Chapter 12 Mason
MASON
Eva falls asleep with my fingers still inside her.
Her head rests on my chest, while her earthy scent mixes with mine and clings to my lungs.
What is with the princess?
Elegance and conquest wrapped in temptation. Fucking until I exhaust and coerce myself to a release, I know. This? The fuck is this?
Grinding herself on my cock, like a goddess of seduction, she wrenched the strongest orgasm from me. I wasn’t even inside her. Those neon-blue eyes—submission fused with defiance—could bend a fucking mountain. I’m no mountain.
Deep in sleep, she lets out a soft moan, her pussy clenching around me.
“Fuck.” I yank my fingers out, leaving her tight virgin cunt dripping with my cum.
Not fucking her tonight is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Yet here she lies, her small warm body draped around mine, unraveled, exposed, like a stripped vine coiled around a weak bark of restraint.
For a few moments, I sit on her bed, watching her, taking in her beautiful, flushed face; full breasts, the obscene innocence of that pink silk clinging to her waist.
I didn’t plan to touch her tonight. Didn’t think twice when I did.
Somewhere between watching her lips curl around that careful lie and imagining what it would take to make her confess, I snapped.
Then it was just instinct. Jealous, territorial, reckless instinct.
I had to claim her before anyone else laid their hands on her, before she forgot what my touch feels like and came to her senses.
Sick?
Yes.
Twisted?
Definitely.
And I have zero fucks to give.
My fingers graze her soft skin, pulling up the strap to her shoulder and tugging her short nightdress down, as far as it will go.
Then I roll her on the mattress, lay her head on the pillow, and cover her with the duvet.
Not that it helps. She could have the mattress on top of her and I’d still want to fuck her.
Even as I slide away and put on my boxers and jeans, my cock twitches, demanding to be inside her. Not caring that I just broke every rule to mark her.
Since the day I laid eyes on her at The Vault, it’s been one endless clusterfuck.
My first mistake was breaking into her bedroom last night.
The plan was simple: search her room, her devices, her life—one I could hold in the palm of my hand and unravel, thread by thread. Watch an Etheridge dance to my beat.
My decision to pay her a visit seemed right.
That’s how I should’ve known it was all wrong.
I thought I came prepared for every eventuality. I kept to the shadows, slipped past the cameras, and killed the security alarm. But nothing—nothing—could’ve prepared me for the sight that waited for me at the foot of her bed.
Like now.
I brace myself as it begins. With her head slowly thrashing from side to side, fist slamming into the mattress, clutching at the sheets until her knuckles go white.
I pry her fingers loose, only for them to fly to her hair, yanking at the strands, trying to rip them out by the roots.
I catch her wrist and peel her fingers back, one by one, until she surrenders.
But that’s not enough for the riot thrashing underneath her skin, searching for an escape.
All her efforts to maintain restraint fail, as her lips tremble and she reaches for her arm.
I hook her mouth before she finds a part of herself to mark.
Only I get to do that now.
She digs her fangs into my flesh, muffling the screams she won’t allow anyone to hear. And I let her.
It’s like some cruel joke. Something so strong shouldn’t be so easily frayed.
I should know.
For a few moments, I sit there, watching the pain slowly drifting out of her.
The girl is all kinds of broken. Pain and hurt and scars neatly hidden under the princess charm.
You couldn’t tell from looking at her, walking around the campus with her head held high, chatting with the barista for half her lunch break, or dancing at the club like nothing dark ever touched her, that she is drowning in an ocean of agony.
One would be forgiven for forgetting she just lost her parents when she doesn’t let one single weakness show.
For a few seconds, I wait, my fingers still in her mouth. Who knows if it will start again? But she’s sleeping softly now, breaths rising and falling in an even rhythm, like it wasn’t her who just mauled my fingers.
I pull out the strap from her dressing gown and use it to tie her wrists to the pole of her bed, loose enough for her to free herself when she wakes up.
She doesn’t fight me. She can’t.
The girl is dead to the world, knocked out by whatever pills are in these little white bottles on her nightstand. I could fuck her right now, and she wouldn’t even know. That thought alone was enough for me to ride through the storm and break in tonight.
I step into the lounge, closing her door behind me.
Her so-called friend lies on the sofa, snoring like a pig, louder than the television.
I didn’t come here for her tonight. I came for him.
That was my second mistake.
If I had found him lurking in her bedroom while she lay there defenseless, I would’ve put a bullet in his head and slept like a baby. I would’ve done it anyway when she stood there pleading for him. He has no idea how close he came to meeting his end tonight.
My feet take me closer to him, moving on their own accord.
Can I leave him breathing here, with her in the next room?
The thought of him so close to her makes my fingers itch, wanting to claw around something. But I must suppress that urge tonight.
It takes all my will to walk away, but I leave before I change my mind.
About him or her.
Riding against the storm, with thunder and lightning quaking from the skies, I reach 99 at around 3 a.m. Even though tonight’s event was designed to lure her out, it’s one that I have to attend. If only because of the expectations that come with my name.
I park in my usual spot and take off my helmet, letting the pounding rain wash my face, then head to the back entrance. My feet pause when another set of splashing footsteps catches my attention.
“Mr. Grant.” A deep voice makes me turn around, my hand rising to shield my vision from the hammering rain.
A tall, broad, older man steps into the faint light from the lot, rain tapping the black umbrella and falling in clean lines on all sides. The Etheridge guard.
A slow smirk builds on my face. “Jack, is it?”
“You’re a hard one to track down,” Jack Romney says with a hint of annoyance. “I’ve been searching for you all night.”
“In the wrong places, obviously.” I grin. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I have a message from Daniel Etheridge,” he replies, his face stern.
“Do you, now?” I snort, then lift a shoulder. “Go on, then. Let’s hear it. I don’t have all night.”
“It’s not the kind of message you hear,” he says without a flinch.
My shoulders tighten, fist curls, peripheral vision brightens, fingers edge toward the weapon tucked under my jacket. All too late.
Thud.
Metal hits the top of my head, pain reverberating through my skull, before the earth spins and gravity takes me down. I drop in a puddle on the concrete. Copper-red liquid pouring out of my head.
My eyes blink rapidly in the rain as Jack Romney walks away without another word, followed by a second set of boots.
My third mistake, for those who are still counting, was trusting an Etheridge.
The bright headlights burn my pupils as the Bentley pulls out of the parking lot. Yet the only color I see is blue—the crystal glow of her eyes.
Daniel Etheridge better have killed me tonight.
If I wake up, his sister is going to pay with her blood.