41. Juliet
41
JULIET
T here are two types of tequila. The kind that I grew up drinking—smooth, easy, and fuck all expensive. Then there's this kind.
"Truth."
I roll my eyes. "Pussy," I say before launching into my first question. The only reason I even agreed to this game. "Where are Nolan and Lex going?"
Gio's whiskey-brown eyes linger on my face right before he lifts the shot glass and downs a mouthful of tequila. I gape at him. "That was an easy question!"
He shakes his head and grabs the bottle to refill it. "Your turn," he says. "Truth or Dare?"
I narrow my eyes on him. "Truth."
The smirk he sends my way lets me know he's thinking the same thing I said when he chose the same answer. "What did Morpheus Calloway talk to you about at the game?"
I blink, surprised by his question. Tilting my head to the side, I contemplate my shot. Do I take it or answer? Saliva collects on the back of my tongue, the after taste of the shot I've already had reminding me how fucked I'm going to be in the morning if I have much more of this shit. With a sigh, I lower the shot and balance it on my thigh before answering him. "He was checking on me," I say. "Wanted to make sure I'm doing alright."
Gio snorts. "Try again, Prep Girl," he replies. "That's not a real answer."
I glare at him. "You didn't ask for specifics," I snap back. "Your turn. Truth or Dare?"
"Truth."
"Ugh." My fingertip finds the rim of my shot glass and I stare at the clear firewater. "Why won't you talk about where Nolan and Lex are going?" I ask, then before he can respond, my eyes shoot up to his face. "Be specific."
His square-cut jaw tenses for a brief second. I expect him to raise the glass to his lips and deny me once again. When he relaxes a moment later, I lean forward. "Because," he says, "knowing could get you into trouble you're not ready for. Besides, it's none of your business."
"Oh, but my life is yours?" I arch a brow. "That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think?"
Full, masculine lips curve upward. "Just a bit," he admits. "Now, you. Truth or dare?"
"Dare."
His eyes widen and I grin.
“What? Did you think I’d keep playing it safe?”
Gio shakes his head, but his smile doesn’t leave his face. “If anything, I’d say choosing ‘dare’ is safer than truths,” he argues. “But if you want to puss out, then...”
I scowl and flip him my happy middle finger, earning a deep, vibrating chuckle. The sound of his laughter fills the quiet room, reminding me that the two of us are alone here and I’ve already proved to myself how stupid I can get when it comes to these men.
“Take your shot, Prep Girl,” Gio says gesturing to the shot glass perched on my thigh.
My brows draw down. “What? Don’t think I’ll do the dare?” I will. No matter what it is—just to prove that I’m not a chicken shit.
Gio stares back at me, our eyes colliding. Both of us refuse to look away now that we’re locked in place. “I don’t think you’re ready for the dare I have for you.”
“Try me.”
Liquid gold and bronze swirl in the depths of his gaze. His pupils dilate and I don’t think I need to look down to know that he’s hard as a rock. What will it be? I silently challenge him. Are you going to dare me, Playboy?
Slowly, Gio sets his shot glass on the TV tray and leans across the mattress. His fingers come out and pluck the shot glass from my leg. “You want me to dare you?” he asks.
I tip my head back as he comes over me, hovering closer and closer. My heart rate kicks up a notch. “Do you need me to dare you ?”
That chuckle of his makes a second appearance and he reaches up, cupping my chin in his massive paw of a hand. I forget, sometimes, how much bigger he is than me. Maybe it’s because when he’s surrounded by Lex and Nolan, he appears smaller—shorter. The fact is, though, that Giovanni Vargas is built like the linebacker he is. Athletic. Ripped with muscle and corded with strength.
Gently nudging my head back, he stares down at me and it takes me a second to realize that he’s not gazing into my eyes but at my lips. “Open your mouth, Prep Girl,” he whispers. Instinct has me automatically pressing my lips together and one corner of his mouth twitches upward. His eyes flash to mine. “Unless you’d rather I forget about the dare.”
“Not a chance.” The moment the words pass my lips and he responds with a wide grin, I realize how easily I fell for his trap. It’s too late now though.
Gio urges my head back even more and then lifts my shot to his lips. He sucks the contents back and my brow furrows in confusion just before he tightens his hold on my jaw and dips his head. I part my lips in time for his own to do the same. Tequila flows from his mouth into mine, sliding like fire down my tongue and to the back of my mouth in one long, continuous stream. I swallow automatically and when it’s all gone, we stay there like that for a moment more. Our lips barely brushing but no kiss passing between us.
Gio sits back, his hand easing as I’m freed from his grasp. “Truth,” he says before I can ask the question.
