Chapter Twenty-Five
Tomás
I may have overestimated what I could take from Kieran. I wanted him to use my body the way he wanted. I kept thinking I wasn’t coming back and I wanted to be his first everything. I didn’t want to fall asleep without taking advantage of this moment. Maybe it was cruel. Maybe I should’ve told him the truth about Enzo and Luca. I knew Kieran would put me in that damn collar and then after the games we’d be planning the ruination of Alessandro Mancini just like Wren wanted.
And that wasn’t a bad thing.
The bad thing was that he’d know what happened. That he’d learn how deep the break in my soul went and I was too much of a coward to face his rejection. That would be far worse than dying . Maybe. I didn’t know and reverted to being a coward.
Kieran pulled his lips away from my body to look at me. “Should I stop?”
Fuck. I had to pull myself out of my head. “No. Please.”
He kissed the juncture between my thighs and groin, then down my inner thigh until he had me spread out in front of him. His eyes on my hole, full of hunger and lust. With lubed fingers, he breached the tight ring. I closed my eyes as the burn gave way to a sense of fullness. The pain to pleasure as he prepped me. So fucking weird still, but so damn good. After prepping me, he placed the blunt head of his cock against my entrance. Then he didn’t move. I opened my eyes to see him staring at me. His lips parted, eyes glazed, with an expression of love. I wanted to believe it so fucking bad. Kieran loved me. He loved me. I loved him. This, us, was so fucking beautiful. Heat bloomed in my core, something strong that made me full inside.
“Kieran?” I said, my voice husky.
I thought he’d say something, but he blinked away the moment, gripped my hips, and breached my rim. Slowly. So fucking slowly. Inch my inch. He stopped, waited for my body to adjust, and kept going. He made a sound at the back of his throat, and it fueled the fire inside my veins. I needed more. His fingers dug into my hips, bruising me. I thought I was going to die until he snapped his hips forward, filling me completely. And then he pulled back and slammed in again, and again, and again. Each thrust sent a pulse of pain followed by pleasure until he hit my prostate, and I saw fucking stars. I needed to fucking come and grabbed my cock, but he slapped my hand away.
“Fucker!”
He chuckled. “Not yet.”
I was so fucking close. I growled, calling him all sorts of names. He pulled out fast, forcing a cry out of my throat. The subsequent feeling of emptiness inside me as if he literally shifted my insides to make room for his cock, ruined me. He spun me onto my stomach, gripped my hips hard to lift my ass in the air, and thrust his cock inside of me. I cried out, fisting the sheets. His body flushed against my back, he reached around me and cupped my dick. “Now you can come,” he said at the same moment he grazed my prostate and pumped my dick. I came hard, spurting onto the bed under me. He dropped over the edge with me. His cock pulsing inside of me as his release filled my ass, dripped down my thighs. He pulled out and I winced. Then he turned me onto my back. He leaned his forehead against mine, kissed me for a few long minutes. My lips swollen. My body abused. Sex always sent me into a blissful coma. I felt my body fall but I didn’t want to end this moment just yet. I followed him into the bathroom, into the shower. I held him after I sucked him off.
“Tomás,” he finally said into my mouth. “You need your sleep.”
“I’ll have enough sleep when I’m dead,” I muttered into his mouth. It’d been something Daniel always said as a joke. Dark humor. Kieran hugged me tighter.
After our third shower, we sank into the folds of the bed. I held him in my arms.
“Tell me how you see your life in New York?” I asked. “Being the big, bad wolf of the Brennan clan.”
He ran his fingers up and down my chest. A slow drag that felt good. “I want to learn more about the legitimate business. Help Tristan run things. Start dissolving our illegal business. It’ll be hard at first, but after a few years, maybe…”
He didn’t elaborate on the maybe. A few years. “I think Tristan’s going to be proud of you.”
He chuckled. “If he doesn’t kill me after he finds out what I did to take his company from him.”
“But you’re realizing they are your family. Your family, Kieran.”
The movement along my chest stopped as he considered it. “I don’t even know what having a family means. I left my grandmother so young. I hated her for letting Cillian take me and it wasn’t even her fault. Not really. I never tried to reach out to her.”
“Maybe you can now.”
“What about you?” he diverted, because of course he would. “What does your future look like here in Arcadia?”
I snorted. “You know if I had an option, I wouldn’t stay here, right?”
He sighed and lifted himself up on his elbow to look at me. “Don’t just disappear like last time.”
Last time, I had left him the morning after. I’d gone back home, intending to make a life away from Kieran, from Arcadia, only to be forced back. “What if you’re forced to marry some girl like River to save your family?” Because again, I wasn’t family.
“What if you fall in love with someone else while I’m gone? What if you find I’m not worth the wait. What if… Tomás, we can play what if for eternity and come up with nothing in the end. Trust me. I’ve done it.”
