Chapter 18
Eighteen
Journal Entry
Twenty-two years old
Lines of code project onto Pyotr’s face, scrolling up his forehead as his fingers fly across the keyboard of his laptop. “I wish you’d let me help you.”
“You are helping me.”
“Not with this, dumbass. The other thing.”
I would never forgive myself if he got injured…or killed, because there’s one thing I know for certain, Pyotr would take a bullet for me, and I mean that in the literal sense.
“The answer is still no, but it comes from a place of love.”
He flips me the bird and continues typing. “How many men are going with you?”
“Six.” All of them Drako’s, but he already knows that.
Pyotr’s head swivels my way, and I can sense his worry. “Including Aleksei?”
“He’s not coming.”
“Does he know that?”
“No.”
Pyotr’s eyebrows dubiously march toward his hairline. “You plan to sneak out in the middle of the night while he’s asleep?”
“Something like that.”
He returns his attention to the laptop. “Aleksei is going to kill you if you leave without him.”
Aleksei knows nothing about Francesco, and I don’t want my brother caught up in my revenge.
It’s not his burden to bear. Same with Pyotr.
There are so many things that could go wrong this weekend, but it is what it is.
It’s too late to turn back now. My fate was decided the day my mother and Aoife died.
Besides, if anything happens to me, I’ll need Pyotr to look after Aleksei.
A few more keystrokes and Pyotr’s arms shoot high in victory. “Voilà! We’re in,” he exclaims when he hacks into the live security feed at the guys’ house.
I easily could have done it, but he loves this kind of stuff, so I let him have at it.
Scooting in closer, all I see on the screen is the front door of the house. “Is that it? Can’t you access the other cameras?”
He huffs. “Impatient much?” He presses the arrow key, and the view cycles through other vantage points.
“Stop. There they are,” I say when I see Syn and the guys on the back patio. “Is there audio?”
“Ah…um…” He types in a few commands. “Doesn’t look like it.”
I rotate the laptop. They’re sitting around the patio table. Syn scowls down at the plate of food Hendrix puts in front of her, and her nose wrinkles with distaste. Cute.
“You’re grinning,” Pyotr remarks.
My smile falls away. “I am not.”
“Do you like her?”
“I don’t really know her.”
“Do you want to?”
I’m trying to read their lips since there is no audio, but he keeps distracting me. “Why are you asking so many questions?”
“It’s okay to want someone else.”
I tear my gaze from the screen. “What are you talking about?”
Pyotr reposes back into the sofa cushions and crosses a bent leg over the opposite knee, his arms folded across his chest, a relaxed posture but his tense demeanor says otherwise.
“You don’t date.”
“You’re worried about my relationship status?”
His mouth pulls to the side. “Let’s say yes, for argument’s sake. When was the last time you slept with someone?”
My frown is instantaneous. “I’m not Aleksei. I don’t fuck a new woman every day. And my sex life is none of your business.”
I’m picky, not celibate. Mainly because I can’t shut off my dick from my emotions. There has to be a connection, an intimacy, not just animalistic fucking for the sake of getting off then moving on to the next woman.
He bumps his knee into the side of my thigh. “Stop being so damn defensive. All I’m trying to say is that Syn is the first girl you’ve shown actual interest in since—”
“Don’t say it.”
“—Aoife.”
I temper my anger when he says her name. “It wouldn’t matter if I was because Syn isn’t interested in me like that.” Especially after the shit I’ve pulled, the stalking and intimidation being the two most obvious reasons she’d tell me to go fuck myself if I ever tried to ask her out.
“How do you know?”
Jesus. He’s not going to quit.
I gesticulate at the screen. “Because she’s clearly into them.” For God knows what reason because Tristan, Hendrix, and Constantine are absolute assholes of the highest degree, especially Hendrix. “She’s living with them, for fuck’s sake. So even if I was interested, it wouldn’t matter.”
Pyotr claps his hands. “Ha! You admit it. You do like her…holy shit.”
His verdant eyes go Jupiter wide, but that surprise isn’t directed at me. When I glance at the screen, Constantine has Syn pinned against the outer wall of the house, kissing her like a man starved. What the hell happened to her clothes?
“Get out.”
I try to cover the image with my hand, but he keeps shoving it away.
“But I want to see what happens,” Pyotr whines.
“Out!” I shout when Tristan drops to his knees and kisses the bare skin of her hip.
Pyotr petulantly slides off the couch. “Fine. I’ll just go watch porn on my phone.” He takes the back stairs instead of using the elevator, and I hear him yell, “You better fill me in later! And no skimping on the details!”
The door slams shut.
My fingers tighten around the sides of the laptop, and I lean in, watching the scene play out.
I study Syn’s face for signs of distress but find only pleasure etched into every line of her expression.
If I thought they were taking advantage of her or hurting her, I’d be out the door in a heartbeat with my Glock secured in my holster.
Don’t watch. Stop looking. But the temptation is too great.
Syn’s body is a fantasy come to life. Even in black and white, I can see the flush of arousal painting her luminescent skin.
Her body—holy fuck—all shapely curves and toned muscles.
The tapestry of scars and grafts that run up her outer thigh to her shoulder—they don’t detract from her beauty, only enhance it.
They show her strength and the force of her will, two qualities I find seductive in a woman.
I can’t look away as my half brother’s hand slowly runs up the long length of Syn’s leg.
I imagine it’s my hands on her, my touch causing the glaze of desire to mist across her eyes.
I shouldn’t be watching this intimate moment.
It’s wrong. But tell that to my cock straining the zipper of my jeans. This is so messed up on so many levels.
Tristan cradles her stomach, his thumbs sweeping under the waistband of her panties. He’s not going to do what I think he’s about to do with Constantine and Hendrix right there. Holy shit, he is.
Her lips part, and she says, “I’m scared…Tristan.” And then, “Oh my god,” when he buries his face in her pussy.
Constantine moves to her back, his hand teasing a line down her chest to between her breasts. Syn’s chest heaves when he slowly undoes the front clasp of her bra. The gossamer lace fabric falls open, exposing the creamy globes of her pert breasts and tight, perfect nipples.
Without realizing what I’m doing, I unzip my jeans and take my cock in a harsh grip, fisting the base and squeezing. Hendrix appears in front of her and temporarily blocks my view before moving to her left. She’s surrounded by them, at their mercy. And for some unknown reason, that excites me.
Constantine takes her mouth, kissing her deeply, just as Tristan rends her underwear from her body like tissue paper.
He swipes a finger up her inner thigh, then sinks his fingers inside her.
She bites her bottom lip, and I imagine the moan she makes, low and sultry, like her voice.
Her eyes roll back, and her back arches when he goes down on her, feasting on her pussy like his favorite meal, while Constantine plays with her nipples.
Hendrix doesn’t engage, content to watch his two best friends as they send Syn soaring.
Her muscles seize, the sinuous lines of her body go taut, and she comes on a violent shudder of release, her entire body shaking as she climaxes, the rapid pumps of my hand catapulting me into orgasm along with her.
Cum drips down the laptop’s screen, and I use it to fingerpaint S-Y-N across her naked image.
“See you soon, Songbird.”
I’m so going to hell.