Chapter 22 Malice
MALICE
I lift Willow into my arms, feeling the dampness from her clothes seeping into mine.
She feels so small and fragile tucked against me, like I could fucking snap her in half if I breathed too hard while carrying her. She curls into me, clinging to me like a lifeline, and something in my chest tightens.
She’s totally out of it, barely conscious. If she knew who I was in this moment, she wouldn’t be doing that.
And she shouldn’t be doing it either way. She shouldn’t be turning to me for comfort. That’s not the kind of shit I do.
I grit my teeth, fighting with the anger inside myself as I stride away across the lawn. The grass is wet and slippery, but I make it to my car without busting my ass or anything.
It was just a lucky coincidence that Victor heard her talking to herself in her apartment about this fucking frat party. From there, it was easy to find the place she was going to be at. And like we often do, I went to check up on her.
She wasn’t at the frat house when I arrived, and Vic managed to use the cameras in the area to track her down to the golf course.
And now look at her.
I glance down, noticing a small cut by her right eye and dark circles under both of them from being too cold. The sprinklers came on while she was passed out on the golf course, and they fucking soaked her.
What the hell happened?
The pallor of her skin makes the circles under her eyes stand out even more, and it makes fury rise inside me as I yank the car door open, depositing her inside.
Once she’s buckled in, I slide into the driver’s seat and rev the engine, heading back to her apartment.
I have to fumble in a small pocket in her skirt to find her keys, but I manage to get her up the stairs and to the door of her place.
She wakes up a little on the way, blinking blearily and glancing around as if she’s trying to figure out where she is. By the time I get us inside, she’s more fully awake.
She’s shivering hard, and her skin feels cold and clammy against mine. So I move to fix that, striding right into her bathroom, then dumping her in the shower and turning the water on. I wait for it to hit the right temperature before I aim the shower head at her.
Her body jerks a little in surprise, her arms wrapping around her midsection as she stands under the spray like a wet kitten, staring straight ahead at the tiles.
She looks like she’s in fucking shock or something, but her shivers stop after a bit, and I let her get warmed up before turning the water off.
With a soft grunt, I pluck her out of the shower and start stripping her out of her dirty, torn clothes.
The shivering starts again when she’s naked in front of me, and she tries to cover herself, turning away from me. As she does, I notice that a good chunk of her body is covered in thick scars. Burn marks, maybe, or possibly some kind of abrasion.
Her cheeks flush when she sees me looking, and I roll my eyes at her.
“Get the fuck over it,” I mutter, still fucking pissed. At her, at the world. At everything. “How’s your head?”
The delicate muscles of her throat shift as she swallows, and she reaches up to touch the back of her head, and then the cut by her eye. “Okay. It hurts, but… not as bad as before. And things aren’t spinning anymore.”
“Good.”
Snatching a threadbare towel from the rack nearby, I run it roughly up and down her body, drying her off. Again, she doesn’t fight me, which tells me she’s definitely in a bit of shock from whatever happened to her.
Once she’s mostly dry, I wrap the towel around her and wait to see if she’ll move. When she doesn’t, I curse under my breath and scoop her up again, carrying her into the bedroom and setting her on the bed.
I tug the blankets over her, and as she nestles beneath them, her shivers slow and then stop altogether. Her eyes lose some of that hazy look, and she glances at me. Now that they’re clearer, I can see something like shame and fear in her expression.
“How did you find me?” she whispers.
I don’t answer that, letting her come to her own conclusions.
“What the fuck happened?” I demand.
Willow shakes her head, drawing the covers more tightly around her.
Goddammit. She’s always so fucking stubborn, and it pisses me off. My hands curl into fists, and I glare down at her, half wanting to shake her to get some answers out.
“Fucking tell me, Willow. Why the hell did I find you passed out on a golf course in the middle of the goddamned night?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she whispers.
“And I don’t give a flying fuck what you want to talk about,” I snap. “You’re going to tell me, Solnyshka, and if I have to ask again, you’ll regret it.”
Either she actually believes my threat or she’s too tired to argue, because she closes her eyes and finally gives me what I want.
“Someone attacked me. Some guy from school wanted some ‘virgin pussy,’ and he thought I’d be happy to give it up.”
Her tone is bitter when she says it, and a tear leaks out of the corner of one of her eyes.
“Who?” I bite out from between gritted teeth. “I want a fucking name. Who hurt you?”
“Malice, just leave it alone.” She turns her head away. “It’s not that serious.”
I grip her chin between my thumb and forefinger, tilting her head back toward me as I loom over her. “You don’t think this is serious? You could’ve died of hypothermia.”
Willow’s eyes pop open, more tears swimming in their soft brown depths.
“Why does it matter?” she whispers. “The guy who did this wasn’t someone who has anything to do with Nikolai, so it’s not your problem. It’s none of your business.”
“It is my fucking business. Because you’re my business.”
That brings her up short, her mouth falling open a little in surprise. Then she shakes her head again, something raw and vulnerable in her expression.
“No, I’m not,” she says quietly. “I’m no one. I’m nobody’s business.”
I can tell she means it. That she’s used to being used and overlooked. Used to not mattering.
Something about that vulnerability in her calls to something in me.
I don’t know what it is, but it makes my jaw clench so hard that my teeth grind together. It makes the violent beast that lives inside my chest scratch against the walls of my ribcage, snarling to be let out. Reaching up, I press my fingers just beneath the cut near her eye.
“You’re wrong about that,” I murmur gruffly.
“This right here? That’s my business.” My hand moves to another small bruise on her neck, a dark pink spot that could’ve come from a finger or a thumb digging into her skin.
“This? My business.” I drag my fingers lower, to a spot on her chest just above where the towel is wrapped around her. “So is this.”
