The second we get through the door, Story’s grabbing my elbow and hauling me through the dining room. “Come on,” she says, but it’s completely unnecessary.
I follow her like my body is magnetized.
We’re both still amped up from the thing with Saul, and when we reach the kitchen, she dumps her purse on the counter; the gun clunking loudly against the granite.
Story takes my hand, inspecting it with a frown. “Does it hurt?”
I stare at her unblinkingly, flexing my fist as I catalogue the crease in her forehead. “No.”
She doesn’t look convinced, turning on the tap and guiding my knuckles beneath the stream of cool water. “At least it doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches,” she muses.
It’s the first time I really look at my knuckles, swollen and purpling. One is split, but it’s superficial. I’ve had worse injuries out on the basketball court with Tris and Rath.
I don’t tell her this.
I let her handle my hand—so gentle, feather-light touches, cradling my palm in hers—and watch mutely as she fusses over it. Through the fuzzy fog of soft-warm-sweet, I mutter, “There’s some ice packs in the freezer.”
Her head snaps up. “Oh! Yes, for the swelling.”
“For your swelling,” I correct, eying the welt on her cheek.
But before she can answer, my phone goes off with another text. I fumble it out of my right pocket with my left hand, clumsily thumbing the message.
Rath: gn.
She edges in close to read it, brows pulling together. “What does that mean?”
“Good night. It’s another code,” I explain, watching her mouth. “They’re lying low for the night. Could be there are too many cops out, or they’re worried about being followed back here.” Her eyes spark with alarm, but I soothe it away by thumbing her chin, inspecting the welt more closely. “Don’t worry. If it were something really sketchy, he would have sent a different code.” Or no code at all, I don’t say.
This seems to assuage her fear a little. “lie low? Where?”
“We talked about it last night,” I assure her. “Everyone agreed that the Mercers’ cabin was a good place.”
She nods, grabbing a towel from the drawer and wrapping it over my knuckles. “They’ll be fine then.”
I realize she’s saying it more to convince herself than me, but I still answer. “They’re smart.”
I let her fuss over me for a few minutes, even though my hand isn’t that bad. If the others were here, they’d laugh at me. They’d tell me I was hamming it up to get more of those soft touches, to draw out the concerned hiss that escapes her lips when she presses the ice pack to my hand, so careful that it’s barely touching it. They’d say I was being a little bitch about it.
They’d be so jealous.
After she’s satisfied there’s nothing left to do for my gruesome, truly tragic injury, we climb the steps together, her two ahead of me. I stare at the holes in her stockings, the tear up the back that reveals her pale skin. Her shoes hang loose in her fingertips. Her shoulders might have eased with the text and my ensuing promises, but I know she’s going to be worried until she sees them walk through the door.
It’s been a hell of a night.
When we get to our bedroom doors, she pauses, falling back against hers. “Do you really think that’s the end of it?” The curve of her shoulders looks heavy and as tired as her eyes. “That we unmasked Ted, and all of this is over?”
I take a second to answer, because there’s a nudge in my gut to be wary about it. These men, these Kings, are slippery as fuck. She has no idea. I don’t know if there’s any stopping them until they’re dead. I left Cartwright a bloody mess, but he was still breathing. That means retaliation. It means a grudge that probably won’t disappear until another Duke takes his crown. It means bullshit.
And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“It fits.” I lower the ice pack and sweep my eyes down her body. She got dressed up so pretty for me tonight, and there was a moment there before leaving, where Rath’s words seemed true. She looked so excited. Sighing, I mirror her pose, propping my shoulders up against my bedroom door. “I’m sorry it ended like that. I wanted us to have a good time tonight, not get caught up in an attempted murder.”
Her bounce of laughter is more genuine than I’d expect. “I don’t know. It seemed pretty on-brand for us, don’t you think? Dress up, get an award, fight to the death.” Her smile falters, eyes dropping. “It’s probably the gods telling us something.”
“Yeah, like don’t fuck your sister.”
She blinks at the harshness of it—the truth. We can joke all we want, but the two of us together? Nothing good has ever come of it. Even when I try. Even when I go out of my way. No matter what I do, no matter how much we sugarcoat it, we’ll never be anything to one another but toxic.
Which is exactly why I say, “Good night, Story.”
