31. Juliet
31
JULIET
F uck. My whole body goes rigid. My breath comes in short staccato bursts. I didn’t realize it until now, but he pulled the curtain over the window shut and now it’s blocking out the moonlight. The thin yellow glow under the gap beneath the door to the hallway isn't enough to tell a man from an asshole. Wait. Both are the same, right?
I try to force myself to laugh at the silly thought, but it locks into my throat and refuses to budge. My heart gallops like a horse on steroids in my chest. A shadow dances in front of me. I scramble backward only to slam into the wall. My head bangs against it, but the pain is a distant thing that blossoms in the back of my skull. I’m too concerned with the darkness surrounding me and the monsters it hides. I can’t do this. I need the light. I need to know who’s here with me and I can’t know if I can’t see.
"Turn it back on,” I croak out. "Turn the light back—turn it ... turn it back..." Oh, fuck me. I can't breathe. More shadows creep out of the corners of the room, growing larger and larger, taking shape. I'm surrounded by them. "Turn ... turn it..." My ability to speak abandons me completely. I blink rapidly, staring at the shadows that become men as if I can will them away.
It's not real. They're not there. I'm not...
My nightmare creeps into reality. An old ghost that has haunted me for years. A familiar, handsome face smiling at me. Pretty girl … pretty, pretty girl . A shudder of revulsion works through my body and my throat turns to fire as acid rises from the pit in my stomach. He grins down at me with razor-sharp teeth and wide, hungry eyes, forcing me to acknowledge his existence.
A scream rockets out of my throat as a hand touches my shoulder. Without thought, I slam my fist into the very real man that's next to me. My knuckles connect with a jaw that feels like granite. Pain explodes in my knuckles, but I’m too out of it to care.
"Fuck!" Nolan's curse penetrates my head, but the hand— his , I recognize—doesn't go away. It only grips me harder as he begins to talk. "Jules, you're fine. You're okay. I'm not going to hurt you."
I gasp for breath, my hands shaking as I reach up and grasp at him. Skin, hot and smooth under my palms. "Turn on the light." Is that my voice? Is that pathetic, scared trembling voice mine? “Please. Fuck. I need the light.”
"Shhh." Nolan reaches around and cups the back of my skull, pulling me away from the wall until my cheek is against his shoulder. "Shhh." He hushes me, rocking back and forth in slow, soothing motions.
“Turn on the light,” I repeat even as I lean into him, holding on as a broken piece inside me wiggles free and stabs at my insides.
"I'm not going to do that.” Despite his words, his voice is gentle—more so than I ever expected from him. "I can't."
“ Why? ” My nails dig into him. Is this how he wants to torment me? Is he truly this cruel?
With my breaths puffing against his skin, I try to slow my heart rate by counting backward from ten and start over when I reach zero. Still, I don’t feel as composed as I want to be. It’s not fucking working and if I didn’t want to lose it in front of one of the goddamned Scorpion Kings all over again, I’d cry. I’d actually cry.
I don’t want to open my eyes and see if those shadows are closer, if they look like the man I killed or worse. I press my forehead into Nolan’s chest and shoulder. “Turn the light on,” I say again. His heat is a fiery thing and I can’t help but soak it into my skin, needing the warmth if only to stay sane.
His hand continues to hold me to him. When he speaks, his tone is even, unyielding. “I’m not going to turn on the light because you can’t stay afraid of the dark for the rest of your life, Jules. If I let you sleep with the light on now, then it might take you a hell of a long time to sleep without it again.”
“I can sleep without the light on, I just need…” My throat closes up.
In the studio, there was always moonlight to see. There was the light from the oven and microwave clocks and when my head got really bad, I could always leave the bathroom door cracked with the light. In here, in his arms, there is only shadow and dust and darkness.
I’m suffocating.
“No, you’re not.” It takes me a moment to realize that Nolan is responding to me. Even my thoughts are slipping out. I’ve lost all control. “I won’t let you suffocate, Jules.”
I take several deep gulps of air before I manage a response. “You don’t give a shit about me.” The words come out on a croak. “Are you sure it’s not because you don’t want to sleep with the light on?” I challenge.
