They all look stunned.
“Seriously?” Tristian asks, pulling a face as he looks between me and Killian.
I just say, “Yes.”
Meeting Dimitri’s confused gaze is the most difficult. We’d spent last night together again, his music shepherding me into a deep, but restless sleep. Much like the first time, I’d awoken to him wrapped around me, holding me close. He still kissed me in the morning—long, slow, sleepy kisses—but there was no urgency or hunger in them. Dimitri makes me feel safe.
And then there’s Tristian, who’d kept coming up to my room and sitting with me. There were no rules or expectations. He just said he didn’t have anywhere else to be and pulled up a seat at my desk, emptying a bag of delicious-smelling Thai food. Sometimes, when he smiles at me this certain way, I think I can see the kind of man he might have been, if things had been different. Tristian makes me feel cared for.
And that’s the problem.
I have no idea how these two men managed to become people I’ve come to find solace in or comfort with. They’ve done terrible, unforgivable things to me, and yet…
And yet sometimes I find myself wondering what that forgiveness would look like.
I’m not so naive that I don’t see it for the stupidity it is. Quite the opposite. Killian is a monster in his own right, but he can’t touch me—not really. Not on the inside. Not where it matters.
But Tristian and Dimitri…
It would be so easy to fall into that. To have sex with them, to feel them inside of me, to give them this enormous, yet fragile part of myself. It would be so damn easy to tear down the barbed wire protecting my heart, to let them in. It’s getting more and more difficult to not want it, that’s the problem.
That’s why it has to be Killian. I’m not at risk of feeling anything but apathy toward him. Sex with him will be painful and maddening, but emotionally sterile. Letting him inside my body will be easy, because I already know he can never get inside my heart. Nothing about sex with him will be confusing.
Even Killian looks at a loss for words. “Why?”
I look away, unable to put voice to my reasoning. None of them would understand what it means to be a woman in a world with cold, hard, selfish men. “That’s my decision,” I say, tone final.
Without saying a single word, Dimitri stands and storms out of the room.
The pang of worry and regret that follows is proof that I’ve made the right choice. It’s enough that I’ve come to think of him as a safe harbor, but the thought of wounding Dimitri like this is cutting me up inside. It’s how I know that he’s already too close.
The way Tristian is looking at me hurts in its own way. It’s this spark of disappointment in his eyes—not in my choice, but disappointment in me. Like maybe something about me is broken. Like he’s realizing he doesn’t know me as well as he thought he did. He releases a hard breath, sweeping his hair back. “Are you sure?”
Killian, who’s been watching me ever since Dimitri left, cuts his eyes to Tristian. “It’s not because she wants me more,” he says, tipping his head in a meaningful nod. “It’s because she wants me least.” I blink at him, shocked by the perception. Killian isn’t someone I’d expect insight from, but he’s managed to sum it up in a single sentence.
He doesn’t look put off by it.
Tristian shakes his head, and I can tell he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand.
Killian does him one better, explaining, “It’s the difference between fucking Charlene and fucking Genevieve.”
Tristian’s looks at me, lips a tense line. “Jesus Christ, Cherry. Rath would have made it good for you.”
Nodding, I say, “I know.” I’m sorry is on the tip of my tongue, but I refuse to give it. This is mine. I won’t apologize for how I choose to use it. “It’s complicated.”
“Clearly,” he says, moving his gaze to Killian. Something sharp and stormy crosses his features. “One mark,” he raises a forefinger, “and your ass is forfeit, Killer. I fucking mean it. If you bring her back bruised and crying, I’m going to—”
“I won’t,” Killian cuts in, narrowing his eyes.
“And she gets to decide when it happens,” he adds, eyes flashing. “You don’t get to browbeat her into following through.”
“I want to do it now.” At least I can settle this worry for him. “I want to get it over with.”
They both look shocked again.
“There’s no rush,” Tristian says, even though I can hear the lie in his words. The whole point is that doing it will make me safer. Tristian doesn’t even realize just how true that concept is. “You’re probably still sore from yesterday.”
I look down at my wrists, still red, bruising at the edges, and shrug. “I can take it.”
He folds his arms, jaw hardening as he gives a single nod. He pushes off the bar and strides forward, but I stop him before he can leave.
“Could you stay close, though?” I whisper, pleading with my eyes. I don’t know what to expect, but I know there’ll be pain. I know that afterward, the thought of having him near will bring me a sort of peace. “Please?”
His blue eyes hold mine, pinning me there.
And then he’s kissing me.
He cradles my face in his hands, licking insistently at the seam of my lips. It’s easy to open for him, to walk back when he guides me, pressing me against the wall. The sound I make is small and surprised, but not unwelcome. He’s warm and solid against me, an arm coming down to wind around my middle, drawing our pelvises closer.