Her eyes flick up to mine, and if I were a more selfish person, I’d see the flash of disappointment in her eyes as proof that I’m wrong. “Night,” she says, reaching back to curl her fingers around the knob of that fucking door.
I watch it close behind her, clicking softly in the silence of the hallway.
But I can’t make myself move.
I’ve memorized the door in front of me, night after night, mapping out every grain of wood, knowing that she’s behind it, if I could only get through. I know it’s not right, this sick obsession I have, but I can’t shake it, because it’s not just about the sex. It’s not even about needing to watch over her.
It’s that look she had in her eyes tonight after I gave her those flowers. That shy, pleased, surprised thing that made her shine. It’s that she wants me back, and for once, she’s not afraid to show it. It’s about her and tonight, and even if it’s toxic and fucked up, it’s about making sure she knows.
What she means to me.
I lurch forward, banging my bruised fist on the wood.
The door opens a moment later, the hinges whining softly. She’s still in the dress, but the torn stockings are gone. Her hair hangs loose over her shoulders, and she looks at me with this startled, expectant expression.
But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.
Her forehead creases. “Killian?”
“Tonight turned out wrong,” I burst, impatient to get the words out. “Not just the shit with Cartwright, but… it didn’t go like I planned.”
Her expressions smoothes, blanking out. “I know you didn’t want to go. But we needed an alibi while the guys broke into Daniel’s office, and—”
I shift my weight, huffing. “No. It’s not that I didn’t want to go. It’s just that my life is a fucking mess, with quitting football and my dad being so—”
“Jesus, Killian, look at me.” She spreads her arms out, but they instantly fall, hanging limply at her sides. “I know a thing or two about messy lives.”
“That’s fair,” I sigh, reaching up to push my hair back. “But when we decided to go, I thought it could be my chance to… well, you know,” I stumble over my words, which is something I’m not used to. I either have something to say or I don’t. Taking a breath, I try to calm the kinetic squirm happening in my chest. “I wanted it to be something special. I wanted to show up with you on my arm looking sexy and hot, and—like you were mine.”
Her eyes search mine, frown deepening. “It was special. You won that award, and I might not totally get the football thing, but I’m… proud of you for—”
“Fuck! Story! Just listen!” I fist at my hair, knuckles stinging with the force. ”I invited you because you’re my girl, and I want…I need the whole goddamn world to know. I just…” My exhale sputters out, and I hate it. I hate this fucking ineffectual blathering. “I don’t know how to do all the romance stuff Rath and Tris do. I can’t take you to balls, or write you a song, or bring you tea and tampons when you’re on your rag.” She raises her eyebrow and I glare back. “Christ, you know what I mean. I forced you on your knees. I took your virginity. I shoved a tracker in your neck. I marked my initial in your chest. I gave you a fucking gun for Christmas.” Put like that—yeah. I really am hopeless. I shake my head, muttering, “A gun. Jesus Christ.”
Her head snaps back, outrage flashing in her eyes. “Hey! That gun came in pretty handy tonight. I love my gun.”
“That’s not the point.” I reach out and brace myself on the door frame, chest feeling so tight that I have to force myself not to grind my fist into it. “All of those things might tell the world—tell me—that I own you, but that’s not what this is about. I think I want everyone to…no.” I start over. “I want you to understand how I feel.”
Her shoulders straighten and she stares right at me—seeing me. Listening.
I grip the collar of my shirt and pull it apart, buttons tearing at the fabric, revealing my chest. My heart pounds, blood pumping to my ears, but I ignore both it and the puzzled look on her face as I reach into my pants pocket and clasp the smooth wood in my fingers.
I pull it out and flick open the blade. The glint of silver metal shines between us.
Comprehension washes over her features. “Killian,” she says softly, using the voice she saves for calming me down. I like that voice. I like the soothing touch that follows, and I like knowing that it’s only for me. But this isn’t my temper showing here. She doesn’t need to calm me down. I know exactly what I’m doing.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say, disliking the cagey look in her eyes. “But I need you to understand.”
I look down at my chest and find a spot in the center. It’s easy to pierce the skin. I might not get off on it like Rath does, but pain doesn’t bother me. I have no issues pressing the tip of the blade into my flesh, carving the top curve of the ‘S’. Blood beads up, then dribbles sluggishly down my chest, but the trail is halted by Story’s fingertips.
