VENGEFUL QUEEN

by St. Germain, Lili

  I caress his face and bring him down to the bed next to me. It’s a hell of a drug, lying down with the man you love in a bed with clean sheets. Rome’s heart pounds so intensely that his pulse is all over his body, everywhere I touch.

  I want to lie in this bed until the end of my days.

  But I know I’m not supposed to be here, so I limit myself to ten long breaths with Rome’s spent body pressed against mine. Between my legs a throb of residual pleasure remains. My clit is sensitive, needy. It wants more. I want more. I’ll always want more, I realize. There’s no getting around it. Rome and I will always, always need this from each other, no matter how fucked up it is.

  “I have to clean up,” I whisper into his hair, then press a kiss to the top of his head. His cum is already drying on my stomach. Best to get it off before it becomes a problem.

  I lift my aching body from the bed and tear myself away from him, then pad into the bathroom.

  “You need help in there?” Rome picks up his head from the pillows where we landed, an unbridled lust in his bright blue eyes. It’s more than that. More than lust. It’s love, too.

  I smirk. “Of course.”

  I turn on the shower and step into the warm spray, letting it rain down on me as I wait for Rome to join me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ROME

  I want her to stay. She has to go. Fuck.

  I haven’t been this torn about anything since...since the dungeon. The sex has gone to my head. I can’t remember the last time it affected me this way, heart pumping, skin oversensitive, heat settling in my face. Avery Capulet is a hell of an addiction.

  An illegal one, I might add. She’s not supposed to be here. Paranoia prickles the back of my neck. If anybody knows, if anybody sees us together, I’m fucked. The only party that’s happy in this situation is my dick, and my dick is rapidly becoming greedy for more. I don’t just want a taste of Avery, I want all of her. All day. All night. For eternity.

  But we don’t have eternity right now.

  She goes into the bathroom and when the shower starts to run I heave myself out of the bed. Aside from my pacing and sporadic sets of push-ups, this has been the most exercise I’ve gotten since I checked into the hotel. My entire body vibrates from it. Who needs a gym when you can fuck the one girl you’re forbidden to fuck? I wonder if I could get twenty minutes a day with her as part of the terms of my release. Ha.

  I slip my jeans on and sit down on the edge of the bed to catch my breath. My heart prepares itself for the inevitable wrench of watching her walk back out of here. I know I said I’d join her in the shower, but if I go in there, I’m going to fuck her again, and if I fuck her again, she’ll be here for that much longer… and we need to not be together in a place like this. It kills me to even contemplate having to be apart after we’ve just been reunited. But damn. She told me she loves me. I believe her. We can’t break this fragile bond before we’ve even started to be together. For the first time in my delinquent adult life, I’m actually starting to think sensibly about legal issues and how to get around them so Avery and I can be together without my ass getting arrested and hauled back to jail for breaking my bail conditions.

  I’ve managed to get my jeans back on and I’m looking for my shirt in the rumpled sheets when I hear the slightest movement outside my hotel room. Probably just room service, but something about the way my skin breaks out into goosebumps tells me it’s more sinister than that.

  Before I can move, the hotel room door bursts open.

  The chain is still on, and the door actually comes off its fucking hinges, landing heavily in the space where Avery and I were standing just minutes ago. I’m slow to react. All those freshly fucked hormones make it impossible to think quickly.

  It’s the cops—Elliot and Isobel. Guns drawn, like they’re expecting to find some real crime going down in my hotel room. I guess if that’s what they thought, they were right. It’s fucking criminal that I’m not having sex with Avery right now.

  I put my hands in the air and roll my eyes. “You could’ve knocked.”

  They’re barely looking at me, eyes sweeping over everything like they’ve never seen a hotel room before.

  “Where’s Avery Capulet?” Isobel barks. “We know she’s here.”

  I lower my hands as Elliot jerks his head toward the bathroom door. Isobel gives him a crisp nod. I feel like I’m watching a buddy cop movie, only nothing funny is going to happen when they interrupt Avery in the shower. Elliot reaches for the handle of the bathroom door and pushes it open.

  The first thing I see is the tip of a gun.

