Chapter 1
JULIET
Present Day…
It’s funny how just one thing can change the entire course of your life.
Thirteen years ago, I’d said something to the right person—someone who listened for a change and stopped ignoring the truth in front of them—and Lex’s life had been forever altered.
It’s hard to understand the domino effect that followed that one moment.
Cause and effect. Actions, reactions, and consequences. It feels like nothing should have that kind of power—certainly not the death of one person.
But it does—people do.
Without people, there wouldn’t be society. Without monsters, there would be no heroes. And without death, there wouldn’t be life.
Irony, thy name is fate.
As I ride back to Silverwood in the back of a van owned by none of the Scorpion Kings with one of my hands clutched in Lex’s and the other in Gio’s as the fourth and final member of our fucked-up group sits in the front next to Viks, I contemplate the scene we’d left behind.
The open bloodied wound of Morpheus’ chest and the knife jutting straight out of it.
The lacerations. The blood. The… relief that swells up within me.
These last few weeks notwithstanding, I’d spent years terrified of one man. Years of repressing the memories and the nightmares. It’s over now, but it doesn’t feel over. It can’t be that easy.
My mind can’t seem to wrap itself around the fact that he’s dead. Morpheus is gone and he can’t come back from the grave to hurt me.
“Jules?” I nearly jump at the sound of Gio’s whisper next to my ear.
Turning my head in his direction as his fingers squeeze around my own, I don’t pull away from him as Gio leans closer and nuzzles the side of my face. “Are you okay?” he asks, keeping his voice in that low tone.
My eyes cut to where Viks is driving at the front of the van.
Almost as if the man senses me, his gaze flicks up into the rearview, meeting mine for a brief second.
I don’t pull away from the depths that stare back at me.
When, after a beat, he returns his attention to the road, I don’t feel as if I’ve won any great battle, but I am tired.
Exhaustion burrows into my bones and I sag into the men on either side of me.
I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I left them.
Tonight will be different. Tonight, I’ll go to sleep in their arms and wake up still there. Tonight, I’ll close my eyes to the knowledge that Morpheus Calloway—my father’s best friend and the man that assaulted a vulnerable teenage girl—is gone forever.
“Jules…” Despite my lack of an answer, when my muscles relax, Gio cups a hand around my neck. He gently nudges my face in his direction and when I follow the silent request, his lips find mine.
The kiss is sweet, tasting of mint and liquor.
I part my lips and let him take it further as his tongue slips past and against my own.
My breasts ache and my nipples pebble inside the dress I’m still wearing.
My thighs press together only to be urged apart a moment later as Lex releases my hand and instead lets his fingers curl around one knee, pulling it open.
A gasp escapes me as my eyes fly open and I whip my head in Lex’s direction, but Gio doesn’t let me say a word.
His fingers hold my chin and direct me right back to him as his other hand grips my second knee and keeps it pinned—my legs forced open as Lex’s other hand moves, sliding my skirt up.
Fabric brushes across the tops of my thighs as Lex’s thick fingers shift between them, delving into my panties to find the core beyond soft, hot, and wet.
I’m viscerally aware that we’re not alone.
The kiss that Gio uses to steal away any protests isn’t nearly enough to drive back the anxiety of Viks being there.
In front, Nolan shifts in the passenger seat and glances back.
He has to know what they’re doing to me, but he doesn’t say anything and instead, turns back around to strike up a conversation with our driver.
It’s dark in the interior of the van and we’re all the way in the back with the middle row between us, thanks to the suitcases and other supplies that take up half of the middle row that had forced the issue.
I’m grateful now that I hadn’t been willing to wait for them to move everything and had insisted that I’d be fine in the back.
More grateful that both Gio and Lex had easily followed me to hold my hands.
Though, now I have to wonder if that hadn’t been because they’d been planning to do this.
The quiet words between Nolan and Viks fill the space, but I can’t hear exactly what they’re saying over the dull thudding of my heartbeat racing in my ears.
Lex pulls the crotch of my panties to the side and slides two thick fingers beneath.