“You don’t have to do that!” she rushes out, trying to catch my wrist. “I get it Killian. I understand.”
“Do you?” I ask, not stilling as the knife slices through my skin.
Her hand drops, and when she looks at me, she doesn’t look shocked, or even freaked out. She looks exasperated. “You love me.”
She says it so plainly, so matter of fact, as if she didn’t just put voice to the sick, black thing roiling inside of me.
“I love you,” I repeat softly. It’s not a question, but whispered devotion. It gives me what I need to finish the letter, swooping the final stinging curve, because maybe she doesn’t need it, but I do. “Do you have any idea how much?” Blood spills faster that she can catch it and she grabs the hem of my shirt, pressing against the flesh with a hitched breath. I barely feel the sting. “So much that it’s paralyzing. Sometimes I watch you, and I can’t blink. Can’t swallow. Can’t breathe. I’m too busy wondering what it’d be like.”
Her eyes fly up to mine, wide and stunned. “What it’d be like?”
“If you loved me back.” Yanking down the sleeve of my shirt to expose my arm, I confess, “I got this tattoo not long after you left. I was so drunk that my guy wouldn’t do it until I sobered up, because he said—” I pause when she touches it, blood-sticky fingers leaving a smear over the tattoo’s lips. Shuddering an exhale, I go on, “He said it was a curse. That you never get your girl’s name or face tattooed on you, because it’ll doom you. But even when I got sober, I didn’t care. I made him stay until he finished it, outline to shading. When he did, he looked at me and he said, ‘Five hours. That’s how long it took to doom you.’ And you know what I said?” I laugh at the memory, but it’s a humorless, broken thing. “I told him it actually took about ten months.” I say the next words because it feels like it’d be agony not to. “I love you, Story Austin. And just so we’re clear, not like a sister.”
She looks into my eyes, her own shining with a wetness that I didn’t mean to put there. “Do we have to be doomed?” she asks, voice cracking. “Or can you just stop being a fucking bummer for five minutes and kiss me?”
I catch her by the back of the neck and pull her mouth to mine in a hard, unforgiving kiss. It’s teeth and harsh breaths and my blood is staining her pretty dress. But if all we’re destined to be is calamity, then we’ll make it the best fucking disaster this world has ever seen.
I barely realize she’s dragging me into her room, her palm curled unrelentingly around my neck, but at some point, it penetrates.
She kicks out blindly, shutting the door behind us.
“You sure?” I ask, not daring to open my eyes.
She speaks against my lips, voice a mere whisper of breath. “I kept you out because everything we had was in here, buried so deep in darkness and shame. You barely touched me in public, unless you were putting me or someone else in their place.” When I open my eyes, she’s looking up at me, eyes wide and guileless. “I just…needed to know we could be something more than that. That you could want something more from this than how messed up it was.”
I hold her face in my hands, fervently insisting, “You are so much more than that.” I feel the pain of loving her in the burning cuts on my chest, but that’s not what it is. It isn’t surface-level. It’s so deep that sometimes I think it’s etched into my bones. “So much fucking more.”
I grab her, lifting her off the ground. No sneaking. No darkness. Just me and my woman, together.
“The blood,” she says, even though she steals a slow, wet kiss from my mouth. “It’s going to get everywhere.”
“Fuck it.” I march on, unapologetic, as I carry her over to the bed, unzipping her dress as I go. The green satin falls away like shedding a skin, and when I lay her down, I take a second to catch my breath, knowing that she might be exposed, but no one here is more naked than me.
I look at her for a long time, drinking in every inch of her, from the crown of her head to the tips of turquoise-painted toes, and all of it is perfect. The freckle on her stomach, the scars on her chest, the discolored patch of skin near her elbow. But the best part of her, by far, is that she’s awake for what happens next.
Shrugging out of my shirt—ripping off my tie—I bend, kissing down her heaving chest. I detour at her nipples, licking out to catch the pebbles on my tongue, but stay on task, dropping lower as her heavy eyes track my descent. I map her ribs with my lips, nip my teeth into the patch of skin beside her bellybutton, drag my nose along the swell of her pelvic bone. Hooking my fingers in her panties, I tug them off, so eager to spread her thighs that I miss her body going rigid.
