I Will Revel in Glory

by Stunich, C. M.

  He pushes it in again, and I let out a wild sound of excitement as the biggest bead slips into my well-lubed body.

  Crown reaches down for his cock, and I hear that wet, hungry sound of him using his fist before he puts the head of his dick to my entrance. He thrusts in fast and hard, and I let out a scream that makes Fem bark wildly.

  He races into the room, almost killing our vibe, but Crown’s voice snaps out like a whip.

  “Go lay down now,” he snarls out, and my dog pauses, looks at him, and then lets out an annoyed grumble before retreating. “Fuck.” Crown spanks me again, as if it’s my fault that Fem is this way. “You and that dog, both brats. Terrible, awful brats.” Another smack, and then I’m squirming so wildly against him that he gives in.

  His hands lock down on my hips, and he starts to thrust, slamming my body into the wooden footboard over and over again. There’s no give there. Each movement drives him all the way to my core, and I’m left scrabbling at the quilt, wrinkling it up and biting it as I moan with indulgent surrender.

  The toy creates this ridged feeling inside of me, Crown’s dick stroking along those silicone balls through the thin wall of flesh between my pussy and my ass. I’m as full as I’ve ever been.

  When Crown grabs my hair and yanks my head up, he pulls me even tighter to him. His other hand curves around my face, fingers sliding into my mouth. I moan and bite down on them as he rides me hard against the bed, taking over every orifice of my body and claiming it.

  “Don’t you dare come without my permission,” he breathes, his own voice labored with carnal gratification. “Don’t you dare.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, dig my fingernails in, and hold on for the ride.

  I’m sure that I’m going to break. Over and over again, every thrust is torture. I need to come. It’s becoming impossible to resist.

  “Please, Vice President,” I manage to whisper, the words husky and fragmented. “Please let me come.”

  With a ragged growl, Crown digs his fingertips into my hips and blows his load, balls slapping my clit.

  “Come for me, naughty girl,” he breathes, and that’s it. It’s over.

  I scream again, pushing back against him as my body convulses, constricting around Crown’s shaft and holding him prisoner while I finish riding out those final, violent waves.

  My body sags to the bed as Crown very carefully and very slowly removes the toy from my ass. He slides out of me and pads into the bathroom; I heard the sink run first then the bath.

  He comes back for me, scooping up my boneless body and carrying me into the bathroom. My dog glares at us both with ice-blue eyes from the corner as Crown places me into the bathtub. He tests the water to make sure it’s the right temperature (scalding, yay), plugs the drain, and then climbs in behind me.

  It’s a tight fit, but that’s okay. I curl up in his arms, lids sliding closed with contentedness.

  “Get some sleep,” he commands, and it’s an easy one to follow. I’m exhausted. “You’ll need all the energy you can get to deal with Cat tomorrow.”

  He’s right, but that’s okay: I’m ready for it. And I’m not afraid.

  I’m gunning for my enemies, and the taste of vengeance is pungent and cloyingly sweet on the back of my tongue. With as much hunger as Crown just ate me out, I’m going to hunt my sisters’ murderers and spill their blood.

  It won’t make things right, but it will quench some of my insatiable rage.

  Paired with my love for these men, it’s enough to keep my scarred heart on the track toward being whole again.

  “The casino, huh?” Cat asks, stroking his beard as he studies the text messages from Grey and then looks up at me with a mixture of hatred and curiosity. I just stay still, hating that we’re in his office and my brother died right in the doorway. I looked for bloodstains when I walked in a few minutes ago, but I didn’t see any.

  Crown must know all the best ways to get brain matter off a wall.

  A shudder takes over me that I don’t even bother to hide. It’s good if my father believes I’m afraid of him, if he thinks my confession of love meant anything other than the truth. I do love him, but I will also kill him if needed.

  And … I think it might be needed. Very much so.

  Our eyes meet.

  He chucks my phone onto his desk.

  “You want me to believe this shit?” he asks, and I stare right back at him with every ounce of conviction inside of me.

