Chapter 17 Willow
WILLOW
I creep inside, still not quite sure what kind of place this is. What do the brothers even do here? My mind can fill in all kinds of blanks for that, from the mundane to the terrifying, but I shove it all back, glancing around before I let my imagination run away with me.
The more I see of the space around me, the more it just looks like the place where they live. As I creep forward through the shadowy, darkened space, I pass by a kitchen with a large table and chairs in the middle, and when I hear a sound coming from a room up ahead, I move to follow it.
My heart is pounding, and it sounds so loud in my head that I’m almost sure someone else has to be able to hear it too. Like it’s giving me away before I even get to wherever the guys are. If they’re even here.
I shouldn’t be here.
I keep telling myself that over and over again in my head. I should just turn around and leave. But memories of being chased down by that strange man keep resurfacing in my mind, and fear of that overrides my fear of disturbing the brothers.
A deep grunt catches my attention, followed by a muffled voice and a rhythmic thudding noise, and I hurry down the hall toward where the sounds are coming from.
Light spills into the darkened hallway from a living room up ahead, and I’m about to step into the room when I freeze, realizing in a rush what I’m looking at.
It’s Malice.
And he’s not alone.
There’s a woman bent over the couch, her face mashed against the cushions. Her ass is cherry red from how hard Malice is pounding into her, his hips slapping against her body.
He’s fucking her hard and savagely, his face twisted into a primal expression as he drives into her body again and again. He has one hand on her back, keeping her face down and ass up, while his other hand grips her hip tightly.
They’re both completely naked, and I realize for the first time how many tattoos Malice has. He’s covered in them, not just on his arms but across his back and shoulders, and even down his legs, black ink mixed with a few splashes of color.
My breath catches, and my stomach clenches hard as I shrink back into the shadows of the hallway.
I should be disgusted and horrified, but the shock of what I’m seeing mixes with an undeniable pulse of arousal low in my belly. My feet are rooted to the floor, and I can’t look away from the sight in front of me.
It’s just… so much. Intense and violent and raw.
Clearly, Malice fucks the same way he does everything else, and now that I know that, I can never unknow it.
Oh my god, Willow. You shouldn’t be here. You have to go.
My brain finally kicks into gear as that thought flits through my head, and I blink, about to turn around and flee back down the hallway.
But before I can move, something brushes against the back of my neck. A warm gust of air almost like… breath. I stiffen, stifling a yelp as I realize I’m no longer alone in the hallway.
“You shouldn’t be creeping in here like a little mouse,” a male voice whispers from behind me, barely audible. “You might get eaten by lions.”
I recognize the voice as Victor’s, but that doesn’t give me any relief.
He’s the one I’ve interacted with the least of the three brothers, and what I remember of him isn’t comforting in any way. There’s no telling what he might do now that I’ve been caught sneaking into their home.
My chest heaves as I breathe through my nose, panic flaring. I brace myself for him to grab me and drag me down the hall, or to call out to Malice to let him know I’ve been spying on him. But he doesn’t move at all. Instead, warm breath cascades over my skin as he whispers low in my ear again.
“Do you like watching this?”
Shock ripples through me at the question, and my stomach flips over.
Licking my lips, I glance over at Malice and the woman again.
His broad back is mostly to me, so I can see his ass flex every time he drives into her.
The muscles of his biceps and forearms stand out as he holds her steady, keeping her right where he wants her.
He’s dominating her in every way possible, his large body literally conquering hers, splitting her open with each thrust.
My stomach flips over itself again, my skin prickling as I stare at the raw, primal sight in front of me.
No. I don’t like this. Do I?
I shake my head in answer to Victor’s question, not daring to open my mouth.
“That’s a lie,” he breathes. “I can see your pulse in your neck. It’s faster than normal. The average resting heart rate for a woman your age is sixty to one hundred beats per minute. Yours is at least twice that.”
I swallow hard, trying to slow my racing pulse, as if that will somehow prove Victor wrong.
But my heart keeps crashing against my ribs, thumping so hard that it almost matches the rough slapping sound of Malice fucking the woman over the couch.
He’s holding on to her with both hands now, his thick fingers tight on her hips, and I wince in sympathy, because she’s definitely going to have bruises and maybe even divots from his nails from how hard he’s digging into her flesh.
She doesn’t really seem to care, though.
She cries out when he slams into her with force, and he grunts at her to shut up.
My body reacts viscerally to the sound of his deep, guttural voice, and Victor makes a quiet noise behind me.
“You liked that too,” he whispers. “The blood is rushing through your veins, and your body is releasing hormones. Oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin. You can feel that, can’t you?”
His breath is warm against my neck, and although we’re not touching at all, I can feel his proximity.
His body heat radiates into me, leaving me feeling uncomfortably warm and making it impossible to bring down the thundering pace of my heart.
I know he’s watching everything happening in the living room just like I am, and I wonder how many times Malice has done this here, and if Victor cares.
Clearly, he cares right now.
Because he’s watching me watch his brother.