His chuckle is low and raspy, the sound of a man both amused and tired. Suddenly, I feel bad about keeping him awake. He and the others didn’t have to come to my rescue. No one asked Gio to break down my door. No one asked them to get rid of the body. No one asked them to help me. It would have been easier for them to leave me be—to let Silverwood find out and turn me into a criminal too.
“Maybe it’s a little of that,” Nolan admits, distracting me from the direction of my thoughts, “but you have to know I’m right.”
I swallow around a thick, struggling throat and sag into him. “Fuck. ” It’s all I can say.
He nods against me, the feel of his hair brushing my temple when he bends a bit more making me shiver. “Yeah,” he says. “‘Fuck’ is goddamned right.”
Nolan doesn’t move for a long time, just holding me there as I get my breathing under control and my heart rate slows back to what can probably pass for normal on a screening. A yawn stretches my jaw and nearly pops it.
“Better?” he inquires as I finally push away from him. My cheeks feel too hot and I’m mortified that I just let him—fuck, I have no idea what this was, but I do know I felt vulnerable around him and I don’t think that’s such a good idea.
“I’m fine,” I say, silently praying for the words not to be a lie.
Though I can’t see him, I have the distinct impression that Nolan is surveying me in the dark like the guy has night vision or something. I scrub a hand down my face, an odd bout of self-consciousness rearing its ugly head.
“So,” I say, “are the guys coming over here or…”
“They’re going back to their own places,” Nolan says as if I didn’t just have a whole mental breakdown against his chest. “I can ask them to come over, though, and stay the night if you want.” He pauses as if hesitating and then, “Do you want them to come over? To make you feel safe?”
“I feel safe.” The words shoot out of my lips and this time, no amount of praying will make them the truth. They’re a defensive mechanism and a lie.
The sound of air and a soft whoosh and thump as I assume Nolan flops back onto the bed and his pillow tells me he isn’t fooled. “Fine,” he says. “Then sleeping shouldn’t be a problem.”
I remain sitting up, my line of sight no longer blocked by Nolan’s body. The shadows are back in the room, lingering just beyond some invisible barrier that keeps them a few feet from the bed. My eyes strain to see them for what they truly are—my imagination.
My imagination is a cruel bitch, though, because they remain.
“Tell me something,” I say, needing more of his distraction.
“Hmmm?” Nolan’s sleepy hum is the only sound in the room other than my own breathing.
“Why did you come tonight?”
He stills in the process of pulling up the sheets. Forcing my eyes down, I focus on the build of a man—a real one—next to me on a bed that feels too narrow for both of us. I have to admit, though, it’s a hell of a lot more comfortable than my futon.
“Go to sleep,” Nolan says, repeating his earlier words. “No more questions.”
“I want to know,” I insist. Patting the bed, I reach out, not stopping until I feel the hard muscle of his body. My fingers skim down and I realize that I’m much lower than I meant to be when I touch several lines in succinct procession. Ripping my hand away from his abs, I hold the offending limb to my chest and silently curse myself.
“No, you don’t, Princess.” Nolan doesn’t sound sleepy anymore. He sounds angry.
With my hand against my chest, between my breasts, I part my lips and say the one thing I know will make him talk. “He tried to rape me.”
The temperature in the room before those words were verbalized had been a comfortable, warm. As soon as they leave my mouth, however, it drops significantly. A shiver steals over my shoulders and down my spine. I lift my legs up, pulling them from beneath the sheets, and wrap my arms around my knees as I had before.
“He was going to rape me,” I clarify, “and I let him think he could so he would get close enough so I could stab him in the back.” My teeth rake over my lower lip. “Then … I pushed him off the balcony and watched him fall to his death.”
Nolan knows all of this already. I told the Scorpion Kings everything when they showed up at my apartment. It had seemed stupid to hide it when Gio had seen the results of my actions.