“Shit,” she says, pushing up on her elbows. “The camera. It’s still on from earlier.”
I glance back at the skull, imagining Tristian’s eyes glued to his phone, cock in his hand. I let out a low snort. “Eh, he did a good job tonight. Let him watch.”
Let him see that I can love you.
She acts all shy at first, covering her face as she laughs, but when she pulls her hands away, she sends the camera this cheeky little wave.
I turn back to the legs spread before me, zeroing in on her cunt. Aside from wanting to shove my cock into one, I’ve never really paid much mind to other girls’ pussies. But Story’s is so erotically fucking inviting, it’s basically commanding a warm tongue to lap between her folds.
A good soldier follows orders.
Her thighs fall wider at the first touch of my mouth, but I still force them further apart, straining the tendons beneath my thumbs. Her body shudders beneath me when I catch her clit in a long, sensuous kiss, tongue painting loops around the swollen bud.
I’m expecting her fingers to wind in my hair, but I’m not expecting the softness of her touch—the way she strokes her fingertips against my scalp. I’m expecting the buck of her hips when I move lower, dipping my tongue into her tight hole, but I’m not expecting the drawn out mewl she makes. I’m expecting her to chase my mouth with every rise and dip of my tongue, her body telling me what she wants, what she needs.
I’m not expecting her to come undone so fast.
She comes with a body-wracking tremor, mouth opened in a silent cry as I flatten my tongue to her clit, letting her ride against me.
When I rise on my knees, swiping my wrist over my mouth, she’s still trembling, and all I know to do is drop down beside her, dragging her into my chest. I don’t ask if I can stay, and she doesn’t tell me to leave—even though she knows I would.
She just murmurs three little words against my neck. They’re words I’ve been aching to hear since the first night I saw her. Words that leave me feeling hollowed out and filled back up. Words that carve themselves into my skin just as deeply as her initial in my chest.
“Sleep with me.”
I clutch her to me, nosing into her hair, because I don’t need the brush of her hand against the front of my pants to understand what she’s asking.
What she’s giving.
“Always.”
Despite the fact I’ve been waiting for this for months, long mornings spent in the shower with my hand flying over my dick as I imagined it, I somehow fall asleep, too.
I wake up with her hair in my mouth and my dick rock hard.
In the soft glow of the streetlamp through the window, I can perfectly make out her silhouette. The bare curve of her shoulder. The elegant line of her bare thigh. The curl of her fingers against my red, scabbing chest. Her tits are mashed up into my side as she sleeps, breaths steady through parted lips against my throat.
I reach up slowly, brushing my knuckles along the swell of her breast. When she doesn’t move, I carefully—so fucking carefully—roll her to her back. She makes a sleepy, plaintive sound, curling back into my warmth. I shush her by hovering close and pausing, waiting for her to fall back into the deep sleep that makes that unhappy divot in her forehead disappear.
When it does, I dip in to whisper against her lips. “I love you.”
It feels perverse to speak the words aloud—more perverse than my fingers sliding between her legs.
She’s still slick, and when I extend my tongue, painting a wet strip across the crease of her mouth, I imagine she can still taste herself on it. Her thigh shifts, opening for me, and my dick throbs. She looks like an angel when I let myself take her in, and it’s almost exactly what I said before. Paralyzing. In no universe should I have dominion over something so painfully sweet.
But that’s exactly what I have.
Breathing hard, I fumble for my pants, unbuttoning them and shoving everything down my thighs. My cock springs free, hard and angry, bouncing against her hip. I have to force myself to slow down, to be quiet and placid, to not wake her up by slamming between her thighs like an animal.
Delicately, I knee in between her open thighs, balancing myself so the bed won’t rock her awake. My cock brushes over her inner thigh, light enough to be a tickle, and it makes her twitch away, opening up wider for me. I spend a long moment slowing my breaths, because even though it’s winter and her fan is running in the corner, sweat is still springing up on my neck.
Before I can even get inside her, my hand directing the base of my dick to her folds, pre-cum is already leaking out of the tip, threatening to drip onto the bed below us. But she doesn’t want it there. She wants it inside her—nowhere else.
So I hastily burrow the head of my cock into her hole.
