36. Juliet
36
JULIET
L ex’s fingertips against my body dig deep, prying me away from the outside of the SUV as his mouth slants over mine. His kiss begins soft, almost reverent, but I don’t want that. I want violent. I want wrathful. I bite down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood and the groan that echoes up his throat rebounds up into the night sky. We’re surrounded by nothing but a long stretch of infrequently traveled road and trees. Out here, anything could happen. He could set me loose, tell me to run, and hunt me through these woods.
Just like my dreams…
My fury is waning, slowly being replaced by desire. I latch on to it, the tension coiling low in my belly forcing me to act in a way I never have before. I grip Lex’s shoulders and lick away the blood from his mouth. He shoves me back into the SUV’s cold, hard surface and takes my mouth in another desperate kiss.
He’s big enough to block out most of the area around us, his broad shoulders a mass of darkness that cages me in. Muscles ripple under my hands, against my chest. Lex’s hips roll into me, the hard length of his cock rubbing between us—a warning and a promise.
You hate that I see you. You hate that none of the people you trusted ever saw the real you. But I do. We do.
Damn him. Tears prick at the back of my eyes. I push them away, stuffing the ache that those words had caused in my chest so far down that I hope they disappear forever. Never to be seen again.
I kiss him back with renewed energy, as if letting him consume me will erase the hurt his words caused. There is a darkness inside me that has swallowed me whole. It eats away all of the pain and the fear until there is nothing left but bone-aching emptiness. I have become a void of morality.
In a move that speaks of his upper body strength, Lex reaches down and plucks me off the ground. He lifts me up and my legs part immediately, wrapping around his waist. One of his hands leaves my backside and slaps the door of the vehicle. My hands creep around his neck as I hang there against him, nothing but him to keep me afloat. Lex shifts his head, trying to find the perfect angle. His tongue twines around mine, stroking, teasing then withdrawing. I gasp for breath, dragging in lungfuls of air before he dives back down. He licks at my lower lip and then sets his teeth to the soft, vulnerable skin there. My chest burns, but I don’t stop kissing him. Instead, I reach out and entice him back into my mouth, curving my tongue around his and playing at the seam of his lips.
Lex drags his head away, breaking the kiss. There’s a sudden rush of wind and Lex turns and shifts the two of us to the left before he yanks the back door of the SUV wide open. My ass hits faux leather seats and I’m shoved, unceremoniously into the backseat of his car. I crawl backward, my chest heaving for more breath. Ember dark eyes are locked on me, Lex’s face shrouded in shadow as he bends his head low. For just a moment, a beam of moonlight hits him at the crest of his forehead and the image it presents sends a shiver of fear down my spine. His face appears skeletal, the shadows of his brow covering the hollows of his face, but nothing can hide the square cut of his jaw or the powerful muscles beneath his t-shirt. Fear and desire war within me, both fighting for survival.
As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, he hooks a booted foot into the floorboards of the car and leverages himself inside. The door is left hanging open and the cold night air slips over my too-hot flesh from both that and the broken window at the back of the vehicle. A window that I broke—fuck, what was I thinking?
Slowly, Lex’s eyes drift over my face and down to my t-shirt. My nipples pebble against my bra, so hard that they poke out and throb in time with the beat of my heart pulsing in my ears. His gaze stops on my tits and his jaw clenches. His shoulders rise and fall with the force of his own breaths.
My chest constricts. The air I was so readily sucking down seconds before evaporates. I can’t fucking breathe. I blink quickly, pressing against Lex when he leans over me.
No. Everything’s closing in. His body, the car, the seat at my back. I close my eyes, but that only makes the sensation worse. They shoot back open and Lex’s face swims in front of mine. His hands hold my face, keeping me in place when I start to fight against him.
“No,” he says. “It’s okay, baby. Calm down.”
Everyone can see me. Everyone is watching. They see the damage. The blood seeping from invisible wounds. My lashes flutter. They’re always there, always staring, always judging. Bile starts to crawl up my throat.
