Chapter 71 Everett
SEVENTY-ONE
EVERETT
Isit in the passenger seat of Tyson’s Bentley eating my husband’s Crunch bar while he drives us into town.
My ass and thighs are screaming at how hard Kashton took his belt to them.
I love it. I deserved that punishment for my outburst. For my past. Who I allowed myself to be.
I needed him to put me in my place. To show me he’s in charge.
“Can we stop by the cemetery?” I break the silence.
He doesn’t even have the radio on, and that’s not like him.
He’s worried about Adam and me, and I hate that I’ve placed any doubt in his mind.
I can barely stand Adam most days. The fact that I slept with him makes me want to vomit. He could never be who Kashton is to me.
“Of course,” he answers, hand in mine resting on his lap.
I break off a piece of the Crunch bar and hold it in front of his face to eat.
Then I lean down and pick up the bottle of whiskey that I talked the bartender out of from the bar next to the motel before we left.
She wasn’t that willing to give it up at first, but I threw a wad of hundreds at her, and she changed her mind.
I needed a drink and the liquor stores are already closed for the night.
He glances over at me and then places his eyes back on the road.
“What?” I ask, yanking my hand from his. I can’t wait for this damn drug to be out of my system. Even I’m tired of the mood swings.
“Nothing.” He shakes his head.
“You’re lying. It’s something. Spit it out.”
He remains quiet but he peers at the bottle once more.
“Are you calling me an alcoholic?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
“We both know you’d be dead from alcohol poisoning if you weren’t a founder.”
I huff. “If I wasn’t a founder, I’d have died long before I started drinking,” I say, looking out the window as he drives down the highway. The drugs that Dollhouse pumped into my system alone would have done me in. A person can only take so much before their body gives out.
The enhancements help our immune systems. It’s a way for those at the top to live longer. You’ll never see a powerful Lord with cancer or any type of untreatable disease.
But it also backfired on them. They say that’s how the confessional and offerings started. The ones they wanted out would live for too long, so the Lords came up with a way of getting rid of a founder whose time wasn’t up yet.
It’s supposed to keep them accountable.
It’s rigged. If they want you dead, you’re dead. They put you in a position where you’re forced to fuck up, and then they end your life.
“Eve—”
“Don’t bother,” I interrupt him, ending the conversation. He’s not wrong. I’ve been trying to drink my life away for years. Why stop now?
KASHTON
She sits in front of the unmarked headstone, and I sit behind her, resting my back against the tree trunk. She leans into me, and I wrap my arms around her waist, my chin perched on her head.
“I’m not even sure why I come here. It just feels right, ya know?”
I don’t say anything, because I don’t have anyone to visit. My mother was cremated and then tossed away. My father is buried at Carnage, but I pretend he never existed. If you ask me, he’s the one who deserves to be forgotten.
“Did Bill tell you about your mother?” I ask her. As sad as it is, she seems happiest when she’s here in the cemetery.
“A little. I was my mom’s second child. She had Evan really young and then was sentenced to be a breeder.
After Bill saved me and told me who he was to my mother, I started to dig.
I wanted to know if she had more children.
But Bill told me that after me, she had a miscarriage.
Then another one, and after that, the Lords deemed her unfit to fulfill her duties. So they killed her.”
“Do you believe him?” It makes sense. A life of a breeder ends when they are no longer useful to the Lords. So I’ve been told…
Everett sighs heavily. “I want to. I’d rather her be dead than out there somewhere being forced to breed with the Lords. The sad part is that I’m not even sure which grave is hers. If any of them is her.”
My eyes scan the unmarked graves. There are hundreds. Some have missing pieces and have been stained over time from the weather.
“She was cremated. Her body was of no use, so they destroyed it. Same for my baby. After my stay in the hospital at Carnage, Garrett placed an urn in my room. Said it was my baby that he had cremated. I was eventually dropped off at Dollhouse after Haidyn chose the other woman, and by the time Bill saved me, I couldn’t go back to Carnage, so I don’t know what happened to my baby. ”
“So why this plot? What made you choose this grave?” I ask.
“Because it’s where I’d want to be.” She glances up at the tree I’m leaning against. The same one I stood at when I found her here when I was following her.
I kiss her hair.
“When I die, burn my body and dump me here.”
“Absolutely not.” I deny her absurd request.
“Kash—”
“You will be buried at Carnage next to me. Where you belong.” No exceptions.
She turns in my arms, and I let go of her. A frown on her pretty face. “I want to be cremated.”
“You’re being buried.”
She huffs, getting to her feet. The bottle of whiskey in her hand. “You’re saying I don’t get to choose?”
“You get to choose whether you want to be buried on my right or my left,” I say, looking up at her where I remain sitting. It’s that simple.
“Unbelievable,” she hisses, giving me her back.
My eyes drop to her legs. She’s still wearing her dress and heels from the club because we didn’t have anything for her to change into.
“Even in death, you decide everything.” Tipping the bottle back, she takes a sip.
“What about your next wife?” She turns to face me once more.
“Next wife?” I can’t help but smile. “Angel, you’re going to be my one and only wife.”
She pops a hip out. “Say I die first and then you get married again. And then you die and she buries you—”
I burst out laughing, cutting her off, and her eyes narrow on me.
“What’s so funny?” she demands and her knuckles go white from tightening around the bottle.