“You’re breathing harder,” Victor notes, his low voice like the whisper of a devil in my ear. “Are you wet? Your core is probably getting slick and swollen, so it could stretch around a cock. So it could take getting split open like that. Just like her.”
It’s like I can feel everything he’s saying. His words aren’t even particularly dirty, more clinical and analytical than anything else, but the way he’s describing every bit of the reaction in my body is just making me even more uncomfortably aware of how turned on I am.
God, this is so wrong.
Fear and embarrassment and arousal swirl through me, an overwhelming and confusing mixture, but I know which one is winning in the moment. I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on in my life.
My body aches, desperate for some relief, and I squeeze my legs together just enough to put some friction on my clit. A burst of pleasure shoots through me, more intense than I’ve ever felt before, and a tiny whimper falls from my lips.
It’s involuntary, slipping out before I can stop it…
But that doesn’t matter.
Malice’s head snaps up, his gaze landing on me as he turns to look toward the hallway.
Our eyes lock, and I have no idea if he’s surprised to see me or if he already knew I was standing here. But regardless, he doesn’t look away. There’s heat and fire and something wild in his dark eyes, and he holds my gaze captive as he slams into the woman beneath him over and over again.
Each thrust is more punishing than the last, and the moans the woman makes sound like they’re being punched out of her, like she can’t breathe around them.
Somehow, I can tell when Malice is about to come. His face goes tight, and his body tenses, and he buries himself deep inside the woman, gripping her hips so hard that the muscles in his forearms stand out like ropes.
With a low growl, he finishes inside her, his upper body bowing forward a little. The woman is right on his heels, screaming into the couch cushion as she writhes and jerks.
When Malice pulls out of her, she goes limp, collapsing in a heap, half of her body on the couch and the other half on the floor. If it weren’t for the way her body heaves as she sucks in air, I might have thought she died from the pleasure of it all.
Malice reaches down, and I watch him slide the condom off his dick, tying it off so he can throw it out. I can’t help the way my gaze follows the movement, and I notice that his cock is…
Holy shit. Is it tattooed?
I can’t be sure in the low light, and the moment I realize I’m staring at his barely softened erection, I wrench my gaze away from the sight to find Malice still watching me.
He doesn’t look away for a second, and his voice is low and gravelly when he says, “Get out.”
I flinch, about to turn and flee into the night, not even caring at this point that the guy who was chasing me before is still out there somewhere. But Victor shifts his weight to one side a little, cutting off my path of escape.
“I said get out.”
Malice repeats the command, glancing down at the woman this time, and I realize he’s talking to her, not me.
She looks completely wrecked, her eyes still glazed over from her orgasm as she stumbles to her feet and nearly falls over on wobbly legs. She blinks when she notices Victor and me standing in the living room doorway, and her cheeks flush with color.
She doesn’t argue with Malice’s curt order to get out, just starts quickly gathering her things and getting dressed enough to leave.
As soon as her clothes are on, she slips her feet into a pair of very high heels, glances at Malice, and then walks tentatively toward the hallway.
Unlike the way he moved to cut me off, Victor steps to one side to let her go, and she squeezes past us to dart down the corridor.
Malice doesn’t pay attention to any of it. It’s like the woman stopped existing to him once he was finished fucking her.
There’s a soft thud in the distance as the door I came through when I first got here closes behind the woman. As if the sound has jerked him out of some kind of stasis, Malice narrows his eyes at me and then strides toward the shadowy doorway where Victor and I are standing.
He’s still completely naked, and his cock bobs in front of him with each heavy footstep, wet with the remnants of his cum from the condom.
I feel like I’m being stalked by some wild, feral animal, like I’ve left the city of Detroit behind and am in a dangerous jungle somewhere.
If Victor thought my pulse was quick before, it feels almost dangerously fast now, as if my poor heart might beat so hard it simply gives out.
I want to run, but Victor is still standing behind me, keeping me boxed in as Malice approaches.
Malice doesn’t stop walking until he’s barely more than a foot away from me, and the feeling of being encased between the two brothers, trapped between their large bodies, makes my head swim.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Malice glares down at me, his eyes narrowed.
I open my mouth to answer, but I can’t. I can’t say anything, can’t find my voice. I feel lightheaded and dizzy, aroused and flustered in a way I can’t quite process.
That’s not good enough for Malice, of course. His hand comes up, and he grips my jaw, tilting my face up.
Heat still blazes in his eyes, something just as raw and primal as when he was fucking that woman. He’s so close to me that I can almost feel the tip of his cock brushing against my stomach, and it makes something low down in my body clench hard.
“Why are you here, Solnyshka?” he asks, using that same word he’s called me several times now. “How the fuck did you know where we live?”
I swallow hard, my legs shaking as I’m flooded with the absolute certainty that I should not have come here. Malice already warned me that he—and the rest of them—are not heroes. Even if the man who was following me earlier planned to hurt me, these men can’t save me.
They won’t save me.
And now Malice is pissed.
I open my mouth again, trying to force my tongue to work, but before I can say anything, another voice cuts in.
“What the fuck is going on in here?”