A low, masculine groan echoes against the side of my throat as he turns and presses a kiss to the back of my neck which is all he can reach since Gio has my face held in stasis for his continued kiss.
I bite down on the urge to repeat the sound myself.
“Fuck.” Lex’s low hiss almost makes me come—that, combined with his fingers spearing into my soaked insides and scissoring apart to stretch my walls drive me so close to the edge that I have to rip my mouth from Gio’s just to be able to breathe.
In response, Gio releases a slow whimper that fogs into my head with a heady sense of power.
“Is she wet?” Gio whispers his question to Lex and in the next instant, the radio up front turns on.
Thank you, Nolan. Because if he knows what we’re doing then he knows neither Gio nor Lex have any plans of stopping. They don’t give a shit who else is around us and I have no energy to keep them from taking things too far. I’ve missed them too much.
“She’s fucking soaked,” Lex all but groans into my neck as he fucks me with his fingers. In and out, he thrusts his hand between my legs with hard, sure strokes. The muscles in my belly quiver and contract and my thighs tighten only to be yanked wider by both of them. Assholes.
“Is that right?” Gio kisses my cheek, hot breath fanning the side of my face. “Is your pussy drooling all over Lex’s fingers, Prep Girl?”
“Playboy, I swear to fucking God, if you don’t—” My threat is cut off as a chuckling Lex withdraws his hand from between my legs and slides his juice-coated fingers up to my lips.
He pushes them into my mouth and drags them across my tongue, forcing me to taste myself before turning my head in his direction.
The hard, jolting kiss that he presses to my mouth is sharp and too short. “Turn towards me, baby.” He utters the command in a quiet plea and I’m helpless to resist him.
Gio assists him as the two of them reach down to unbuckle my middle seat belt and turn me so that my back is pressed into Gio’s chest and one of my legs is tucked around Lex’s back. The two of them never put on their fucking seat belts.
They definitely fucking planned this, I think, as Lex slides his massive body down and back as much as he can, practically folding me in half as he shoves both of my legs over his shoulders.
My dress is pushed up farther and nudged off my hips until the fabric pools above my belly button.
Harsh breaths leave my lips as my insides tighten in anticipation.
The need coiled inside of my skin along with the knowledge that we’re not alone has awareness prickling along every nerve ending. I never considered myself as an exhibitionist, but these men bring out another side of me. I don’t hate it… just like I don’t hate them. Perhaps, I never did.
“You have to be quiet, Prep Girl,” Gio warns me as he reaches down and shoves the straps of my gown over my shoulders and down. I struggle for a moment, needing my arms to be free and unbound if we’re going to do this.
As if he knows that keeping me pinned in place is the exact opposite of what I need right now, he helps me and when my hands are free and sunk into his hair, he shoves the front of my dress down beneath my tits and cups them in both hands.
He squeezes roughly, eliciting a sharp inhalation at the same moment that Lex pulls my panties to the side again and dips his head, licking a path straight up my core.
A cry erupts from my throat and is quickly muffled by Gio’s mouth on mine.
Lex devours me like a starving man, lips and tongue moving in a symphony of pleasure as he sucks my clit into his mouth and laves it with his tongue.
Juices slide down the crack of my ass as he eats at me and Gio pinches my nipples.
The sharp addition of pain slices into me, but doesn’t detract from Lex’s ministrations between my legs.
Unwilling to let myself just lie back and take it, I bite at Gio’s lips, taking his lower one between my teeth and stretching it until he has to swallow back a groan that vibrates within his chest. I can feel the hard swell of his cock beneath me and my mouth waters with the desire to take it between my lips, to suck and lick the salty taste of him around the piercings that decorate his dick.
“Bad, bad Prep Girl,” Gio says, panting as he scolds me lightly when I’ve released his lip. The smile that spreads across my face makes my cheeks ache.
Lex adds a finger back into my core and I jerk, blinking as my thighs contract around his head.
Gio rolls one nipple between a thumb and forefinger and I close my eyes, needing to distance myself from both the sight and feel of them—in me, all around me—or else I’ll come too soon.
Hissing out a breath as Lex withdraws his hand and then two fingers are thrusting back into me.