  “Do or don’t. Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll go with my boys and deal with it. I will bring back Giulia Wolfe’s head. Literally, if necessary.”

  Cat laughs at me, shaking his own head as he moves around the desk to stand a bit closer to me. Neither of us is unaware that all four of his officers are in the room with us. On that same note, neither of us looks their way or asks for their input.

  “Boss,” Crown begins, and then when Cat’s gaze snaps his way, he falls silent. The only difference between now and say, six months ago, is that Crown will step in or speak up against his president’s wishes if that’s what it takes to save my ass. Actually, I think he still would’ve jumped in back then, but only if my literal life was on the line. This time, my heart and my desires matter, too.

  “You want me to send the five of you off to play blackjack at the casino, huh? Why? So you can leave with your boyfriend and not come back?” Cat reaches out and puts his hand on my right shoulder, fingers digging into the leather of Beast’s jacket. He squeezes just hard enough to bruise but not so hard that I flinch or give away the pain he’s causing me.

  I hear a tentative footstep behind me. Beast. He’s offering up a warning that Cat ignores.

  My father leans down to look me right in the eyes.

  “If you run from me, girl, I will follow you. You hear me? I will hunt you down and slit your throat myself.”

  “Should I be surprised by that?” I quip back, and Cat releases me abruptly.

  “Crown, prepare a small team. Maybe a dozen or so men.” Cat moves back behind his desk, his eyes on the spot where that bottle of India ink used to sit, the same bottle that I threw in his son’s face and probably saved my own life with.

  “Sir?” Crown queries. I glance back to see his face split into equal parts eagerness and trepidation. Sin and Grainger actually share a look amongst themselves that concerns me.

  “We’ll go in on Friday,” Cat declares, ignoring Grey’s carefully typed out advice on the series of recent text messages. He looks up at me. “You’ll go with us.”

  The tension from the four men standing behind me is palpable, so thick you could cut it with a knife. I imagine their glares like bullets in ballistics gel, cutting sharp channels through the clear blocks of distrust that comprise the charged air between them and their president.

  “Me?” I query back, trying not to be pleased that Cat has literally just made this a non-issue for me. I don’t need to argue with the guys—I would hope that after our last talk, there wouldn’t be much arguing at all, but I know them too well to really believe that—I’m going regardless.

  “This is your intel, ain’t it?” He looks at me like he’s daring me to challenge him right now, but we both know this isn’t some sort of reward. It’s a test. Cat is testing me and his officers all in one fell swoop.

  “Can I make a suggestion?” I offer up, and he laughs at me again.

  “No. Get the fuck out of my office.” Cat waves us away, but I already have an idea, and I want to execute it.

  “Let me dress up. A nice wig. A dress. A date on my arm. I can walk right into that fucking casino without anyone being the wiser.”

  “You’re not even old enough to set foot in a casino,” Crown offers up, his voice disturbingly empty of emotion. I glance back at him with a raised brow.

  “Like I’ll be carded. I know what I look like. The right makeup, the right hair, I’m twenty-five, easy.” I turn to Cat again. “Anyway, it’s not like I don’t have a fake ID. A good one, too.”

&nb
sp; “Of course you do,” Cat replies, looking me over. He shrugs then. “You know what? I like this idea. We can sit safely outside while you waltz into the resort and take a look around.” He snaps his fingers in Sin’s direction. “Find someone young, a prospect that won’t be recognized. That’ll be her date.”

  “Letting her walk in there when the mafia wants her more than they want your ass?” Beast offers up, speaking out when he very rarely does. “Seems like a good way for Gidget to die.”

  “At this point,” Cat says, looking up and then letting his gaze rest firmly on my husband’s. “If she doesn’t go into that casino, she’s going to die. Get the fuck out of my office.”

  I purse my lips tight and exhale before turning and letting Grainger hold open the door for me.

  “You’re in big trouble, you little shit,” he growls out, but I ignore him.

