Chapter 23 #2
“Make me,” I chuckle, before taking another drag.
As I’m about to blow the smoke in his face again, he lunges forward, shoving at my chest hard enough to send me reeling. It happens fast. If I hadn’t caught the edge of the nearby dumpster, I’d be on the ground.
I don’t let the surprise show on my face. Even in his state, that could give him just enough confidence to start fighting back. While I don’t mind my pets putting up a fight, I don’t know how much time we have out here alone.
“That all you got?” I chuckle as I amble back to him, tugging my clothes straight.
Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm starts wailing. Inside the bar, the bass thumps on, oblivious to the tension coiling tighter and tighter in this grimy alley.
I come right up to him, crowding against him. He flattens himself against the wall, but doesn’t sidle free. “Take a shot, boy. Only free one you’ll ever get.”
He tenses like he’s considering taking me up on my offer. Even pushes up the sleeves of his hoodie to bare his forearms…but then slumps back against the wall.
Defeated, before he threw the first punch.
I reach up slowly, giving him plenty of time to stop me.
He doesn’t.
“You know what I think, boy?”
My fingers grip his jaw, and I force his head back until he’s staring down his nose at me. “I think you’re out here because you can’t look at Haven without thinking about me…and we both know how you feel about me, don’t we?”
His nostrils flare, but he still doesn’t fight me. Doesn’t even argue.
The easy answer is that he’s switched to a familiar trauma response. Freezing, until the enemy grows bored and abandons its broken toy.
But then I notice the marks on his throat I thought were just shadows aren’t.
He shudders when I drag the edge of his hoodie away to let the light fall on his neck, revealing a set of faint bruises.
Haven did that.
My sweet girl fought her bully…and won.
Weed, two beers, and a couple lines of pink cocaine can’t possibly account for the feeling flooding me.
I’ve never found a drug that could induce such intense rapture. It usually only comes after a moment of clarity, when I’ve come to the realization that someone should cease to exist—for my good, or theirs.
I run my thumb down the column of Kai’s throat, suppressing a shiver when his Adam’s apple bobs with a swallow.
“My, my,” I murmur, sliding my fingers along the marks until I’m mimicking where Haven’s hand must have been. “Looks like she put up quite a fight again.” I lean in, putting my mouth near his ear. “Was her tight, wet little cunt worth the effort, my pet?”
His only answer is a trembling breath that paints warmth against the side of my neck.
“I know what it feels like to fuck someone who hates you.”
“She doesn’t hate—“ He breaks off with a strangled sound when I tighten my grip around his throat.
“Oh, but she did, boy. For a moment, when her hands were here—” I flex my fingers until Kai’s breath catches with an audible rattle “—it wasn’t your face she saw. It was someone else’s. And trust me, she hates them.”
“You’re fucked in the head,” he mumbles.
“Am I?” My thumb finds his pulse point. “Then why aren’t you pushing me away?”
His breath catches. A tiny hitch that he tries to cover with a scoff—but I feel it.
“I’m too fucking drunk for your bullshit,” he mutters.
I lean in. Let my lips brush the shell of his ear. “So why are you still here? Go home, back to your supposed girlfriend.”
“She doesn’t want—“ He pauses for a swallow. “We had a fight.”
“Oh, I know.” My tongue darts out, tracing the outline of his ear.
He makes a sound. Low. Wounded.
“She texted me.” I let my breath ghost down his neck. Feel the goosebumps rise in its wake. “Told me I was right about everything. Do you know what that means, Kai?”
His hands find my hips, gripping the fabric of my hoodie like it’s the only thing keeping him upright.
Maybe it is.
“It means that she’s done waiting for you to grow up. It means she’s ready to accept that you’ll never be enough for her.”
“Fuck you,” he breathes. But there’s no venom in it. Just…surrender.
I pull back just far enough to see his face. His eyes are glassy, unfocused. The weed and alcohol have finally stripped away his defenses, leaving him vulnerable.
The perfect prey.
“This is what you want, isn’t it?” I drag my thumb across his lower lip. Feel it tremble. “Someone to tell you what to do. Someone to take away all those messy choices you keep fucking up. Someone to—”
“Shut up.”
“—own you.”
His breath shudders out.
In.
Out again.
He releases one hand, sliding his fist up my chest. I can’t tell if he’s going to grab my throat or punch me, but the storm raging in his eyes says either is a possibility.
What I don’t expect is for him to fist my hair.
To drag my head back.
To hold me steady in a painful grip as he crushes his mouth against mine.
