“I don’t believe you.”
“Then don’t. You and he haven’t been through the same shit we have. I have a horrible feeling that’s going to change. Then, maybe you’ll see him through the same lens.”
“Which lens is that?”
“Sympathy,” I say, handing him a bottle of painkillers. “I wish he weren’t so pent up with so much rage and hatred all the time. I wish he were more okay with who he is, and where he’s at.”
“Are any of us?” Oliver asks, taking the pills and turning around for his water bottle.
“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking more about what I said last week, about this whole notion of nonviolent protest. At what point do we say enough is enough and fight back with everything we’ve got?”
“Never.”
The bluntness of his response catches me off-guard. I watch him toss back three of the tiny, sugar-coated tablets. “Never ever?”
“It’s the quick way out, the dirty way out,” he says. “It’s the laziest way to enact change, used by people who don’t have the mind or stomach to persevere. There are other ways of inspiring people and being seen without dehumanizing your enemies, dehumanizing yourself.”
“Like what?”
Oliver lifts his head to smile at me before shying away. “I like it when you talk. I like the words you use, the way you make me question everything I know to be true. I find that inspiring.”
I find myself blushing. “You’re a beautiful person, Oliver.”
“Is it cheesy to say you are too? Is there a less dorky way to say that?”
“Cap?”
Duncan’s head appears at the northern hatch again.
“Shields has the north entrance locked down. You and I should run over the plan before we head off ta meet this Irene lass.”
“Good call.” I lean in, planting one last sweet kiss on Oliver’s forehead. “Be good, you. Don’t do anything stupid.”
I follow Duncan through the hatch, down the long dirt shaft to a dug-out area where we’ve parked the camper van.
“What were that about, lassie?”
“Luck Magick. Did you know it’s apparently broken?”
“Aye right. That some geek term?”
“Why do all the men around me act older than they actually are?”
Duncan is chuckling as we board the bus, which is empty. Tesla is snoozing, curled up in the passenger’s seat amidst a blanket that smells like Alfie. A beat passes between us, and all of a sudden, I realize this is the first time we’ve been alone together in almost a week.
I swallow dryly. That’s, ah, a dangerous place for my mind to go. Especially on the eve of such a dangerous, dangerous mission.
“You wanted to talk?”
“I dunno, lassie. Did you?”
The tension between us is thick, steamy, and palpable. “There’s, uh, a lot to go over,” I say, avoiding the leering heat of his eyes all over my body. “Before we leave to meet Irene, I mean.”
“Aye.”
“A lot of… details to the plan. Life-saving… details.”
It’s no use. In fact, it’s futile.
We were doomed from the moment we entered the van, which is probably why we were both so willing to do so. Why we both came out here in the first place. The muggy warmth of the underground bunker isn’t the only thing making me damp, causing me to sweat, and I squirm with my thighs pressed together as I realize there’s absolutely no chance I’m walking away from this situation in any way un-fucked.
15 Duncan's Goddess
There’s nae a thing as bonny as my Captain—standing proud and tall, the stray strands of her hair blowing in the breeze of the van’s air con. Which is perhaps a wee bit less romantic than a summer wind, but the illusion on the eyes is just as spectacular.
She wields death in both her hands, yet at the same time, she’s our savior. I dunnae think she realizes it, but I know she’s the one thing standing between us and total destruction.
The one thing I was sent here to find some trace of, any trace.
And in her, I found it in droves.
It’s a wee bit frightening, how she makes me want to fall to my knees and worship her. She’s like a warrior goddess of yore. I think it every time I look at her. I’ve never understood why women think real men want some delicate, perfumed, doe-eyed creature to give us soft words and softer hands every night.
Aye, maybe some men want that, but me? I crave blood, and fire. Sweat and bone. I yearn for the rough edges of Penny’s personality. The dark shadows in her eyes when she’s angry, the most glorious and fearsome woman to ever have crossed my path.
I’m okay with imperfect. I thrive on imperfect. I wouldn’ae have her any other way.