It’s like I told the girls before—before I realized they never wanted to be my friends. Tristian kisses like he’s got something to say with it. With this, he’s saying that he wants me better than Killian does. He’s saying that he’ll let me do it anyway. He’s saying that he doesn’t like it.
With the hard, biting kiss he sucks into my neck, he’s saying that I’m still his Lady.
It’s hard to resent the comfort that brings.
From the couch, Killian scoffs, but it just makes Tristian suck harder. When he pulls away from my neck, his eyes fix to the mark he’s left. He traces it with a fingertip. “I’ll stay close,” he agrees, tipping up my chin to give me a final chaste kiss.
Then, he leaves.
Killian’s leaning forward now, elbows resting on his knees. His knitted hands hang between them, eyes fixed to his restless thumbs. “We can do it in your room.”
“No.” The thought alone makes me balk. “In yours.”
He looks up at the sound of my voice, cold and emotionless. “Okay, fine. Mine.” He stands, and for once, he doesn’t look murderous. He just looks straight-faced and ready, extending an arm toward the doorway in invitation.
I climb the stairs ahead of him, butterflies whirring in my gut. Truthfully, even though this whole thing is abhorrent, I know I’ll be relieved to have it over with. To not be a virgin anymore. To not be someone people want for her innocence. This was never going to be special—not for me. It was always bound to be like this; frightening and painful and just like this fucking house.
Full of dead things.
I can feel his presence behind me the whole way, looming and ominous. When we reach his room, I stand back, wrapping my arms around my middle, letting him enter first. The room still smells of him, a scent that once made my belly flip with a different kind of nerves.
Unbidden, I’m struck by an old memory from high school, back before Killian grew so hostile and aggressive toward me. I’d only been living in the house for a week. Things were different back then—tenuous and uncertain, but there was also an electric curiosity between us. He invited me into his room to hang out one night. Unraveled a game controller. Handed it to me. Taught me how to play by wrapping his arms around me from behind, hands guiding mine on the buttons. I’d been nervous then, too, but it was an excited sort of flutter in my blood. Because this Killian Payne was cute and strong, and he looked at me in a way that would take me years—until just now, maybe—to really understand.
He looked at me like I was his.
I didn’t understand flirting at the time, either. But there was a tickle in the back of my mind, an awareness that this wasn’t the way a guy treated his new sister, and it stuck to me like glue. He’s been a flirt, an enemy, a monster. But he’s never been a brother.
Now, as I stand in the middle of his room, trying not to tremble, I’m grateful for it. The whole thing seems painfully inevitable now, as if it always had to be this way. Killian was, however briefly, my first sense of wanting someone back.
He watches me as he closes the door, filling the room with a click of finality that sends my pulse into a messy spike. He stands there for a moment before crossing to the desk and clicking around on his laptop.
Music suddenly fills the room.
The volume is low, and it’s definitely no Dimitri, but at least everything isn’t so quiet. I remind myself that Tristian is close as Killian approaches me, doing my best not to flinch away when he reaches out to touch my hip.
His eyes are dark but his face is stone, giving nothing away. This must be why, when he ducks down to kiss me, I rear back in surprise. He blinks at me, easily diverting his path to the side of my neck Tristian hadn’t marked. His hair tickles my nose as he opens his mouth against my skin, licking a kiss into the sensitive skin.
My gulp sounds loud to my own ears, and I try not to lean back when his hands grasp my hips, slowly dragging me closer. I turn my head away to breathe in something that isn’t his scent, but it just gives his mouth more access to kiss my neck. That’s exactly what he does, hands flexing on my hips as he kisses a trail to the edge of my jaw. His teeth scrape gently over the bone and I clamp my eyes shut.
“Take this off,” he breathes, giving my shirt a soft tug. He backs away for a moment, shucking his own shirt off first, baring his broad chest.
I comply mechanically, pulling the shirt over my head. I don’t bother covering my breasts. He’s already seen them, and that’s exactly what he’s looking at now, those sharp eyes taking me in.
“Lay down.”
It isn’t until he reaches for the button on his jeans that the panic really sets in. I turn away before he can see it, crawling onto the bed and settling there, flat on my back, staring wide-eyed up at the ceiling.
I don’t watch as he takes off his pants, but I can hear it—the shifting of fabric, the steps he takes to the bed as he kicks them loose from his ankles. When he climbs on the mattress, the weight making it dip, I can see in my periphery that he’s naked, cock swinging heavily between his thighs.
“Relax,” he says, bending down to return his attention to my neck. One of his broad palms rests on my side, sweeping up to catch my breast in his hand. He mutters into my neck, “This doesn’t have to be bad, you know. I might not be all mysterious and sensitive like Rath,” the way he sneers this tells me just how low he thinks of it, “but I know how to make it good for you.”