  Oh, no. Avery told me she’d used a gun. I didn’t stop to think that she still had it on her.

  She comes out slowly, eyes narrowed, gun pointed toward the floor. She’s naked save for the towel wrapped around her midsection, her bare shoulders dotted with beads of water.

  Suddenly, my heart is too big for my rib cage. It’s working on pounding its way out. Jesus, Avery. Pointing a gun at a couple of cops?

  I don’t move a muscle. I don’t have to look over at these cops to know how tense they are—to understand how close this thing is getting to an actual standoff.

  They seem drawn together by a larger force, the three of them, and it’s as if I’m forgotten, the only unarmed one in this strange gathering. Avery steps slowly out of the bathroom and backs toward me, putting herself between me and the cops. I want to throw my arms around her and kiss her. It’s misguided as fuck, what she’s doing. I’m not sure what her plan is, but defending me? Who’d have thought?

  “Avery,” Elliot says, casual, like the two of them have run into each other at the bar. “You doing okay? I lost track of you at the cemetery earlier.”

  The cemetery, no doubt, where her mom and sister are buried. Trips to that place have to be a mindfuck. And after what she told me, there’s no way she’s in a good frame of mind right now. Question is, how much more does it take to push her into actual insanity?

  Where is the line?

  What’s she going to do?

  Sweat beads at my hairline. Avery’s teetering on the edge of madness. I tasted it on her lips and I heard it in her voice, and if she cracks now, with that gun in her hand....

  I take a tentative step closer to Avery. I can stop this—I can reason with her. But I don’t want to startle her. Every move is a terrible decision to have to weigh up.

  “Things aren’t great, Elliot.” It’s clear that for her, the high of being together has worn off...or it didn’t do enough to dull the tension in her mind. The pitch of her voice is a dead giveaway. “I don’t really know what to do.”

  “I think it would be a good idea if you gave that gun to Isobel.” Elliot’s a cop, but he’s also a class act. He keeps his gun trained on Avery but his expression is placid. Calm. He doesn’t look like he’s about to shoot her. I hope.

  “It’s all I’ve got.” Avery swallows hard. “I don’t have anything else to protect myself with.”

  “You don’t need a gun to have a conversation. It’ll be better for everybody if you just step forward and put it into Isobel’s hand.”

  I don’t know what black magic Isobel did, but she’s no longer holding her gun. She’s got a pair of empty palms to offer Avery and a smile that’s both stern and encouraging.

  “I don’t want to let it go.” Avery’s hands shake, the light from the window catching in the polished metal of the gun. Her chin quivers next. Jesus Christ, if she bursts into tears now... “Listen, Elliot, I probably—I fucked up.”

  “We’ll talk about it,” he answers lightly. “We’ll talk everything through. Isobel’s going to take your gun first, Avery.”

  “No.” Avery shakes her head, emphatic, eyes dark. “No. I need it. You don’t understand.” She takes three big steps back and hits the edge of my bed. She’s right beside me now, so close I can see the panic raging in her eyes, the slight shake in her hands.

  I shouldn’t touch her but I can’t help it.
I catch her before she falls, placing my palm in the small of her back to steady her.

  “Aves.” She looks sidelong at me and I see it all laid bare in her eyes. Grief. Pain. Madness. Those three things might never go away. The only thing that can change is this situation. The longer it goes on, the more dangerous it is for her. “Give them the gun, Aves. It’ll be all right.”

  She chews at her lip. “I don’t think it will.”

  “It will. Trust me. Isobel’s going to come take the gun, and then you’ll be okay.” As I’m saying the words I push her arms down gently, until the gun is pointed at the floor.

  Isobel steps forward, right on cue, and plucks the gun from Avery’s hands. The thick tension in the room dissipates like a spent raincloud. Elliot lowers his gun, holstering it quickly. I don’t know if Avery sees or not, but I sure as hell do—the shift in his face from negotiator to pissed-off pawn.

  “You got some clothes?” Isobel asks Avery softly. Avery won’t answer her - or can’t. She’s staring down at her empty hands, the ones that were holding a loaded gun just moments ago. I gesture to the bathroom. “In there.”

