The look Rath gives me as he leaves the room is indiscernible, but I don’t stop to question it. I’m too distracted by the fact Killian is basically fucking Story right on top of me. Her cheek is pressed into my shoulder, these little breaths punching from her parted lips with each of his deliberately slow thrusts. Killer lifts his knee, slotting it right up against mine so he can get a deeper angle, and it doesn’t even matter that his nuts are dragging over my thigh.
This is hot as fuck.
He mouths at her shoulder, and I know it’s an awkward angle. The only thing stopping Killian from crushing her into me is the forearm that’s holding him up. But he makes it work, the muscles in his ass shifting as he pushes into her, dragging back and surging forward in gentle, precise movements that I wouldn’t have thought him capable of. He barely jostles me with it, and he doesn’t even look impatient. This is, I realize, something he wants to savor.
For a long time, Story sleeps through it. She’ll sigh or twitch, toes tickling the hair on my calf, but she doesn’t rouse. I think about playing asleep, but decide I can’t muster the motivation for pretense. Killer knows I’m awake, will sometimes raise his heavy, sex-darkened gaze to mine, like he’s inviting me to react to a secret he’s been keeping. But I don’t. I watch because it’s all starting to make sense.
This is how Killer makes love to her.
I know it’s a fucked up thought to have, but a part of me envies him. Not for the King thing—it was never a title he wanted to wield alone, anyway—but because he doesn’t have to deal with his father’s disapproval anymore. He doesn’t have him looking over his shoulder. Doesn’t have a legacy dangled over his head and the weight of the obligation that comes with it. I don’t want my dad to die. I want him to trust me to do what’s right for my name. Unfortunately, he made it clear a few hours ago that he still doesn’t think much of Story. Of Rath. Of South Side’s new King, and my place at his side.
Success to a man like my father means marrying a woman from an influential family and contributing to the Mercer empire, and only the Mercer empire. He disapproves because he’s realizing that Killian becoming King is the first step to the three of us—the four of us—building our own.
I lift my hand, sweeping a lock of hair away from the apple of her cheek as he rocks into her body. “Sweetheart,” I whisper, and Killian doesn’t stop me. He could. It wouldn’t take anything but a quick glare. Instead, his forehead drops to her shoulder as he digs his dick inside her, letting me rouse her from slumber. “You want to watch your big brother make love to you?”
She wakes slowly—so sweetly that I wish I could freeze the moment in time, that split second of sleepy-happy-horny on her face as she stirs. “Killian,” she mutters, eyelashes fluttering. It’s not a question. She probably knew he was inside of her the second he entered.
Killer reacts by thrusting deep, crushing her hips into me. I bend my knee just enough to press my thigh against her clit, and she responds with this tiny, feline-like writhe, curling her hand around my shoulder for leverage. Killer’s restraint is almost more powerful than his full-on strength, and Story remains limp and docile under the brunt of it, eyes glazed from lust just as much as sleep.
He looms over me to duck in for a kiss, licking into the seam of her mouth. He fucks her like that for a while—long enough that my cock fills again, throbbing at the thought of taking her right after. She’s riding my thigh as he rides her, gasping as their movements grow pointed and a little less controlled. When she comes, mouth opened in a silent cry, I can’t really be held responsible for the suggestion I’m about to make.
“We could go all night,” I whisper, hand wandering to my stiff cock. “We could chain-fuck you like this. One after the other. Pumping you so full of our cum that you won’t even be able to hold it all.”
Killian makes a rough, eager sound, pulling back to slam into her. I know he’s coming when she claws at my shoulder, pushing her ass back into him like she’s desperate to take his load as deep as it can possibly go.
I watch appreciatively, smirking. “Hail to the King.”
I know it’s love when Killian doesn’t even blink at the mess we’ve all made of his sheets. He collapses onto us, chest heaving, toes flexing out of their curl.
“Shower,” he pants out, giving her cheek one last kiss.
I wasn’t lying about us going all night, but something like that is going to require sustenance. Proper hydration. Possibly towels. Killian’s two steps ahead of me, climbing out of bed to lumber his way toward the bathroom. Moments later, I hear the shower sputter to life.
Story rolls over and stretches her arm to the side, as if she’s searching for something. She frowns at the empty spaces on either side of us. “Where’s Dimitri?”
“He left a few minutes ago.”
She gives the vacancy a series of slow, drowsy blinks. “Why?”
“Probably just got the munchies after smoking.” I trail my hand down her leg, feeling the sticky jizz on her inner thigh. “Okay, up we go.”
She makes a protesting sound as I pull her from the bed, her knees still wobbly. I catch her, tucking her beneath my arm to lead her toward the bathroom. “Killer can clean you up. I’ll go hunt down our wayward pothead and see about some clean sheets. That sound good?”
She looks up at me, mouth pulled into a loose pout. “And something to eat?”
