It Destroys Me (Betrayal #6)

1. Theo

Chapter 1

Theo

I was in the study on the couch, staring at the fire in the hearth with my feet on the coffee table. My arm hung over the back of the couch as I held my cool glass on my thigh. It’d been a couple days since Astrid and I had spoken. Talking about Shayla had forced me onto a trip down memory lane that left me bitter. It would pass, but it passed quicker in silence with a scotch in hand.

My butler George came into the room. “Axel and Scarlett are here to see you.”

“Why?” I didn’t take my eyes off the fire.

“They’re taking Astrid to dinner. Wanted to say hello before they left.”

“What?” I blurted out the question on instinct because it made no sense.

“Shall I tell them you’re unavailable? ”

“No.” I set the glass on the coffee table and rose to my feet. “I’ll handle this.” I walked past him into the entryway, seeing Axel in a button-up shirt with his sleeves pushed to his elbows. Scarlett was in a black dress with her hair back, gold earrings in her lobes.

Axel grinned when he saw me. “You want to join us?”

“Join you for what?”

“Dinner. Astrid and Scarlett made plans, and I decided to tag along. You know, just in case.”

My eyes flicked back and forth between them, detecting deceit but unable to pinpoint it. “And why was none of this mentioned to me?”

Axel gave a shrug. “I don’t know, man. All I care about is paying for dinner and getting a blow job afterward.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes, but she wore a smirk she couldn’t hide.

“You want to come?”

I looked at the stairs and expected to see Astrid standing there. “I’d rather Astrid stay here, under the circumstances.”

“You think I’d let anything happen to her?”

“She’s not your responsibility, Axel.”

“Then come to dinner with us,” he said. “Problem solved. ”

I heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to see Astrid holding the banister as she made her way down in heels. She wore a skintight black dress. Her cleavage was on display, given the low-cut of the neckline. Her long hair was in curls and a lot thicker than it normally was. Along with the dark makeup around her eyes and the pink shine to her lips, she looked like she was begging to be fucked.

I watched her as she came closer, my eyes locked on her sexy-as-fuck appearance. If this was all a ploy to get my attention, then she succeeded—with flying colors. I watched her green eyes meet mine, her confidence mixed with that same vulnerability she showed me during our intimate conversations. It’d been a rough couple of weeks, and I’d felt no desire. But seeing her like that made me remember what I had under my roof.

“I would have invited you, but I figured you’d pass.”

I wasn’t sure where she’d gotten that dress. It fit her so well, it looked like it had been tailored to her exact proportions. She had nice, perky tits, so that dress was made to display her unbelievable rack. I felt everyone’s stares on me, a veil of invisible pressure that smothered my senses.

“Come along,” Axel said. “So we can talk about guns and tits while the girls talk about makeup and whatever else women talk about.”

“We don’t talk about guns and tits.” I looked at him.

“Well, now we have a topic of conversation. ”

“Why do I feel like this is a setup?” I looked at Scarlett next, knowing she wouldn’t lie to me.

“We’re going to be late for our reservations,” she said. “So if you want to come, get dressed.” She spoke to me in her mom voice, manipulating me to get me to behave the way she wanted.

I looked at Astrid next, a goddamn smokeshow. “Just give me a minute.”

Axel drove while I sat in the passenger seat.

The girls talked in the back. Scarlett showed her pictures of the kids while Astrid said how cute they were at least a million times.

Like a cow in a herd, I had been corralled right into the pen. This had been a setup to get me out of the house, and I suspected Scarlett was the mastermind of the entire thing. Astrid went along with it because she’d shown me her cards the other night—that she still wanted me even though I was a fucking train wreck.

We arrived at the restaurant and were guided straight to our table. It was a nice place with candles and white tablecloths. It was midweek, but the place was still packed like it was a Saturday night.

Astrid was about to take the seat beside me, but Axel grabbed the back of the chair. “I’d like to sit across from my wife, if that’s okay. You know, because of the view.” He gave her a playful wink.

Astrid smiled. “I don’t blame you. She’s a hot piece of ass.” She went back around the table.

Axel watched her before he looked at Scarlett again. “Did I mention how much I like her?”

Scarlett chuckled before she took the seat across from Axel.

Astrid made her way to the chair across from me, the dress hugging the small of her back, her thighs toned, everything about her sexy. She sat in the chair and placed her clutch at the end of the table. Her tits were perfect, like a prized painting from one of the greats. She crossed her legs, looked down at the menu, and then lifted her chin to look at me.

I met her stare and didn’t look down.

