She didn’t act like a child now, not splayed out on the table in front of me. Nor did she sound like one with the guttural moans that resounded in the back of her throat. I stared down at her weeping pussy. One slow slide of my thumb caught her come before it fell and I slipped it onto my mouth. Jesus, she tasted perfect. Too fucking perfect.
Easy…
Stay the fuck in control. Remember the contract.
Fuck the contract.
I clenched my jaw and focused as I softly ground the plump flesh against her clit until she dragged her hands high and gently thrashed her head. Give me a man to murder…fuck, give me a thousand, and I’d do it in a heartbeat, as long as I could claim her. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t, and it was fucking torture. My cock strained my pants, rubbing against the growing wet spot. I wanted to take her to the basement and strap her down. I wanted to fuck her how she needed to be fucked.
I wanted to make her mine…
I lowered my head and licked, catching her come as it trickled, and I fought every cell in my body as it screamed fuck her now! My balls clenched and my cock pulsed. I was about to goddamn explode just at the taste of her.
“Tell me how much you want me, Vivienne.” I trailed my mouth along the lips of her slit and worked my way higher until I kissed that quivering nub and drew it into my mouth.
“Fuck you.”
I smiled as I lifted my gaze to hers and sucked harder, watching as she arched her spine. Inch by dangerous inch, I drew her into me and she fought me every step of the way. Strands of her hair fell to her shoulders. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted her wild. I wanted her free. As free as I could manage, anyway. I reached up, slid my hand along the nape of her neck, and captured the clip in her hair.
Thick, gorgeous hair drifted out as I opened the clip and let it fall around her before I tossed the ornament aside. “You’re to wear your hair down for me, do you understand that?”
She lifted her head and bared her teeth. “Then I’ll cut it off.”
My cock pulsed at the savage glare of defiance, then I felt the air shift behind me, turning colder, harder, and more dangerous, and it wasn’t Guild. Carven and Colt had stopped in the doorway to watch her. But our little wildcat was oblivious as I kept up the massage and lowered my head once more. “You going to hiss at me, wildcat? Going to claw and howl? Come on, kitten, show me those fangs.”
She shoved upwards and her eyes were wild. Her hair was a tousled mane. She opened her mouth to unleash a tirade of obscenities even mid-orgasm, and froze. Her eyes widened, fixed on the twins behind me, before she grabbed for her dress and tried her best to cover herself.
I lashed out, grasped her around the wrist, and stopped her. “Stop. Let them see how beautiful you are.”
She jerked those spectacular brown eyes to me.
My lips twitched and inched upwards. “After all…we are family.”
Colt stepped forward and cast a shadow along the table. He was bigger than his brother, older by a whole three minutes. The protector…the defender…the virgin. He didn’t say a word, just placed his hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back down.
He stared at my thumbs as I resumed rubbing her pussy, and I gently parted her slit, exposing her body to his gaze. His breaths deepened and his brow furrowed. It was Carven’s words that came back to me. He spoke for her. He fucking spoke for her.
She had no idea of the implications of that.
Because the male didn’t speak…
He just killed.
The motion of my fingers stoked her fire, easing, driving, and rubbing that tiny nub now plump and swollen. Her breaths deepened and her brow furrowed as she was desperate and dangerously close once more. “That’s my girl,” I murmured, my focus divided by the quivering of her body as I rubbed around and around and around. “That’s my good girl. You need to be fucked, wildcat.”
“Yes.” She bucked her hips off the table. “Please…oh God.”
I met Colt’s stare and eased back just a little. “I can’t help her.”
Captured by her desperate sounds, he reached down. He didn’t touch her anywhere else, just stared into her eyes and slid his finger all the way inside.
“Oh, Jesus.” She grasped his wrist and drove him even deeper inside her, then slowly thrust. “Just like that. Fuck, just like that.”
I’d never seen him like this. Tortured. Consumed. But still utterly in control, just like I’d trained him.
He opened her legs wider with his other hand as he looked down. His thick fingers slid inside and came away slick. That look of hunger was dangerous as she rode his fingers harder. His eyes widened and his breaths were faster than I’d ever seen before, and I’d seen him take on four skilled men at once. But this wasn’t a blood sport. This was all her. “I’m going to—fuck, I’m going to—” She bucked once, then unleashed a low moan and climaxed.
Behind me, Carven watched his twin. But not once did he come closer…not once did he look at her. As Vivienne held his twin’s fingers inside her, he turned around and left.
“How’s that, wildcat?” I turned back to watch as she opened her eyes.
She said nothing, just slowly released Colt’s hand. Her breaths were deep and consuming while she watched Colt as he slowly slid his fingers out of her body.
Slick trails were left behind as he brushed her thigh and stepped away. Something passed between them, a kind of longing. One I’d never seen in Colt before. He didn’t look at me, just clenched those damp, sticky fingers into a fist, then turned and followed his brother up the stairs.
“Oh, fuck,” she hissed, closing her legs.
But the magic was gone now, grown cold, just like our discarded meal. I slid my hands down, letting her slowly sit up. “You may go, Vivienne.”
She didn’t need to be told twice as she slid from the table and hurried from the dining room. She left, just like they always left…and the clattering of her heels hit me harder this time. I closed my eyes, still feeling the ache of my cock.
I gave her a second before I headed for my bedroom. My steps slowed at the landing to my floor as I fought the need to go to her, to do the one thing I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do…tell her the truth.
That she wasn’t the only one owned here. I was just as trapped as she was…and she was the one well and truly in control.
