Present
I jerked as Aydin grazed me with the scissors, the small blades slicing through the thread.
A cigarette hung from his mouth, and I pulled it out, taking a drag as I sat on the table in the kitchen and he stood next to me, removing the stitches at the top of my arm where it met my shoulder. Just a small cut from taking a tumble in the woods last week before Emmy arrived.
I stared off, watching her as he worked.
She was sly. I’d give her that. Spending years getting the shit kicked out of her had taught her how to hide.
Emmy moved around the kitchen, back in the black pants she’d arrived in, but wearing one of Rory’s white T-shirts as she fried up meat and added peppers, onions, and cheese.
She stole glances over at me every now and then, and I kept my gaze locked on her.
A piece of bread here, a wedge of cheese there. Some cheese cloth to wrap it up, as well as an orange and then some more bread.
I fought not to smile, admiring how she deflected attention from the hand stealing food, to the hand reaching up to grab a plate or snatch a fork out of a drawer.
Aydin hadn’t noticed, because he had Taylor watching her and Taylor was an idiot. He stood in the corner, under the dead clock, peeling the label off his water bottle and only glancing up at her every now and then.
But the glances lingered, drifting down her body as she reached to grab some utensil or bent over to pull out a pan from the cupboard.
Aydin was the only thing keeping that one on a leash. If Aydin weren’t here, I knew exactly what Taylor would try to do with her.
“Have you ever requested anything other than liquor and cigarettes?” I asked quietly, taking another puff before sticking the cigarette back into his mouth.
He inhaled one last time and then dropped the butt into his cup of coffee. “Yes.”
“Like what?”
He didn’t answer, and I shot him a look, seeing a smile playing on his lips. Somehow, he got a connection—someone to bring him contraband every month, and while he was a brutal fighter who would go to any length, the alcohol and tobacco were the only other means he had to control us.
Or them, at least. Micah and Rory might be with me, but we wouldn’t get far if I didn’t have Taylor or Aydin. I still needed one of them with me before I could leave.
This shouldn’t have taken so long. I just didn’t expect him to be so tough to crack. I had no idea where he was hiding his contraband, and after over a year, I had yet to find it.
Taylor walked behind Emmy at the stove, picking up a lock of her hair and smelling it. I clenched my jaw, watching her jerk her head around and move away.
“So, did you get it?” I continued, prodding Aydin. “The other thing you asked for?”
He finished cutting the stitches and picked up the tweezers, pulling the thread out of my skin. “Yes.”
“Then you can get her out,” I stated. “I want her gone.”
“You want her safe. She is safe.”
I thinned my eyes on him. She wasn’t, and even if she were, she was messing up plans and accelerating my timeline. I didn’t need the distraction.
“She thinks I arranged to bring her here,” I told him.
“And your pride hurts.”
Yes. Right now, she thought I was still obsessed and small-minded, every moment we spent together vivid and tantalizing in my memory.
I didn’t want her to know that was true. Ever.
I was supposed to be somebody by now. I was supposed to make her regret not wanting me, and this was humiliating. She shouldn’t be here.
“I’ll arrange it,” he told me.
I looked at him.
“When we’re done with her,” he clarified.
Rain tapped against the kitchen window over the sink, the sun already set as Rory and Micah walked into the room, dressed in their best as Micah rushed over to her side and smelled the food.
She didn’t smile back at him, but she didn’t move away, either.
“Did she ever mention what kind of alcohol she likes?” Aydin asked. “Vodka, rum…? Might help her loosen up. I was thinking of sharing tonight.”
I turned my gaze on him, straightening my spine at the threat.
Get her drunk. Get everyone drunk.
No.
He yanked out the last stitch, and I hissed, drawing everyone’s attention as they looked over at us.
Aydin leaned into my ear, whispering, “You think I don’t know you’re planning something?”
His breath ran down my neck, and fear coursed through me. I hated having him so close.
