Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
luna
i’ll lose myself in him one day.
V aden doesn’t shift his focus from me when he stands, removing his shirt the same way Priest did. He kicks off his jeans and shoes, and I sink farther into the water, hiding my mouth beneath the surface while peering up at Priest.
My heart races as his eyes hold me hostage, silent promises that only I can hear.
Ones he’ll make good on. I don’t know if Vaden was implying the first night I arrived to them, but I remember he stopped. We didn’t go all the way.
Priest leans back, his designer belt unbuckled with his jeans, displaying the edge of his briefs. It’s not until the water spills over from Vaden climbing in at the other end that I finally pull my attention from him in time to catch Vaden smirking as he sinks into the water.
Even all those years ago, they were big boys. People thought Vaden was the kind King, and sure, compared to the other two, he probably was, but I’ve come to realize I was wrong. So, so wrong. Because War had what these two lacked.
Love.
Vaden loves his sister and parents, but that’s all he’s ever loved. Priest doesn’t even have that. War would kill and die for not only his family but everyone else he considers family around him.
Oh, I had it very wrong.
“What’s going on in that little head of yours, Madness…” Priest’s voice sounds far away, and I hear the distinct clinking of metal touching metal.
Saliva fills my mouth, and I quickly swallow it away, searching around the bathroom for my holster. Crap.
“You can’t reach it.” Vaden’s eyes widen on me. He smirks, running his wet hand through his hair. “Oh, so the Concord didn’t warn you about this, huh?”
I shuffle up the tub. “What makes you think I need them?” My head tilts and Vaden’s smug grin widens.
“Because, Lost One.”
“Because why?” I might be different, but I’m not what everyone thinks. Wait…did he say Concord?
My poker face doesn’t slip, even as panic sinks its claws deep into my skin when the words replay. So the Concord didn’t warn you about this, huh?
It happens too fast. Vaden’s eyes shift over my shoulder at the bitter touch of metal against my back. “Because you shouldn’t have followed the trail.”
Fingers curl around the front of my throat, but his movement is gentle when he tilts my head backward until I’m looking at him. He’s seated on a chair directly behind me, his knees wide as he places my head on the crotch of his jeans. Sugary embers of burning marijuana fill my nostrils as he lifts the joint, taking another hit.
Smoke billows between his lips in rings before he exhales the rest from his lungs. Staring at the end of the joint, he blows on the ember until it brightens. “You know what this is?”
I move from the stone expression on his face to the joint. “Weed?”
“Yes and no.”
“Well, what?” I try to move from beneath him when his grip tightens around my throat.
“Open your mouth.”
Even upside down, he’s beautiful. My body is as dumb as my brain because the butterflies in my belly spread their wings wide enough to feel them flutter lower.
“I don’t—” Smooth smoke fills my mouth before the warmth from his lips grazes mine. Something fractures inside my chest as my hips lift a little.
He’s about to pull away, but my hand flies to the back of his neck to hold him in place, gently closing my mouth around his bottom lip. His hesitation causes the rope of muscle behind his neck to flex, but I don’t care. My tongue slips into his mouth, and the tightness in his muscles loosens as he catches my tongue with his own. It has been years…years since I felt him like this. Even knowing what he does and how he does it. The blood. Screams. Blood. Ice… cold.
Images flash through my brain of the last time he had me like this, right before he betrayed me. His heavy breathing as he rode me like he owned me. The way his pupils dilated when he watched the soft whimpers of his name leave my mouth. As if confused as to why he didn’t kill me—or want to at that moment.
I deepen the kiss by rolling around to my knees, never breaking away. His mouth moves with mine, relaxed. The silk of his tongue coats mine, and I moan, throwing all caution out and crawling onto his lap.
Pushing him against his chair, water drips down my stomach, soaking my tangled hair. I need to be reminded why he’s a bad person and why I should not be kissing him the way I am because he’s the worst version of himself when he’s like this.
Deprived of his touch, his kiss owns me. It’s not until the memory of him giving me away to his enemies knocks me back to reality.
He holds me in place with a narrow glare, but I see it momentarily, where he loses control.
“Ahhh.” He lifts his joint back to his mouth. “So she does remember…”
“I’ve always remembered. I just?—”
“Forgot a moment?” Vaden’s sinister tone mixes with the steam from the bath. A breeze caresses my skin. I shiver, pushing away from Priest.
“Nah, uh…” My back collides with something hard, but I don’t have to turn to know who it is.
The way Priest’s eyes dance up to him with a certain cockiness tells me everything I need to know.
He blows out a cloud of smoke again, flicking the roach into the bath before returning to me. “You’re going to do everything I say, Madness, because if you don’t.” He leans forward, my body shaking when he drags his thumb over my nipple. “Well. I’m sure you know what I’m capable of.”
My face falls. I do. It’s not that I had forgotten, one would never forget something like that, but it’s that…I kissed him.
And I wanted to.
And I want to again.
Him. He’s a monster. A cold, detached, emotionless monster. But I want him. I want to fill the lonely parts of him with myself. His threat is useless, but I’ll play.