Why was I attacked? Why did someone try to rape me? Why me? Why. Me?
“ Juliet! ” Lex barks my name like a command and I blink, focusing on him. When he notices my attention, his tone gentles. “What’s my name?”
“W-what?” I stare at him, confusion pushing aside the panic.
“What is my name?” he repeats the question calmly.
“Lex.”
He nods. “Good. Remember that when I make you come so hard you forget everything else. I want to hear you screaming my name when you see God so he knows who sent you.”
He silences me with his mouth before I can utter a reply. Air whispers across my stomach as he grabs my shirt and tugs it upward. The fabric moves higher and higher, revealing first the rounded curve of my stomach and then the undersides of my breasts contained in a black bra. His tongue invades like a marching army, erasing my panic and my rationality.
When Lex reaches the front of my jeans, I manage to rise back from the depths of his kiss. Shoving against his shoulders, I rip my lips away from his. Gasping, I reach for his shirt too. Grabbing the hem, I rip it up and over his head.
Fast. We’re going so fast. Wind whips through the SUV and I shiver, pressing closer to the heat of his skin. He has tattoos just like his friends. His are a bit different though. I trace the curling limb of a snake as it moves over his shoulder and down his bicep, disappearing onto his back.
Like Nolan, Lex is built from granite. All muscle and hard sinew with olive skin stretched over it. My fingers trail further down until I stop at the waistband of his pants. There’s something written over the curve of one side. I touch it with the pad of my pointer finger, following the script to the end.
Vivere est militare.
I lift my gaze to his, noting that he’s panting as if he’s run a marathon. “What does it mean?”
His nostrils flare. Shadows dance over his features. The light coming in through the moonroof is dull and shifty. There must be clouds because one moment it reveals all of the lines of his expression—tight and hungry—and the next, we’re cast back into darkness.
“To live is to fight.” It takes me a moment to realize he’s answering my question.
“To live is to fight,” I repeat the words, contemplating how they feel on my tongue. Did he get them in memory of his parents? I wonder. Or for something else? For that matter, does he share any tattoos with the other Scorpion Kings? It’d been near pitch black when I’d been with Nolan. I hadn’t seen much of him. Only felt.
Lex returns to my jeans and unbuttons them. Backing up until he’s out of the backseat and standing on solid ground, he reaches down and rips off my sneakers before divesting me of my pants and tossing them somewhere onto the floorboards. There are so many reasons this is a bad idea. Still, I don’t utter a single protest as I lean back, sprawled out on the backseat of his SUV in the middle of nowhere, and let him touch me.
Rough hands skim up my legs, lifting them, smoothing over the surface of my calves and then my thighs. I close my eyes and drop a forearm over my face, letting the other hang at my side. He reaches for my t-shirt and lifts the fabric again, higher and higher until I’m forced to open my eyes and lift my arm away from my face for him to pull it over my head. My skin burns under his gaze as my shirt goes the same way as my pants and I’m left in nothing but my bra and underwear.
“Tell me something…” I swallow at his words, but a moment later gasp as one of his fingers smooths over the place between my legs. He presses down against the crotch of my panties, and I know he feels how wet they are. “Did you like Nolan’s mouth on you?”
I grit my teeth, not answering. If he’s going to turn this into some sort of inquisition on who’s better—him or his bestie—then maybe I should stop this right now. I shift, sitting up again only to have him yank my legs up, putting one over his shoulder. My spine slaps the seat once more.
“Did he kiss you down here?” Lex prompts. “Lick you? Did you scream when you came for him?”
The questions keep coming, but this time he doesn’t pause to even give me the illusion that he wants an answer. Lex’s head descends and he sucks at me through the fabric of my plain black underwear. The combination of heat and wetness sends my senses into overdrive. A shocked cry escapes me and I reach out with both hands, shoving them into his hair as I practically come off the seat. The sensation of pleasure is muted due to the barrier between my pussy and his lips, but the heat promises to drive me to insanity. Lex nuzzles between my legs, his mouth and jaw moving back and forth across the soaked crotch of my underwear. Then the soft glide of something to match my wetness strokes up, pressing the delicate fabric between my lower lips. His tongue.