“You’ve spent a year whispering in their ears, trying to turn them against me,” he gritted out, “but you’ll never be able to do what’s necessary to take power, here or anywhere in life, William Grayson.” He dropped his tool, meeting my eyes. “You have no idea what it takes to be me.”
He moved away, and I held Emmy’s eyes as she watched us, paused in her stirring.
I remembered similar sentiments from her years ago, and a similar feeling around my friends even.
Nothing had changed for me here.
Not yet.
• • •
Thunder cracked outside, rain pummeling the windows, and I glared at Emmy as everyone sat at the dining room table and dug into their sandwiches. Her presence made everything harder.
I was going to kill Michael when I got home. I was going to drench his fancy, fucking suit in his own blood for sending her here.
“How did you know I was an architect?” Emmy suddenly asked.
I shot my eyes to Aydin.
He stared at her, looking confused.
“The gift,” she reminded him.
What gift?
“I…didn’t,” he answered. “There’s not much to do here. Figured you’d enjoy drawing.”
He gave her drawing pencils? Where did he get drawing pencils?
He sat there in his expensive black suit and black shirt, all of us dressed and shaved at Aydin’s insistence.
I had to admit, nice clothes made me feel human again, but I didn’t appreciate this prelude to whatever he was planning. Micah, Rory, and Taylor enjoyed the bourbon Aydin gifted to the table, chowing down on their sandwiches and sucking down shot after shot.
Emmy scooped up some soup she made with the entrée, sipping spoonfuls, while I tried to resist the sandwich as much as the alcohol.
I eyed the bottle of liquor, my tongue like sandpaper in my mouth. I wanted the burn of the drink in my throat. I’d been clean for almost two years, but only sober for one, and it was still hard.
I was sure Aydin knew that, and corrupting me was part of his plan.
I pushed the glass he’d offered away toward Micah.
“What kind of work do you specialize in?” Aydin asked her. “Homes? Skyscrapers?”
“Restoration,” she murmured. “Churches, hotels, city buildings…” And then she looked at me. “Gazebos.”
I forced a slight smirk, letting her know that I knew that she knew what I did to hers.
She may not have deserved it, but…
Okay, yeah, she kind of deserved it after she laid waste to my fucking heart. I wanted to break something of hers, too.
Fuck it. I was drunk and pissed that night.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Aydin told her.
She half-smiled, looking around the room. “Think they’d mind if I cleaned the place up a bit?”
“You already do.”
She laughed, and I swore I saw a blush cross her cheeks.
She continued drinking the broth, and I cocked my head, studying her.
She was flushed. Why?
“So did Will ever tell you about Devil’s Night?” she asked him. “We celebrate it in Thunder Bay. It’s coming up, actually.”
Then she looked at me, leaned back against her chair, and pulled at the collar of her shirt like she was hot.
I tensed. Something was off about her right now.
“In fact, I hear one of his best friends is getting married that night,” she said to him, but really to me.
Michael and Rika? Didn’t know that, but she didn’t need to know that. I hid my surprise.
“He doesn’t talk about home much,” Aydin replied.
Because when people know what you love, they know your weakness, and I didn’t trust Aydin. I was here to gain strength. Not bring more enemies down on my family.
Emmy continued, “It’s an annual festival of sorts, but it basically boils down to local rich kids basking in the gloriousness of their privilege.”
He laughed. “Yes, I know the type. Too stupid to set the bar higher because they’ve never been challenged.”
Her eyes glowed bright, her skin glistening a little. What was going on?
“It happens the night before Halloween,” she said, explaining her vast knowledge of something she barely knew anything about, “and it’s common to pull a prank as part of the ritual.”
“Did you join in the festivities?” he asked.
“Once.” She met my eyes.
Once? When?
“Didn’t he ever tell you, Will?” she asked me.
I narrowed my eyes. Who? And tell me what? She had gone out on Devil’s Night? With who and when?
But I sat there, acting like I knew exactly what she meant because I wasn’t fucking asking.
She laid her forearms on the table, leaning in. “Did you ever find what I had buried under the gazebo when you burned it down?” she asked. “Or is it still there under the dirt?”