She comes to me easily in the middle of the van, standing toe-to-toe as I look down at her. I can feel her breathing, the sound of it filling me up from the inside. And when we reach for each other, it’s like a mountain and river colliding. Her fingers work into my short hair, tugging hard, and my mouth is on her, working her lips over ’til she gasps and parts them for me.
Aye, there it is. That small noise she makes in the back of her throat, like she cannae get enough of me. She always does this, bends to my will, no matter how strong she is. She opens up, trembling in my arms even as she’s clawing at me with those wee sharp nails. She trusts me not to hurt her, to give her what she needs.
But, she shouldn’t. She really, really shouldn’t.
I guess we’re both idjits in that regard.
“Shit, Duncan,” she hisses out as she reaches for me again, desperate for more of the kisses I can give her. A reckless chuckle escapes me and I wrap her up in my massive arms, pulling her up my body until her legs hook over my hips so she can kiss me easier. Her mouth is messy on mine, her teeth sinking into my bottom lip. With a groan, she melts into me.
It’s what I want. It’s no more than I deserve from her for the terrible secret I’m bearing, the lie I’m living out day after day. Let her give the tenderness to Oliver, a better man who’s not once betrayed her trust. Let her give all of her heat and her passion to Alfie who, despite being a wee bit of a spanner at times, can at least give it back to her in earnest.
I want her blood and her bones, the raw anger that simmers deep inside her. I want the fear, the anticipation, the adrenaline as she rakes her nails through my hair and down my neck. I want her to hurt me.
Steady on my feet, I maneuver us to the back of the van, where the bed is folded out and waiting for us.
I’ll take her now, before the universe tries once again to take her from me.
Her eyelashes flutter as her back hits the sheets, and I cover her with my body, running my fingers down her neck. I want to feel her pulse, feel it speed up as I make her soar. She shivers for a moment, and she’s delicate and beautiful before her lips twist into a smirk. She shoulders me, and shoves hard, catching me off guard. I fall to my side and she slips over my hips, her thighs wrapping around them.
“Got you,” she whispers, her eyes swooping low as she takes me in, assured in her dominance. I’ll let her have it, for the moment. She needs this victory, to let the energy pump through her veins. She’s trying to avoid the future, and I’m trying to escape the past.
“Oh, aye. Ye think so, do you?” I ask, and she laughs, throwing her head back. My hands slide up under her shirt, feeling smooth inches of her warm skin. She shudders, her muscles trembling as I help her to throw the garment away.
“That’s what I wanted ta see tonight,” I growl, and despite her facial sass she ducks down to kiss me. My hands cup her breasts, teasing them with rough, calloused fingers until she’s gasping, rocking her hips over my own.
“And who’s got who now, lassie?” I taunt her.
Penny growls at me, her eyes flashing with that inner fire, her passionate temper, but she doesn’t pull away. She gets closer to me, pinning my arms between us, her teeth crazing over the side of my neck. She bites, a warning nip more than anything. I wor
k a hand out and swat her on the arse; she’s not going to get away with that kind of behavior. Not with me. Not tonight.
Controlling her is the only way I know how of keeping her from seeing what’s been boiling inside me. Threatening to take me out, threatening to expose me to her.
I cannae tell her how I feel about her, not really. And I cannae ever let her find out why I’m really here.
And she’ll figure it out, if I let her in too close, if I let her have too much of the upper hand. Penny’s a shrewd one all right, and she’s always been able to see me right down to the quick. One thing I learned in basic training was never to expose too much of oneself to people like that, no matter how much you trust them.
No matter how much you… love them.
Tonight, though, she’s grinding into me, searching for her own pleasure, and I have no problem giving it to her.
“C’mere,” I say, and wrap my fist in the front of her shorts, tugging on them until she groans.