Axel had no shame. He looked at his menu, up at Scarlett’s tits, back at the menu…back and forth…like he didn’t know whether he cared more about dinner or a rack he’d seen hundreds of times.

Astrid grabbed her menu and looked down at the entrees.

My eyes stayed on her face, appreciating her sharp cheekbones, the way her eyes sparkled like emeralds in the candlelight. The dark makeup around her eyes gave them a smoky look, which matched the rest of the smoke show.

The waitress came to the table, and Axel ordered drinks for the two of them .

“I’ll take a scotch.” I looked at Astrid. “Would you like some wine?” I hadn’t gone out to a restaurant with her in a long time. It felt foreign but familiar at the same time.

“Sure,” she said.

“She’ll take the Bordeaux.”

The waitress left.

I looked down at my menu and felt Astrid’s stare. I recognized it because it felt the same as it had all the times she’d stared at me before. Every stare was like a signature. It couldn’t be forged. I set the menu aside.

“Lasagna?” she asked.

I had been planning to get the chicken marsala, but the playful question gave me a change of heart. “Yes. What about you?”

“I don’t know…”

“You better not get the salad.”

She smiled at my taunt. “I’m too hungry for a salad.”

“I’m getting the lasagna too,” Axel said. “What about you, baby?”

“Eggplant parmigiana sounds pretty good,” Scarlett said.

“That does sound good,” Astrid said. “I think I’m going to get that. ”

The waitress brought the drinks, and then Axel ordered for the two of them.

I did the same.

The waitress left with the menus, and we were on our own.

Astrid tucked her hair behind her ear before she sipped her wine. The length of her hair had blocked most of her neck a moment before, but now it was on display, elegant and smooth, a gold necklace around her throat. Her eyes flicked up to mine.

I couldn’t stop staring. I didn’t want to stop staring. She was the most beautiful woman I’d seen in a very long time. The whores who’d warmed my bed in her absence had just been a means to an end. They’d been there to make me forget who I really wanted—and they’d done a shitty job.

Conversation didn’t replace our stares. The intensity between us grew the longer it continued. My longing burst from my chest the moment it was allowed. I could have had her the moment she’d set foot in my house, but my sour mood and apprehension had put up gates higher than the Eiffel Tower. But now, those gates had started to come down.

Her eyes would flick away when my stare became too much, but they would always come back.

“You think I should bring my parents something since they’re watching the kids?” Axel asked Scarlett across the table .

“Up to you,” she said. “But I’m sure Aldo made them something.”

I looked at Axel. “Your parents are watching the kids?”

“Yep,” Axel said. “Hope they do a better job with them than they did with me.”

“They did a great job with you, babe.” Scarlett grabbed a slice of bread from the basket in the center and dabbed a piece into a pool of olive oil on her plate.

“You think so?” Axel asked. “Because I talked about getting a blow job not ten minutes ago.”

She smirked as she ripped off another piece of bread. “A blow job from your wife.”

Axel leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “I love it when she calls me babe. It usually means she’s DTF.”

“What was that?” Scarlett asked.

“Nothing,” Axel said quickly. “Did I tell you that you look beautiful tonight?”

“No,” Scarlett said. “You said you wanted to stick your dick in every hole that I have.”

Astrid turned bright red and chuckled into her glass.

“Pretty much the same thing,” Axel said.

Scarlett gave him a playful smirk across the table .

I’d never gone on a double date with them before. The only time I’d had dinner with them out of the house was when Axel and I had ambushed her and Dante. And a couple times after they were married. But I’d never had a woman with me during those times.

“How do you and Theo know each other?” Astrid said. “Theo has never told me.”

Axel turned to look at me. “You never talk about me?”

“As little as possible.” I grabbed my scotch and took a drink.

“I don’t know this story either,” Scarlett said.

I looked at Axel. “You never talk about me?”

“I talk about you all the time,” Axel said. “It drives Scarlett crazy sometimes.”

“It does not drive me crazy,” Scarlett said. “I just prefer not to talk when I’m trying to go to sleep.”

“It’s the only time we have without the kids,” Axel said. “We fuck and then have pillow talk.”

“I’m pillow talk?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, you and Astrid have been a hot topic lately,” Axel said, as if Astrid wasn’t sitting right there.

I decided to interrupt this conversation before it took a turn for the worse. “Axel and I met in grade school.”

Astrid’s eyebrows rose up her face. “So you’ve known each other for like twenty years? ”

“More like thirty,” Axel said.

“We lost touch for a while,” I said. “But we found each other again.”

“Why did you lose touch?” Astrid asked.

“I was expelled.”

Now Scarlett looked surprised. “For what?”

