Chapter 12
Rowan
By the time I made it to my apartment, I felt like the physical manifestation of blue balls. Violet’s spitfire defiance should have killed my desire. Should have reminded me she was off-limits, dangerous, Levi’s blood. Instead, it stoked the fire hotter.
I’d tucked my erection under my waistband, hoping the walk would kill my hard-on, but it didn’t work. If anything, my cock throbbed harder, pissed off at being ignored.
The apartment was far nicer than anything I had lived in during my first life.
Polished hardwood throughout, stonework walls, and heated tile for the bathroom floor.
The kind of place Charlie would pick: expensive, minimal, functional.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Atlanta’s shopping district, all glass towers and money.
Too much glass for my taste. I had not trained much with guns before, but even I knew anyone with a scope could see straight in.
But the bed looked soft, the leather chair in the corner was worn in just right, and the locks were solid.
Good enough.
Charlie had found it fast. It had probably cost a fortune, but I didn’t dwell on that.
I couldn’t afford my pride taking another hit after Violet’s jab about him “Splurging on his adoptee.” She had poked that wound without even trying.
She was already under my skin, no matter how hard I had fought to keep her out.
I checked the time and saw 1:30 a.m. So much for sleeping. I walked into the bathroom, stripped, and dropped my clothes on the floor. My cock sprang free, still hard as steel.
Her scent—rose, something dark and floral, something her—clung to my clothes from carrying her.
My cock throbbed harder when I remembered her soft frame against my chest, her hair tickling my chin, her breath hot against my throat, right where my jugular pulsed.
Dangerous, letting her that close. Letting her mouth that close.
The image of her freshly shaved cunt burned in my mind. I could still smell her, that faint musk when she had spread her legs wider in the hallway. How sweet would she taste? My mouth watered.
Fuck, I needed to stop. Violet was young and furious. . . chaos in human form.
Deep down I knew if I wrapped my hands around her throat, she would hiss and spit while smiling, daring me to squeeze harder. The contradiction was driving me insane. Infuriating and irresistible. Fucking perfect in the worst possible way.
Cold water shower. Now, I commanded myself. I set the knob to the coldest setting, stepped in, and hissed as the icy water sliced into my back.
I waited for the cold to kick in and tame my raging hard-on.
I waited. . . then waited some more. Looking down at my still-hard cock, I realized cold water would not be enough.
Nothing would ever be enough. I could argue all I wanted that desiring Violet was wrong, but my body didn’t care.
Neither, apparently, did the part of my brain that kept replaying her spread legs, her smirk, the way she had looked at me. She knew exactly what she was doing.
I palmed the wall and gripped my cock, groaning as I stroked myself. My cock was heavy, aching from being hard for so long. The weight of it in my palm was thick and demanding. I stroked slowly at first, base to tip, letting the cold water beat against my back while heat coiled low in my gut.
I thought back to her dance. The curve of her spine. The flex of her thighs around the pole. The way her body had moved like sex given form, all controlled violence wrapped in silk.
I wanted to run my hands along those curves, trace my fingers to her pierced nipples, watch her squirm beneath me when I twisted the barbells, then hear her sharp intake of breath as pleasure crossed the line into pain.
For someone filled with so much rage, I suspected she would respond to patience as punishment. Slow build. I would watch her, listen for her breath to hitch, map every response her body gave me. And when I wrapped my hand around her throat, she would lean into it like a dare.
My stroke quickened, palm slick now, cock pulsing in my grip.
I imagined it: my volchok on her knees, those soft pink lips stretched around my cock.
I would hold her there, hand fisted in her hair, watching her eyes water as she struggled for air.
Then I would pull out just enough to let her breathe before sliding back in, fucking her mouth while my cum dripped down her chin.
“Fuck,” I groaned, the word echoing off tile.
My balls tightened, drew up hard against my body.
The orgasm built at the base of my spine, white-hot and inevitable.
I stroked faster, rougher, chasing it until I came with a guttural sound that was half her name, thick ropes hitting the shower wall.
My cock pulsed again and again, emptying itself while the cold water washed the evidence down the drain.
I stood there, forehead pressed against my forearm, breathing hard as the climax faded. My cock gave one last weak pulse, still half-hard even after release.
Why Violet? And why now? She was such an infuriating, insolent, bratty princess whom I grew up with for years. Foul mouthed, quick tempered. . . and I wouldn’t want her any other way.
No. I needed to stay away unless her life was in danger. I would stay hidden. Let her live her college life, fuck whoever she wanted, earn her grades. I would make sure nothing supernatural touched her and that was it—nothing else.