I eye him, and I have to wonder who the real chicken shit is here. Him or me?
Over an hour later, the two of us are laid out flat on Nolan’s bed, the bottle of tequila between us. What had once been a full glass container is now precariously low and the room is spinning. I lift my hand to the ceiling, staring at my fingers as I try to count them.
An indelicate snort escapes my lips, and I drop my arm back to the bed when I get to eight. That’s funny. I didn’t think I had eight fingers on one hand. How’d I go my entire eighteen years without realizing that?
“What?” Gio asks. Even though I know he’s had just as much alcohol as I have, he doesn’t sound nearly as drunk as I feel.
A giggle bursts out and the next thing I know, Gio is sitting up and staring down at me. I clamp a hand over my mouth but more laughter spews forth.
"The hell is wrong with you?" he demands.
I can't help it. My eyes start to water and I have to pinch my nose shut to stop myself. Only that doesn't work as well as my intoxicated mind seems to think it will and a snort rockets out. Suddenly, I'm covered from head to toe by a massive, bulky body. Fingers find my wrist and peel my hand away. Gio glares down at me as tears leak from the corners of my eyes, sliding towards my hairline.
He sways in front of me, and a second—more transparent—version of Gio hovers a bit to the side. "There are two of you," I say, or at least that's what I try to say. It comes out as something more like 'thar ssss twoovve you'. How many shots had I taken?
"Jesus Christ." Gio shakes his head. "You're fucking trashed, aren't you?"
I roll my shoulders in a shrug. "Might be." I'm totally trashed because I'm not even bothered by the fact that Gio Vargas is crouched on top of me, both of his thighs encasing mine.
After a moment, my laughter and amusement finally die down, but Gio doesn't move away. Instead, he looks down at me, eyes glimmering in the shadowed room as he takes me in. One of his hands comes out and my breath catches when he cups my cheek.
"What did Morpheus want from you tonight, Juliet?" he asks.
Not 'Prep Girl' this time but my name. It's impossible to sober completely just because of one question, but some of my earlier drunken reverie slips away. I stare up at him. Should I tell him?
"We're not playing Truth or Dare anymore," I say.
That thumb of his strokes slowly up and down the side of my face, the rough calloused texture of his palm like a brand on my flesh. I want more of that touch, that heat. Ice has crept its way into my chest and formed a cave there. I've been alone for months, cold and unwanted. Afraid to even consider reaching out to someone that I should've trusted without thought. Morpheus Calloway is my dad's best friend. He's been there for every birthday, every Christmas, every major milestone in my life.
So, why can't I rely on him?
"He wants me to move in with him," I find myself saying when Gio doesn't move.
He frowns. “You don’t want that?”
What I want is … so far outside of what I can have.
I turn my cheek and his hand slides off my face. “Answer me,” he presses. “Why don’t you want to live in a nice big mansion, safe on the better side of town?”
The way he says the word ‘better’ comes out of his mouth like a sneer. I push against his chest. He doesn't take the hint. He doesn't move. Instead, Gio grabs me by the wrists and holds my hands against him until I'm forced to return his stare.
“Why does it matter so fucking much to you?”
The varying shades of brown in his eyes swirl as he looks down at me. Then he says three words that seem to change everything. “Because you matter.”
My throat closes up tight. My eyes burn. I matter? Bullshit. I want to scream at him but my muscles remain lax, unwilling to fight back against the garbage spewing from him. Fine then. If my body won’t fight, then my mouth will.
“If I mattered so much then my dad wouldn’t be a fucking criminal,” I snap. “If I mattered so much then my mom wouldn’t have skipped town. If I mattered so much then this whole goddamn town wouldn’t?—”
“Shhhh.” Gio hushes me with a quiet noise and I fall silent. I swallow against a too-tight throat, willing the tears at the back of my eyes to remain right where they are. No damn way do I want to cry in front of one of the Scorpion Kings. I’ve already allowed myself to be too vulnerable in front of them.
“What else did he want, Juliet?" Gio’s question is a quiet beseeching sound in the deadly silence that surrounds us.
I don’t owe him any answers. I don’t owe him shit, but … “Why do you want to know?” My voice comes out as a croak. I’m viscerally aware of Gio’s body pressing down into my own. My back is against the mattress and he’s draped over me so that there’s nowhere I can feel where he’s not touching me.
The room is still spinning slightly, the world slowing down to give me a chance to keep up. Gio holds my hands, pinning them over my head, stretching my body beneath him so that my breasts are shoved upward into his chest. My nipples pebble against the thin fabric of my sleep tank. I should be screaming and trying to knee him in the balls, but for some reason, my body relaxes beneath his. As if it knows that we’re not under any threat by this man.