I balled my fists.
“All the shit you don’t know,” she said. “So clueless. It’s almost comforting how you don’t change.”
I shot out of my chair, my limit reached and my control gone. I swiped my arm across the table, shoving my plate and shit onto the floor.
“You don’t get to waltz around this house, shooting off your mouth as if you’ve been through even half of what I’ve been through!” I shouted.
She stared up at me, her eyes piercing. “This is your life, and it’s not my fault,” she said in a hard but low voice. “Drugs and alcohol and more drugs and alcohol, mixed with how many women over the years?” And then she looked around the table, stopping on Micah first. “I know your story.” Then she flicked her gaze to Taylor. “And I can only assume you’re plagued by every vice in the book, judging from the leering and creep factor. What happened? Accidentally almost kill a girl when you kept the plastic bag on her head too long during sex?” She shook her head and gazed around at all of us. “You’re not monsters. You’re jokes.”
No one moved, her words hanging in the air, because everyone was waiting to see what Aydin would do. No one talked to him like that.
But this was how Emory was. Quick to judge because it felt better to push everyone away. If she didn’t understand us, she didn’t have to surrender a single piece of herself.
Was she drunk right now?
And then it hit me. Flushed skin, sweat… I found her bowl of spilled soup on the table and picked it up, smelling it.
The bourbon was faint, but it was there. I darted my eyes to Aydin, and everything was written behind the mild amusement in his. He’d spiked her dinner.
Motherfucker.
But before I could do anything, Rory spoke up.
“I killed a girl,” he said.
We looked at him as he sat there, calm and relaxed.
“Three, actually.” He took a gulp of his bourbon and set the glass back down. “And four men, as well. I drugged them and took them to the lake.” He paused, his gaze falling. “In the dark. At night. Deserted. Alone.”
Em stared at him, unmoving as she listened.
“At first, I hurt them,” Rory went on, the memory playing in his head. “Burned them, waterboarded them, cut them…just to see if it would make me sympathetic enough to not kill them. To see if I could stop myself from crossing that line.”
Emmy’s brow knit, and her breathing turned shallow.
I’d heard bits and pieces of what he’d done here and there, but never from his lips. I’d kept my distance when I first arrived, feeling him out, but after a while I’d realized not everything was as it seemed.
“By the third one,” he continued, “I just started tying them up and throwing them off the boat.”
His voice was almost a whisper now.
“Someone saw me one night,” he told us. “Luckily, it was the hillbilly sheriff my parents owned.”
He took another drink, emptying the glass and rising from his chair.
Emmy tipped her head back, not taking her eyes off of him.
“And believe me, they deserved exactly what they got,” he said. “I’m just ecstatic no one caught me until I was done with all seven of them.”
He buttoned his suit jacket and drew in a long breath, exhaling it.
“Thank you for dinner,” he said, leaving the table.
He walked out of the room, and Micah sat there for less than a moment before he followed him. Em dropped her eyes, probably feeling like an ass.
Would she ever learn?
“I want her gone,” I told Aydin again.
He shot me a look. “I can’t help you.”
Turning to her, he continued, “You’re right. We’re not monsters.” He reached across the table, taking the bourbon and pouring more into his glass. “Evil doesn’t exist. That’s just an excuse for people who want quick answers for complicated questions that they’re too lazy to deal with. There’s always a reason things are as they are.”
“I want her gone!” I growled.
He ignored me, taking a drink and holding my eyes.
I shook my head, turning to Em. “You know why he likes it here? Because if not for this place, he’d be alone.”
Whatever this friendship was forming between them, it wasn’t genuine on his end. Aydin Khadir didn’t want to leave, and now that he had a woman in the house, there was no reason to. This was his dominion, and I could feel the shitstorm coming.
“You couldn’t take the shame, could you?” I said to him. “People finding out the things you liked. The kink and the various ways you like to fuck. Everything was a secret in your rigid family, and that was fine, until… until you were done hiding it.”