I turned off the shower and dried off. Teeth brushed, I turned off all the lights and set my alarms. Tomorrow was an early day. I slid into the crisp white sheets of my bed and tried not to think about her.
Then another image surfaced: Violet naked, legs spread. My cock stirred.
I sighed and cupped my balls. “Fuck. It is going to be a long night.”
To say I was happy to be right is an understatement. I didn’t necessarily want to be right, but I sure as hell enjoyed it when I was. So when she called the next morning, sounding reluctant as hell, I couldn’t help feeling smug.
“Rowan, I need your help.” Her voice was surprisingly demure. I would have killed to read her mind right then and see her face.
“Oh, so now you have need of me?” I had been up for hours. Having just finished a run in a vain attempt to escape the guilt of jerking off to her two more times, I’d been working on a new set of ties for suspension when Violet called.
My mannequin—whom I’d named Marie Antoinette—was twisted in a position no human could hold for long. She was the perfect partner for the Shinju suspension I wanted to master.
“Rowan!” She hissed. “Listen, the school has implemented a curfew.”
That got my attention. The cerulean rope stilled in my hands. “A curfew? What for?”
There was silence on the line for a moment before she said, “That’s not important right now. I need to dance at Oubliette on Friday, and that is obviously going to have to be after curfew.” She exhaled a heavy breath. “You, uh. . . you mentioned an apartment?”
More silence as her implied question hung between us.
“You want to stay with me?” I drawled the words out, savoring them. My cock stirred at the thought. What the fuck was I doing? This was the exact opposite of staying away from her.
“Please? If it’s not too much trouble?”
I laughed. “Trouble? No trouble at all. . . but this place is only a one-bedroom bachelor pad filled from floor to ceiling with BDSM toys and porn—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she nearly shouted. “Just say no, Rowan.” The line went dead.
The entire situation was almost too good. I waited a few minutes, then called her back. She answered on the first ring, broadcasting her desperation much to my delight. “What is it?”
“Oh, I thought you had wanted my help, but then the line disconnected. I did not get to hear you beg.”
She swore a string of expletives. I could picture her: one hand beating her mattress, the other gripping her phone while she snarled.
Her asking for help meant she had to trust me. Meant surrendering some of that fierce independence. My cock pressed against my slacks. The thought of her shame, hot and bitter, made me even harder.
Once her cursing had subsided she said, “I cannot believe I picked up the phone for you.”
“I am waiting.”
Her words were clipped, her voice terse, as she asked, “Can I stay over at your place on the nights I work?”
“Hmm, I do not think I like that tone. Try again.”
Silence. Then she humbly asked, “Please, Rowan. I will be a good girl if you let me stay over Friday night.”
I scoffed. Good girl? Highly doubtful. But the way she’d asked drew my balls tight and flooded my mind with images: Violet on her hands and knees in my apartment listening to my instructions. Following them. Learning what happened when she didn’t.
I cleared my throat. “I do have a few rules—"
Her demeanor changed instantly. “Great. Thanks for accepting. I will text you when I finish with class!” The line went dead again.
I laughed, finished the knot I was tying, and placed Marie Antoinette in her corner. I stood back to admire my work. The Shinju looked clean. Professional.
Then my brain betrayed me as I envisioned Violet’s body in the ropes, her hazel eyes staring back at me.
Nope. Fuck no.
I walked into my room and changed out of my sweats and into dark jeans with a pressed white T-shirt. My phone vibrated with an alert. I glanced at it. My heart stopped when I saw the headline.
Student killed last night at Shademore University. Investigation still underway.
I clicked it open and there it was: Violet’s school. The headline had a picture of the same courtyard I had been in last night.
Flashbacks hit. The vampyre I had run into, all casual menace and barely concealed hunger. Violet dancing on that stage, bleeding into her sandals, every supernatural in the room cataloging her scent. And now a body. A fucking body, hours after we left.
That fucking brat is trying to hide this from me?
I threw my phone onto the bed and finished getting ready, my mind already made up.
Violet had never seen the hunter in me. She had never seen what I was capable of when something I protected was threatened. She thought her jiu jitsu and archery gave her claws, made her a predator.
She had no idea.
But she was about to learn. Because I was done playing the patient guardian, the concerned friend who kept his distance. If she wanted to dance at Oubliette, if she wanted to play with monsters, then she was going to do it under my rules and within my sight.
She was going to regret igniting this. Regret making me care. Regret turning me from an observer into a participant.
Because the thing about hunters? We don’t stop until the threat is eliminated and we sink our teeth into our prey.