As if to prove this, he descends to my chest, taking one of my nipples into his mouth. My toes curl, but I try to remain passive. It gets a little harder when he wedges his hand between my thighs, rubbing my center as his tongue alternates breasts.
“I don’t want it to be good, I just want it to be over with,” I grind out, mostly because I already know it could be good. Even with all my efforts to approach this indifferently, I can feel my body responding to what he’s doing.
He pauses for a second, the curve of his shoulders tensing. It’s not like it was with Perez, where every nerve ending rejected the thought of him touching me. With Killian, my mind recoils but springs right back, seeking more. It’s a confusing twist of want and shame.
He lets go of my breast, pushing up to look into my eyes. I stiffen as I feel his fingers hook into the waist of my leggings, tugging. “Too bad. Need to get you wet for me, or it’ll hurt more.” He rears back, taking my leggings and underwear with him, drawing them down my unyielding legs. His nostrils flare wide at my lack of response, but he doesn’t say anything.
He tosses the clothing aside and grabs my knee, spreading me open before him. “I’m not going to hurt you.” The words come out surly and forceful, but it just makes me scoff. That’s a lie. This was always going to hurt. His brows crouch low at the sound, the muscle in the back of his jaw tensing into a tight knot. He gives me an ornery look before shoving my thighs apart and ducking down to lick a hot, wet path up my center.
My legs lock, half in shocked surprise and half because of the bolt of electricity it sends up my spine. His hands hold me open, though, fingers clamped around my thighs as his tongue explores my most private area.
I rise up onto my elbows, but I’m not sure why. I want to get away, but I also want to move closer. The two competing forces pull me in both directions, making me restless. When his tongue finds my clit, I collapse back to the bed, hands fisting in the comforter. I clamp my lips together, refusing to make a sound, but…oh god.
It’s so warm and good.
His eyes flick up to mine as his tongue works me over, full of a dark, livid determination. He lets one of my thighs free, but before I can even think about clamping my legs shut, his fingers are joining his mouth, exploring my folds, seeking my entrance.
He slips a finger in slow and easy, pausing to watch my reaction.
Mortifyingly, I buck against it, pushing it in deeper.
His eyes flash, filling with fire. “Yeah, you fucking like it.”
I shake my head against the pillow, but we both know it’s a lie. He pumps his finger in and out, letting a second join. The stretch is a surprise, and I start to protectively close my thighs, but his tongue is back so quick that I can’t feel anything else but the shooting sparks in my clit.
He makes a sound, rough and eager against my core, and I can’t help it then.
Mouth falling open on a gasp, I grind up into him.
The feel of his fingers slipping free startles me, but his face looks harder now, eyes full of something aggressive and crazed. He spreads my lips wide and slides lower, forcing the pointed tip of his tongue inside me.
Throwing my head back, I grab out blindly, clutching onto a handful of his hair.
It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before—not even when Rath did this to me. Not even when Tristian uses his fingers on me. It doesn’t last long before Killian is lurching up, mouth latching onto my breast as his fingers enter me again.
“Stretching you out,” he says, sucking a kiss into the top of my breast. “Your pussy’s so goddamn tight. They should have been preparing you for this.”
Involuntarily, I wonder what that would look like. Tristian, sliding more fingers into me? Dimitri’s head between my legs, assaulting me with his tongue?
I know it’s coming when Killian’s hips start to twitch in the rhythm of his fingers, his teeth growing more and more present in his kisses across my collarbone. He’s getting impatient.
His fingers slide free only to wrap around the base of his cock. When he pulls up, I finally let myself look at it. It looks painfully hard, and when he pumps his fist, I feel myself begin panicking again. How the hell is that thing going to fit?
He pushes my thigh up, spreading me for him, hooded eyes glued to my pussy. “Fuck, you’re nice and wet. You ready?” he asks, guiding the tip right there, up against my entrance.
My knees tremble, something scared and angry wedged into my throat. “Just fucking do it.”
With a forceful punch of his hips, he shoves it inside.
I cry out, going rigid against the sudden, intense burn. Grinding my head back into the pillow, I strike out blindly, grasping onto the first thing I feel. His biceps are tense, holding him above me as he digs deeper inside, hips pushing.
His breathing is ragged. “Relax. Breathe.”
But my hands just want to push him back. “God, it’s too much—too big.”
“You can take it,” he says, bending to rumble into my ear, “but you need to let me in.” He punctuates this by pulling his hips back, dragging his cock away, only to push it back inside. My body seizes around him and he groans in a way that seems more frustrated than anything. “You’re so goddamn stubborn, would you just—” He shifts his weight to one arm, reaching down to press two fingers into my clit.
Oh.
Fuck.