I squeeze my eyes shut and press my forehead into my palms. When, after several beats of silence, I finally lift my head, Nolan is sitting up. The outline of his upper body illuminated by the soft light of the moon coming in from the window.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
We are talking about it, but I know he doesn’t just mean the action itself. He wants to know if I need to unleash all of the shit that’s now in my head. I contemplate the question. Logically, I recognize that the events of the night only happened a few short hours ago, but somehow my mind has fast-forwarded me through it. Almost as if time has warped becoming both longer and too fucking short. I feel detached from the hours between then and now. All I can focus on is where I am here, with Nolan, or there, with him . It could have been a second before now or years in the past, and yet … I don’t know how my emotions can ever fade.
After a beat, I turn my cheek from one side to the other. “No,” I whisper. “I don’t think so. I just”—I squeeze my arms around my legs a bit tighter, until my chest constricts and aches—“I just think I needed to say it aloud.”
Nolan watches me, the one eye that I can see is dark, his pupil nearly swallowing the ring of cinnamon that is his iris. “How did killing him make you feel?”
Of all the questions I might have guessed he would ask, that was certainly not one. My lips part, jaw dropping. “What?”
He tilts his head to the side, examining me. “You heard me,” he says. “How did it make you feel?”
I want to snort at his question and tell him that he sounds like some sort of gangster therapist, but I don’t. Instead, I find myself thinking back to the moment the intruder had been on top of me, how his body had pressed me down into my shitty futon. The smell of him, rank and stinking of tobacco. For the last several months, I’ve felt nothing but anger, pain, abandonment, and utter loss. There’s no place for me in this new world I’m unaccustomed to, no room for someone who doesn’t belong.
All those short skirts … your tiny, little cheerleading uniform. Do you dance around like that just for me, pretty girl? I want to swat the ugly words away.
I wish I still had those meds my mom had gotten me. My nightmares … they’re not real. Just fear brought to life by anxiety. It’s easier to focus on the events of tonight. Those are undeniable.
When that man had broken in, when he’d held the knife to me and threatened me with a fate worse to many than even death … it had become so clear to me that not only do I not belong, but no one would even care if I died. No one would care if I was raped. Even if they heard me scream or beg, no one would have come—but then someone had. They had.
Knowing that no one cared if I lived or died or if something worse than either was happening to me had been the final nail in a coffin I didn’t know I was already lying in. My grave is built and I am dying. Suffocating.
Holding that knife in my hand felt like I was fighting back against fate. As if I had finally found a home. A home in which I’m not a victim. I don’t have to be one. I enjoyed making him hurt. The warmth of his blood on my fingers had created a fire inside me, and it made me whole again. It’s a bad idea to admit this to anyone, much less someone like him, to a Scorpion King.
“Powerful.” The word is a rasp on my tongue. “It felt powerful to stab him, to kill him.” To make him hurt the way he hurt me. To take back control and make it my bitch.
Nolan’s eyes are steady on mine, unwavering. I’m more than a little astonished to find no judgment in them, no condemnation. Then again, knowing who he is—a gutter rat like the rest of them no doubt used to the violence that life has to offer in the streets—perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised.
“Good,” is all he says. One simple word and I feel … accepted.
For the first time since my life fell apart, I feel like someone is looking at me and they’re not seeing what they want to. He’s not seeing Allen Donovan’s daughter, the child of a criminal. He’s seeing the real Juliet—no blood ties, no family, no past.
I sway towards him, my eyes falling from his gaze to his mouth. I wonder if his lips are as soft as they look. Before I can close that distance between us though and make what I’m sure is a stupid mistake, Nolan is already there—erasing the inches of space.
His mouth presses into mine with a readiness that both confuses and incites me. My hands arch up around his neck and I open my mouth without thought.
Kissing Nolan is delicious.
It’s nothing like making out with my ex. Nolan’s kiss is more devouring than those lame pecks and cool, boring licks. The difference is like that of a kitten and a lion. Nolan is all predator, crawling over me and pressing me back into the bed as his hands grip my hips and his body surges forth. His hard cock is against my belly, rubbing back and forth, but I’m not scared. I want more—more of his mouth and lips and touch. It doesn’t make any sense. I should be traumatized by what happened tonight—maybe I am, but I’m not scared of Nolan Pierce. I’m not scared of the way he makes me feel.