“Don’t, Dee—”
“Ye love it, lassie, so dinnae pretend ye don’t,” I growl throatily. I wriggle my fist down into her panties, straining against the denim she’s wearing. She’s hot, soaking wet, and I rub my knuckles into her soft pussy until she’s squirming all over them. She’s riding both my hand and my cock desperately, the hunger inside her taking over. As for me, I’m hard as steel and fast becoming lubricated with her own juices, wanting nothing more than to be buried deep inside her. But, there’s still so many damn clothes…
Penny sighs, her eyes shutting, and I feel the soft flutter of her powers melt over me, the fabric encasing us both twisting and then slipping away.
Fucking matter Magick, I think as I yank her in close to me. I’ll never bitch about it again.
She’s bare against my broad frame, her slick warmth rolling along my knuckles like a toy as her lips work their way across my collarbone. I groan, pulling my cock away with a jerk of my hips.
“Why dinnae ye do that ta begin with?” I’m nae mad about it, but I do love to see the annoyance cross her face.
“Piss off,” she spits out, but the heat in her voice is from the way I’m circling my thumb around her clit, nae any sort of anger or ire. She jerks, cries out, and I groan as her pussy slides along the entire width of my hand. I want to be inside her—any part of me.
“Aye, steady,” I tell her, wrapping a hand around her hip, helping her up over me. Her thighs are so small, trembling in my hands as I guiding them over the head of my dick. She’s watching me under half-closed lids, her lower lip pulled between her teeth as she sinks back into my chest.
“D-Dee… oh, oh god…”
Her warm heat envelops me as my cock presses into her entrance, inch after agonizing inch, and I’m forced to bite back on a growl and keep myself from thrusting up into her. She needs the first few minutes of control, I can sense it. I feel it in the way she shudders as I eventually bottom out inside her, our bodies flush and tight to one another. Perfectly fitting together as she nestles in my lap, as if the two of us were built to be this way.
“My god, woman,” I can barely breathe the words and she gives me a hesitant smile before lifting up off of me, her muscles taut as she drags herself along my cock.
Fuuuck.
That’s just—fuck. I can’t help it, as she sinks down onto me again. The need to control her, to push her down onto her back and just fuck her, becomes too much.
And so, I do just that. I roll her under me, caging her in my arms, pinning her down with my much heftier, bigger bulk. Her eyes widen but she doesn’t even make a noise, her lips dropping apart. Her tiny pants of breath grow faster, hitching as my hips start a steady, hard pace that has her racing to keep up with me.
“Duncan—” My full name at the hilt of her throat, half-ground, has my balls hot and tight and ready to burst. I want to make her do that again. I just want to give her everything, until she’s screaming my name, her head thrown back against the sheets as she writhes and moans for me.
Wrapping my hands around her wrists, I pin her tight even as she fights me, her hips jerking up to meet mine despite the fire in her eyes.
“You dunnae want to escape. Nae, my love, you want ta stay right here, under me, where I can fill you up and give you everything ye need,” I say, and smirk at the blush that immediately darkens her pale cheeks. My cock is moving faster and faster inside her, my hips churning away at an impossible rhythm. I can use my own Magicks to my advantage in the sack, too. My thighs are burning, the sweetest pain, the most amazing feeling, and I catch her mouth in a kiss and bite at her lips until she’s crying out again.
Her pussy clamps down around me, and I feel her as she comes hard, her face flushed and fractured and beautiful in every single way.
Aye. And it’s in that moment I realize how wrecked I am.
How lost I am. How… compromised.
I stutter, my hips jerking as my orgasm chases hers. She pulls it out of me, a broken and battered noise of defeat, even as my heart sinks lower than it ever has at such a high moment in my life.
I need her more than anything, than anyone. She’s the one person I need in this world, really need, and I could be about to lose her at any moment.
To one thing, or another.
Her eyes shut and she collapses back with a sigh, her back losing it’s sharp arch of ecstasy.
“Dee?” she whispers, her voice hoarse.
“Aye, love?” I say, still trying to work through how to bail out my sinking boat, patch the holes, anything I can do. I may not be clairvoyant but I can see the future, a future where she discovers out everything. And it’s nae a bonny one, for me, for her, or for the entire brigade.