  Now that Cat’s laid down the law, this is how it’s going to be.

  There aren’t any good alternatives, and all four of these men know it.

  “This is not going down the way Cat wants it to,” Grainger growls out, right on my ass as we step inside the farmhouse, and I turn around just in time to see him come up on me. He grabs me around the waist and yanks me tight against him, pressing the fiery heat of his body flush against mine. Oh. Fuck. I like that.

  I frown at him, even as the other men slip inside the door, and then there we are, all five of us in an enclosed space with emotions running hot and high. Thank God Reba’s door is closed upstairs; she doesn’t need to feel the intensity of our combined emotions. That’d make her run even faster toward life as a nun.

  “You have to let me fly, Grainger. You have to.” I reach down and put my hands over his, giving his fingers a squeeze even as he increases the pressure on my waist. Oh boy, is he fucking mad.

  “Letting you fly and thrusting you into the middle of a warzone are two entirely different things.” He scoffs and releases me suddenly, turning on the other guys and throwing his arm out to indicate me with fury clear in his dark gaze. “What the fuck else are you all supposed to be if not backup against this woman? Jesus Christ.”

  “I’m all for letting you fly, wife,” Beast says, arms crossed over his chest. He looks so stern and serious right now. That’s a little scary. If I’m honest, I have to admit that he’s been pretty indulgent with me thus far. He has yet to just say ‘no’, and I’m not sure what my reaction would be if he did. “But this is somethin’ else entirely.”

  “You really want to start your career in the club right now, with something like this?” Crown asks while Sin watches me with such a sharp frown that I feel like the expression is cutting straight through me. “While pregnant?”

  I just stare back at him and then splay my hands palm out on either side of me.

  “You heard me the other night, all three of you.” I look pointedly at Grainger, Sin, and Crown before turning to Beast. “You weren’t there, but I think you already know what I’m trying to say.”

  He stares down at me with those robin’s egg blue eyes of his, and that’s enough. This is how Beast and I communicate, with body language more so than words.

  “We’re sort of stuck anyway,” Sin offers up with another sigh, rubbing at his forehead with the heel of his hand. “This is what Cat wants, so this is what’s happening. We just need to minimize the risks.”

  “I’m surprised you’re so gung-ho to send your pregnant girlfriend into a mafia-run stronghold,” Grainger barks out with a sharp laugh, and I see now that at least some of has manic male PMS behavior stems from fear. He was worried when I disappeared from Reba’s little church, and he found me at the lake with my friends. He’s worried now, and with good reason.

  “Gung-go?” Sin returns with another laugh, his lean body balanced against the wall next to the sitting room’s arched entrance. “Not particularly. More than anyone else, I’ve wanted to get Gidge away from the club and out of danger. The rest of you? I’m not sure you were willing to give her up for a better life. You wanted this. All I’m doing is mitigating damage.” Sin looks right at me, and I feel my chest tighten with emotion. “I hate this. Just be aware that that’s the case: I fucking hate this. But I also understand you, and I —more than anyone maybe—acutely understand club politics.”

  He pushes up off the wall and moves into the kitchen, grabbing his iPad out of a bag that’s slung over the back of one of the chairs. Sin lays it out on the table and powers it on, flipping through a few images before pausing on one that shows the layout of the casino.

  He looks over at me as I come into the room to stand beside him.

  “You made me a promise,” he says, his voice low and authoritative in a way that I don’t think he even allowed himself to acknowledge before. He held back for me, but now his intensity is unveiled and zeroed in on me. “What was it?”

  I frown and shift slightly, my eyes flicking over to find Grainger’s as he storms in and slams his hands down on the table on my other side.

  “What was that fucking promise?” Cade growls out, and I turn a glare over to him.

  “To … defer to your authority in the field,” I admit, looking back at Sin. He watches me and then nods, tapping a finger against the screen of his iPad.

  “You want to do this? You’re going to do it right. Sit down.” Sin pulls out a chair as Crown and Beast join us, standing on the opposite side of the table so that they can watch me get my ass handed to me by their road captain. Ugh.