“Drugs. Alcohol.” I took a drink of my scotch. “Shit like that.”

Astrid continued to stare at me in disbelief. “You don’t seem like you’d have been a troubled kid.”

Axel released an unrestrained laugh. “You know he’s the Skull King, right?”

“But you don’t seem to have that role because you’re lawless and unhinged,” Astrid said. “But because you have the command and power to maintain the position. Because you’re smart and resourceful.”

I showed no reaction to that, but the compliment did mean something to me.

Axel leaned toward me and covered his mouth while pretending to drink. “She wants your dick, man.”

I ignored him. “My parents raised us to be academic douchebags, but they took it to the extreme. Our days were packed with tutoring and activities, and we were the first ones to church every Sunday. Killian and I were more interested in hunting for truffles with our dogs, being outside in nature, and getting our hands dirty with earthworms. I guess they expected us to grow out of it, but we never did. They never supported our hobbies unless they were scholarly. Ripped up our comic books and shoved textbooks down our throats. It made me hate school with every fiber of my being. Killian too. They put us in the same private school that Axel attended, and that’s how we met up.”

Astrid listened without blinking, fully absorbed in my story. “How’d that go?”

I gave a shrug. “I got expelled for having sex in the bathroom, and then Killian just left school and never went back. My parents were ashamed of us and kicked us out. We got by with a series of odd jobs. Killian was selling weed on the street. After a couple years, I tried to make up with my parents. Became a cop so they would see that I’d cleaned up my act, but the damage was done.”

“You were a cop?” Astrid asked in surprise.

I nodded. “That’s why I don’t let my guys cross the police. We have an understanding. The job wasn’t for me, but I respect the officers who protect the civilians of my city. I don’t consider myself a criminal because I don’t involve the innocent, just a businessman who has to break a couple laws to get paid.”

“And we reconnected again after I went to prison,” Axel said. “Guess who was the only one who knew I was innocent? ”

“You went to prison?” Astrid asked.

“He was falsely convicted,” I said. “I was able to use my contacts at the police force as well as my people in government to dramatically reduce Axel’s sentence. And that was how he got in the game.”

“I lived an upstanding life,” Axel said. “Played in the orchestra, was the president of the chemistry club, blah, blah. And you know what happened? My parents turned their backs on me when I was completely innocent. That’s when I realized there’s no such thing as right and wrong. There’s only smart and not smart.”

“I helped Axel get started, but he did the rest on his own,” I said. “I took over the Skull Kings when my predecessor was shot. We keep our relationship private because you never know how someone might turn it against us.”

“Theo has been the brother I’ve never had.” Axel clapped me on the shoulder. “The only family I’ve ever really had.” He looked at Scarlett. “Except for my hot-as-fuck wife and the babies she gave me.” He looked at her across the table with playful affection in his eyes.

Scarlett tried her hardest not to melt, but she was like a pat of butter in a hot pan.

The waitress came over with our entrees and placed the dishes in front of us. “Freshly grated Parmesan?”

“Sure,” Axel said. “That’s good shit. ”

Scarlett still looked smitten with him despite the crass thing he’d just said.

When I looked at Astrid across from me, her eyes were glued to mine, staring at me like I was a portrait or a vase of flowers on the counter. Looking at me like she somehow wouldn’t get caught. Her eyes were beautiful in the light of the chandelier and the white candle on the table, delicate but strong, a spark from the fire she used to have.

I refused to look away first. In some ways, I treated my women the way I treated my enemies, refusing to stand down for a moment, forcing them to back off because I wouldn’t give in. I did the same with her. Eye contact was intimate, something that could only be maintained between lovers or enemies. It required a quiet confidence most people didn’t possess. But she held my look longer than most, didn’t flinch at the intensity that was so palpable it was like smoke in the lungs. Then she caved, focusing her stare on her food.

“This is good,” Axel said with a mouth full of food. “But yours is better, baby.”

“You don’t have to compliment my food every time we eat, babe.” She spun her fork in her pasta.

“I mean it, though.”

She smirked. “I know.”

Axel pulled behind the gates and dropped us off. “We’re gonna go home and fuck. Hope you do the same.” He winked then rolled up the window before he pulled away.

Astrid gave an awkward smile as she stood there in a dress that left little to the imagination.

I paid top dollar for beautiful women to do whatever I wanted, but I didn’t consider those to be real interactions. They were choreographed and fake. Some pretended to like it, while others didn’t. It was like jerking off to porn, in my opinion.

But Astrid was real.

The heat between us was from a real fire that burned in our stares. The bumps on her arms were real, either from the cold or the tension. Her moans and tears from my girth plowing between her legs, all real.