“I already told you,” he whispers, lowering his head until they’re nothing but a hair’s breadth away from mine. “Because you matter. Because I want to know.”
I should not feel as good as I do, and yet, there’s at least one thing that makes it better—the fact that I’m not the only one affected by our position. Gio’s cock stretches against my belly, tenting the fabric of his pants. My breath releases from my chest and I slowly peel my eyes away from his to look down the strong length of his body.
Holy. Fuck. They can’t all be ripped with muscle and packing some serious dick game … can they?
When I glance back up at Gio’s face, his pupils are blown wide as fuck as he stares down at me. He doesn’t even try to shift his hips away or hide the fact that he’s hard.
“Do you really think your boys are going to be happy with this?” I mean for the words to come out as a taunt, and though they start that way, by the end of the question, I sound as breathless as I feel.
One single dark brow arches. “We didn’t grow up like you, Prep Girl,” Gio replies. “We’ve always had to share our toys.”
I freeze under him. “What?” Those words can’t mean what I think they do.
Why not? a snide voice in my head asks. It’s what you expected anyway? That they would use you, play you, and fuck around with you just to prove that they could. No one really wants the fallen princess of Silverwood. No one cares.
His whiskey eyes narrow. “I’m not going to like what’s going through that pretty little brain of yours, am I?”
I buck my hips and his eyes widen a fraction just before he settles himself more firmly on top of me, letting the weight of his hips pin me underneath him. His cock nestles against my belly button and sinks against my stomach as if it’s planning to make a home there soon. I’ve gotten it on at least somewhat with two of the Scorpion Kings and now, here I lay, ready to make the same mistake with the third and final one.
What the fuck am I doing?
Gio leans down and I tense as the brush of his jaw, covered in a stubbly beard growth scratches along my cheek just before hot breath touches my ear. “Confess, Prep Girl,” he commands against the side of my face. “We don't keep secrets from each other.”
“I’m not one of you,” I remind him, and I never will be…
“You could be.” Each breath blows hot air over my earlobe making me shiver.
“No,” I whisper back, almost afraid to break this quiet space between us. “I can’t.”
He arches back up, his eyes meeting mine in the darkness. “You could have stayed at Silverwood Prep.” The words are a statement, not a question, so I don’t bother to respond. I just lie there, feigning a relaxed pose beneath him to keep this man from realizing just how bothered I am by his nearness. “Tell me why you didn’t.”
“I couldn’t afford it,” I say.
“Morpheus Calloway would have taken you in,” he says. “He would’ve paid your tuition.”
“Morpheus Calloway isn’t my father,” I snap back. “He’s not even my uncle—not really.” Thank fuck for that.
“Blood doesn’t mean shit.” My formerly pseudo-relaxed pose tightens for a brief second before I realize he’s not taunting me. Gio’s face is dead serious. “Blood doesn’t earn you love or respect or even loyalty,” he says. “It’s just another way for people to control you. If Morpheus Calloway wanted to take care of you after you lost everything, why didn’t you let him?”
I stare back at Gio with an extra caution that I hadn’t before. His words are ones that I happen to agree with. “Because…” The word comes out soft, almost nonexistent in the tone I use that’s just below a whisper. “I can’t trust that his help doesn’t come with strings…” Or that it won’t just disappear tomorrow.
No one helps another person out of the goodness of their hearts. People’s hearts aren’t so kind. Hearts are vicious, greedy creatures and mine died a long time ago.
“Juliet.” My name on his lips sounds so odd now. I’m more used to him calling me ‘Prep Girl’ even though the nickname is an annoyance.
I squirm under his hold and his gaze. “What?”
“You can’t go through your life without trusting another person.” His tone is soft and warm.
I twist my head and stare across Nolan’s room. In the computer screen sitting on his too-small desk in the corner, I spy the reflection of us—Gio hovering over me like some hungry beast, and me, splayed out beneath him like a sacrificial lamb. That’s what I am to this town. The sacrificial lamb to their rage. They can’t get to my father, they can’t get to my mother, but they can get to me, and they will. They’ll take it all out on me if I let them.
One of Gio’s hands passes both of my wrists into a single grip and he reaches down to take my chin between his fingers. He turns me back to face him, forcing my head up until our gazes are locked. “Tell me, Juliet,” he urges. “You can trust me.”
Tears burn at the back of my eyes. No, I can’t. I really fucking can’t.
“They want me to see my dad.” Despite my thoughts, the words escape, and I can’t pull them back once they’re out.
“Who does?”
“Everyone,” I tell him. “Morpheus. Principal Long. Dad. His lawyer.”