“But—”
He pressed his fingers against my lips. “But, we said we’d be honest with each other after the games. Let’s start there.”
That made sense. “I never did thank you,” I said.
“For what.”
“For doing this for Dasher. For saving my life.”
He leaned back into my arms, cuddling closer to me. “I can be nice.”
I laughed.
Slowly, we came into a comfortable silence.
I knew the moment he fell asleep when his body became heavy on mine. His breathing deep and even. I stared at the shadows on the ceiling as they moved. I don’t know what time I fell asleep, but when I woke up Kieran was gone. The only pieces he’d left behind were the aching I felt in my used body and my battered heart.
I dressed in the matching black tactical gear with the balaclava we were all wearing. I couldn’t stop thinking about my regrets. I should’ve told him the truth. I should’ve asked him to help me figure this all out. If I survived, I would. I made that promise to myself.
But survival from Luca Mancini was probably unlikely. I pulled out Luca’s collar from my pocket. I still wasn’t sure why he’d given it to me. If he thought I’d let him collar me, make it easy for him to kill me, he could go fuck himself. I shoved the collar inside the bag.
“Are you okay?”
I lifted my eyes to Charity. She stood tall, elegant, even in the same tactical gear as me. She had her hair hidden in the balaclava. The face mask lowered. “Sure,” I answered, not really feeling it. “This is another ritual bullshit. We’ll be okay.”
“We will,” she said. “As long as we stick together.”
She dropped a box on the bed. “Put that in your bag. We’re all taking one. Fox’s orders.”
I picked up the small box. An insulin kit for Kieran. I had to swallow the lump in my throat. Kieran would be okay without me. Despite Fox being a psychopathic scary motherfucker, he took care of Kieran. I shoved the box into my rucksack, zipped it, and slung it over one shoulder.
Everyone was scattered around the house. Wren avoided River. River was talking to Micah who was rushing through questions we had no answer to.
“How many people are covering the entrance? What’s going to happen once we get inside? How are we going to get inside? Are they going to have medics? How many people want to kick our ass, really?”
River finally lifted his cowl to cover his mouth. “Shut the fuck up. We don’t know.”
Micah’s shoulders drooped and he tightened his rucksack.
Fox was going over the maps with Morgan. We wouldn’t have communication between us, and we all had to memorize the layout. Charity kept snatching glances at Wren as if she regretted choosing our team. I looked at Fox in stern concentration then back at Wren.
“Ready?” Fox said, handing out a rolled map to everyone. “Remember, once you’re inside the castle, you’ll be safe from the fuckers on the field. The threat becomes slightly different.” He looked to me.
Slightly different in that the fucking heirs and their goons would choose what to do with us. We had no clue what waited for us in that old manor, but Fox didn’t seem worried about it, so I wouldn’t be either.
We walked like lambs to the slaughter down the path filled with students looking as if we were being reaped. I wanted to laugh but it wasn’t funny. Charity kept brushing her arm against mine, leaning into me as if she thought I could protect her. I wasn’t sure. She turned her head to me when she did it again. “Sorry.”
I nodded but I wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. We were all wearing the exact same thing. Black tactical gear and, except for our size, you couldn’t really tell us apart. Even Charity hadn’t highlighted her curves this time. It was hard even for me to tell them apart. Well, except for Micah. He was the shortest of the group. And Fox and River had the same build. I couldn’t tell them apart. Wren was shorter than River, but taller than Micah. I stood taller than everyone but Fox and River, but I was thinner than them and Morgan was jumpy as fuck. Yeah, I think if anyone had half a mind, they could tell us apart. With any luck, once we started running, things wouldn’t be so obvious.
The grounds in front of the belltower were filled with horses.
“What the fuck?” Fox whispered.
There were other groups already lingering about. Some wore tactical gear. Some wore face masks as if this were The Purge . As if hiding their faces, they would be absolved of their sins. We all had balaclavas, but it’d been more to hide our faces from the enemy. Not to be the enemy.
Dr. Casera got on the podium. He looked as if he hadn’t slept either.
Wren knocked my arm. “Take inventory of our enemies,” he said.
I perused the crowd. The students, like us, had blunt weapons. Some carried small bats, some regular bats. Some had small clubs. Ashton stood among his crew, scanning the area until his eyes landed on me and he glowered. He wore tactical gear with lots of pockets, a bag on his back. He shook his head slowly.
Traitor, he mouthed.
What the fuck had he expected? The crowd thickened and I lost sight of him.
I’d expected the twenty of us to be lined up at the border of the property, but nope. As Dr. Casera called our names one by one, we were blindfolded and taken by horse to a spot in the woods and dumped like shit onto the forest floor. So much for sticking together.