The Sins that Ruin (Obsidian Knights Secret Society #3)

23. Malone

TWENTY-THREE

“C’mon, James,” Mariachi says in low voice dripping with lewd intent. “Give her to us. You know you want to.”

This is why it’s so fucking easy to infiltrate certain groups. They reflect their desires on you like you’re a goddamn mirror.

He wants to fuck and hurt Scarlett, and so he assumes I actually want to hand her over to let it happen.

But I won. I’m exceptionally good at reading others, and this lot of fuckheads has so many tells it’s easy. Bring a prize like Scarlett, and they’re fucking distracted to the point they can’t hide their thoughts. Shit gets written all over their faces, and I took full advantage.

Personally, I prefer blackjack if I’m going to stack things in my favor. Counting cards is easy.

This has risks, which I do like.

Sometimes.

Except, of course, when I use the prettiest girl in the room as my real bet.

If I’d have lost…

They still wouldn’t lay a hand on her. Not even a finger. I’d never allow it. I’d fucking torch them all before I let them take her.

“Scarlett, you ready?”

I’m a fucking bastard, I know. But it’s worth the expression of fear on her face, all one second of it before it melts into utter fury, because fuck me, she’d be good at poker. She just read my expression.

And I wasn’t even trying to give it away.

Hyper fear has given her some serious skills.

I stand up from my chair because I don’t trust her… She just might open that pretty mouth and give herself to them in an effort to needle me in her fury.

“I won. So we’re going home. Unless, of course, you want to stay?”

Her eyes narrow into sparking slits. “Tempting, but I’m tired. I’d like to go.” And she doesn’t wait for me to respond. She just turns and marches to the door, stopping to wait for me since she can’t get out.

I punch in the simple code we were all given before arrival. She tries to push past me, but I catch her as she stumbles in the high heels. “Let go.”

“No. You can barely walk. How many shots did you have?”

“Not nearly enough,” she hisses at me.

I wrap an arm around her and lead her out into the busy night. A rush of cool air hits us once we step outside and I hug her tighter.

“Don’t touch me.”

I sigh and drop a kiss on the top of her head. My car’s waiting, so I open the door and help her in before I follow. She looks fucking amazing in that purple dress. It pops against her skin. My little sex kitten. Even though I fucked her back in the club not too long ago, I want her again.

I always want her.

But this time, I want it slow. To take my time. Maybe whip that pretty ass a little bit.

After all, the edges have been smoothed out, just a little.

She’s got an insane ability to make me hard and desperate as fuck for more right after I’ve lost myself in her.

“Baby Red, there was no way I was going to give you to them.”

Her eyes swim with bright tears, shimmery and heartbreaking, and for once in my fucked-up life, I feel bad for that. Not that I go around making women cry. And if they do, it’s usually over me not wanting them after a fuck.

This is different, but the fact I feel bad flummoxes me, makes me shift on the seat with unease because I don’t really know how to process it.

“Why the fuck did you bet me?”

“I didn’t… you…” I stop. Okay, it sounds bad even if I say she wasn’t a bet and that she was a prize. It’d be worse. I know that. “I told you I know how to play poker.”

She buries her head in her hands, and I can’t even begin to find the words.

Shit.

There’s play and there’s torture, and I don’t cross the line. I like a little touch of sadism in my humiliation games. But even as I’m about to say that, I stop. I wasn’t playing those games with her tonight. I was twisting her to my will, pushing her to her limits. I wanted her dancing on the edge, not flung over it.

“Scarlett,” I say softly. “I?—”

“Fucking asshole.” She interrupts me and then kicks me. Hard. “You bastard.” She kicks me again. Her eyes are glittering as she raises her head and drops her hands, and she’s angry, not crying. “I’m going to kill you.”

She goes to kick me again and I catch her legs this time. “I deserved that, Scarlett. But enough with the kicking.”

“You deserve so much more. When we get to your place, I’m getting a knife from the kitchen and stabbing you.”

She sounds so serious, so utterly furious, so… on fire that I start to laugh. That only makes her madder, basically spitting flames, and she tries to get free so she can attack me again.

All it does is expose her slender legs and lace panties.

“Now, that I’ll play for. We’ll just see who wins that one. I’m betting I’ll have you riding me before you can stab me.”

“Maybe,” she snarls, “I can do both.”

“Kinky.”

She tries to pull free, but I don’t let her.

“Scarlett? Give me your mouth.”

“You have my legs.”

She’s not wrong. So I hold them and climb on her, pinning her back against the seat. I have to curl into her. I stroke her hair and lean her head back and she stares up at me, her eyes still full of glittering fire, but there’s passion there, too. Unwanted, but it’s there.

“Tell me to let you go, Scarlett,” I say, mouth a bare inch from hers, “and I will.”

She doesn’t say a word. My sweet, fuckable, spiky Scarlett. I lean in and brush her mouth with mine.

Scarlett sighs, a soft little sound on the edge of heartbreak and desire. And I start to pull back, but her eyes flutter open and she looks at me, those golden-amber eyes still shimmering, but this time it’s not tears.

It’s a complicated want I can see in the depths, one she’s trying to work out. “Please…”

The shift in her voice hooks the Dom in me.

That special place that goes beyond the normal desire to dominate, and down into what we are. Like something new.

“Please what?”

