Chapter Nineteen
DUKE
My fist is tight around Jaq's balls and I relish every second of the power it gives me. I am the balance between his pain and his pleasure and he knows it. He has always known it and the knowledge sits in my chest like something I would burn this entire island down to protect.
I lift my mask just enough to expose my mouth again.
The moment my tongue finds his ass, the sound that tears out of him is guttural and raw, moving through me like a current. I push deeper and feel him shudder and lose the careful composure he maintains for everyone else on this island except me.
Only ever me.
My mind is haze and heat. The feeling of Jaq pressed against me and her clenched around both of us is almost more than I can process simultaneously. The bite of pain threading through the pleasure is a lit fuse and I am running out of time before it reaches the end.
Her sounds are destroying what is left of my control.
Gus's thrusts drive me forward and I am at the mercy of both of them. Not being in control is something I have never been able to tolerate, except like this. Except here. With these specific people in this crumbling kitchen where the rest of the island cannot reach us.
I will always surrender control to Gus.
Jaq is mine.
He reaches back and grips the back of my head and holds me in place as he thrusts forward into her and pushes back against my tongue. The sound he makes is close and desperate and mine.
“That mouth,” he grits out, “was made for eating this ass.”
I feel her shift, feel the change in the angle of her and then she is peering around Jaq and watches me eat my man’s ass.
“This is the most devastating thing I have ever seen,” she breathes between ragged inhales. “Please don't stop, I'm so close—”
Jaq increases his force and lifts me with each thrust, driving me deeper into her. I release my hold on Jaq’s balls and part his ass wider, then lose myself completely in the madness of this moment.
“I'm going to fill her ass up with my cum,” Jaq shouts, his movements turning frenzied. I am right there with him, right at the edge of something enormous that has been building since the moment she stumbled onto this island and refused to be what we needed her to be.
“Fuck us harder,” Gus bellows.
She obeys for exactly two thrusts before she shatters, her pussy clenching our cocks as she screams out and milks our dicks for everything they are worth. Gus doesn't stop, driving into her harder, and I grip the rug beneath us, while Jaq roars her name and empties everything he has into her.
“Duke,” Jaq's voice says as he tips over, saying my name like it's the last word he knows.
I barely register it. I am already drowning.
Jaq pulls free and collapses beside us. A beat later I grip her waist and slam into her, not for her, not for anyone except the release cresting inside me and her screams bounce off the kitchen walls.
I roar when it finally detonates and the shockwaves roll through me unchecked.
I experience something so complete and devastating it borders on grief.
My breathing is ragged when I surface.
I look at her.
She looks at me.
And I feel it, the thing I have been refusing to feel since the night she got here and I told myself it was only revenge.
I pull out and she whimpers at the loss of it. I help her off the floor and she leans into me for a moment, boneless, before Jaq reaches out and pulls her down beside him. She goes without resistance, her head dropping to his shoulder, completely, devastatingly trusting.
I sit against the opposite cabinet and stare at the two of them for a long time.
She fits us.
That's the problem.
“We need to move. I spotted more scavengers when we chased her down.” Gus's voice is quiet, aimed at me across the kitchen. He is already dressed, standing at the door, and the look in his eyes is the one he wears when he’s already arrived at a conclusion and is waiting for everyone else to catch up.
I pull my pants on and cross to him.
“The cave?” I ask.
“They will come for her here, they’ve seen her now. We’re outnumbered and we’re not ready to break free of this place, yet.”
I look back at her across the kitchen.
“We can't force a confession out of her,” Gus says quietly.
“We need her to admit she lied, escaping this fucking rock will mean nothing if she doesn’t. You won’t be able to go home.”
“Is that what you want?” He holds my gaze. “To go back there and be our dirty little secret again?”
The question lands differently than I expect.
“What?”
“We go back there and we’ll never be able to be open about our relationship, Duke.” His voice carries something that sounds almost like grief. “She won't surrender the only leverage she has.”
“She has to. You both have to claim your place at his side. If you don’t, things will never change.”
“Do you think he will allow that?” He holds my gaze.
“He has too.”
“You know my father. He is selfish and fucking set in his ways. I hate him and so does my brother. He doesn’t give a shit about us or what we want.
I bet he was glad the day she lied and we got sent here, that meant no one was there to challenge him for his throne” He doesn't raise his voice but I can hear the hatred dripping from each word.
If we leave this island, I won’t get them.
I’ll go back to being the best friend they keep at arm’s length until we’re behind closed doors.
I’ll have to watch their father parade them around in front of women who fawn over them and throw themselves at their feet, all for a chance to marry one of the esteemed princes.
“Look at me.”
I turn and find understanding in his eyes and it makes me angry.
“When she lied and sent us here we lost everything,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel.
“We have been surviving on this island for two years.
Not living. Surviving. Now she is sleeping against my man's shoulder and I am standing here and I don't—” I stop.
Press my fist against the doorframe. “I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I want to be free of this place but I’m terrified because I don’t want to lose you or Jaq.”
Gus looks at me for a long moment. He reaches out, cups my cheek and presses his forehead against mine.
“You’ll never lose us. I’ll never hide who you are to me ever again, I swear it.”
He releases me, then crosses to her and crouches down. “Time to move,” he says quietly. Not cruel. Not punishing. Just certain.
She lifts her head. Those pale blue eyes find him through the dark and I watch her take in his expression and decide something.
“Where?” she asks.
“Somewhere the scavengers won't find you.” He stands and holds out his hand. She looks at it. That calculation moves through her eyes for a second before she places her hand in his and lets him pull her to her feet.
We dress her in the dark, gather what we need, and the four of us leave the cabin together for the first time. We move through the island at night in single file toward the bluffs, toward the cave behind the waterfall that no one else on this island knows about.
Except the other four clans.
She trusts us to lead her.