But as I glanced up to her bedroom door, I caught movement. Colt stepped out of his room and instantly glanced down at me. His fingers were still curled, holding onto the feel of her as he stopped outside her bedroom door.
I wasn’t the only one smitten by the woman.
And by the tortured look on his face, I knew he shared my pain.
But his brother was a very dangerous problem altogether.
I headed for my bedroom, stepped inside, and reached for the buttons of my shirt. Tonight’s dinner hadn’t gone to plan, but I was starting to learn a lot went that way when it came to her…
I worked the buttons of my shirt and kicked off my shoes as I glanced at the gun on the nightstand next to the bed, then my gaze found the freshly cleaned tuxedo hanging in the closet near the door, which reminded me of the hell I would have to endure tomorrow night.
Ophelia pushed into my mind, turning the desire I’d felt a second ago to barely controlled rage. I shoved her away and forced myself to focus on the only one who mattered, then tugged my belt free and unbuttoned my pants before I looked down.
The small darkened patch was obvious. “Jesus, the woman makes me come like a prepubescent fucking kid.” I looked again. I was still hard as fuck. With a groan, I stepped into the shower and turned the faucets.
She was upstairs.
She was upstairs and I was having to—I braced my hand against the shower wall and fisted my cock. Fucking Hale. Fucking contract. I closed my eyes and thrust within my fingers. In my head, I was buried in her pussy, feeling her kick and moan underneath me. I licked my lips and I could still taste her. My pulse boomed harder than it had in a long damn time. I wanted more. I wanted her…Christ, I wanted her.
I wanted that short-lived disobedience even as she opened her legs wider for me. That spark of anger…that rage. That fucking pussy…
I froze, my breaths hard and heavy. No…no, this— “Jesus…”
My balls clenched as the pulsing vein kicked and I came hard, with barely more than one fucking pull. Warm slick pulsed from my cock and splashed against the tiles. I released a moan, sucked in a hard breath, and pushed upwards.
Thoughts of Colt pushed in. Was the son still standing outside her door? Or had he finally beaten the demons of his past and taken comfort in Vivienne’s arms? There was something between them. Something that made the savage part of my nature lift its head and loose a savage snarl.
But I couldn’t afford to keep her to myself. If he was smitten, there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do to stop it. All I knew was that no one had better come between him and her, and that included his blood.
There was no telling what he’d do…
And I would be helpless to stop any of it. I washed and rinsed and stepped out of the shower even more desperate than I was when I’d stepped in. I felt strung out, exposed like I’d been rubbed raw on the inside. I climbed into bed, my hair still damp. I’d wanted tonight to be perfect, but it hadn’t turned out that way. I’d let my emotions get away from me.
That never happened.
Not to me.
It wasn’t who I was.
I closed my eyes.
But instead of sleep came memories. Fragments of a life I’d once had. The cold steel of a silencer. The soft pfft of a muffled shot. Eyes that stared back at me, wide, terrified eyes that looked at a monster. Just like the doctor had looked at me. But I wasn’t that man, not anymore. I was a new breed of savage. A new ghost.
One who’d spent far too long alone.
“THIS IS A GODDAMN MESS, you realize that, don’t you?” I shook my head and stared at Carven. “You should’ve moved the body when you had the goddamn chance. It was the whole fucking reason we acted when we did.”
The son just stared at me. Those cold ice-blue eyes looked right through me.
He said nothing. Just waited as I turned away and paced the goddamn study. The vein at my temple throbbed. I could feel my blood pressure climbing with every damn thing that didn’t go to plan.
First, it was dinner last night.
And now the fuckup with the one thing I’d needed Carven to take care of.
If I couldn’t trust him, then I couldn’t trust anyone…
I released a heavy breath and tried to keep the bite out of my tone. “You’ll move it from the warehouse tonight.”
“You know I will. I’ll be at the meeting point after your dinner tonight. I had no choice but to hide it. We were fast, but so were Rossi’s men, and you didn’t want me taking them out, remember? So we’re here,” he answered, his tone careful. “But this has nothing to do with a dead body, London. And everything to do with her. You’re always like this when you have to see her. Caged, desperate. I don’t like it.”
I closed my eyes.
Her…
Ophelia.
I sensed him move. Soundless steps brought him closer. “Let me take care of her. No one has to know.”
I turned and met that icy stare, and the throb at the slide of my head drilled deeper. Just the thought of him anywhere near Ophelia made my stomach churn. Never again…I’d promised him when I carried him and his broken brother from that orphanage and away from her clutches, and this was me determined to keep that promise.
I swallowed the tang of acid down and forced my breaths to slow…for him. “No.” I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“Not yet?” he repeated. “When, London? Answer me that. How much longer do we have to play this goddamn game?”
“Until I find King.” It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was the only one I had. “We make one wrong move and they all go to ground and we’ll never find them.”
“So we let the spiders play their games.” He held my gaze. “And we search for the lighter fluid and the matches.”
I gave a slow nod. “And when the time comes…we burn their nest to the ground.”
“And everyone along with it,” he answered.
My focus turned to Vivienne. “I’ll make sure no one touches our family…ever again.”
“All you have to do is get through tonight.”
A shiver passed through me as I took a step toward the door, and stopped. “Just be ready. The moment I’m done with the party, we need the body. I want that contract signed…and I want her out of their clutches once and for all.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Carven assured. “For whatever you need.”
I gave a nod, then left. Night was almost here…and I had a party to attend.