Gio seems to take that information in. His gaze doesn’t shift away. “What do you think?”
“Why would I want to see the man that ruined my life?” That’s what no one seems to understand, I’m just as much a victim of his crimes as they are.
Gio sighs. “I hate my dad,” he admits.
My lips part. I hadn’t been expecting him to say that … not at all.
“He’s a piece of shit,” Gio continues. “He used to beat my mom when I was too young to do anything about it. He doesn’t hit her anymore though.”
“You stopped him?” I guess.
Gio jerks his chin down in a nod. “I got my ass beat, but I started to fight him every time he’d smack her around. He doesn’t do it anymore, but she still refuses to leave him. He still talks shit, calls her fat and ugly, and complains that she can’t cook and she doesn’t treat him as a woman should.” Each word from his mouth seems to make his jaw clench tighter and tighter. “She loves him even when he doesn’t deserve her devotion.”
Slowly, judging his willingness, I tug at the bonds of his hands. He releases me, but his body stays on top of mine. My hands sink down, my arms coming over his shoulders. His muscles bunch and contract beneath his t-shirt as my hands run over his back. I want to tug it up and off him, to feel his skin. Maybe if I were a bit more sober, I wouldn’t do it, but here, now, in this place, when I want something—I make it happen.
Gripping the hem of his shirt, I pull and Gio doesn’t fight me. He lets me take it off and toss it over the side of the bed. One of his hands presses into the mattress next to my head, holding himself up, while the other plays idly at the hem of my tanktop. There are dips and hollows that hide his chest in the shadows, but with how close he is, there’s no camouflaging the absolute state of him. He’s bulky and shredded with muscles.
When I touch him, he breathes harder—as if it’s taking severe concentration for him to let me. Like Nolan, Gio is the kind of man who enjoys being in control. Maybe he needs control to accommodate for everything else.
“I don’t want to be like that,” I whisper. “I can’t be a woman that lets other people shit on her because she’s too trusting.”
Gio’s one hand curls into a fist by my head and his other hand halts at my waist. “You’re not.”
“And I won’t be.” I shake my head. “It’s why I can’t let Morpheus take care of me.” It’s stupid of me to admit this much to him, but I’ve had too much tequila and I can’t seem to stop the words from coming out.
“Your dad…” Gio sucks in a breath when one of my hands falls down the ridges of his abdomen and hovers precariously close to the waistband of his jeans. His cock is still straining beneath the fabric, promising me a wild ride that I haven’t gotten yet from any of them. I’m surprised by how much I want it.
“What about my dad?” I ask the question because I don’t care much about his answer. I just want to keep him talking as I drag the pads of my fingers along the seam of his jeans.
“Whatever you decide…” His breath catches and I love the sound. “I don’t want you to regret it.”
I hook one fingertip into the loophole, popping the button free. “I don’t want to talk about my dad anymore,” I admit. “Even if I wanted to go see him”—I flick my nail over the lip of his zipper. His hips jerk and his breath explodes against my face—“I don’t have a car.”
I drag the zipper down and … my mouth goes dry. Gio goes commando. There’s no underwear to hide the thick base of his cock as it comes into view, surrounded by a patch of dark hair. He’s as thick as I expected and my eyes widen at the flash of metal. He has a pubic piercing, a little bar with dual balls on either side.
“I’ll take you!” The offer bursts from Gio’s lips and I don’t know who is more shocked by them—him or me.
“What?” My hands still and he breathes heavily through his nose as his eyes meet mine.
“Let me take you,” he practically pleads, “to see your dad.”
His cock is in sight, right there, and practically ripping at his jeans to be free and he’s offering to take me to see my dad … in prison.
I shake my head. “You are…” Strange. Insane. Absolutely confounding.
I reach into his pants and free his cock. That one piercing isn’t alone. Gio’s cock strains between us, a second flash of metal stealing nearly all of my attention—and no small amount of my sanity. Right through the head of his cock, a metal piercing slips into his slit and out through the underside of the thick, veiny shaft.
Gio’s hand shoots down, wrapping around my wrist to stop me when I go to fist him. “Say yes,” he orders.
My eyes snap back to his. “ Seriously? ”
“ Yes .” He hisses when I test a squeeze around his length. My fingers don’t even touch around the other side. What will it feel like to have him slamming this monstrosity inside my cunt?
“I’ve got my hand on your dick and you want to drive me three hours away to visit my dad in prison?” I demand.
Dark eyes of molten whiskey and earthy soil bore into me. “Say yes and I’ll let you continue.”