It’d been a long time since I’d had something real, and fuck, I missed it.

She was the one to turn away first and approach the doorway.

I followed her, eyes dropping down to her ass in that tight dress, remembering how her cheeks felt against my palm. It’d been months since we were together, but the memory of her was so vivid, it felt like yesterday.

We entered the house and took the stairs to the top floor. The place used to house apartments, but when I brought the property, I gutted it and turned it into my home. The outside remained preserved, but the insides had been rearranged into a perfect place for a bachelor and his butler.

At the top of the stairs, she hesitated, her bedroom to the right. She lingered as she waited for an invitation, as if she was unsure what my ruthless stares across the table had meant. I’d eye-fucked her all night long, and she knew it.

My arm slid across the small of her back until my hand planted there, feeling her petite size in my big hand. I held my hand in place just at the top of her ass, and I wanted to slide it down to grab an ass cheek, but I was too distracted by the simple touch. It was the first time I’d touched her like this in god knew how long. It made me hesitate, made my breathing stop for a second or two.

She did the opposite. She inhaled a deep breath like she was about to run a mile. Her body turned into mine, spun in my arms, and then her cheek went into my chest. Her body pressed into mine, and she hugged me, her eyes closing when she felt me.

My arm tightened around her back, and I brought her tighter into me, staring down at her as I watched her hold on to me like her favorite teddy bear. Her eyes were closed, and she looked so peaceful, she could fall asleep.

I watched her for a while, watched her use me as a crutch. Then my other arm circled her, my body fully cocooning hers into a warm embrace. I squeezed her against me and dropped my chin until I could reach the top of her head and let it rest there. All the resentment and uncertainty I’d felt for her vanished in that moment. All I felt was the warmth between us, the way her chest rose with her little breaths, the way she leaned into me farther like she didn’t want to leave.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” she whispered into my chest, her arms squeezing my waist. “To be yours…and have you be mine.” Her arms loosened and she pulled away, but her hand found mine and she gave it a gentle tug toward my bedroom.

I let her pull me, my fingers encompassing her hand completely as we stepped into my suite. A couple lamps had been turned on by George so the lights were low but still on. It was the first time she’d been in there with me in a long time. The memories of Andrea and the others were instantly wiped away.

She let me go and turned her back to me, her hands moving to the center of her spine where the zipper was hidden in the material. She tugged it down, and the fabric immediately came loose before the dress started to fall down her body.

I watched, seeing more of her beautiful skin revealed as the material made its way down, slipping away from her perfect body until it dropped to the floor. Her bare ass was in view because she’d chosen to go commando tonight.

I swallowed .

She turned around and lifted herself onto my bed. She crossed her legs and began to work the clasp of her heels, slipping one off at a time, her tits firm and her nipples hard because she was clearly cold.

I hadn’t been hard like this…ever.

When the last heel dropped to the floor, she looked at me expectantly, her thick hair over her shoulders and down the front of her chest. A little necklace was at the hollow of her throat, brilliant gold.

I stared at her for a solid ten seconds because she looked like a fucking vision. A daydream. A fantasy. Not real in the slightest.

She waited, the confidence slowly draining from her eyes as if my silence meant disinterest.

I pulled my shirt over the back of my head and tossed it aside.

Her stare hardened just the way mine had, her eyes focusing on my firm chest, her thighs subconsciously squeezing together like my hips were between them.

I kicked off my boots then dropped my jeans, taking the boxers with them so my dick could stand free.

She stared at it, a flush slowly coming into her face.

I was wanted by every woman I’d been with, but Astrid’s desire had always been different. Profound and visible to the naked eye. With a quiet desperation that somehow remained unclingy. When she’d wanted to be with me and I turned down her affection, the heartbreak had been on the surface of her eyes like broken ice on a frozen river. Her body burned for my appearance, but her heart was ablaze for everything beneath the flesh. I should’ve assumed she wanted me for my looks or my money, but somehow I knew it was more.

I came to the bed, and she inhaled a deep breath in anticipation, so distinct I could see it and hear it. I moved over her, and she immediately lay back as her hands slid up my back and scooped me into her, her ankles immediately locking at my waist to anchor me to her so I couldn’t pull away.

My hand slid deep into her hair as I held myself over her, watching her green eyes turn into emeralds when the fire turned into an inferno.

Her hand cupped my face before it slid into my hair, her eyes looking over me with adoration, memorizing my appearance as if she would never see it again. “This feels like a dream…because I’ve dreamed this so many times.” Her thighs tugged on my body to bring me close, to catch my lips with hers.

My mouth landed on hers…and it was still there.