Her lips press together. “Can’t you just…?”

“Kiss you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you say?”

She’s silent a long, stretched-out moment. “You told me to tell you if I didn’t want to kiss you. And now you want me to say it? Do you want blood? Flesh? A piece of my soul?”

My dick twitches.

I slide my hands back through her hair, pinning her head to the back of the leather seat.

“All of it. Whatever I can get, Scarlett.”

She’s not going to ask, even though she already does with her eyes. Instead, she curls her fingers into my lapel and pulls me into her.

I let her.

And our mouths meet. The kiss starts slow, but it explodes into flame and hot need. It’s a melding of mouths and dueling tongues, and I can taste the throbbing want in her, along with the rum and the subtle spice on her lips. The one that tastes sweet and of dreams and dirty, filthy things. I dreamed about that taste last night.

Fuck, I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anyone in my life.

She’s hot and wet, and right now, she’s mine. It’s enough.

I lift my head because I want to sink my teeth into her throat when I realize we’ve stopped.

At JM’s home.

“Let’s take this shit inside, Scarlett. Because I’m not done with you. Not by a long shot.”

Her anger has morphed into a violent need that fuels mine. All I can think of is tigers circling each other, unsure whether to mate or go in for the kill.

It’s like mainlining adrenaline.

Adrenaline that’s been spiked with lust.

She glares at me, that angry, damning, hungry expression on her gorgeous face. I back her into the wall and kiss her hard, deep, like she’s a lifeline, like I might die without it.

And she fights.

To get away, to pull me closer, the constant push and pull where she shoves me and comes at me like a demon. This is exactly what I want, what I need.

I grab her, wrapping my hand around her throat. “Me and you? We’re the same, and you want me to take you while you fight me every step of the way. You both hated and loved what I did, didn’t you?”

“You think I wanted you to give me to those men?”

“No, I don’t,” I say, walking her backward through the apartment, one hand on her throat, the other on her hip so she doesn’t fall. I’m not squeezing or blocking air flow, but it’s the game of it that has her panting, her hands clenched around my forearms. “But I think you’re getting off on the idea of it. The fantasy.”

“If you want me to get off on a fantasy, you dick, you tell me it’s a fantasy.”

I reach one of the sofas in the living room and push her down on it. Then I climb on her, because I’ve discovered that I like that physical aspect of domination with her. The wild dilation of her pupils tells me she fucking loves it, too.

“There’s no fun in that.”

“It wasn’t fun.”

“Okay, I get that,” I say. “But how about now?”

A shaky breath expels from her lips. I need some tools. Rope and a whip. A vibrator. I get off her and Scarlett whimpers.

“Now?” She half rises, but I cut her a look and she stays put. That sub part locking on to my unspoken command. Fuck, she’s hot. “I don’t know. If I say yes, I like the fantasy now that I know it’s not happening, what does that make me?”

I bend down and kiss her rough and violent, and her hungry response is more than enough of an answer. “It makes you hotter than fucking hell, Baby Red.”

Hurrying out of the room, I get my equipment. When I get back, she’s still there, on the couch, her hands held above her head.

Something’s happening, I can feel it in the shift in the air, whispering against my skin. I think as I take her deeper into our games and play, I drag myself farther down, too. There are places I haven’t been, it seems, places that are sink or swim, shallow or deep, raging waters. And I’m fucking there for it all.

As long as she’s right next to me. Under me. Over me.

Whatever the fuck way I can get her.

“Good girl,” I say, gazing at her, the way her tits press against the neckline of the dress. “But I’m going to need you naked. Take off your dress.”

I don’t want her to strip, even though I fucking want her to. The denial of that pleasure is something that feeds the need for domination, fuels the desire to punish. I’m denying myself, and I’ll take it out on her. Exquisitely. With maximum pleasure for her when I’m done with the torture.

The soft whisper of the dress hitting the floor is like a thump in my head. I don’t hear the panties, but I can imagine them landing on top of the purple dress.

She hasn’t taken off the shoes, and they click as she turns to sink back onto the couch.

At least, I presume that’s what she’s doing. I look down at the rope and run my fingers over the smooth, soft fibers, then the leather of the whip.

The vibrator is silicone, and it’s bouncy when I press into it. This is one of those weird-shaped ones. Turquoise in color, rounded for both penetration and G-spot stimulation along with a little sucking cup that vibrates the clit.

It’s new. I don’t reuse toys on different women. Besides, the things in this place are all new. I can’t wait to use it all on her. I haven’t decided how, but the ritual of studying the pieces, touching them, soothes the wild edge inside.

I pick up the rope and turn.

My heart throbs in time with my dick at the stretched-out form of her. She’s sensuous perfection, a painting, erotic art.

And her hands are back above her head. Fuck me.

“I’m going to tie your hands.” I make myself do it slowly, threading the rope, tying it so the knots hit her pulse points.

It’s a study in patience, the calm before the storm. She shudders as I bind her hands and arms together. Then I hook the end of the rope to the leg of the sofa, tying it in place.

Slowly, I make my way over her flesh, over where she’s tied, letting my mouth and fingers stroke and arouse, and her tremors grow.

She’s wet between her thighs, and she moves her legs even as she tries not to.

I kiss her there, licking up her sweet juices, and she moans loudly.

“Ready, Baby Red?”