Chapter 72
Seventy-Two
THEN | SISK
“What if someone walks by?” I ask, a shiver racing down my spine that’s half terror and half something hotter due to the way he’s cornered me.
“Only two options,” he growls, slamming me back against the alley wall. “I invite them to join us, or they watch because I’m not stopping.”
“Would you?” I breathe, the words trembling out of me.
“What?” His hands are a vice, tearing at the denim of my jeans, dragging it down with an urgency that leaves my skin burning.
“Let someone else… touch me while you…?”
He stops and stares at me, his glowing red eyes wide with a sudden, terrifying stillness.
“Is that something you want? Or are you just provoking me?”
“It’s probably just the drugs,” I whisper, feeling small and exposed.
“The idea of you… belonging to someone else… knowing you are not mine to keep. It makes me so fucking angry I can’t see straight. It makes me want to rip this whole city apart.”
He grabs my face, fingers digging hard. As he speaks, a sickening groan echoes through the alley. The old steel light pole beside us buckles, the metal warping and twisting like it’s been caught in an invisible fist, the bulb shattering with a loud pop that plunges us into deeper shadows.
“So no, I wouldn’t allow another fucking hand to touch you while I fuck you, Sisk.
That line is drawn.” He kisses me quickly then pulls back, giving my cheek a sharp, stinging slap that leaves my head spinning.
I don’t even get a chance to gasp, he’s kissing me again, softer this time, but no less possessive.
A confusing storm of anger and ownership.
“Don’t fucking play with me tonight, okay? Do you see the fucking full moon?”
He forces my head up, my neck straining.
“Yeah?”
“It makes it harder to control, the… monster, okay? Be good tonight,” his voice is a rough warning.
“Why don’t you keep me?” I ask, my head spinning from the slap and the impossible sight of the bent metal. “Is it because I’m too broken for you?”
“Broken? Rabbit, you’re the only thing in this city that isn’t.” His grip in my hair tightens, yanking my head back so he can look me in the eyes. “There’s nothing I want more in this world, and that is exactly why I can’t. You’d end up paying for this curse.”
My hand slides up his chest, under his shirt. My fingers catch on something raised and uneven. “What’s this?” I ask, pushing his shirt aside to get a better look.
It’s not a tattoo. The lines are too dark, too alive, a swirling, pulsating black pattern that seems to shift and writhe in the dim streetlight. It looks like veins of ink pumping under his skin.
“This isn’t a tattoo, is it?” I ask, tracing the edge.
He doesn’t answer.
I lean down and press my lips to the mark, right over his ribs. His whole body shudders violently, and the streetlights across on the entire block flicker and die.
“Do it again,” he commands, his voice strained, rough with a power I’ve never felt before.
“What if I say no?” I tease, my heart hammering.
“I’m not asking.”
“Make me.”
That’s a mistake.
The words barely leave my mouth before something seizes me. My body folds forward so hard my teeth click together. A gasp rips from my throat as an invisible hand fists itself in my hair and drags me down.
“Jax—”
My lips crash against the mark and his entire body jerks. I try to pull back but I can't. The pressure tightens, forcing me lower, guiding me to the next black line carved across his stomach.
“Still think I’m asking?” he says, his voice rough and dangerous.
Then the magic shoves me forward again, pressing my mouth to the second mark.
“I wasn’t kidding when I told you I can do things,” he says, his voice low, shaking with a power that vibrates through my bones. “The Tar… when we… fell… I got… I don’t know what to call it. Power. It’s in my fucking blood.”
The pressure eases just enough for me to drag in a ragged, painful breath. “Power?” I gasp, my voice a wrecked whisper.
“But I can’t control it,” he snarls, looking at his own hands as if they’re venomous things. “It just… happens. Especially when I’m… like this.” He gestures at me, to my state of undress, to the unrestrained hunger in the air.
For the first time, I see a flicker of real fear in his eyes, a terror that has nothing to do with being here. He looks from his hands to me, and the glowing red of his irises seems to dim, replaced by a desperate, human panic.
He takes a step back. “This might not be a good idea,” he says, his voice hoarse, broken. “I can’t…”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he admits, the words torn from him.
“Jax, I need this.” I know I’m begging him at this point.
“What if I lose control, Sisk?”
“I’ll say scotch, okay?” I whisper, the word a lifeline. “I promise. If it gets too much, I’ll say it.”
To show him I mean it, I push my underwear down, letting them fall to my grimy ankles.