I roll my eyes and my fingers slacken around his length, but he doesn’t let me go. Instead, he takes my hand and wraps it carefully back around his cock, forcing me to hold him against my palm. He’s hot and hard and practically pulsing with the need to come. My thighs press together as a rush of responding wetness oozes out of my pussy, saturating my panties.
“Say yes,” he repeats, bending his head low. Right before his lips press to mine, he stops. “Say yes and I’ll let you keep going.”
“I wouldn’t get anything out of giving you a hand job.”
“You’d get to see me wild for you,” he whispers back. “You would control the pace, the strokes. You would get to see how I come, Prep Girl, and more than that, you’d get to see how I come for you .”
Gio, a man who so obviously needs to feel in control, is offering me a chance to take the reins? My brain short circuits as he drags his mouth across mine in a chaste, teasing kiss.
“Say yes…” He breathes over my lips, and I can’t help myself. I do.
“Yes, Gio.”
“Thank fuck.” He releases my hand and I palm his cock, stroking him.
The head of his cock is an angry red and purple, weeping at the slit. The metal there glimmers. When I drag my hand up the length of him and get there, I swipe a thumb over the piercing. The pad comes away wet and I meet his gaze as I release him and raise my hand to my mouth. His lips part as I suck my thumb between my own and lick the taste of salt away.
His chuckle is low and vibrating. Wicked. “I knew you’d be a vixen, Prep Girl,” he says right before he nods down to his bobbing erection pressed between us. “Take me in your hand again.”
I would roll my eyes at the commanding tone in his voice if that wasn’t exactly what I already planned on doing. I reach for him, palming the wide shaft and squeezing around him. Gio groans, the sound filling my ears as he plants both of his hands against the mattress. He pumps into my grip, his cock dragging over my belly, the piercing at the tip catching at my tanktop. It shifts upward until my stomach is bare. My lungs fill with air as I tighten my hold and he groans, the sound ricocheting into my ears.
His face tightens and he bares his teeth, the row of straight pearly whites almost appearing like fangs in the fantasy of the dark. This is so wrong and deviant and yet, I can’t stop. Not now.
Gio’s cock pulses in my hand, begging for release, and my body responds. My breasts swell and my pussy flutters with a tingling sensation. I rock into him as well, letting him feel my restlessness as it matches his own.
“Shit.” Gio’s hissed curse reaches my ears a split second before he moves. His hands grip my shirt at the collar, right above my tits, and with hardly any effort, he rips it straight down the front. Air washes over my nipples as they’re bared to him. His fists punch the mattress on either side of me once more.
“Harder,” he growls. “Stroke me harder. Make me come for you, Prep Girl.”
Focusing on the velvety skin of his cock against my palms, I grasp him tight and pump him hard. I squeeze him, my fingers rippling over his shaft as his hips continue to thrust against me. His eyes stay on my face, glittering dangerously. I swallow, my mouth dry as I keep looking from his face to his cock.
My nipples are hard little diamonds. I suspect I know where this is going. Therefore, when Gio rips himself away from my hands and takes his own cock in one too-tight fist, I’m not surprised. My belly quivers as I suck in breath after breath. I want it, I realize. The feel of his cum splashing over my skin.
He directs the head of his cock to my tits. “Hold them,” he commands.
I do, reaching up and grasping my breasts, pushing them together. I pinch my own nipples, needing the stimulation. A moan escapes me and he bares his teeth in response. Gio’s hand flies over his dick. He doesn’t even seem concerned by the metal piercing him. Each time he strokes up to the head, his knuckles practically whiten with how hard he squeezes. So obsessed with watching the way his hand moves, I hardly notice when his other hand moves up and clasps around my throat. When it does, though, that’s when he has my attention. I stare up at him as his fingers tighten around the sides of my neck but never push inward. I can breathe, but the sudden loss of blood flow makes the whole world go hazy.
I moan, undulating beneath him as he jacks off over my tits. He’s barely leashed control and hot olive flesh. He pumps his cock far more roughly than I did and within seconds, his groan of relief is filling the air. A scalding hot wash of cum shoots out and lands on my skin. He covers me, directing the streams of his orgasm all over my tits and paying special attention to my nipples. He bathes them in his release, seeming to get a sick sort of satisfaction in seeing me covered in him as his fingers contract around my throat.
My teeth sink into my lower lip as the world dances in and out of focus. My hands drag upward, moving through the liquid on my breasts. I trace my fingers through the cum there and circle my nipples. Gio curses, the sound equally as turned on despite the fact that he’s already had his release.
I feel floaty and empty-headed. The alcohol is finally doing its job. I don’t even care that there are too many shadows around us. I’m warm and tingly and for the first time in a long time, I feel safe—even if that, too, is an illusion.