“Play with her,” Priests says to Vaden as he slouches back in his chair, his eyes pinned on me. “But she stays on my lap.”
Vaden’s palm moves over my shoulder, and my eyes close when heat travels between us. With a hand on my throat, he spreads his fingers out, his thumb caressing the delicate bone of my jaw.
My head tilts, but I stay locked on Priest. I hate that I don’t hate you anymore. I hate that you can’t see me for who I am behind the ribbons and dresses.
“Do you want this?” he asks, his brow lifting.
“And if I say no?” I whisper, my legs widening a little further because if I’m going to fall off his lap, I won’t look like a lamb between two wolves.
Priest’s eyes darkened even further. I didn’t think that was possible. In every light, they’re drunk with a sinister hue. The kind you should stay away from. It’s like looking through two endless black holes, where you don’t know where you’ll land if you find yourself falling.
He chuckles, yet his expression remains flat. “Your word doesn’t mean shit to me, Madness.”
I already knew that. I would always know that.
Vaden forces my head back until I’m looking up at him from behind. Even from this angle, Vaden is ghastly. He reminds me of a shadow in the night, only with a pretty smile. “Take him out.”
Shuffling backward, I draw down Priest’s zipper while keeping my other hand steady on his abs. He’s heavy and thick when I wrap my fingers around his girth, only managing to cover the top quarter of him and nowhere near able to wrap around the entire circumference. Veins pulse against the silk of his skin, and my thumb circles the base of him as I flick my eyes up to see if I can read his expression. His wants. Priest has always been good at keeping his cards close. You can’t read him—no one can.
The corner of his eye twitches, and I keep my movements slow. Careful.
Goosebumps swell over my skin as my nipples harden at the knowledge of how dangerous this man is. He could change his mind and snap my neck at any moment.
Knowing that he’s tried before only has my hips rolling slowly.
“Spit on it,” Vaden demands from my back, and Priest’s annoyance flies over my shoulder, landing on his best friend. His gaze drops back to me lazily as if catching his own aggression and settling back on the emotionless void he’s known for.
I catch the saliva and lean forward, spitting on the tip. My hand makes its way up his thick shaft before I catch the trickle with the base of my thumb and rub it in.
“Are you going to punish me?” The words leave my lips in a harsh whisper, tilting my head at him.
His hands land on my thighs, igniting a shrill excitement that bleeds down my spine. His cock hits my pussy when he pulls me in. “Haven’t decided.”
“But you want to?”
He searches my eyes, and even this close, I can see how they move like little mechanical switches hidden deep within. I want to tear them all apart and see what really lies beneath.
Is it as rotten as everyone thinks?
Or is it something else.
“I do everything I want to do, Madness.” His rough hands curve the inside of my thigh. “Don’t you remember how it felt that day?”
My eyes close, and my back arches. The blood rushing behind my ears in feverish waves as my hips buck forward slightly, desperate for him to touch me. To do anything to me at this point but take the edge away.
“Don’t you remember?” The tips of his fingers kiss my skin, and my hips shift again. Trying to tame my breathing, my fingers dig into the trunks of his arms as my teeth catch my bottom lip. He chuckles. “I don’t want it that bad.”
He nudges his head at Vaden, leaning farther away from me.
“Knew it,” I bite, not knowing it would come out as it did and using my anger to bathe my bruised ego. “I knew you—” A thrill courses through me as his hand cups my face.
A shadow, which has haunted me for most of my life, crosses his face. “You know what?” he snaps, and the way his lips move over his teeth has Vaden releasing the grip around my throat before stepping away. “Hmmm?”
I can’t stop the tear from falling from the corner of my eye, and he watches it slide down the side of my face, his mouth curving in a wicked half-smirk.
“Ah, Madness.” He pauses, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
I need to get the fuck out of here right now. No one dances with the Devil in glass slippers.
“How wet are you right now? All that fear…” he whispers the words over my lips, and adrenaline rushes through me.
His other hand falls, only this time he covers my pussy. I choke on a hiccup when his finger traces my entrance with slow, meaningful grazes. He curls the tip of his finger slowly and moves in a massage motion as the muscles in my body clench.
“All it does is bathe you with my scent.”
Not bothering to tell him what I was going to say, I reach between us, but his hand is around my wrist, and he’s tugging me off as if the thought disgusts him. “You ain’t my type, Madness.” His words stay harsh, but his fingers keep moving inside of me.
“You’ve made that obvious,” I gasp, feeling the build of my orgasm climbing. “But since we’re already here.”
Vaden brushes against my back when I slide off Priest’s lap, making sure to press my ass against Vaden on my way up.
Arching my back, my hair falls onto Priest’s lap when I look at Vaden over my shoulder. “Do what you want to me.”