Her fingers twitch against the sheets, as if they’re grasping for something. Unthinkingly, I reach for them, lacing our fingers together as I remain suspended, barely inside of her. I wait a long moment for her to fall back into slumber, and then give my hips a nudge, sinking in deeper.
I wasn’t lying before, about her being more to me than some risky, illicit, midnight fuck. That doesn’t mean the thrill isn’t there, though. The fact that Tristian and Rath could be watching just makes it that much more heady, the way I screw my hips down into hers. I play it like a game—dig and wait, dig and wait—wondering how long I’ll be able to do this without waking her. It makes my blood zing, electrified by the slack line of her mouth and her eyes moving beneath her eyelids.
When I finally bottom out, I curl over her, lifting our linked hands to her chest, nestled between us like a precious, secret thing. I don’t know what it means to make love to someone, but if this isn’t it, then I’ll never be capable of it, because it hurts. It hurts to keep it slow as I rock my hips into hers, but the thought of disturbing it all hurts even more.
I kiss her lips just the way she’d touched my sore knuckles earlier—feather-light, gentle. The only time she stirs is when I try to force my tongue inside, so I don’t. Not until I push the weight of my pelvis into hers, pressing against her clit and making her jaw go slack. It’s all so easy then, licking into her mouth, tongue pushing between her teeth to seek the softness within. She’s so wet and tight around me, and everything is so fucking perfect and soft and sweet that I doubt I can last much longer, already feeling my balls draw tight.
I know when her tongue moves against mine that she’s waking, slowly rousing herself from the fog of sleep to curl her fingers, squeezing our linked hands. It’s not like it used to be. There’s no swoop of disappointment at the realization, no nagging voice in the back of my head telling me I’ve lost the game, no stab of insecurity that she’s felt something too substantial, too tender.
There’s no fear.
There’s just me, moving inside her as she sleepily kisses me back, pushing a moan from her throat. I know then that I can finally pull my hips back and fuck her, and even if I keep it light and slow, her body still rocks with the force of it.
The shift from sleep to wakefulness gives me the best of both worlds, making my dick impossibly harder. Her legs coil around my waist, her fingers bend and clench, holding tight. The breathy moans, the precipice of her orgasm, heats my skin and Jesus, she takes it, the relentless pounding, the hungry kisses, everything I throw at her. She takes it all.
“Come for me, little sister,” I demand. I’m so fucking close, and I want her to go first. I want to see her face when it happens.
I feel it first; the muscles tightening around my cock, then her jaw slacks, nose wrinkling. Her eyes flutter open and hold mine. “I love you,” she says, gripping me behind the neck and pulling me forward. Her nails dig into the back of my neck and she shatters around me, stealing my breath with a kiss.
For the first time, I experience the whole of the moment. Not just the physical but the emotional. The words she says, the sensation of her pussy quivering around me, grip my heart as much as my balls, and I come, claim, my cock pulsing as it spills inside of her. She swallows the embarrassing, overwhelmed sound I make as I pump her full, crushing her into the mattress.
Sweaty and spent, I press my forehead to hers, my cock still sheathed in her warmth. Her ribbon’s still tied around my wrist, as secure and solid as the cuff wrapped around hers, and it’s easy now to speak the words.
They’re no longer impossible to hold on to.
“I love you, too.”
Rath is the first one through the door the next morning.
I run into him just as I’m coming down the stairs, dressed in the boxers and t-shirt I’d snatched from my dresser before coming down. I’m fully intending to grab coffee and something with more carbs than protein to haul back up to Story’s bedroom. It’s only eight. There’s still an opportunity for a third round.
But then Rath comes through the door, messy-haired and manic-looking. “Good, you’re up.” He shrugs out of his jacket, hair flopping into his eyes as he looks down to stomp the dirt from his shoes. “It was fucking art, bro. Wish you could have been there to see it.” When he glances up to flash me an impish grin, his gaze catches on my bruised knuckles—on the spot of blood staining the center of my crisp white teet—and he freezes, dread slacking his features. “Aw, shit. What happened?”
Scab opened a bit.
“Later,” I mutter, passing him to enter the dining room. Story told me everything that happened with Saul on the drive home last night, but it’s still too jumbled in my head to put into a coherent narrative.