I’m letting it happen again. I don’t know how they manage it—but every time I think I’m getting away from them, they drag me back into the gutter. Where they reign, mayhem follows.
Lex grips either side of my underwear and drags them over my thighs, lifting my legs until my calves are at the ceiling of the SUV so he can get them completely off me. A rush of air slides over the soaked flesh of my cunt. It takes all of my self-control not to moan at the sensation.
My legs are draped over Lex’s shoulders and down his upper back. His head settles between my thighs, his mouth hovering right over my core. The heat of his breath drifts softly over me, each exhalation making a wave of goosebumps rise along my flesh. A low masculine groan leaves his mouth and rumbles through the air, and my eyes slide shut at the first touch of his lips on my pussy without anything between us. Such a fucking bad idea … and yet, so incredibly hot. He drags his nose up through my folds, inhaling me right before his tongue drifts out, lapping at my wetness.
“You taste like sin.” Lex’s voice vibrates against my pussy. “My favorite sin.”
A moan finally breaks free as the revelation of his words move over my clit. I arch up into him, and a moment later, I’m rewarded by the firm stroke of his tongue—down one side of my labia and up the other. My fingers clench against his silky black hair, nails digging into his scalp as sparklers flare to life under my flesh. Higher and higher, his tongue moves and then is drawn away completely. Before I can cry out in despair, however, his lips close over the bundle of nerves at the apex of pussy and he sucks. My back bows.
“Ah!” The sparkles burst into fireworks. A girl could get used to this—having multiple men eat her out like they’re starving monsters and she’s the first meal they’ve had in decades.
With hard hands, Lex clamps my thighs against him and dives down again—rougher than before. His tongue swipes across my clit, making me shudder, and then delves deeper as he slips towards my opening. He laps at the wetness oozing out of me, the sound of his lips and tongue devouring everything in his path deviant in the otherwise quiet interior of the SUV. It’s not even cold anymore. All I can feel is the heat of his body pressed to mine.
My breaths are loud, ricocheting around the car as I gasp and pant and moan. He tightens his hold, keeping me in place when my hips jerk, and the shock of white-hot pleasure makes me want to pull away. I shouldn’t, but I like that too. All I can do is ride the tidal wave that is Alexio Medicci.
Sweat beads pop up along my skin, sliding from my temples and back into my hairline as my hips rotate and grind up into his lips, teeth, and tongue. Lex is a master at eating pussy and making me forget just how fucking dumb I am to let him between my legs. One of his thick fingers finds the opening of my cunt and presses in as he strokes his tongue back up over my clit. Back and forth, back and forth as he thrusts inside. A cry is dragged from my throat and tears burn my eyes, staining my eyelashes, and making the strands cling together.
“ Fuck .” I moan, tossing my head back and forth on the seat. The faux leather no longer sticks to me. The sweat rolling off my body has me sliding across the surface as I try to thrust into the finger entering me, mimicking the action of sex.
Lex moans and my lashes part as I glance down at the man between my legs. He backs away from my pussy, watching me with those dark eyes of his—burning embers threatening to consume every hint of gray in their depths. The rigid shape of his cock strains at the front of his jeans, a hard dangerous thing. I stare at it as my teeth sink into my lower lip.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Lex’s voice is a feral growl.
“Why not?” I challenge him. I can’t seem to help myself. I always have to defy them—thrust myself against the hardness of their existence and see if they’re as strong as they claim to be. Maybe if they’re strong enough, they can keep me from falling apart.
“Because if you keep looking at me like you want me to fuck you, then I might just do it.”
I blink. “I thought that’s where this was going,” I say.