He said nothing, his expression unreadable.
“I know someone like that,” I told him. “He couldn’t fight for the life he wanted until he was forced to fight alone. He held on to his friends and to his sister so tightly, he almost killed us, because in that moment, he couldn’t bear to see us leave, and he would’ve rather seen us dead.”
Aydin’s gaze faltered, and I knew something was finally cracking in there. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to die here. Alone.
“Did you ever forgive him?” he asked, his tone gentle for once.
“Family does.”
He blinked, something churning in his head. “But he had to submit.”
The corner of my mouth quirked. “Family does.”
Damon learned. He’d fucked up, but he learned.
He’d hurt so many people so badly that he lost everything, but it was only then that he realized his pride was less important than everything he loved.
I felt Em’s eyes and looked down at her, almost shaken at how she stared at me, unblinking. Like a tiny crumb of the wall inside of her had suddenly peeled away.
Silence filled the room. Taylor was at my side, quietly drinking, while Aydin and Em just sat there.
I wanted to fight. Him, Taylor…something to get rid of this steam rising up my goddamn neck.
Lightning struck the sky, flashing through the windows and followed by thunder. Then, the lights all around us went out, the room falling into darkness except for the single taper lit on the table.
“Shit,” Taylor grumbled. “Not again.”
Aydin rose from his seat, jerking his chin at Taylor to follow, and they both left the room. Probably to check the fuse box or generator.
But I still stared at her as I sat down, leaning back in my chair.
“You weren’t that fucking great,” I said. “You were a huge hassle that I indulged in for far too long.”
She held my eyes. “I know.”
“There were girls who were nicer.”
She nodded, her tone softening. “I know.”
I ground my thumb against the insides of my fingers. “Friends who were kinder.”
“Yeah.”
“I haven’t called you,” I pointed out. “I haven’t contacted you in any way in nearly nine years.”
She opened her mouth but then closed it, breathing a little shallower.
“I don’t care what you went through,” I said.
Again, she nodded.
“There were people who loved me, and I wasted time on someone who didn’t.”
My heart hammered as I dropped my gaze to her neck. Her olive skin glowed with a light layer of sweat.
“I understand,” she said.
Fucking bitch. My dick swelled and hardened as I got angrier by the second.
“You had years to reach out, but you didn’t,” I told her. “Believe me, I had time to become well-aware you didn’t give a shit, and now, neither do I.”
I saw the lump in her throat move up and down.
“I moved on.” The candle flickered, a draft hitting us from somewhere in the house. “I kissed others, touched their faces like I touched yours, and spent time with them like I never did with you.”
You don’t matter.
Her jaw flexed, and I gazed at her pretty little throat, my fingers humming with the urge to pin her to this table and eat her out until she screamed.
“Years of nights,” I said, and I wasn’t sure if I was saying it more for her or me anymore, but I kept going. “Years of not thinking of you. Nearly an entire life of memories and history that doesn’t include you. You were nothing.”
She stared at me, no longer responding.
“She took care of me.” My voice dropped to nearly a whisper, and I didn’t care that she didn’t know who I was talking about. “She listened to me. Made me smile.”
No movement.
“Stood next to me,” I gritted out. “Fit in with my friends. She’s smart, clever, resourceful, and she took the shitty hand life dealt her and still knows how to love people, unlike you.”
Her eyes blazed, a fire kindling behind them.
“She’s hot in the shower,” I taunted more, “on the beach, against the wall, on the hood of the car in the rain, and in my backseat—”
She growled, flying out of her chair and swiping a hand at the candlestick, sending it tumbling to the floor where it extinguished.
I couldn’t hold back my shit-eating smile.
Charging around the table, she made for the door, but I grabbed her and backed her into the wall.
But before I could rub in my escapades a little more or wrap my hand around her pretty little neck, she shoved me hard in the chest.
I stumbled and fell into the chair, and then she was on me—glaring down and squeezing my neck in her fist.