A gasp escapes me, and when my lips part, he delves inside, sliding his tongue along mine. Fire dances along the surface of my skin, turning me to ash. I am a creature of pure sensation under this indelible beast.
Nolan kisses me and I am afraid that it’s the kind of kiss I will never be able to forget.
Pressing one hand to the center of his chest, I push him back just enough to separate our mouths. Hot puffs of breath echo between us, and for the first time in a long time, the dark doesn’t feel quite as oppressive.
“What?” Nolan sounds strained, the single word he lets out is taut and hungry.
“You hate me,” I breathe. “Why are you doing this if you hate me?”
A low groan rumbles up his throat and his lower body sinks down harder against me. I can feel his erection, hot and hard, where it’s trapped between us. I don’t feel threatened by it though.
“Does that matter?” he asks.
“Doesn’t it?”
I can’t see his eyes in the dark, but I can feel the penetrating heat of his gaze on me. “Maybe I’ll hate you again in the morning, Princess,” he says, “but not tonight.”
I blink up at him, trying to see him clearly even though it’s impossible. “Why?”
Wide palms cup either side of my head, holding me in place as he leans into me and his head dips. Soft lips brush back and forth across mine. “Tonight,” he whispers, “I think you and I can just be Nolan and Juliet. We don’t need to be a Scorpion King or a Donovan.”
Does that mean that come dawn he’ll hate me again? As much as we might want to pretend all of the issues between us are gone, in the morning, they’ll be back. I’ll always be a Donovan and he’ll always be a Scorpion King.
My hands smooth further up the hard, muscled plains of his chest until I come to his shoulders. I open my mouth, letting my tongue wander out to slick across my lower lip and touching his at the same time. A low groan echoes out of him. His sight in the dark must be better than mine—or maybe it’s just that I’m trying to ignore all of the shadows of my mind and he doesn’t have that problem—because he growls like he saw the movement.
“Make your decision,” Nolan orders. “Are we doing this or not?”
I close my eyes. This is a bad idea. A very, very bad idea, but after the night I’ve had, I want to take something back. I want a reward for what I’ve gone through and fuck if I’m not ready to take it from him.
“Not all the way,” I tell him.
I have to keep something for myself. Something that is just mine. I don’t trust easily, not anymore. The last guy I fucked was a boyfriend that cheated on me with my best friend and vanished when my family fell apart.
Does it make me a little fucked in the head to think it has something to do with me? Maybe. Do I care? Not at the moment.
Nolan groans again. “You’re fucking killing me, Princess.”
His hand comes up and closes around my throat, a threat and a promise. When his lips touch mine again, they’re even more demanding than they were before, but I open for him anyway. Hot, wet kiss after hot, wet kiss merges between us. His body slowly rocks against me. I could laugh at how high school this all is, the two of us grinding on one another as we make out like teenagers.
We are teenagers, but I haven’t felt like one in months. It’s kind of nice to remind myself that this is what I am, this is what I’m meant to do. Sneak in and out of boys’ rooms. Kiss them. Pretend for just a fucking second that I’m normal.
“Stop thinking,” Nolan growls, sounding annoyed.
“I’m—” I start to defend myself, but he cuts me off by releasing my throat and sitting up. His hands touch the hem of my shirt.
“No penetration is fine,” he tells me, “but I need your tits on my chest.”
That's all the warning I get before he’s ripping the tanktop right off me and dropping it to the floor. Then he’s back and my nipples harden into little points as if seeking him out. My breasts feel heavy and swollen as Nolan reaches down and lifts one of my legs to wrap around his waist.
With an annoyed grunt, he pauses and disappears. A second later, the fabric of my sweats is yanked straight down my legs. I snap them shut, but he forces his way between them, falling back into the same position as earlier. Nolan curls my legs over his waist and lowers himself right down.
The new position pushes the head of his cock right against my core. The only thing separating us is his sweats. A moan rumbles up my chest. He rubs again and again until I have to close my eyes and arch back. “There you are, Princess,” Nolan urges. “You feel my cock against you? You like that? Yeah, you do. Fucking ride it.”