Vaden holds my stare, no longer looking to Priest for permission and obviously reading into what I’m playing at. With his hand on my back, he moves lower until his finger parts the slit of my pussy. He pauses against my clit. My mouth falls open slightly, my head dropping as I roll my hips into his finger. He moves in slow strokes, too slow, and I swear if I don’t come, I’m going to explode. The touch of his calloused finger grazes the pebble of my clit, and I groan, my eyes rolling to the back of my head. In all the years, Priest never allowed girls to finish, and he never did himself. Not when he’d fuck them. Not when they’d do him.
Not a single person.
Until that night. That had to count for something.
It’s suffocating how much he fills me. My muscles seize. I dig my nails into Priest’s jeans to find my grip. I want to look back at what it is Vaden is fucking me with when the metal piercing on his cock skims my insides.
Or a lot of them.
My body explodes when Priest places his finger below my chin, lifting my head. I’m a slave for his touch, his attention, his—everything. So much so that I’ll do what I need to do to make him see that I don’t care what kind of monster he is.
“How does he feel, Madness?” The heat of his words leaves blisters behind, even with the gentle caress of his thumb against my cheek.
“Like—” I pause.
Vaden pulls out a little, the fullness a suction vise that massages a hidden spot deep inside.
My fingers dig into Priest once more, and he studies me closely. I hate it. I hate that my stomach burns every time he’s watching as if I want him to be jealous. As if I want him to want me so much that he can’t stand another man to touch me, but that’s not Priest. It never will be, and it’s ridiculous that even after all my time away from him, I feel as though I have some kind of witchery over him.
We are nothing.
We were nothing.
We will always be nothing.
Because the only thing Priest Hayes can feel is hatred.
“—I hate you,” I gasp around the swell of realization that settles in my stomach.
He clucks his tongue, the base of his thumb grazing the pillow of my bottom lip. “So emotional, my Madness.”
Shame lands like a punch to the gut when he forces me into Vaden like a discarded toy. “Fuck her until she comes. Then keep fucking her until I say stop.”
“Priest…” Vaden warns. It’s the first time since being back that I’ve heard a smidge of the old Vaden, but he continues the same merciless pace. It’s a delicious torture of passion. A trance. Torment. Pain. It does nothing to numb the one in my heart.
Priest drags his eyes from mine, landing on Vaden. “Do it.”
“Fuck.” Vaden’s hand curls around my throat.
My clit swells between my legs, and through the pending doom of my orgasm, a heat even hotter simmers below the surface. My jaw tenses when I square up with Priest, his eyes wrestling with mine. Hatred. Pure, undiluted hatred.
Vaden rocks me hard with a single thrust, my body jolting forward, but I catch my fall on Priest’s lap. Too much. My mind spins and everything south explodes around me in a rain of fire as my orgasm pours through my body like acid, turning everything to dust.
“Vaden…” His name leaves my lips like a promise as my eyes slowly open onto Priest. Maybe I’m deluded. I’ve imagined everything I’d ever felt, but I’ll use it. I’ll use what I can to drive the pain I feel at this moment to hit anywhere inside of him.
His eyes narrow when they fall to my lips. Confusion knots his brows together, and then it’s gone.
Through the spasms of my muscles, fatigue threatens my sanity when he jerks his head at Vaden, swiping a bottle of whiskey from the side. “Again.”
“What?” Vaden pauses, and when he withdraws, the emptiness is a painful reminder of what I’ll never have.
I push myself up from Priest’s thighs, and I’m about to walk away when his hand is on my chin, forcing me into place. Priest’s eyes search both of mine, the room and everything in it dissolves into nothing. His lips are plush and full, with almost too much softness to be on a man who emanates this much masculinity. This time, the weight of his confusion cuts deeper than the striking lines of his features. He’s fighting an internal battle that no one can see.
“I said again.”
Hope dies the same way flowers do when they’re stepped on. His fingers loosen, and he lifts the bottle to his lips.
Vaden pulls me back against his chest. He must be sitting on the edge of the bath before I spread my legs wide and direct my hips over his length. My muscles tense around him once more, feeling the heat pool between my thighs. Tears of sweat slide down my body as my hair clings to my skin, but I keep my eyes on Priest as I ride against Vaden. He doesn’t smirk this round, watching carefully as he takes swig after swig of whiskey. It’s not until the heat of my orgasm snaps around us that my knees buckle and my thighs drip with glaze. I slide off Vaden’s lap and out of the tub. Cold tiles of the bathroom floor bathe the heat of my skin when I rest my cheek against it, the pounding of my heart still loud in my chest. Tree branches weave together through the window, twisting into nature’s sculpture as the colors in the room whirl around me.
Vaden’s footsteps bring me back to reality. “I can answer the question you’ve kept asking yourself since the moment Bishop brought her to you. No matter how many times I fuck her, you’re going to have the same result.” He must get closer to him, but I roll onto my back, blinking up at the chandelier. “That thing you feel in here when you watched that? That’s you caring, Priest. It’s not going to go away the more you watch it happen, in fact, I’m going to go ahead and say that it’s only going to detonate you in a way that you’ve never fucking known before.” Vaden pauses. “Think about what the fuck you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, and then reconsider the who. Because I ain’t about risking my life for it.”
Everything is heavy. So heavy.