Penny doesn’t suffer fools to live, let alone love.
She turns her back on those who’ve betrayed her. Forgiveness from her is a rare and well sought-after commodity. And I don’t doubt it’s a kindness I won’t be afforded, breaking her heart when I’m in so deep.
“You’ve got mine, right?”
The shaky hesitance to her words shatters me, somewhere I wasn’t ready to be shattered. It takes every ounce of strength, natural and supernatural, to respond without my voice cracking in two.
“Aye, lassie. I’ve got yours.”
I kiss her before she can say anything further, maybe to stop her from talking so I dunnae have to hear her voice and have it break me further.
‘Cause if I cannae hear her speak, I’ll be that much further away from having her voice echo in my mind long after she’s left me far behind her.
Where I belong.
16 Rhys' Dark Secret
“I know your secret.”
Ah. These are never words a man enjoys hearing, especially when he actually has a secret worth keeping.
“At least, I got a pretty good idea about it. You’re not as hidden as you think.”
“And you’re clearly not as stupid as you look.” It doesn’t take me more than a second or two to locate him, strong and hulking, and perched on top of the scaffold to my left. “Hop along now, nasty little chav-boy. Nobody here requested nor requires your presence.”
“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” The blond man’s tact boots dangle over the tarp-laden doorway that leads toward the bunker’s northern entrance. His cut, chiseled face is twisted in a smug grin, not exactly reminiscent of the ‘sweetness’ Penny spoke of him embodying. “Knew I’d know?”
“Perhaps I was avoiding you for your own benefit,” I remark cooly. There’s a bitter chill to the winter air, though it’s nowhere near as biting as the icy grin I fix him with.
“I’m not the only one with a familiar face, Gavin,” I say dangerously. “And yours has been plastered across far more walls than my own. You should ride the tube on occasion. Congratulations, by the way, you’re practically a celebrity down there.”
“Don’t take the piss,” he snaps back at me. Nothing gives me more joy than knowing I’ve successfully wriggled my way under someone’s skin, and thi
s fellow isn’t shy in showing me. “At least my dad could stand the sight of my face all over London.”
“My father couldn’t stand the sight of my face when I was living, let alone in death.”
“So, it is you.” Gav stares down at me from the first level of the scaffold. “Does he have any idea you’re still alive?”
“No.” I cast a rather deliberate glance about myself. The old cobblestone alleyway is dimly lit and scarcely-trod. Two young men conversing quietly back here would likely be ignored for fear of inciting their wrath, if London is anything like I remember it. “And I would so rather keep it that way, thank you very much. Is that an option at this point?”
“I don’t know about that, Harrison.”
I freeze. I haven’t heard my official, registered name spoken aloud in years. It’s alien, and through the cold, white noise of the outdoor air, a shrill alarm bell screams its loudest red alert.
This cannot be good.
“I’m starting to wonder,” this ‘Gav’ fellow continues, “if I’ll be charged with treason for not coming clean about this.”
“Oh, please,” is my loose retort. While I’ll tolerate his presence, I draw the line at tolerating his cheek. “You see, that’s the issue with an authoritarian society. Absolutely no right to personal privacy, these days. None.”
“I don’t think a fella like you ever had a right to personal privacy.”
“Oh-ho, them’s fighting words, Junior!” I exclaim, adopting his lower class drawl for a single outburst. “I imagine your daddy enjoys kissing you with that nasty fascist mouth of yours.”
Gav’s eyes narrow as he peers down at me. I don’t enjoy being looked down upon, figuratively or literally. I find both quite irritating. As a matter of fact, I hate it so much that I made sure from an early age to master the technique of looking down at someone even if they have the physical or metaphorical higher ground.
I peer right back at him, down the length of my nose, and twist my lips into a cruel smirk. This simple, human man doesn’t seem to have much going spare in the wits department. I doubt I’ll have an issue keeping the upper hand from here on out.
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