Prologue Quinn #3
“Okay, sweetie, but I’m downstairs if you want to talk.”
I nodded, and she left me alone. Hours later, I was in the den, in the dark, with only the light of the TV illuminating the room.
Ash had sent a few texts, and I’d replied.
He was with Gray and Jett hanging out at the stadium.
Probably doing the stupid shit that they did when they were bored and idle.
I knew they wouldn’t be alone — girls and guys hung off them like bad smells.
I had no fear he would cheat on me, though sometimes I wished he would.
“Why you in the dark?”
I yelped in fright as I turned to look at Gray as he closed the den door firmly behind him.
“Watching TV. Why you freaking me the fuck out?” I snapped at him as I flicked the lamp on. I watched as he dropped his body onto the couch and gasped when he turned to look at me.
“What happened?” I was on my feet, crossing the room and leaning over him, inspecting his bruised cheek and blackening eye.
“Dick pissed me off.”
“The world pisses you off,” I told him dryly.
Gray huffed out a laugh as he turned his face away from me and my probing fingers. “Can see down your top,” he muttered as he leaned over and turned the lamp off.
I felt the familiar swoosh in my tummy when he glanced at me quickly before he straightened in his seat.
“I don’t mind you looking.” The words were low and husky and scared the shit out of me that I said them out loud.
Gray’s eyes met mine. He had only ever kissed me once, before I started dating Ash, and I still remembered his lips on mine. “Don’t.” His voice was soft, almost too quiet, but I heard the plea in it.
I wished that I had been drinking so I could blame my next actions on alcohol, but I had no excuse.
My hands trembled as I pulled the sweater and T-shirt over my head, revealing my plain white bra to him.
Gray’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.
His eyes traveled down my body as I pushed my leggings down, and then I was in front of him in only my panties and bra.
With hands shaking, I reached for him as I moved closer, picking up his hand and placing it on my breast. Gray licked his lips but said nothing as his hand rested there, not even squeezing.
“Touch me,” I whispered as I lowered myself over his legs and straddled him.
“Quinn, I . . .” His words stopped when I picked up his other hand and pulled it high onto my thigh.
“Do it,” I encouraged him. His hand moved slightly, and I inhaled sharply. Slowly, his thumb made a circle on my bare leg. “I need you to touch me,” I whispered in the quiet of the room, the light from the TV casting shadows over his face.
“If I touch you, I may not stop.”
I had never heard Gray unsure about anything in his life. His eyes never left mine, and his hands didn’t stray from where I had placed them. “Then don’t stop.”
I watched as his eyes closed, and I saw him clench his jaw as he tipped his head back, and I felt the shiver that ran through his body.
When he looked at me again, his eyes were alive and wild, and my body erupted in goose bumps at the intensity of his stare.
Firm, solid hands circled my waist, and he lifted me off him and onto the couch.
Gray stood swiftly, and then he was bending over me.
“I would fuck you, Quinn. I would fuck you so hard you would never remember having another man’s dick in you, but I won’t fuck you for two reasons.”
My heart was racing so fast I was scared I was going to pass out. “What reasons?”
“You’re not mine.” He straightened, and I grabbed for my sweater to cover myself, my embarrassment suddenly washing over me.
Sobering me. Gray snatched the sweater and tossed it behind him.
“I like seeing you laid out like this before me. Isn’t this what you wanted?
” His words were cruel, mocking. “Don’t get shy now.
Why don’t you spread those legs for me so I can see what I’m passing up on? ”
“Don’t,” I whispered back his earlier plea as I stared up at him, feeling completely exposed, and his mouth twisted into a sneer.
“Break it off with Ash. It’s time to end the charade. Once and for all.” Gray strode to the door in anger.
“Gray!” I called him back, and he stilled, his head half turning as he waited. “What’s the other reason?”
I heard his grunt as he opened the door. “I don’t fucking want you.”
* * *
Quinn, age eighteen (two weeks later)
The tears spilled over as I watched Ash throw the chair across the room. His rage was real, and I felt miserable as I watched him rip his hurt out as he destroyed the classroom.
Gray was silent in the corner, watching me with narrowed eyes. He hadn’t spoken a word. Jett was torn between Ash and me. He kept looking at me, the question in his eyes, but he hadn’t asked.
“Who the fuck was it?” Ash demanded as he crossed the room and grabbed me. Jett was beside him, his hands on his to stop him from shaking me. “Get off me, I won’t fucking hurt her,” Ash growled at him. Dark blue angry eyes glared at me with hate. “Who the fuck did you let fuck you?”
I said nothing as he pushed me back, away from him. Jett grabbed my arm to stop my stumble. I flinched when Ash kicked the table and sent it crashing into a wall.
“You fucking bitch, I trusted you.”
“I know.” I wiped my eyes as he turned to look at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Ash looked at me as he gave a startled laugh. “You’re sorry?” He glanced at Gray, who remained silent. “I don’t give a shit if you’re sorry, tell me who you let fuck you.”
I said nothing, and then he was in front of me again. All the anger seemed to drain out of him. “Why?” he asked me, and I wished he had hit me rather than look so broken.