“It’s either you do it,” I say, my voice shaking but firm, “or the next person that walks by, because whatever is in my bloodstream right now is making me extra needy.” I step out of my jeans completely, half-naked in the dirty street, offering myself to him as a challenge.
He’s still hesitating, his internal war written all over his face. So I do something else: I turn slowly, placing my hands flat against the cold, damp brick wall, and I look back at him over my shoulder. “Please, Jax. Show me what the monster can do.”
“Fuuuuuck it,” he snarls, the words a feral surrender.
He’s on me in a second, his hand pressing firmly between my shoulder blades.
He kicks my feet apart with his own, and then he pushes into me, no preamble.
It’s exactly what I asked for. Every thrust is a claim, a punishment, a desperate attempt to exorcise the demons dancing between us. It’s rough, it’s raw, and it’s perfect.
I hear the shuffle of a couple's footsteps, walking past the end of the alley. I freeze, my heart seizing in my chest, but Jax doesn’t stop.
His rhythm doesn’t falter. If anything, he goes harder, deeper, his grip on my hips tightening.
He knows they’re there. And the thrill of it, the absolute fucked-up thrill of being watched, of being claimed so publicly, makes it impossible to resist. The couple slows, their shadows falling long into the alley.
They don’t say anything but they don’t move.
They watch like silent voyeurs to my defilement.
I’m mostly hidden by his body, but there’s no doubt what’s happening.
This is fucked up, and it’s going to haunt me forever, because I know he doesn’t want anything serious, and I know my heart is still shattered from all those years ago.
And this kind of sex, this raw, public, possessive sex, is just going to make it impossible to be with anyone else ever again.
His hand slides to my stomach, pulling me impossibly closer until there’s no space between us. “You love it, don’t you? You love being put on display like the filthy little exhibitionist you are.”
I want to scream, but his left hand leaves my hip and moves to my mouth, two fingers sliding inside, filling me, silencing me so I don’t make an even bigger scene.
His other hand comes around my front, takes my own hand, and guides it between my legs, making my fingers touch my clit.
“Is this what you wanted, Sisk? To be so full of me in public that you can’t even scream?
To be fucked where anyone can see? To be mine, right here, right now? ”
The words are a brand, and my body answers. He feels my pussy clench around him, and he chuckles against my back. He keeps my hand pinned to my clit, his fingers covering mine, forcing me to rub myself in time with his brutal thrusts.
He bites down hard on my shoulder and my orgasm crashes through me and I scream against his fingers, my body convulsing, my legs shaking so badly I would have collapsed if he wasn’t holding me up.
He feels me coming, and with a final thrust, he buries himself deep inside me filling up my pussy.
The couple finally moves on, their footsteps fading down the street until the night swallows them completely, leaving us alone in the aftermath of our own destruction.
Jax steps back, dragging a hand through his hair like he’s trying to physically wrench himself back under control.
He reaches down and grabs my jeans from the grimy ground. He holds them, his gaze drifts down my body, taking in the mess he’s made of me. The bite mark on my shoulder, the flush on my skin, the evidence of him still slick on my thighs.
“What?” I snap, snatching for the jeans, my cheeks burning with shame.
He leans one shoulder against the brick wall, the picture of casual cruelty. “You’re beautiful.”
“Fuck you,” I bite out, yanking the denim up my legs.
“Keep pulling those jeans on like that and we’ll see if the monster wants a second round before the night’s over.”
He lights a cigarette.
“I still hate you by the way,” I say, the words hollow.
“The feeling is mutual, Rabbit. That’s why this works so well.”
He studies me for another second then he pushes off the wall, takes another long drag of his cigarette, and tilts his head toward the metal ladder bolted to the brick wall above us.
“Come on.”
“What? Where?” I ask, my voice raspy.
He jerks his chin upward, blowing a plume of smoke toward the stars. “The roof.”
I hesitate before grabbing the ladder and climbing. Jax follows behind me, I don’t need to look to know he’s watching my ass the whole way up.
When I haul myself onto the roof, it’s like the whole city just flips me off.
The buildings around us dip just enough to give you a front-row seat to the shit show—endless rows of glowing windows and traffic.
It’s the kind of view that makes you feel either like a god or a total nobody. I’m leaning towards nobody.
Jax strolls past me and drops onto the ledge, one leg swinging over the edge like he’s daring the pavement below. He taps his cigarette against the brick, then offers me the pack without a glance.