  Isobel enters the steamed-up bathroom, emerging a few moments later with Avery’s dress and panties. She hands them to me wordlessly. The dress is one that buttons down the front, which is lucky, since I ripped it from her body before I screwed her on this very bed. Elliot gives Isobel a pointed look before he turns around to face the other way, allowing Avery a shred of dignity. Isobel keeps a close watch as I slide the dress over Avery’s bare shoulders, buttoning it as quickly as I can, letting the towel around her midsection fall to the floor. The three top buttons have popped off, and I can’t locate her bra. I finish buttoning the dress and then slide one of my clean black t-shirts over Avery’s head to keep her tits from falling out of the top of her dress. It swims on her until I gather the front section and tie a loose knot in it. The girl would look good in a potato sack, but in my t-shirt and the dress I just ripped off of her body, she looks like a fucking wet dream. If there weren’t two cops breathing down my neck, I’d be hard again already.

  Finally, I crouch down, hooking Avery’s panties around her right foot, then her left, bringing them up her calves, over her thighs, settling them at her hips before smoothing the dress down.

  “There.”

  “Thank you,” she says, her eyes finally meeting mine. She looks remorseful.

  “Let’s go down to the station for a talk,” Isobel says, the gentle negotiator tone gone from her voice. Now, she’s all business. Elliot turns back to face us, his expression grim.

  “Cuff her,” he says to Isobel.

  “What?” My mouth drops open. “Are you serious? You can’t—”

  But it’s too late. Isobel turns Avery around and slaps the cuffs on her wrists. Avery doesn’t resist. It’s as if the last ounce of fight has drained out of her, and left her limp.

  “Yeah, actually, I can,” thunders Elliot. “Your little girlfriend here committed armed robbery in that clinic. She made me her getaway driver. There’s not much I can do to save her now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  AVERY

  My uncle Enzo has never looked so pissed off.

  He’s dressed up for the occasion. His suit looks too nice for the holding cell at the police station, and honestly, his face looks too red. The lawyer he brought with him is getting concerned about it. The lawyer, a young guy who’s busy sweating through his shirt, should be concerned. What happened at the firm today that they sent this poor guy on a family assignment like this one? Maybe an important staff birthday party. Some kind of team-building outing.

  It’s hard to listen to all the yelling. Nathan leans against the wall, his arms folded, watching Enzo stalk back and forth. I’m only half-listening to what he says, and he must notice, because he stops talking mid-rant.

  Enzo gets in my face. “Are you hearing me?”

  “Of course I’m hearing you.” I lean my head back against the wall. “Everyone in this building can hear you.”

  He takes a deep breath, stabbing the air with his index finger.

  “I need the message to get across, Avery. This is not how a member of this family is supposed to conduct herself. You, of all people. You know this. Don’t act like you’ve suddenly forgotten how your behavior affects all of us.”

  “It doesn’t, really,” I say absently. “Aside from that lady at the clinic and a bunch of embryos who will never know how fucked-up all of this has become. I’ll pay her a settlement for her troubles and give her an apology myself.”

  He looks like he could slap me. “Do you think I give a shit about some receptionist? I give a shit about this family, about our name. Shareholders in the Capulet corporation are pissing their pants, my dear niece. The stock price has fucking plummeted. If we don’t save the family image soon, this company is going to be screwed. It’s going to be fucked.” His voice rises and rises, battering the ceiling in the room. “And that’s on your shoulders.”

  “Stop, Dad. God.” Nathan rubs at his forehead. “She just got kidnapped and raped for what, six weeks? Ease off.”

  I cringe at how casually he mentions what happened to me. I know he’s trying to defend me, but Jesus Christ, it burns.

  Enzo turns scarlet and presses in on Nathan.

  Nathan doesn’t back down.

  “I said, ease off. Did you figure out bail yet? Sitting around in here isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

  “Yes.” Good for the lawyer, finally chiming in. “Let’s continue our discussion with the Sheriff.”

  The lawyer, who looks like a strong wind could blow him over, somehow manages to herd Enzo out of the cell, leaving me alone with Nathan.

  “Jesus, Aves. I leave you alone for five seconds and you go on a shooting spree.”