She drags in a breath, her chest rising toward my fingers, and I lower my face a little, my eyes bouncing between hers as my voice turns even harder.
“Someone hurts you? Someone touches you? That’s my fucking business.”
A quiet noise comes from Willow’s throat, her lips parting. The beast inside me roars at the sight, hungry for sex, violence, or both. She lifts her head off the pillow a little, bringing her face closer to mine, and something between us snaps.
Our lips meet, and I kiss her hard, fury and pent up desire raging inside me.
A small gasp escapes her, and I swallow it up, instinct taking over as I balance myself on one hand, letting the other roam over her body.
I drag my palm over her chest, grabbing roughly at her tits through the towel, groaning against her mouth when I feel the hard nubs of her nipples getting stiffer.
Willow moans for me, the sound soft and breathy. Her back arches, pressing her even closer, and I’m drowning in the scent of her arousal and her own natural fragrance.
It’s light and floral, edged with something sharper, darker. Her need.
It’s impossible to ignore.
Fuck, I need to know what she tastes like.
Ever since the day I stopped by to see her in her classroom, I haven’t been able to get the fucking taste of her out of my head. I need to know what it’s like when it’s not tinged with the taste of my own skin as I lick her off my fingers. It’s like a drug, and I want the purest version of it.
When I pull back with a growl, Willow gasps. Her cheeks are flushed red and her lips are kiss bruised. She looks like she’s been wrecked already, and I just got started.
Following the call of the savage instinct that urges me on, I move down her body, grabbing her ankles and pulling her down the bed until her legs are hanging over the edge, bent at the knees.
I get her right where I want her, then I yank off the towel I just wrapped her in, throwing it on the floor.
Willow gasps, and I’m glad I didn’t bother trying to wrangle her into panties before.
It makes it easier to see her pussy, pretty and pink and already starting to get wet.
She makes a motion like she’s going to try to cover herself, but I move before she can, grabbing her thighs and wrenching them open. That makes her breath catch, and I glance up at her as I kneel between her legs.
“Did he touch you here, Solnyshka?”
She bites her lip, her chest heaving as she stares at me down the line of her naked body. “No. A little. He tried, but…”
Her words are like gasoline poured on the flame of my rage, and a cascade of violent, brutal thoughts rush through my head. My voice is like sandpaper when I speak again.
“He’ll pay for that. He shouldn’t have done it. Do you want me to kiss you and make it better?”
The sound that comes from her as she registers my question goes straight to my cock, making it jerk against the tight constraints of my pants. I can see the way her pussy clenches, see the little gush of wetness that squeezes from her tight hole.
She doesn’t answer with words, but when I shift my gaze back to her face, her chin dips downward once, her bottom lip trapped tightly between her teeth. That’s enough to break the chain holding back my beast.
Keeping a firm grip on her thighs, I bury my face between her legs and start going down on her. I go slow at first, dragging my tongue along her folds from her clit down to her entrance.
But that’s not good enough.
My fingers dig into her thighs, holding her open as I start to lick her faster. The rough texture of her scars feels different beneath my fingertips, and I run my thumbs over them, wondering if she can feel it more intensely in those patches or not at all.
I hope she can feel it. I want her to feel fucking everything.
I feel like I’m starving, so fucking hungry for her. The taste of her fills my mouth, and her scent is thick in the back of my throat, but it’s still not good enough. I fucking need this. Need more.
I spear my tongue into her, lapping at her wetness. She writhes against my face, and I hold her tighter, pinning her down and making her take it.
“That’s right, Solnyshka,” I mutter, my voice muffled. “Scream for me.”
Each pass of my tongue makes her cry out, and those cries get louder and louder as I keep going, moving between fucking her with my tongue and licking at her clit.
It sates something primal inside me, having my head between her legs like this.
I haven’t fucked anyone since the night she came to our place, and it had been way longer than usual before that time too.
But I haven’t wanted anyone. All I can picture whenever I’m with a woman these days is a head of soft blonde hair, a petite face with delicate features, large eyes, and full lips.
Even her scars make her fucking gorgeous, like no one I’ve ever seen before.
“Malice,” Willow chokes out, bucking hard on the bed.
Something about hearing her say my name like that, desperate and needy, makes me feel wild. I’m almost fucking feral from the desire that beats through my body.
I go to town on her pussy, hard and fast, and it doesn’t take long before she’s shaking, a chorus of pleas falling from those soft lips.
“Oh god. Oh god, please! I’m—”
I don’t stop until she’s falling apart, her high cries reaching a crescendo that signals her orgasm.
She bucks against my tight grip, and I hold her down as she rides the wave of it, never letting up on her clit.
When she starts trying in earnest to get away from me, I finally let up, releasing my hold on her and leaning over the bed to hover above her.
My cock is aching in my pants, pressed tight against the fly, desperate to be freed. I’m dying to bury myself in that wet heat I was just eating like my last meal. I want to fuck her into the mattress until she’s begging for more.
But I don’t do it.
Instead, I grip her chin and stare down into her eyes.
“Give me the fucking name, Willow,” I say, going back to our previous discussion as if nothing interrupted us.
She looks dazed and strung out, but in a much different way than before. Her pupils are huge, and instead of being deathly pale, her cheeks are flushed now. It seems to take a second for her brain to catch up to the sudden shift of gears, and before it can, the words slip past her lips.
“Colin,” she whispers. “It was Colin DeVry.”
Colin DeVry.
Without a word, I push away from the bed and stalk toward the door, leaving Willow sprawled out on the bed.
Her taste is still on my tongue, her scent invading my senses, but I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything.
The only reason I went down on her was to break down her resistance and get her to tell me the truth.
But even as I leave her apartment, I know that’s a lie.