He grins, and the sight of it makes him look positively evil. “Is that what you want, baby? Do you want me to fuck you?”
Do I? I don’t know what I want anymore, but I do know that my body is practically crawling with the need to get closer to him. To feel his strength all over me, like a lion between my thighs dependent on me to bring him pleasure—what a high that would be.
My desire is a primal thing; it’s all teeth and blood hunger. The way he smooths a hand up my outer thigh, urging my legs to close tighter around him, makes me lose my breath. Lex turns his head and kisses the inside of my leg. I almost whimper when he backs away and straightens.
“No.” I reach for him. Damn it, I was close. Now that I know what kind of pleasure these men can give me, it’s not fair that I don’t get it when I want it. If I have to put up with their pushy, asshole behavior then I should at least get something out of it.
“Shhh.” Lex hushes me with a calm tone and gently lifts me up, reseating himself in the backseat. The muscles of his arms bunch as he raises me until I’m no longer on my back and sets my ass right down on his lap. I blink.
I’m not a tiny slip of a woman. I’ve got muscle and a stomach and an ass. I’m not easy to manhandle, and yet, he’d moved me as if I weighed practically nothing. It's hot—the feeling of being completely weightless in his arms.
I look down between us. His chest is bare, but his jeans are still on. Lex’s hands move up my back and untwist the clasp of my bra. The cups sag forward and he peels the straps off, tossing the material to the side as his gaze lights on my nipples. They pucker and tighten in the cold air.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful, baby,” he murmurs, eyes locked on my chest. His hands clench and unclench on my sides. I’ve never felt so soft, so malleable as I do in his arms. He’s rigid and hard, a statue full of warmth and life.
“Touch me.” The words are out before I realize I’ve even spoken. The look in his eyes is full of so much yearning that it makes something inside me respond.
Those storm-cloud eyes of his flicker over my face before they return to my breasts. One hand moves up my side and then he’s cupping me. My head tilts back as a gasp explodes from my chest. He pumps my tit in his hand and squeezes right before his fingers grip my nipple and pinch down.
A shocking bolt of pain that quickly turns into pleasure rockets right down into my cunt. My hips roll on automatic impulse, coming down against the hard length of him straining in his jeans. A groan rumbles up from his chest. The vibrating echo moving from his body and into my own. Lex grabs my other breast, and together, he repeats the action. Squeezing both before pinching my nipples and releasing. I grind against him as lightning travels through my veins. Over and over again, I sink against his cock, the sensitive flesh of my pussy moving atop the rough fabric of his pants.
Sweat beads pop up along my spine and trail downward. I close my eyes and forget everything else. I forget where we are, who he is, who I am, and I just feel .
Grinding against Lex’s cock without taking it inside me is so vastly different from any other encounter I’ve ever had. It’s as if the two of us are on the verge of doing something so wrong, so taboo, that we’re questioning our own minds. Yet, once we start down the path, there is no stopping.
Our breaths mingle together as he leaves my breasts, my nipples sore and achy from his ministrations. His hands grip my hips and pull me down harder against him. He forces me to move faster, higher and then lower. My eyes open and I look between our bodies, where my cunt leaves a wet spot over the hard bulge in his pants. Panting, sweating, gasping, begging silently for a release that’s just out of reach, I grip his shoulders and whimper as his fingers dig into my skin. I’m going to have marks tomorrow. The smell of sex is heavy in the air, only lessened marginally by the wind that slips in through the open back window and door.
It doesn’t even occur to me that I’m out here, in the middle of nowhere, with a man I consider my enemy, naked on his lap as I grind my way to an orgasm that threatens to wreck all of the others in my past. I’m overwhelmed by him, consumed by him, and I revel in it.
“That’s it, baby,” Lex grits out through clenched teeth. “Take it. Use me to make yourself come. I want to see you fall apart.”