  I take the proffered seat as Grainger curses and stands up straight, running his fingers through his rust-red hair.

  “Keep your temper, Cade,” Crown warns him, but Grainger chooses not to acknowledge that statement whatsoever.

  “You can’t be my date, you know?” I tell them all, but mostly looking at Beast; he doesn’t acknowledge that statement. “I have to go in with someone that won’t be recognized.” I let my gaze pan across the four of them. “You’re all like, disturbingly recognizable.”

  “You’re not going in alone,” Beast offers up in response. “However you want to make that happen, so that I know you’ve at least got one person in there with you to watch your back, that’s fine by me. Offer up a solution that’s satisfying to me, and I won’t go caveman on your ass.”

  I give him a look and then flip him off before Sin redirects my attention back to the iPad and then, when he doesn’t speak, I look up at his face. His silver eyes are impossible to turn away from.

  “You’re going to memorize the layout of the casino. Every floor. The grounds outside. All of it.” He pushes the iPad in front of me. “And then we’re going to talk contingency plans.”

  “We are her contingency plan,” Beast says, but then he pulls out a chair and takes a seat. Crown does the same. And then, finally, Grainger.

  “Before we do that,” I start, chewing on my lower lip. I give Sin a look, and he sighs.

  “Juice?” he asks, and I grin.

  “Yes, please,” I say as he stands up and opens the fridge. “Also …” I turn around to look at Grainger. “Don’t say ‘girlfriend’. It feels too casual. This.” I gesture around to indicate the five of us. “This isn’t casual. If this is going to work, we’re going to be family.”

  “What do you want me to call you? My old lady?” Grainger asks, casting a look over at Beast. The two men exchange a long glance before my husband finally offers a slight nod of his head. “Fucking hell.” He swipes his hand over his face, rubbing at the dark stubble on his jaw. “Sharing an old lady.” He shifts his eyes back down to mine. “You’re poisonous, Gidge. You know that?”

  “Actually, I’m venomous. Poison is only deployed defensively; venom is manufactured and delivered by the animal in question.” I make little fangs with two curved fingers on either hand and act like I’m injecting them into Grainger. He stares down at my hands before lifting his attention to my face.

  “Can you ever just listen to someone talk and not have an annoying quip as a response?” he asks, but then he�
��s yanking me into his lap and wrapping his arms around me. “Regardless, poisonous or venomous, you’ve gotten me to do something I never in my life thought I’d be able to do.”

  “Share?” I query, putting a hand on the side of his handsome face. “They teach that skill in preschool, you know. Did you miss that? Or did they just not offer that service back in your time?”

  He growls at me, grabbing onto my hand and giving it a squeeze. He puts my fingers to his lips and then sucks them in, searing my flesh with his hot tongue. His gaze is … it’s Biblical, the way he looks at me.

  I really and truly believe that our souls were married in the church that day, when he fucked me in a dress meant for another man, when blood was leaking under the door, when shots were still being fired. That was our true joining, our unholy union.

  “Just to be clear,” Grainger says, his breath warm against my wet fingertips. “I wouldn’t do this for any woman I was interested in. I wouldn’t do this just because I was in love. I’m doing it for one person and one person only: you. Just you.”

  “And all the club wives and groupies think you’re incapable of love,” I offer up, but it’s meant to be a compliment. Grainger narrows his eyes at me.

  “Who said that?” he asks, voice dangerously inquisitive.

  Sin takes my hand and places the glass of orange juice in it, giving me a look as he does.

  “Seeing you playful like this …” he starts and then trails off, his eyes shifting over to Crown and Beast. Sin looks back at me. “It makes everything worth it, doesn’t it?” He points at the iPad again. “Now. Sentimentality aside: it’s time to study.”

  With a sigh, I slide off of Grainger’s lap—and his suddenly tight-in-the-crotch jeans—and flop my ass onto the blue chair with the peeling paint.