I gasped, fully fucking hard now.
She breathed fast and shallow, seething like she wanted to end me with her teeth.
Holy shit.
I groaned. God, straddle me, please.
She glowered, and I searched her eyes, waiting for her to lose control. To show that she grew up, wasn’t afraid, and was willing to admit she liked it and she might like it a lot if I bent her ass over this table right now, fucked her, and used her hair as leverage.
She didn’t. Growling again, she whipped around and stalked out of the room, and it only took two seconds to bolt after her.
I threw open the dining room doors, storming into the hallway, and spotted her, running away from me.
I raced for her.
She glanced behind her, saw me, and bolted, hurrying away, but I caught her.
I took her in my arms, hearing her squeal as I pressed my chest into her back. I forced her into the darkened doorway of the drawing room and reached around, taking her jaw in my hand.
She tried to wriggle out of my hold, but I didn’t give a shit if she drew blood or ripped out my throat. I was seeing this through.
I had questions. Like why didn’t she tell me what was happening at home? Or why couldn’t she trust me?
I was patient. I would’ve understood.
I wouldn’t have disappointed her.
But not only did she not trust me, she attacked, and I didn’t give a fuck about the why anymore. We all went through shit.
I leaned into her ear, ready to finish everything I was saying at the table and make her listen, because it was the least of what she owed me, but…
Panting and moaning hit my ears, a thud hitting the wall, and I darted my gaze through the cracked door into the drawing room. I saw Micah pressed into the bookshelves, Rory behind him and thrusting into him in the dark.
“God, fuck,” Rory gasped, fisting the back of Micah’s hair and biting his neck.
Em’s chest caved, and she collapsed back into me as I pressed my cheek to hers, both of us watching the scene ahead.
Hell, if they wanted privacy, they’d be in their room.
Both of them shirtless, Micah gripped the shelves in front of him, his black hair in his eyes as Rory gripped the curve of his leg where it met his thigh with one hand and his shoulder with the other, driving into him, their pants hanging around their asses.
Emory had frozen, tense but having completely forgotten she was resisting.
Sweat glistened across Micah’s back as Rory’s normally well-groomed hair laid in disarray across his forehead, his brow etched in a mixture of passion, pain, and uncontrollable need as his mouth drifted across Micah’s skin, biting and breathing as he rode him faster and faster.
I exhaled, snaking my arm around her tighter and watching the looks flash across Micah’s face.
Looking at them, you’d assume Micah was the one in control. He was bigger, taller, more muscular, and he had that whole dark and dangerous vibe.
He wasn’t. Rory was the dominant one, and Micah loved every second of it because all he wanted was love.
I was like that. Emmy was like Rory.
Perfect for me.
When she let herself be.
We watched Rory reach around and dig Micah’s dick out of his pants, already long and erect, and stroke it as he thrust faster and harder. He threw his head back, growled, and Micah shook the shelves, books falling to the floor as Rory came, pumping his dick and spending himself.
He barely took a moment to catch his breath before he shoved Micah onto the couch, pulled down his pants, and dropped to his knees, taking his dark-haired boy into his mouth and returning the favor.
Micah’s abs and arms flexed as he slouched in his seat and stroked Rory’s head, drawing him down again and again onto his cock.
“You ever do that to a man?” I asked Emory.
She tried to pull away, as if just waking up and realizing I was here.
“I never did that to you,” she retorted.
I spun her around and slipped my hand straight down her fucking pants, diving into her cunt—hot and wet just like I knew it would be.
She whimpered, the feel of her tingling up my arm, and I snatched her bottom lip between my teeth, so turned-on and hard at how much I’d missed this.
All my friends loved the control. Loved to hold them down and make them beg for it like Rika, Banks, and Winter were their toys.
Not me.
She dominated me, and I didn’t want it any other way. In the classroom, in the library, in the movie theater, in my truck… Watching her cash in on my ass was better than actual sex.
I could be a bad boy, and I needed to be disciplined.