His eyes are on me, no longer between us, but on my face. I should be embarrassed. I should feel ashamed. I don’t. I’ve long since stopped caring what others think of me. Why should I when I’m the only one who has to be me? I’m the only one who has to live in my skin and be who I am. They don’t get to decide what I do with my body or my life. They can walk away, but I’ll always be me.
“Ride me, baby,” Lex urges. “Ride me like you want me to come inside you and fill you up.”
I’m shaking, so damn close to the edge that I can practically taste the pleasure on the other side. Something holds me back. Something is keeping me from reaching it, and the longer I try and fail to get there, the more frustrated I grow. My head throbs as I rise and fall harder over Lex’s cock.
I’ve never met another guy who would ever let a girl do this. Use him without taking his cock out and using it, but that’s exactly what he’s doing. His hand cups my ass, moving me faster as his pants collide with my body. He groans and his other hand moves between my legs, sliding through my wetness until he finds the pearl of my clit.
A scream lodges in my throat. I’m there. So close. Almost…
He slips right past my clit and I swear if I could kill him with just my thoughts alone, he’d be a pile of ash. The low chuckle that reverberates through his chest and into mine is both amused and pained. Good, I think. At least I’m not the only one in agony.
“I’ll take care of you, baby,” Lex promises. “I swore I would. I knew you’d be like this—so pretty, like fire in my hands.”
I feel like fire. Smoke and flames cascading up to the marked and imperfect ceiling of the SUV. My hips jolt as he slides a thick finger inside me. A cry of pleasure escapes my throat and I bite down on my lower lip hard enough to taste the rusty flavor of blood. His finger continues thrusting and then a second one is added. I whimper, arching against him as he stretches my opening. It’s been so long since anything felt this damn good, since I wasn’t thinking about bills or school or work or how much I hate the world. The tears lingering in my eyes and on my lashes break free, slipping down the sides of my face. I have to stop this. This is too much like what happened with Nolan. I can’t do that with both of them—not the same way. That would be like treating them as if they were the same person and they’re not. Nolan is … Lex is…
“Lex,” his name comes out hoarse. The sound only seems to drive him to move faster, harder. He holds me against his chest so that there’s hardly any room between us—just enough for him to keep fucking me with his fingers.
Stars dance in front of my vision. My insides flood with renewed wetness, the gush of liquid between my legs making the slicking sound of his fingers that much more prevalent. Denim scrapes against the inside of my thighs, yet another piece of the kaleidoscope of sensations that drives me up that final cliff.
Lex leans forward and takes my lower lip between his teeth. He soothes the split I created with his tongue, licking away the blood. That’s what does it. Not the fingers in my cunt. Not the grind of his cock against me. Not even the sore throbbing of my nipples in memory of how he’d pinched and twisted and played with them. His kiss, filthy and tasting of raw blood and pain, sends me into my orgasm. My thighs shake and quiver and I collapse against him, my body locking down as pleasure swarms me. So sharp and sudden that it makes my eyes roll back into my head and my insides clench around the fingers still thrusting into me.
I don’t know how long it takes for the orgasm to ease, but when it does, I find myself in much the same position. Sitting on Lex’s lap with my head pillowed on his shoulder as he holds the back of my head. Between my still trembling thighs, his cock is no longer hard, but there is a decidedly far wetter spot than before. Exhaustion pulls at my limbs, wrapping long tendrils around my body and forcefully dragging me closer to the dark. I can’t let it win.
Lifting my head, I gaze down at the man beneath me with a frown. He stares back at me. For a long moment, neither one of us says a word.
Then I ask the one question that no one has been able to answer yet. “Why?”
Lex shifts forward, pressing his forehead to mine. I swallow roughly, feeling as if my tongue has swollen to an impossible size. “Because,” he whispers back, nuzzling his head back and forth, “you’ve always been mine.”
My throat works but no words come out. The need to deny him, to tell him that I belong to no one is right there at the tip of my tongue. They hang there, a silent rejection that never comes and now I wonder if they ever will.