He kisses me with the ferocity of a man sentenced to death, and I’m his last meal. I try to pin him against the wall, but he’s using every ounce of his considerable strength against me.
Instead of me pinning him, he uses the grip on my hair to swing me around, and then he’s the one pushing me against the rough bricks.
I huff out a frustrated breath, gripping his throat harder, but with every tense of his neck, I feel the thick, corded muscles under my fingers simply…resist.
When I try to break off the kiss to say something condescending, mean, spiteful, he chases me down. His lips attack mine, his tongue forcing its way between my teeth despite how I try to keep him out.
It’s brutish. Clumsy.
But his savagery does something unexpected.
It rouses Bad Wolf from slumber.
“Good boy,” it growls.
I don’t know if it’s speaking to me or Kai.
Either way, I don’t like it.
I try to push him away. As punishment, Kai grinds his hips against mine. The fact that he’s hard despite all the weed and booze is remarkable. That my own cock is already half-mast is utterly shocking.
I despise being dominated.
Better men than Kai have tried in the past, and it didn’t end well for them. The lucky ones limped away. The unlucky ones…well, they never got up again, in every sense of the word.
So why the fuck am I letting him do this? True, he’s stronger than me. The alcohol has lent him strength above and beyond whatever he curated in the campus gym. But I have many ways to incapacitate someone in an attack.
Except…I’m choosing not to.
I’m letting him do this.
Because there’s a part of me that’s fucking enjoying it.
Instead of pushing him away again—trying to, at least—my hand delves under his hoodie and shirt. I rake my nails over his back, sinking deep into the muscles that ripple under my fingertips.
We’re both panting into the kiss, breathless from the intensity.
My lips are already as swollen as my cock.
And that’s before Kai grabs the front of my jeans and squeezes me hard enough to make me whimper against his mouth.
“You’re being such a good—“ I begin, but Kai bites down on my lower lip so hard I cut off with a hiss.
“Shut the fuck up, Rooke.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
I shove my hand into his sweats, palming his warm, hard cock in a fierce grip. He pauses for a groan, and then he’s kissing me again, his tongue filling my mouth before I can try to defend myself.
Someone’s growling, and I don’t know if it’s in my head, or if I’m the one making the noise.
I don’t care.
Because Kai is unzipping my jeans, and the anticipation of him manhandling my cock like he so obviously plans to do has me leaking precum on my fucking underwear.
The boy doesn’t disappoint.
Kai roughly drags my cock out, causing me to hiss when the zipper teeth scrape against my sensitive skin.
His hand trembles on my exposed cock, fingers wrapping hesitantly, almost reluctantly, around my shaft. But as soon as he has a solid grip, he starts fisting my cock with fast, urgent pumps bordering on torture.
I turn my head, dragging in a ragged breath. “Slow down—”
He finds my mouth and silences me again with another vicious kiss.
My fingers wrap around his wrist, digging in as I try to slow his aggressive movements.
With my free hand, I tug his sweats lower, freeing him fully. His cock springs out, hot and heavy against mine. But it’s only when I force our shafts side by side that Kai stutters to a halt.
He tips his head forward, panting over my lips like I’ve just pulled him out of the ocean.
I peel his fingers off my hard cock, guiding them around both our shafts, and wrap my hand over his.
Then, moving slowly and deliberately, I start bucking into our shared grip.
The sensation is electric.
Our shafts glide against each other, skin slick with his precum and mine.
He exhales sharply, a shiver rippling through him as he rocks experimentally into our hands. Tentative at first, yet even that unsteady friction sparks like a live wire inside me.
With a low groan, he starts circling his hips deeper. His body crowds against mine, pressing us flush in a sensual drag that has me biting back a whimper.
He leans back his head, his throat inches from my lips—too bruised, too beautiful to resist. I trace those dark smudges with my lips, tasting salt on his skin, scenting something sweet.
He’s moving faster now, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts against the side of my neck when he dips his head low. I can feel him shaking against me. Can feel myself trembling, too.
And as our cocks grow warmer against each other, more precum coating our fingers and shafts, I press my face into the side of his neck to hunt out more of that sweet smell.
I recognize it.
Recognize her.
Haven.
Always Haven.
They fucked before he came here. Judging from the marks she left on him, violently. His cock is probably covered with her pussy’s scent…and her cum.
It’s not just me and Kai in this alley.
She’s here too.
As if he’s reading my fucking mind, Kai speaks in a low, angry rasp. “You can’t have her. She’s mine.”
I’m struck mute again.
And Christ, it pisses me off.