Ms. Crane already has a few things sitting out. I go for the coffee first while Rath snatches up two slices of bacon and instantly pinches them between his teeth. Tristian walks in from the kitchen—he must have been parking in the garage—and comes right for me, slapping my shoulder hard enough to make my coffee slosh over the rim of my mug.
“Hey!” I growl, but he’s all grins.
“Let me start by saying thank you,” he says, dropping into his usual seat. “For allowing me to watch that outstanding display of game last night. You let her come first and didn’t even ask her to suck your dick afterward. You’ve grown, man, and I’m proud.”
There’s a part of me that wants to punch the smug grin off his face, but he’s right. I did my woman right last night and then she did me right later on. We work like that.
“You’re such a fuckin’ weirdo,” Rath says, taking his own seat at the table. He has circles beneath his eyes, like he didn’t get much sleep. I don’t know if it was from watching us all night, nerves from the job, or the cabin just being kind of shitty.
They wait until I take my seat at the head of the table to start briefing me.
“Like I was saying,” Rath extends a hand to Tristian. “Art.”
Tristian smirks. “Flames took that fucker so fast, it was already a lost cause by the time the dispatchers called it in.”
They spend a while going over the details as I sip my coffee, flexing my sore fist. Tristian and Rath both keep looking at it, waiting for my explanation, but before I can give it, Ms. Crane walks in with a plate of toast. She plops it in the center of the table and asks, “Where’s the fucktoy?”
“She’s still asleep, so keep it down.” Rath scowls, although it doesn’t stop him from snagging a slice of the toast. “And don’t call her that.”
“She doesn’t mind me calling her that.” She starts filling the three empty mugs with coffee, even the one for Story. “My police scanner was going off all night. Shit went down in South Side. Arson, four alarm.” Her eyebrow raises at Tristian. “You have anything to do with that?”
He lifts his mug of black coffee and takes a slow sip. “You need to mind your own business.”
She slams down the pot. “This is a delicate ecosystem, you little cunt-weasels. Any aberration, any ripple of unrest, and the whole house of turds starts to crumble. Do you get that?” She points at the ceiling. “You brought a deviation into this house. She was supposed to be disposable, but look at you three. So determined to keep her that you’re happy to burn this place to the ground. Don’t,” she snaps, thrusting an accusing finger at Tristian, “deny it. I’d know that fucking address anywhere.”
“What do you care?” I ask, leaning back in my seat. “You’re miserable here. If Daniel has less control, then things could ease up on all of us. Especially you. He needs to understand that he doesn’t have us under his thumb. We’re not just pawns in his game. We’re players in our own.”
“You think you have all this figured out, don’t you?” she sneers, snatching up a towel. “Boys playing at being men. There’s going to be hell to pay for what these two did last night. And there’s going to be even more for what you did.” She jabs her finger at me. “Trouble in South Side wasn’t the only thing on my scanner. The police are looking for a suspect in an assault at the hotel your little jack-off awards ceremony was hosting last night.” She pulls in a breath, nostrils flared. “Now, I’m all for courting trouble, especially when it comes to fuck-stains like your daddy, but the three of you are doing more than courting trouble. You’re fucking it raw and bloody.”
“You’ve had enough time on your back. You should be used to it,” Tristian mutters.
There’s a beat of silence, and even knowing Ms. Crane and her temper, I don’t think any of us expect what comes next.
She hauls her hand back and brings it cracking against his face.
The sound of the slap is loud and jarring, but even Tristian is too stunned to do more than gape at her wordlessly.
“What the hell is going on?” Story says, walking into the room. She’s wearing my shirt from last night, a dark smear of blood dried around the buttons, and her phone is clutched in her hand.
Tristian rubs his jaw. “It’s nothing. I had it coming. I was being a—”
Rath springs from his chair, asking, “What’s wrong?” because he catches it a second before Tristian and I do.
She’s deathly pale, her eyes wide and full of a panic that has me rising out of my chair, too. “My mom just called me,” is her reply. But even though her lips part, breaths jerking from her mouth, nothing else emerges.
“Story?” I ask her, seeing the tremble in her hand. “What’s going on?”
“It’s your dad.” She lifts the phone, staring at it like it’s an unfamiliar object. Her eyes rise to mine, but not before her chest hitches with a sharp, panicked breath. “Daniel’s dead.”