Everything I’d tried so hard to forget. Passion. Intensity. Desperation. It all happened at the touch of our lips. I didn’t kiss the women I paid to fuck me. I barely kissed women I picked up at the bar. But I kissed Astrid like it was as good as sex.

Her lips trembled as she felt mine, like she might cry, but then she tilted her head and kissed me harder, caught my bottom lip with her rose-petal lips, giving me a breath of her warm air that tasted like wine. Her hands started to scratch down my back like I was inside her, and her thighs squeezed my waist like she was ready to come.

And all I did was kiss her.

I gave her my tongue and was met with hers, an enthusiasm so passionate and unbridled. Her nails carved at my flesh, and she continued to tug on me, giving a sexy sigh when my hard dick pressed against her clit with the perfect pressure. My dick oozed from the tip, and her glistening sex stamped my dick with lubrication.

I didn’t want to wear a condom, but I didn’t want to ask all the questions I needed to, not in the heat of the moment. So I started to pull away to roll one on.

But her locked ankles wouldn’t let me go. “I’m clean, and I’m on the pill.”

I’d gotten tested after Astrid moved in. I hadn’t been sure at the time if this moment would happen, but if it did, I wanted to be prepared. I had to pull my hips back to give room for my length to slide down to her entrance, which was practically gushing when I guided my head to her soft opening. I felt my ass tighten in anticipation because just her entrance was a geyser. I pushed in and felt the opposition of her body to mine, the square peg in the hole, but with another thrust, I pushed through and started to sink. “Christ…”

Her nails turned into claws, and she gave a moan followed by a delicate wince. Her ankles remained locked against my ass like she wanted my fat dick, regardless of the destruction it caused. Her breaths turned harsher the deeper I went, and once I reached the dead end, she released a breath louder than all the others. She melted the way Scarlett had melted at dinner, dripping onto my sheets, her eyes taking me in above her.

I was nearly balls deep in her tightness, soaked to the bone in her arousal, all the muscles in my back and ass clenched tight in pleasure rather than exertion. She was the last woman I’d been with as far as I was concerned, because all the other women practically felt like phantoms. She was real.

This was real.

It was different now than it was then. Each moment was still on the precipice of something great, but this time, she was already mine. I held grudges the way accountants held on to receipts. I clung to my stubbornness the way a priest gripped his religion. But now, I was too busy holding on to her instead of my prejudices, and I felt them slip away.

My ass clenched as I rocked into her, sliding through a pussy so wet and tight it made my balls ache. Every time I was burrowed deep, she inhaled a sharp breath in response to the pain, but then she moaned a second later like it was worth the pain to have me.

I was already at the finish line, my dick so hard it was practically a metal rod, but I kept the bullet in the barrel until she gave me permission to pull the trigger. Judging from the flood between her legs, it wouldn’t be much longer.

Her thighs squeezed me as she dug her claws into my shoulders, a flush of red filling her cheeks until they were the color of beets. When she opened her lips, my name sounded like a song. “Theo…”

I broke contact because I had to, because if I didn’t pull my gaze away from hers, I would fill her with a mound of come. I was so hard, I was certain I could go twice in a row, but I didn’t want to take that chance on our first night together.

Her palm cupped my cheek and forced my stare back on hers. She lifted her head and kissed me, catching my mouth with the softest lips. She used tongue right from the beginning, and her nails dug in deeper as she claimed me as hers.

Fuck.

She started to moan, and her breaths turned unpredictable. Her claws withdrew, and she lay back, squeezing my hips and arching her spine, the bubbling pleasure trying to find its release from its cage. When it hit her, it released in the form of tears that cascaded down her cheeks, the moans from her soft lips turning into whimpered screams .

I couldn’t hold back, not for another second, not when she came all over my dick and said my name like I was her fucking religion. I staked my flag in her and claimed her land in my name. I filled her with a load I hadn’t given anyone besides my wife ten years ago. To fill a woman was a man’s greatest desire, a gift to earn a woman’s trust and permission to enter her sacred lands. It belonged to me now, like there had never been anyone who’d set foot there before. Once she’d entered my house, it was easy to forget about the life she’d had before me, the way we met.

My dick was still rock hard, and ammunition was already reloaded in the cannon. The skin of my cock was sensitive to every touch between our wet bodies. I thrust through her slickness, her cream and my cream. Heat radiated off my skin like steam because I was still white-hot.

Her eyes were still glossy from the aftershock between her legs. Her thighs squeezed me, and she scooped her arms up my back and brought me closer to her as if she didn’t notice her soreness in light of her aching desire. “Again.”