mentioning on the Crows. I’d been returning to the Crow’s Nest at night for days. Watching like a shadow from the darkness of the trees. But there was nothing happening.
No one there.
At least not between the hours of ten and two a.m.
My other endeavors were coming up empty, too. Usually, a bit of cash was all it took to get information, but not with these guys. I’d gotten nowhere trying to get their records from before their adoption to Diesel St. Crow.
All I knew was that Grey and Rook had been together in Barrett’s Home for Boys when Diesel snatched them up as a pair.
I knew that Corvus James was adopted three years prior to that, at the age of nine.
But I had a few little gems of info now that I didn’t before.
For instance, I now knew that Corvus was adopted from fucking Lennox.
That’s right. My hometown.
I wasn’t the only one from the wrong side of the tracks.
I also knew that Grey was short for Greyson. Greyson Winters.
And that Rook was a nickname. His real name was Sawyer. Sawyer Clayton.
I wondered why none of them took Diesel’s surname when they were legally adopted. If that was their choice or Diesel’s?
It wasn’t enough though, none of it was really useful. None of it told me who they really were. What they’d done. What they’d been through. What made them tick.
I needed more. I needed something that I could use. Preferably before they were finished dealing with whatever it was they were dealing with and had the free time to harass me again.
After so many nights spent casing the Crow’s Nest from a safe distance, I’d found a path. I had it all mapped out in my head. Exactly which direction I would need to approach from, where I would need to step, and pause, to be able to get inside without the camera seeing me. If I could get my hands on a decent bug, I could plant it. I doubted they were very careful with what they said while at home.
After all, no one was foolish enough to fuck with them in Thorn Valley.
I was so absorbed with my own thoughts, trying to figure out where would be my best bet to find what I was looking for in this foreign town without the Crows finding out, that I almost didn’t see him.
“Josh?”
His back stiffened, hand stilling on the door handle to the office.
I only had about a minute before my last class for the day started. “Hey,” I added when he didn’t turn around straight away. I carved through the other students in the atrium rushing to class. “You haven’t been in class.”
He hadn’t answered either of my texts this week, either, but I didn’t really care about that.
My thirsty punani did, but she could deal.
“Where have you—”
He spun around and whatever I’d been about to say ghosted my lips.
The way he was looking at me, and also not looking at me, spoke volumes. So did the angry purple bruise swelling his left eye almost completely shut.
I could see the anger in the tension around his still usable eye. The embarrassment in the pink of his cheeks. The discomfort in the shifty way his gaze moved over the atrium. And I knew.
“What did they say to you?” I demanded, all desire to fuck this cowardly jackass gone in the blink of an eye.
Josh shook his head, his jaw tightening. “Look, I’m just here to grab my shit. I’m transferring to LA.”
“Josh,” I hissed, leveling the full weight of my stare on him. “What. Did. They. Say?”
He recoiled from me slightly, surprise flitting over his eyes as he took me in in this new light.
The bell rang, signaling that I was now late, but I didn’t give a fuck. My muscles twitched, constricted beneath tight skin. So tight it made me itch. Made me sick.
“Fucking spit it out.”
“It was Corvus, all right,” he said, lowering his voice even though we were the only students still lingering in the atrium. “He…he warned me away from you. Told me I should leave.”
“And you just packed up and went like a good little sheepy?”
His brows lowered, lips pressing tightly together.
“If you knew what was good for you, Ava Jade, you’d leave, too.”
I laughed, shaking my head at the ludicrousness of this whole idiotic situation.
“What did he say, then, hmm? That I was his or some other bullshit?”
Without missing a beat, Josh replied. “Yes. And he didn’t just warn me away. As of this morning, no guy in this entire school is allowed to go near you. They’ve…they’ve claimed you.”
The way he said it, with pity, made my teeth grind. I got the sense they hadn’t ever done anything like this before. Never claimed someone for themselves.
Fuck if I was going to let the bastard get away with it.
I wouldn’t let them back me into a corner. Into a cage.
I said no to their deal, and I would stand my motherfucking ground.
A growl tore from my throat as I chucked my books to the floor and spun on my heel, storming toward the stairs, and leaving Josh in my dust. I shivered, my edges coming unglued, fingers of heat inching up the back of my neck.
My vision narrowed, tinted crimson.
My thoughts were a mess of disjointed things rattling in my head.
Those entitled motherfuckers.
Friday. Today was Friday.
Grey.
Grey was here.
Last period.
He would be in room 910. Biochem.
I was there so fast that I could barely recall from which direction I came, how I’d managed to climb two flights of stairs and jump down three different hallways. It felt like barely a second had passed since Josh poured gasoline on my fire.
The door flew open, battering loudly on the opposite wall as I stepped inside. Heads swiveled. Startled eyes took me in. But I was looking for a specific pair.