I freeze, thinking, ‘oh, fuck’. I don’t think she’s ever asked me for something before—not like this. My chest clenches and I swallow through the sudden assault of hot, possessive want swelling in my chest. She has no idea that I’d probably go out there and try to lasso the goddamn moon if she asked me to with those big eyes and plaintive voice. “You bet,” is what I say, thumbing her chin.
Killian’s just ducking his head beneath the spray when I open the glass door to his shower. Yet again, I get a look at the cut on his chest. It’s all scabbed over and irritated, probably full of bacteria and god only knows what else, and the funny thing is, it doesn’t even look good. It’s a fucking horrid version of a ‘S’, all blocky and jagged.
So why does it make my jaw tight to know he and Rath have one and I don’t?
Whatever.
Some of us have game without the risk of tetanus.
“Easy,” I tell her, helping her over the lip, but Killian instantly enveloped her in his arms, dragging her beneath the water. “I’m going to go find Rath and something to eat. Want something?”
“Something carby.” She tips her head back, eyes sliding closed as Killian guides her head beneath the spray. “Maybe the pasta from last night?”
“Whatever you want.” I close them up in the steam, padding out into the bedroom to find my boxer briefs. Walking out into the hall, I’m thinking maybe I’ll return in time to get in on some of that shower action. Lather her up. Clean my cum out of her ass and then replace it as Killer feeds her his cock.
I only get to the bottom of the staircase, lost in this fog of erotic possibilities, before I hear it.
The click of cocked gun snaps me to attention.
Freezing, I take in a litany of sudden details. The thick scent of cologne. The buzz in the air. The eerie silence of the darkness, and what I’m just now realizing, is a cold, sticky substance beneath my feet.
Mostly, I notice the gun pressing against my head, just behind my ear. “Move, scream, say a word,” a low voice warns, “and I blow your brains out. Then, I go for her.” The nose of the gun presses harder. “Got it?”
Stiffly, I give a single, slow nod, but inwardly I’m wondering whose blood I walked into. I slide my eyes to the side, trying to get a look at the intruder, but he’s nothing but a dark, tall shadow. “I have money,” I say, raising my palms. “Just name your price.”
He shoves the barrel of the gun into my skull. “Arms back. Now.” Through the hardness of the demand, I hear a hint of something strained and annoyed, and I’m pretty sure I know why.
Slowly, I do as I’m told, putting my hands behind my back. I wait until he lowers the gun to grab my wrists. Something plastic and hard—a zip tie—looping around them, before making my move.
I spin and slam my elbow into his chin before tackling him to the ground. We land with a crash, in a tangled whirl of flailing fists and gnashed teeth.
“Then, I go for her.”
She’s with Killer.
I’d like to see this piece of shit try.
It’s why I know he won’t shoot me. It’d alert them, and he’s banking on the element of surprise, and he needs it. It makes it easier to wrestle him, slamming his head against the floor. No doubt Rath got his own shots in, all the more obvious from the strangled sound the intruder makes when I plant my knee into his side. But there’s blood on the floor, and Rath isn’t fucking here. I get the upper hand quickly and then go for the gun, lunging at his wrist.
I’m actually feeling really good about it.
Right up until a second set of arms clamps around my neck, jerking me back. Maybe it’s not smart, but all I can see is the night in that alley, getting choked out by Ugly Nick as he raised a gun and shot my brother in the gut.
I kick out, catching the first guy’s temple with my heel, and then rear back slamming my head into the other guy’s face, only—
Only the responding yelp doesn’t belong to a man at all.
Come to think of it, her grip on my neck isn’t exactly insurmountable either. It’s laughably simple to pry her forearm away—to clamp my fingers around her delicate wrist and snap.
“Ah!” Her scream is stifled into a low, pained growl, but the second I turn on her, fist snatching a thick fistful of her hair, a wild shock of heat explodes up my torso. I lose control of my grip, my muscles, my thoughts, and I tumble back, head slamming into the banister as I crash to the floor.
Vision cloudy, I look up at the woman, trying to blink away the stars. “I don’t know who you are, bitch,” I push up onto my palms, swaying, “but you’re fucking with the wrong people.”
Footsteps echo across the marble, and I turn to watch the second hooded intruder stiffly approach me. I struggle to scramble to my feet, trying to get leverage, to calculate my odds, to figure out a move.
But I can’t get my body to work right. Whatever that bitch shoved into my side has knocked me all off kilter. Nerves shot.
Electricity. That’s the source of the heat in my side.
I’ve been tased or something.
Motherfucker.
The shiny tips of the guy’s shoes gleam as he stops, looming above me. “I’ve got him,” he says, voice muffled by the mask. “Go do what you need to.”
It’s the gun that I see in her hands as he grabs my arms and drags me down the hall, not even attempting to get me on my feet. “No!” I shout. “Killer! They’re—” but a gloved hand slaps over my mouth, replaced a second later by the glove itself.