  “I didn’t shoot anyone.” But I could have.

  I feel split in two. Part of me will always be in that basement, helpless and bleeding. Part of me will always remember how it felt to have that gun in my hand. Guns fuck with your head, they really do. They make you feel like you might be able to win.

  Enzo negotiates bail not long after, and I sit through a silent ride. It’s halfway through when I realize we’re not headed home. I don’t bother asking. If we’re not going to the house, there’s only one other place.

  The Capulet Corporation headquarters.

  Inside the building, Enzo has his secretary follow me into the women’s locker room off the employee gym. In the hot water I let the sweat from the police station sluice down the drain. I already need another confession. That poor priest—now his car is going to be associated with my unhinged self. At least his church gets a hundred grand out of it. See? There’s always a silver lining.

  The secretary brings me a clean set of clothes from my office. The clothes, like all my other clothes from before, are too big, but a belt will do wonders for a pencil skirt. I tug on the black skirt and button-down shirt, then slip my feet into the emergency pair of blood-red Manolo Blahnik heels I always keep at the office. I feel like a complete fraud. The woman who used to wear these clothes isn’t me. Maybe she never was. But I can’t get into existential questions like that now, because the secretary is waiting.

  She ushers me through the building to my father’s office, where Enzo is temporarily reigning over things from behind Daddy’s desk. My uncle is significantly less red now, but the setup reminds me uncomfortably of that last meeting with my dad, on my birthday. Look how well that turned out. Nathan has perched himself on one of the windowsills and looks out to the city, the bones of his face in sharp relief in the natural light.

  “Have a seat, Avery.” Enzo glances up from paperwork as if he’s actually been working—quite the act. “It’s time for us to talk about damage control.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about being kidnapped.” I take my seat, crossing my legs and feeling the pleasant ache between my legs where just hours earlier, Rome was inside me. Avery Capulet, pretending to be the girl
she used to be. It’s easy enough to slip into her mannerisms, but her mind? I think that’s gone forever. “And I can’t do anything about the woman at the clinic, except apologize to her and throw a bunch of money her way. May the share prices rest in peace.”

  “I’ve already handled the receptionist,” Enzo says, waving his hand dismissively. “She won’t be a problem going forward.”

  I glance at Nathan, then back to Enzo. “You paid her off? It’s my fault. It should come out of my money, not yours.”

  “I didn’t pay her off.”

  “What’d you do, have her killed?” I’m joking, but the grave expression on Enzo’s face fills me with dread. “Please tell me you didn’t have her killed.”

  “She’s fine. Our lawyers dug up some dirt on her and made her aware we can pull the trigger on sending it to her employers at any time.” Enzo smiles when he says pull the trigger. I have no doubt he chose those words carefully.

  “You blackmailed her.”

  Enzo shrugs. “We did. You’re welcome.”

  “When did you become such an asshole?” I ask him. “You were always the one who was the least of an asshole around here.”

  Enzo sits back in my father’s high-backed leather chair, the venom in his gaze all for me. “I imagine it was around the time you started doing armed robberies and letting our sworn enemy use your cunt as his personal cum dumpster.”

  I blink rapidly. Did he just actually say the words cum dumpster? And cunt? Am I hallucinating right now?

  Nathan starts to choke on his coffee, slamming his balled fist against his chest as he wheezes in a strangled breath.

  “Speechless,” Enzo says. “About fucking time.”

  He’s right. I am speechless. I have no idea how he knows what Rome and I were doing in that hotel room, but I have no doubt that he does know. Even the words he chose chill me to the bone.

  “Let’s get to the meat of the matter, shall we?” Enzo rubs his temple. “The bad press regarding you and the many men associated with you...” He means Will. He means Joshua. He means Rome. “Not to mention, the kidnapping itself. It’s bad, and it’s only going to intensify. As much as I hate to say it, your little stunt with the clinic receptionist today is the least of our problems. Your terrible judgment in who you choose to fuck, on the other hand, is becoming quite the PR nightmare.” Enzo steeples his fingers in a strange imitation of my dad. “The best way forward is for you to get married.”