“Excuse me,” the teacher all but shouted, rising from behind her desk with a pointed stare in my direction. I didn’t even have to look at her to know that she was five foot nothing, rounded through her middle, and absolutely no threat whatsoever.
“You,” I growled, latching onto Greyson Winters at the back of the classroom with my eyes alone. “We need to talk.”
“I said, excuse me,” the teacher repeated. “We’re in the middle of—”
Grey lifted a hand, silencing the teacher with a lazy shhhh, without taking his eyes off me.
My heart beat in my temples, thudding so strongly that the room seemed to expand in shades of red with each pulse. I inhaled deeply through my nose, regaining control as the initial burst of adrenaline leveled out into a steady rush, sharpening my focus. Centering.
If I’d found Grey one minute earlier, I might’ve bit his head off.
“Excuse us, Mrs. Waters,” Grey said as he rose from his desk, inclining his head to the ruffled teacher. He left his books and pencil behind as he waded through the whispering students toward the door.
“AJ,” he said with a nod as he approached, the tiny tick of enjoyment squirming at the edge of his lips was enough to set my blood boiling anew. I snatched his arm and dragged him through the door, slamming it behind us.
I didn’t stop there.
“Where are we going?”
I growled to myself, curses falling from my lips as I towed Grey along with me until I found what I was looking for. I shouldered the door to the ladies washroom open and shoved him through it.
“Um, hello?” a small voice called from one of the stalls inside.
“Get out.” I snarled.
The girl was spurred into action, rushing from the stall with a furtive and fearful glance between Grey and me before she rushed out the door. I checked the other stalls, punching the doors open one by one until I was certain we were alone.
I locked the door and swallowed back the acid in my throat. Crossing my arms over my chest, I faced Grey, unable to trust I wouldn’t just haul off and deck him right in his stupid mouth.
“I thought I made myself clear,” I started, surprised at the level tone of my voice, now only edged with a sharp bite. “I am not something you fuckheads can own.”
Realization registered on his face and his self-righteous smirk morphed into a taut line.
“Watch your mouth,” he said, his upper lip curling. Though it wasn’t hostility I found when I met his heavy gaze. It was something else entirely.
Grey’s fists clenched and unclenched at his sides as he took me in, his broad chest heaving beneath the crisp white t-shirt he wore. His tatted biceps flexed, stretching the inked images.
“Or what?” I challenged. “Going to put me down like you did that guy last Thursday night? If you are, just get it over with. But I’m warning you now, I won’t go down without a damn good fight.”
A muscle jumped in his temple, and his fists uncurled. “There are a lot of things I want to do to you, Ava Jade,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, the sound of it making me squirm. “Killing you isn’t one of them.”
My breath caught in my throat.
Grey stepped forward, closing the gap between us, and I felt my own wetness like warm silk in my panties.
I didn’t move so much as an inch as he approached; to back away or go for a blade would be giving him too much credit. He wasn’t armed, at least not with a gun. I’d given him a thorough once over when I spotted him at the back of the classroom. I’d cased each step as he approached. He wasn’t packing. At least not anything but the hard angled shape in his back left pocket.
His cell phone.
His cell phone.
I suppressed a grin, biting my lower lip.
Grey stopped before me, standing nearly a full head taller. Inches of space between us. His dirty blond hair burned with strands of gold in the bright vanity lights over the bank of sinks at my back.
I jerked, twitching toward my blades as Grey took my jaw into his hand, his callused fingers rough against my skin. He studied my face as though he could read something hidden there. A secret code. A riddle to be solved.
“Who are you?” he asked on his next breath, his gaze narrowing as if he looked hard enough he might find the answer he was looking for. He’d asked me the same question that night in the woods. This time, I’d answer him.
“Someone you shouldn’t fuck with.”
I’d meant it to sound threatening, but it came out differently. My breath stuttering.
“Is that so?”
I swung my arm up to knock his hand away, my anger flaring again at his arrogance, but he caught my wrist instead, holding it there with a cruel smirk.
“Fuck you,” I spat, tugging the arm he had hostage, but his grip only tightened, drawing me into him. His scent engulfed me. So familiar. Like the forest just before dawn. When the air is thick with the smells of settling dew and damp earth. The stronger smell of engine oil was at war with it, giving the heady, soft aroma a bit of unusual bite.
A small sound escaped my lips, and my traitorous pussy throbbed beneath my jeans, aching at his nearness.
I could feel more than see his smile as he dropped his lips to my ear. “I dare you.”
Motherfucker.
I shoved him back and his hand snapped off my wrist. He stumbled back a step, surprise in his wide stare.
Grey grinned, recovering quickly and coming at me with renewed spite pinching the skin between his brows. He shoved me back, and I let him, catching myself on the bank of sinks, lips parting.