I roll my hips, tentatively at first and then with more force, pushing against him over and over again. When his hand lands on one of my breasts and squeezes, I barely notice. So caught up in the sensation of his cock head teasing my clit through the folds of his pajama bottoms, I whimper as sparks dance behind my eyelids.
He pinches my nipple and I scream as the orgasm I’d been on the cusp of reaching for fades just enough for me to lose its pleasurable edge. I open my eyes to glare at him. Somehow between our grinding and kissing, the shadows have been pushed back and it’s easier to see him. He’s grinning down at me. One hand holds my hip in place as he thrusts in methodical movements back and forth against me, mimicking the act of penetration that I won’t let him complete.
“That hurt,” I complain, and yet it had also felt good too, like electricity racing through my skin.
He tweaks my nipple again, rolling it between a thumb and forefinger, causing my back to arch. “You like it,” he counters, and damn him, but I do.
“Nolan…” The moan is a whine in my throat. I don’t recognize the sound because it’s definitely not one I ever made with Bran.
“Yeah, that’s right, Princess,” Nolan replies. “Call my name because I know it makes you wet for me.”
Wet? No. I’m not wet. I’m fucking soaked. Drenched. Dripping down my inner thighs with each pass. I’m starting to hate my demand for no penetration, but I won’t take it back.
Fingers release my nipple and delve down my stomach. My eyes flash up to meet his. I can’t see their color in the dark, but I know they’re burning just as hot as I am.
“Tit for tat,” Nolan whispers. “I get you off and you return the favor.”
I grit my teeth as his fingers slip through my folds. A hiss escapes him as if he’s been burned. “Should’ve known you’d be like fire on my fingertips,” he murmurs, as if he’s talking to himself. His head tilts down and his eyes fix squarely on where his hand rests against me. One finger rubs in circles around my clit, putting just the right amount of pressure on the bundle of nerves that makes me cry out again and arch against his touch. A gush of wetness sluices out of me. He takes the finger away and I want to claw at him to force it back. Thankfully, he’s not leaving me hanging and that finger, joined by two more, spears right into my cunt.
Nolan leans closer, breaths panting against my ear as he groans out his next words. “You’re fucking gripping my fingers like a vise,” he tells me. “Makes me wonder how tight you’ll choke my cock when I get inside of you.”
More of those sparklers appear, dancing around and around. My body is scalding hot, fireworks pooling low in my belly, getting ready to go off. I reach for the man hovering over me, my nails scrape his bicep.
“Make me come.” I don’t know where I get the courage to order him around, but I’m not going to think about it too hard. I’m too desperate for this release. There’s ecstasy waiting just over the hill I’m cresting, and I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
Nolan’s dark chuckle rumbles against my cheek, low and foreboding. As if my demand is nothing but a role he’s been given and he’s more than happy to play the part. “As you wish, Princess.”
His thumb moves up and over my clit, pressing, rubbing. His fingers withdraw and push back inside. I gasp as he nuzzles down and then latches on to one of my nipples. Lips. Teeth. Tongue. Fingers. It’s all over me. Inside me. My hips follow the movements of his hand, seeking out the pleasure that he can give me. I cry out, gyrating faster and faster and still my orgasm doesn’t come. Nails against his shoulders, scratching, scraping. Raw. Bloody. Wicked.
"Nolan!” I sob his name, begging for something I’m not entirely sure how to make happen.
“Remember,” Nolan replies as he shuffles down further on the bed. “This is an exchange. Tit for tat, Princess. You’re gonna be such a good girl after I’m done, aren’t you? You’re gonna suck my cock so fucking good. Gonna show me how an elite princess drinks my cum.”
Sweat coats my chest, beads against my temples, slides into my hair. I’m insane for thinking this was a good idea. He’s trying to kill me. Torture me in both the sweetest and worst way possible. A groan and a plea leave my lips. Both of his hands are on my hips now, dragging one of my legs further up and hooking it over a wide shoulder as Nolan settles himself lower. Shock has me looking down as I set my elbows into the mattress beneath me and sit up. Though I can’t see his face as clearly as I want to, I can feel his breath against my core.