She growled, trying to push me away, but I brought my hand up, rubbing my glistening fingers in her face.
And then I crashed down on her mouth, kissing, nibbling, sucking, and tugging her sweet flesh and hearing a moan escape before she tried to push me away again.
“I know you know how to take a beating,” I told her, whispering over her lips, “but this isn’t the kind you’re used to.”
Crashing through the doors to the drawing room, I pushed her back onto the other sofa, ignoring Micah and Rory still going at it a few feet away, and fell on top of her, ripping open her shirt before grabbing her bra between her tits and yanking with full force, hearing it tear apart, baring the golden skin of her beautiful breasts.
She struggled, swatting her hands at me as I came down on top of her, smiling as her legs fell open.
“Hit me,” I whispered over her lips before diving in to kiss her. “Hit me for all the tail I fucked after you. For all the nights I forgot about you, ridden to kingdom come by tits and ass ten times hotter than you.”
“Ten?” she taunted me. “Really? Come on. You can afford hotter than that! Maybe twenty times hotter! Still got their numbers?”
I laughed bitterly, rising up and pulling down her pants, but she wasn’t wearing any panties, because I took those yesterday. I came back down, molding my mouth to hers and thrust against her.
I glided my hands all over her body. God, she was so damn hot.
“Damon was right.” She pushed at me. “You are smaller than him.”
My heart pounded against my chest, fire filling my lungs, and I rose up, yanking her ass down and diving into her pussy, covering it with my mouth.
She cried out. “Will… Ah!”
I was not smaller. And I didn’t need reminding of how the hell she knew what he looked like naked.
Sucking and tugging, kissing and biting, I ate the bitch with no hesitation and no mercy. I licked up the sides, nibbling her skin and flicking her clit with my tongue as she squirmed under me, trying to crawl away.
She gasped for breath, a sweet sweat glistening across her tight stomach as her nipples hardened to little rocks.
Then…moans filled the air, her body quivered, and her thighs fell wide as she lifted her head and watched me lick her pussy.
“Will…” she panted, threading her fingers through my hair.
Rising up, I threw off my jacket and glanced over my shoulder, seeing Micah grin as he watched us. Rory was swallowing his cock, servicing Micah like I was doing to her.
Dipping back down, I slowed a bit, kissing her flesh and licking her before sticking my tongue inside, tasting her so warm and wet.
Her back arched off the sofa, and she threw her head back, shuddering and clawing my shoulders.
Flicking her clit with my tongue, I sucked it into my mouth again and again, her tits bobbing back and forth as she sought it, trying to grind into it and ride my mouth.
“That feel good, girl?” Micah called out to her.
She nodded, panting with her eyes closed. “Yeah.”
“Be sure to park his ass next me when he’s done with you,” he told her, sucking in air between his teeth. “You drop to your knees like Rory, and I can watch both of you swallow us down.”
Cum leaked out of my dick as I pulsed with need.
“Yeah,” she whimpered.
I placed my hand on her stomach, feeling her shake and her breaths grow erratic. When she sucked in air, holding it, again and again, I knew she was right there.
Aching and boiling with heat, I tore myself away and stood up, sweat cooling my brow.
I wanted to bring her there. I didn’t want to ever stop.
And the old me wouldn’t have.
It took a moment to catch my breath as I stared down at her. She blinked a few times, opening her eyes when she realized I’d stopped.
“Wha…” she breathed out.
I leaned down, getting in her face. “When you’re ready for me to finish that,” I said. “You come to me.”
She dug in her eyebrows, gaping.
“My bed is on the third floor.” I rose up, grabbing my jacket. “Come and ask me for it.”
And I left, the appendage between my legs trying to tear a hole in my pants as Micah’s laugh followed me up the stairs. Along with the shatter of whatever vase Emmy threw in the drawing room that crashed two seconds later.
That was the hardest fucking thing I’d ever had to do.
Like harder than prison, detox, and the Doris Day double-feature at the drive-in my mother asked me to take her to when I was seventeen.
Combined.
