Chapter 27
EVELINA
I wake up sore as hell.
My ass. My legs. My throat. My breasts and throbbing, brutalized nipples.
And my pussy…Jesus.
I wince as sleep fades away, shifting gingerly under the covers before I finally open my eyes.
“Jeez!”
I sit bolt upright at the sight of Vaughn sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Morning,” he growls.
“You scared the crap out of me,” I breathe, tugging the covers up to my chin over my nudity.
Despite my “win” last night of us now being a we, I’ve just woken up in the guest room.
As usual.
After Vaughn fucked me on the table in the private room of the restaurant that he now apparently owns, he brought me back to his penthouse and tied me up on my knees with my hands bound behind my back.
He then proceeded to fuck my throat, come on my face, spank me until I cried, and fuck me twice with his hand around my throat, plus one more time after that with two fingers buried in my ass.
I was brutalized, punished, degraded and used, and I truly don’t think I’ve ever come more times, or harder.
Not sure what that says about me.
Just the same, after we were finally through, and panting and gasping on the floor, and after Vaughn brought me to the shower where he tenderly cleaned me off, fucked me like an animal and then cleaned me off again, it’s here that he brought me to sleep.
The guest room.
He, of course, slept in his own room.
C’est la vie.
“Morning,” he says darkly, a twinge of amusement in his tone and glinting in the corners of his eyes.
“Morning,” I mumble, blinking away sleep. Heat creeps up my neck and into my cheeks when I see him looking at me hungrily.
“What?” I smile.
“It’s amusing.”
I frown. “Amusing?”
“When you get self-conscious and try and hide yourself like this,” he growls, nodding his chin at the covers. He leans closer, letting his lips brush my ear. “As if I’m not vividly remembering all the ways I claimed every inch of you last night.”
Before I can say a thing, he grabs the duvet out of my hands, tugging it down to expose my breasts.
“Hey!” I blurt, trying to claw the covers back.
Spoiler: I don’t succeed.
My lip slips between my teeth, my face throbbing as Vaughn’s piercing gaze sweeps over me.
I shiver as his eyes trace over my skin—the bruised slopes of my breasts, my swollen, aching nipples, the fingermarks on my ribs and hips.
He tugs the covers completely away and I shift, gasping quietly when he grabs one of my legs and forces them apart, his eyes sizzling over me and my wounds.
“Stop,” I mumble shyly.
“What,” he growls.
I shiver, looking down. “I look like an assault victim, thanks to you.”
A smirk creeps over his jaw. “You bruise easily.”
“Oh, is that the problem?” I snort.
“Didn’t really seem like a problem last night when you were begging me to go harder while your cunt came all over my cock. You said—and I quote—” I gasp sharply as he leans closer and his hand pushes between my thighs to cup my bare pussy. “Fuck me like you hate me.”
My eyes bulge. “I did not—”
A broken, needy whimper tears from my throat as he drags a thick finger between my slick lips. Then he pinches my clit, and the whimper turns into a guttural moan as my hands grab his forearm tightly.
He swirls the tip of his finger over my throbbing clit before he gently pulls his hand away.
“Yeah, you did,” he murmurs in my ear.
He sits back, a smug, shit-eating grin on his face as I just stare at him.
“I have to go deal with something. But there’s coffee.”
He nods at a steaming mug on the bedside table.
“Oat milk. Three sugars,” he adds.
My brow shoots up. “How—” I stop. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. You probably stalked me or something.”
He shrugs. I groan.
“Well?” I finally sigh. “How did you know that?”
“Stalked you.”
I giggle as he hands me my coffee.
“Make yourself at home. Your clothes from last night are cleaned and over there.” He points to a hanger on the back of the bathroom door. “Stay as long as you like. Sabine is around if you need anything.”
I startle. “Sabine?”
“Yes.”
Great.
A knock at the guest room door startles me.
“Come in,” Vaughn grunts.
“Vaughn!” I hiss, yanking the covers back from him and tugging them up to my chin just as the door opens.
Sabine rolls in, her eyes filled with their usual Arctic frost as they land on me.
“Morning,” I mumble.
“Good afternoon,” she smiles venomously back at me.
“We solved the mystery, by the way,” Vaughn says, standing up.
“Mystery?”
“Her text to you the other night,” he growls. “Sabine’s phone fell out of her bag when she was on her way to the theater to come get me for that board meeting. It was handed in to campus security the next morning, but there’s a gap of a few hours when it was out of her hands.”
“We assume that’s when the man who attacked you, or someone working for him, used my phone to lure you out of the theater,” Sabine says coolly.
I don’t say anything.
Vaughn turns to me, and I can feel my face heat as he bends down.
Holy shit.
My heart pounds as he leans closer.
He's seriously going to kiss me.
Then he does.
On the top of my head.
I smile tightly as he pulls away. “Anything you need, just ask Sabine,” he murmurs. “And text me any time.”
I nod as he turns and heads for the door.
“Be nice,” he says, arching a brow at Sabine.
She grins. “I’m always nice.”
Neither of us says a word as Vaughn leaves the room. His footsteps get quieter, then I faintly hear the front door to the penthouse open and shut.
“You’re not always nice,” I say quietly. “Or ever.”
Sabine purses her lips as she lifts her shoulders. “I’m suspicious of people who try to get close to him.”
An incoming text notification chirps through the room. She reaches into the bag hanging off the side of her wheelchair and pulls out her phone.
My face is stony as I glare at it, remembering the text telling me to go back to the city and the terror of the man chasing me later.
“Oh, just fucking ask me.”
My eyes snap up. She's looking right at me. “Ask you…what?”
“I can see it all over your face,” she sighs. “You want to know if I was behind what happened or almost happened to you. So—ask.”
My eyes narrow. “Did you send that text and then make up a story about losing your phone? It’s crossed my mind,” I say coldly.
“I really did lose it,” she shrugs. “A student found it and turned it in. There’s even a Knightsblood campus security report about it if you still don’t believe me.” She laughs lightly. “Putain, you must really think I hate you to believe I’d try to get you killed.”
“Gee,” I mutter back. “I wonder why I’d think that, with your welcoming personality and all.”
She rolls her eyes. “Would you like some honesty?”
I snort. “Oh, I’m sorry, have you been holding back thus far?”
“Oh, I’ve been holding back plenty,” she snaps.
“Here, I’ll give you the full version.” Her eyes narrow.
“I don’t like you. I don’t like that you’re bratva.
I don’t like that you’re involving Vaughn in whatever this bullshit family drama you and your brother have regarding your father.
And I really don’t like that Vaughn loses his fucking focus when you’re around. ”
I stare at her open-mouthed as she levels a cold glare at me.
“You don’t belong in the Syndicate or anywhere near him. There. Happy now?”
My lips press together. “I have a question.”
“Fire away,” she says in a clipped tone.
“Are you worried about Vaughn? Or worried that it’s me sitting here in his bed without any clothes on and his fingerprints all over my skin, and not you.”
The smirk drops from her face as she glares coldly at me. I draw in a slow breath, trying to channel every ounce of Milena’s no-bullshit queen energy as I stare Sabine down.
“Interesting question,” she finally says quietly. “But, just for the record?” She smiles. “Last I checked, Vaughn’s bed is down the hall.”
My heart tightens.
“Anyway, enjoy the guest room,” she says. “If you need anything, go fuck yourself.”
She wheels her chair around and starts to head for the doorway, but then stops. Her shoulders tighten, and when she glances back at me her expression is hard and cold.
“There’s more to him than you realize,” she mutters. “But once you do, it’ll be too late.”