I embrace the instinct to raise my hips into the touch. Anything to chase that feeling. Anything to make this better. He thrusts again, but it hurts less now, tempered by the point of pressure that’s making my blood thrum.
His groan is different now, coarse and raw. “That’s right. Let me make it good for you.” He cups his hand around the top of my head, using a measured twist of his hips to sink another thick inch of his cock inside. He pauses at the sound I make, breathing hard into my temple. I can feel from the tremble in his arms how much it’s costing him to stay still—to restrain himself—until my legs go lax again.
I give an experimental, curious shift of my hips, watching Killian’s jaw go sharp-edged in response. It starts feeling less like being torn open and more like a satisfying sense of being full. It’s the kind of feeling that makes my chest swoop, like maybe I’m imploding a bit against the flutter of Killian’s fingers.
It’s not terrible.
It’s really not terrible.
He eases back before his hips curl forward in a calculated, testing way. This careful slowness wasn’t what I was expecting from sex with Killian, and I find myself bracing for the worst, waiting, anticipating.
It never comes.
He’s not even touching my clit anymore, but it doesn’t feel any less good. Every time our bodies meet, I’m filled with the urge to push back against him. I don’t bother fighting it anymore.
“That’s it,” he mutters, voice tight with a control that sounds shaky. “So good. Fuck, you’re taking it so good.” He watches, eyebrows knitted together. There’s the long, slick, tugging sensation of him retreating, and then the controlled, gliding, pushing sensation of him returning. I turn my head away because it’s too intense, too confusing, too tangled to look him in the eye as he rocks into my body, commanding it to rock back. But now I’m face to face with this girl on the inside of his bicep. A tattoo. Her hair is long, floating about his muscle in elegant tendrils, a tall, black diamond shape painted over each eye like makeup. Who is she? Is she someone Killian’s fucked like this?
“Look at me,” he says, grabbing my chin and wrenching me back. His eyes are heavy but bright, full of something that I’d call passion on anyone else. Roughly, he demands, “Look at me while I’m fucking you.”
The kiss is bruising and takes me by surprise. I whimper against his lips and he rumbles back, reaching down to cup my breast in his wide palm. His hips meet mine in a hard thrust, punching a sharp gasp from my lungs. Killian takes advantage of my parted mouth, licking inside.
I think maybe I can taste myself on him, and I’m so distracted by the electrifying drag of his cock that it doesn’t even occur to me to not kiss him back. His kisses are possessive and urgent, and it’s just like I’d told the girls. He kisses like he wants to claw his way inside.
Except he’s already there.
His movements grow more pointed—hips meeting mine in gradually harder thrusts. It hits me just the right way, the gift of friction yanking a needy moan from my throat. He swallows it down and uses it, finds out just the right pressure and push, until I’m the one shaking.
A part of me doesn’t want it, this building climb to a precipice that Killian has no right leading me to. It’d be better to fight against it, to feel nothing, to walk away from this knowing that nothing about it was good or soft or worth ever doing again.
The reality is much more complicated. Because Killian is kissing me, and there’s a frightening hunger to it, but there’s also a reverence, like he’s savoring every push inside me and holding it greedily close. This doesn’t feel like anger or the cutting brag of a victory.
It feels like he’s making love to me.
My orgasm is sharp and deeper than I’m used to. I thrash my head to the side, not bothering to stifle my cry.
He grabs my hip, yanking me closer as he grunts. I scramble for purchase, digging my fingers into his shoulders, and he pants against my cheek. “Yeah,” he breathes through clenched teeth. “Harder. Make it hurt.”
It’s an easy request to fulfill.
He hisses, eyes fluttering closed as my fingernails dig divots into his flesh. I get a look at him over his shoulder, at the way he’s fucking into me, hips pumping forward and back, and the whole thing is shockingly obscene. His muscles shift and ripple beneath his skin, and for a moment, I’m lost in the thought of all the raw, physical power being used to push this one part of him inside of me.
He goes stiff, driving himself deep and hard, and then he growls. I know he’s coming because I can feel it, the burning rush of his spunk as it fills me.
He doesn’t linger for very long, breathing hard and damp into my skin before rolling off of me. The tug of his softening cock being pulled from my body makes me wince, but then I’m able to close my knees.
Even though he’s gone, I can still feel him inside of me.
He mutters a curse, drawing my attention. He’s holding his spent cock. I can tell from the way he lunges for his shirt that he’s trying to wipe it clean before I see the blood.
“I don’t care,” I say, moving my gaze to the ceiling.
“Most girls bleed,” he’s saying, and there’s an uncalled-for thread of defensiveness there, as if he’s worried I’ll think he’s torn me up unnecessarily. “It’s normal.”
“I don’t care,” I say again, looking him in the eye to make sure he knows it. When it comes to Killian, there’s a lot I don’t care about.
From the look on his face, I think he can see it.