My hips jolt upward only to be shoved back down as he pins me to the bench seat and dives into my pussy.
“Look at that, Jules,” Gio whispers. “You’ve got him so addicted to that pretty, juicy pussy of yours that he’s drowning in it. Are you giving him enough, sweetheart? Do we need to make you wetter to satiate his desire?”
I honestly don’t think it’s physically possible for them to make me wetter than I already am, but I don’t say as much. Gio and Lex, I suspect, would take that denial as a challenge and I’m almost afraid of throwing that gauntlet down.
So, instead, I relax back against him and bite back moan after moan as Lex fucks me with his hand and licks at my clit until it’s pulsing to the beat of my need.
Panting and sweating, I sink my nails into Gio’s forearms, needing something to ground me to the moment as black and white dots dance across my vision.
A whimper slides up my throat and I reach up, gripping the back of Gio’s neck, and yank him down as I crest the hill of my first orgasm.
His lips collide with mine, stifling the sound of amusement he makes.
I’m too lost to the sensations to give a fuck at the moment.
I take his mouth, shoving my tongue against his, and share the taste of my own cunt still lingering on my tongue.
There’s no mistaking Gio’s low groan. Viks has to hear it and so, too, does Nolan.
Their voices, however, don’t even hesitate, the conversation Nolan had begun at the start of this still going strong even as the music from the radio tries to mask all of the other noises we’re making. I rock my hips against Lex’s face, drawing out the orgasm with sharp jerks and whimpers.
Lex’s fingers slowly pull out of my channel and move down. My lips part on a shocked gasp and Gio dives in, sliding his tongue over mine as he reaches up and cups my breasts again, squeezing them hard as one of the soaked digits from Lex’s hand penetrates my ass.
The orgasm ratchets up higher, sending me into the stratosphere.
The sounds that erupt from me are base and animalistic.
I cry and gasp and moan and Gio steals it all away.
I can’t even bother to give a shit that we’re likely making things very uncomfortable for the men in the front seats.
Lex’s finger in my ass curls and stars explode behind my eyelids.
Several seconds later, as the orgasm finally wanes, I blink my eyes open as Lex gently moves back and his wandering digit retreats from my dark hole.
He takes my skirts and rearranges them into some semblance of coverage.
Gio nudges my arms down and helps to slide the straps back into place, lifting the front of the dress to cover my still heaving breasts.
Unable to do much in the way of help, I let the two of them fix me up and position me until I’m seated up once more, pressed between the two of them.
Lex reaches over into the middle seat and a moment later, the sound of a bottle cracking open has me curiously peering over to see what he’s doing.
Hand sanitizer. Heat blossoms in my cheeks and I sit back quickly, much to Gio’s amusement.
The chuckle that rumbles against my ear is both soothing and annoying. I jab him in the side, but all that accomplishes is making his chuckle more audible.
“Prep Girl, you can’t blame—”
“Shut. Up,” I hiss, cutting him off. I shoot a quick look up front, but Viks already heard and if the single raised brow aimed my way in the rearview mirror is anything to go by, he knows exactly what we just did in the back of his car. Fuck me.
I sink farther into the seat as Gio swings one arm around my shoulders and shifts me closer, half in his lap as the van veers onto the main highway that’ll take us the rest of the way home. Lex finishes cleaning his hands and sits back, reaching for my hand and taking my fingers once more.
With no other option, I simply try to push the thought that Viks heard two of my boyfriends make me come so hard that I nearly passed out to the back of my mind.
To my surprise, it’s not that hard. Maybe it was the orgasm or maybe it’s feeling safe for the first time in weeks, but as the repetitive thump and roll of tires over pavement become the primary sound aside from the soft radio tunes, I find myself sinking deeper and deeper into Gio’s side as my hand grows increasingly limp in Lex’s.
Exhaustion overwhelms me and darkness creeps in. Lex bends and presses a kiss to my temple. “Go to sleep, baby,” he whispers. “We’ve got you and we’ll still be here when you wake.”
Those must be the magic words, because no sooner has the last syllable left his lips than I’m shutting my eyes and letting myself disappear into the comforting oblivion of sleep.