I didn’t even have time to catch my breath before he claimed my mouth, stealing whatever dregs of air remained in my lungs. His fingers twisted into my hair, securing me to him as he shoved me against the cool stainless steel. It bit into my lower back, and I clutched it until my fingers strained from the pressure, trying desperately to ward off the flutter taking over deep in my belly.
I don’t want this.
Lie.
I don’t want him.
Lie.
“Stop fucking fighting it,” he demanded between kisses, pressing in between my hips, making me moan into his mouth as his erection nudged my belly.
Fuck it.
I released the countertop, letting him lift me with ease until I was seated atop it, able to wrap my legs around his middle. To yank his shirt off.
“This means nothing,” I panted as it fell to the floor, my voice a breathy growl.
“Absolutely nothing,” he agreed with a smirk.
I stopped his advance with a palm pressed flat to his warm chest, making him look at me. Forcing him to understand. He was still my enemy. I was not going to hold back. As long as they fucked with me, I would fuck with them. Mercy wasn’t something I was ever given. I wouldn’t be offering it up. Not to them. Not to anyone.
Understanding made Grey still, made his smirk fade.
“Now fuck me,” I demanded, loosening my grip on him with my thighs to allow him closer. Regret slammed into me even before he unbuttoned his jeans and let them fall, showing off one of the most beautiful cocks I’d ever seen.
No amount of premature remorse was going to stop me from having him.
Grey undid my jeans next, looping his fingers through the belt loops to wiggle them and my panties off. He paused at the sight of the scars marring six inches of flesh on each of my thighs, and I jerked him closer, forcing him to look at me. Not at them.
“What—”
“None of your fucking business,” I hissed as I kicked my jeans the rest of the way off and spread myself to him.
But the sight of them had distracted him, and his thumb bumped over the perfect white raised lines, making me shudder.
He dropped to his knees, and I convulsed as his warm breath skated over my inner thigh. A gasp turning into a cry as his warm mouth pressed against my scars, kissing my inner thighs higher and higher until…
Fuck.
Yes.
His mouth closed over my clit, making my back arch violently. I thrust against his face as he began a slow, tortuous pace with his tongue. The fast-building orgasm was a testament to how badly I’d needed this fucking release.
Grey ate my pussy like a man starved. Like this was a heist he’d been planning forever, and I was the prize. I bucked and writhed against the counter, making Grey have to lock his hands around my thighs to hold me down.
“Just like that,” I moaned, feeling the build deep within. “Fuck, don’t stop.”
He slowed just a fraction, and I about lost my shit, digging my fingers into his golden hair to make him keep going. He obliged, quickening the pace with his tongue and adding his fingers to the mix, pushing them inside of me at the perfect moment to increase the pleasure past the breaking point.
I clenched around his fingers, writhing against his mouth as I shattered, my head smashing back against the mirror so hard I heard the glass crack.
I hardly noticed as he slipped his fingers out and flipped me. My feet hit the floor and my belly met the hard countertop as he thrust into me from behind, making my thighs slap against the metal and a gasping moan press out through my lips.
He groaned, his length filling me exquisitely.
I gasped into the counter, face down as he splayed his hands over my back until they were curled around my hips. I braced, my breath hitching as he drove into me again, using his grip on my hips to push in deep and hard, grinding his hilt against me.
My hands grasped for something to hold on to, finding faucets. My back arched with his next thrust, and I found us in the broken mirror.
A hundred fractured pieces of pleasure and pain. Of reserved fury and sated desire.
Grey was a myriad of ink and flesh. Of control and chaos.
The build of another orgasm began again, and I bent to the sensations ricocheting through my body like fucking buck shot, crying out as he pumped his cock into me. He set a blistering pace I was sure would leave me fucking bruised, but I didn’t care. All we had was this, here and now, and I was starving for it.
Grey grabbed my ass, squeezing hard as the fractured reflection of his face hardened in the mirror and his body began to tense.
“Fuck,” he cursed through gritted teeth.
I slipped my hand down between myself and the counter’s edge, my fingers finding my slippery clit. They brushed against his length as he fucked me, and he shuddered at the dual sensation as I rubbed myself.
“Christ, AJ,” he grunted, and I splintered, then broke, coming on his cock as he bent over my back, gasping. His hand slid over my mouth, muffling my scream as we came. His hot release filled me as his hips jerked their last.
I let the satiated delirium take me, but only for a few seconds. Only long enough for me to catch my breath, then I slid out from under him and stooped to snatch my jeans and panties from the floor. Easily plucking the cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans to tuck it into the lump of mine in my arms.
I strode to the door and unlocked it. “Thanks for the ride,” I muttered, unable to meet his stare. Unwelcome guilt swirling in my stomach. “Now get the fuck out.”