Thumb easing one of my pussy lips to the side, Nolan blows a single stream of air over my heated flesh. “I expect to be rewarded for this, Juliet,” he states. “I want more than just praise. I want you to come all over my face and tell me how much you love my mouth on your cunt afterward.”
God, his mouth. No one would ever know it by just looking at him, but Nolan Pierce has the kind of mouth that only the filthiest of devils possess. I didn’t think I’d be into that, but I have to admit it now as my pussy gushes with liquid heat—I am.
“Come on my tongue and beg me for relief, Juliet,” Nolan demands. “Let me give it to you. Let me feel you.”
Delirious with lust, I’m ready to give him anything he fucking wants if he’ll just finish me when Nolan finally lowers his head and sucks my clit into his mouth.
I’m lost. Broken.
Being eaten out by Nolan Pierce is an out-of-body experience. Like dying and coming back from heaven—if there is such a place. His hands move again, digging into the flesh of my inner thighs as he widens me for more of his mouth. A hiss escapes from between my lips and my hands snap down, fingers sinking into the rich silk of his hair. Holding him to my pussy, I rock back and forth, relishing in the lips and tongue action he gives me. He laps me up like a hungry animal, sucking my wetness straight from the source before sliding back up and nipping at my clit. I jerk, a whole body movement that I can't stop even if I wanted to.
There's no hiding here. No fear. Just him and me and the wet trail of liquid on the inside of my thighs as Nolan devours me. Digging into his scalp, I lock my legs around his head and arch upward as pleasure spirals inside me. My head presses back into the pillows behind me as my spine practically leaves the mattress. The rolling wave of sensation waits until that moment to attack, stabbing into me with all of the violence of a murder.
I come against Nolan's face and mouth in an instant of uncontrollable surrender. Shudders wrack my body and all the while, the man between my legs doesn't let up. He pushes me higher and higher until I realize there's not just one orgasm there, but a second, a third. Fuck me, he really is trying to kill me. The scream that rips free from my throat echoes around the room and back again until it's all I can hear and still, Nolan goes down on me. Licking up my wetness, sucking it back. He shoves my legs apart, freeing himself from the clasp of my thighs. With one hand under one knee and the other mimicking the same on the opposite, Nolan pushes me back, bending my body nearly in half as his mouth latches on to my core and his tongue drives into me. Over and over again, I come against his face. Fisting the sheets beneath me doesn’t do shit for bringing me back to reality when he holds the keys to my body.
I lose track of how many times I come, but when it becomes too much and each sensation seems to compound against the other, I press a palm to his forehead and shove him back. "No more," I rasp. "I can't..." My breathing is shaky, hell, my whole body is a trembling mass.
How the fuck does he expect me to reciprocate when I can't even see straight?
A low, masculine chuckle vibrates through the room and I close my eyes at the sound.
Yeah, I bet he's real pleased with himself. To be honest, I would be too if I were him. No guy that's ever gone down on me has ever done so until I orgasmed once, much less multiple times.
I lie there, panting, sweating, trying to catch air in my raw lungs when the sensation of fabric driving up my calves makes me open my eyes again. Nolan doesn't say a word as he drags my sweats back up my legs and I lift my hips until they're in place. Then he grips my hands and tugs me, groaning and cursing, into a sitting position. With one last flick of a nipple that makes me want to call him every vile name in the book, Nolan hooks the neckline of my previously discarded tank over my head and then tugs it down into place, helping me weave my arms through the correct holes.
My mind is foggy and lax. I haven't felt this relaxed and sated in months, if ever before. I flop back onto the bed like a ragdoll.
"Thought you wanted tit for tat," I grumble even as my eyes slide shut again.
Nolan rolls me to the side, nudging me over until I'm between him and the wall as he sinks back onto the mattress and reaches for the sheets down by our feet. Pulling them up and over our legs, he answers, "Next time, Princess."
If that's a promise or a threat, sleep takes me into a different kind of darkness before I can consider it too long.