Ash’s head dropped into his hands as he yelled out his frustration at my silence. My eyes once again flicked to Gray’s, and I felt my heart rip in two as he merely watched, cold and distant.
“Please, Quinn, tell me why?” Ash asked me softly as he looked up at me, and I fought back the words that would destroy us all.
“It was either going to be me or you,” I told him instead, wiping my eyes quickly as I pulled myself up straighter. “We both know we didn’t really work; I just made the first move to end it.”
“Quinn,” Jett’s voice was quiet, but I heard his surprise at my words.
“What?” I looked them all over, one too pained to look at me, one who wasn’t sure he was hearing my words properly, and one who saw right through me. “We’re Devils. We fuck who we want, when we want. That doesn’t change just because I’m a girl.”
“You’re a bitch.”
I looked at Ash, and I inclined my head. “I didn’t think you would be this upset,” I told him as I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I turned and left the classroom, hurrying past the students who took the chance to see into the devastation of the classroom as I ran to the girls’ bathroom to get away from the stares and the whispers.
Inside, I washed my face and let out a few tears as I screamed internally at the damage I’d done.
As I wiped my face with coarse paper towels, I looked up and jumped when I saw Gray leaning against the door, his hand on the lock.
“You happy now?” I asked him angrily. “Is that what you wanted?”
Idly, he flipped the lock and advanced toward me. A large hand wrapped around my throat as he brought his lips down almost on mine.
“No.” His lips crushed mine, and I opened for him as his hands tugged at my shirt and his cold hands traveled over my skin. Gray pushed me until I was almost sitting on a sink, and then his hand was under my skirt, his fingers pushing my panties aside before sliding two inside me. “Open wider.”
I spread my legs, not caring he was so rough, not caring I had just broken his cousin’s heart, not caring he was going to fuck me in the school bathrooms. I bit his shoulder when he pushed inside me to stop my scream, and then he was slamming into me.
Angry eyes glared at me as one hand dug into my thigh and the other squeezed my throat.
My hands clutched at his shoulders as he pushed inside over and over until I was falling over the edge, and I heard his answering grunt as he emptied himself inside me.
As his breathing returned to normal, he pulled out of me and fixed his pants.
Without a word, he turned away from me, but as he stopped to check his phone, he turned back to me. “This didn’t happen.”
“Because you don’t want me?” I mocked him as he unlocked the door. His cold laughter echoed in the bathroom as the door closed behind him.
* * *
Quinn, age eighteen
The party was boring. A few months had passed since Ash and I had broken up, and I was still adjusting to life as a non-Devil.
They’d shut me out. I expected it of two of them, but Jett’s silence stung.
He told me that he wouldn’t let it interfere with our friendship, but I guess my saying I’d cheated on his cousin was a line that even Jett Santo wouldn’t cross.
The students at our rival high school didn’t care that I was no longer a Devil; they didn’t care that I had once been the queen of Cardinal Saints High School. Well, they had, until they saw that I no longer cared; maybe I never had.
One of the basketball team had sucked my neck earlier as I gave him a half-hearted hand job, and now he was drunk, and I was bored and fed up with fighting off his clumsy hands.
I couldn’t remember whose party this was, but I was on the balcony, which was accessed from their parents’ bedroom. Parents who weren’t here.
Parents were never there when they were needed.
Curling my legs under me, I stared down at the pool and at the party still going strong.
Some girls had opted to lose their bikini tops as they played and teased in the pool.
Guys were either drooling over them or were playing a drunken game of basketball.
Others were shacked up in dark corners where low moans could be heard over the noise, even from where I was.
I watched Elise and her bitch friends cross the lawn like they were something. Sluts. Ash had fucked all of them in one night, one after the other, not realizing it was a different girl, and not one of them had any self-respect to point out his mistake.
Ash had slept with almost every girl in school now to let me know he didn’t care about me. It hurt. It hurt because he was going to realize one day, he really didn’t care that way about me, and he was going to feel like shit. I knew this because I was already there.
Suddenly, I saw the three of them in the shadows, black bandanas over their faces, hoodies up.
It made me sit up and pay attention. This was a rival school; they were going to get their asses kicked if they were caught.
Like shadows, they melted into the darkness, but I knew them, I knew what they were doing.
Mayhem.
The lights went out. The music cut off. Screams and splashes came from the pool, and then I heard the whisper racing through the darkness.
Run.
I was leaning over the balcony now, looking for any telltale signs of them, but it was too dark.
I felt the wide smile, and I realized I hadn’t grinned like this in weeks.
Hearing the door to the bedroom open, I spun quickly.
He was in front of me. Tall, broad, the bandana covering his face, the hood drawn low.
He tossed something to me, and I caught it deftly.
“Let them know who was here,” Gray whispered, and then he turned and was gone again.
With a smile and lighter step, I left the bedroom, the spray can of paint in my hand. This party needed to know the Devils had been here.
I had been fooling myself. I would always be a Devil. I just needed to remind them of that. All of them.