“You. You come up with the craziest hypothetical situations that aren’t going to happen,” I answer through a smile.
“It’s a legitimate concern.” I frown, and her eyes drop to her wedding ring. “It happened to Bill.” Her eyes meet mine and I hold in a sigh. “He told me how much he loved my mother and wished he could have saved her…but now he’s on his third marriage to Janice, and he’ll be buried with her.”
“Is that why you want to be cremated?”
She shuffles from foot to foot. Taking a deep breath, her green eyes find mine. “My body is useless. It would be a waste of space. Burn what’s left of me and throw my ashes here.” Licking her lips, she adds softly, “This is where I belong.”
I look over the abandoned cemetery. I don’t think there’s anything I can say that will make her feel differently. My wife thinks very little of herself because of how she’s been used, but I’m making it my life’s mission to show her how important she is. That she is somebody.
My wife.
My world.
My everything.
I hope I go first so I don’t have to spend a life without her, but I’ll be dammed if she’s cremated and dumped here. I will make sure that her guardian knows she is to be buried at Carnage next to me.
“You belong next to me—your Lord. Your husband. And that’s where you will be laid to rest.” This is something I will not budge on. I don’t care if I die twenty years before she does, there will be instructions to make sure my wife is next to me.
“So bossy.” A smile tugs at her lips, and I don’t hide mine.
My girl likes me taking control and telling her what she’ll do.
She falls to straddle my legs, and it pushes her dress up in the process. My hands go to her thighs. “Want to know a secret?”
“Absolutely.”
“My first kiss was in this cemetery.”
My teeth grind. “Who was he?” I demand.
She smiles. “So jealous.”
If she is able to remember the fucker, he’s dead. “I mean it, Eve. Who the fuck was it?”
“Why? Going to kill him?”
“Yes.” I’m going to bury his body right here with all the other sorry bastards.
Her smile just grows, showing off her perfectly straight teeth. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I don’t want anyone out there walking around knowing what my wife’s lips feel like.”
She throws her head back, laughing. As much as I love that sound, I don’t find this funny. Reaching up, I wrap my hand around her delicate neck, cutting off her laughter. Bringing her face to mine, I glare at her.
“That’s a shame because I’m quite fond of him.” My hand tightens at her confession, and she leans forward, pressing her lips to mine, and speaks softly. “It was you.”
“Don’t lie to me, Eve.”
“I’m not. It was you. In this very spot.”
I snort. “You only let me kiss you to distract me so you could drug me.” It didn’t take me long to figure out her plan when I woke up on the ground covered in dirt.
She laughs softly. “True, but…that doesn’t change the fact that you were my first kiss.”
I frown, and she props the bottle of whiskey up against a rock on the ground before wrapping her arms around my neck. Her fingers gently play with my hair while her gaze drops to my shirt.
I can tell when her mind wanders off. “What is it, Eve?”
“I… My body was used a lot, but no one ever kissed me.” Her eyes meet mine. “Until you,” she whispers.
I let go of her neck and push her hair off her shoulder.
“I told myself to stay away. Not to let you get too close, because I knew…”
“Knew what?” I urge.
“That if I let you kiss me I’d be done for.”
“Done for?” I smirk, trying to lighten the mood. “You make it sound like falling in love with me was a horrible mistake.”
She slaps my chest playfully and rolls her eyes.
Grabbing her face, I bring her lips to mine. My fingers slide into her already tangled hair, and she moans into my mouth while her hips grind into mine.
She pulls away, panting, her heavy eyes on mine. “You know you’re the best thing to ever happen to me.”
I’m going to give this woman the life she dreams of. Whatever she wants.
She leans in to kiss me, and this time her hand falls to my belt.
I swallow her yelp when I slap her ass. Removing my belt, I pull away from her lips and push her arms behind her back. I tie them without looking, and when I’m satisfied, I wrap an arm around her waist and get up, placing her on the ground.
“Kash,” she breathes, arching her back.
I kneel over her, pushing her dress up to her neck to expose her body to me, and then undo my jeans, pulling my hard cock out.
I don’t bother removing her underwear. Instead, I just pull it to the side and slide into my wife. No foreplay.
The thought of being the first and only man to kiss her gives me an animalistic need. Of course there could be others she just doesn’t remember. But I’ll take it. It means something to her, so it means something to me.
I wish now more than ever I would have paid more attention on the Isabella. Fingering her that night made me like every other man that had used her. I should have asked questions. Forced answers.
She cries out, and I silence her with my lips. My hands slide under her head, gripping her hair and holding her in place as I slam into her soaked cunt.
“I love you.” Pulling away, I dot kisses along her jaw and neck.
“I…love you,” she gasps.
Sitting up, I wrap my hands around her delicate neck and watch her eyes grow heavy. “Such a pretty angel.”
I slow my rhythm, pulling my hips back. Her pussy tightens, trying to suck me back in. I smile down at my wife while she struggles to breathe.
Her plump lips are parted and her back arches. “Eyes on me, Eve,” I order when they grow heavy. “Don’t you dare pass out on me.”
She blinks, her lashes fanning her cheeks, and I smile when her body begins to shudder.
“That’s it.” I drop my eyes to look down to see my cock covered in cum when I slide out before slamming forward.
“Good girl.” I loosen up on her neck, and she gasps in a shaky breath while her body trembles on the ground.