Dark Truths: Kiss Her Goodbye #2

by Royce, Rebecca

  Chapter 12

  The smell of cooking food drew me down the stairs. I had said I wasn’t hungry but really, was there ever a time not good for bacon? It was breakfast. The thought stopped me in my tracks. After all of that, it really was just breakfast. I hadn’t been to bed.

  Kade stood over the pan, cooking the bacon. I walked over to him, staring over his shoulder. “You can make bacon?”

  “It’s a necessity. Like coffee is for you.”

  “I do love coffee.” I kissed the back of his shoulder as though that was the most normal thing in the world. He tugged me against his side. “I think I went through caffeine withdrawal in Ben’s basement, but it was hard to tell. Everything hurt.”

  He nodded. “I bet it did. Hurt now?”

  “No, now I’m still up, I think. Overdone from the murdering people thing.”

  Kade sighed. “Today, that was self-defense. It might not always be. Today it was.”

  My left hand shook. “I’m shaking again. Thought I was done with that.”

  Warden walked into the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe, watching. “You’ll feel better after you eat something. This could be as much a blood sugar thing and coming down from the adrenaline as anything else.”

  Kade rolled his eyes. “Judson’s not here, and Warden doesn’t have a medical license. But yes, let’s eat something. Your hands will probably stop. Or we’ll find an actual doctor to look at you. We have a nurse upstairs.”

  “Snoring.” I covered my mouth with my shaking hand to stop the giggle that threatened. It really wasn’t funny, and I didn’t want to seem deranged. Although, maybe they needed to know that.

  “Is he?” Warden looked up the stairs. “That’s what started this whole mess.”

  “Derrick getting a brick to the face started this mess. That’s what caused the deviated septum.”

  Warden looked at Kade. “That’s right. I forgot about the mess in Canada right after Alyssa died. He did take a brick to the face. The job he almost lost.”

  “He must have been distraught.” I followed Kade who carried the plate of bacon to the kitchen table. The three of us sat around the table, each of us grabbing a piece. Kade had gotten the right level of burn on the bacon for me. I liked mine pretty crisp. “You got this really right, Kade.”

  He winked at me. “I like it scorched so I held back for you.”

  “You’re both wrong. It’s really much better if you leave it a little less firm. But that’s fine. Bacon is always good, period. Yes, I’m sure Derrick was distraught about Alyssa. Judson was too. They loved her even if she only ever loved herself. Sorry, did I say that aloud?” Warden shrugged.

  Kade choked and then got up to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Don’t let Jud hear you say that. He’ll defend her until he dies and good for him for feeling that way about his twin sister. The last time Derrick said anything about her I got the feeling he started to see her more as she was and less as he’d always idolized her.”

  Now this was interesting. Fascinating enough that I stopped thinking about my hands shaking. “You guys didn’t like her?”

  They both shook their heads. It was Kade who spoke. “No. She was a very selfish, very narcissistic person who had adoration from two people who would do anything for her—one as a brother, one as her husband—and she didn’t care about anyone except herself. I know a lot is thrown around, even by me when you brought it up once, that makes her sound like Saint Alyssa, but the truth of the matter is that a lot of the mess we find ourselves in, including in some ways what you went through, can be traced back to her.”

  I stopped chewing my bacon. “What?”

  “There didn’t use to be this division,” Warden supplied, finishing his last piece. He rose and walked to the coffee machine. “She broke a really fundamental rule. Well, Jud broke it to begin with by telling her. But if you knew something that could get both yourself and the people you love killed, would you do the one thing that you were told not to do? Would you go to the very people who would do the killing and expose your knowledge? As far as we can tell, she was going to throw Derrick to the wolves, even more so than he already had been by turning down a kill, to advance herself. They did just what they’d always said they would do in the circumstances, they killed her. Badly.”

  Kade sighed. “And so we did just what we would naturally do in the same event, we sided with the people we’re loyal to and we started to plot against them. They’re not good men. They never were. They hurt us during training, they changed the course of the Alliance in a way that can never be recovered, but it didn’t have to be this. If she’d kept quiet, this would all be happening very differently.”

  Warden grinned. “Actually, Everly wouldn’t be here at all. She’d be finishing school and having sex with men who disappoint her in bed.”

  If he hadn’t just placed a cup of coffee in front of me, I might have thrown my bacon at him. As it was, thanks to the caffeine, he was forgiven. “Do you think it’ll ever be safe for me to go back there?”

  Kade widened his eyes. “Do you want to?”

  “I want to finish.” I hadn’t said this aloud before, but I’d thought about it a lot in that basement. “I want to get the degree I started and see what happens from there. So I guess, yes, I want to go back.”

  Warden patted my steady hand. “Yes, it’ll be safe again very soon. After tonight, things are going to move at a very fast pace.”

  “Tonight? What are you doing tonight?”

  “I’m breaking them.” He got to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go watch some television.”

  He wanted to watch TV after delivering a statement like that? “What does that mean?”

  “I’m going to wreck them so badly they’ll have no choice but to come out of the shadows. That’s thanks to you and that memory you had. I’ve got them all.”

  Kade nodded. “I’m helping. When we don’t want to kill each other, Warden and I are a good team.”

  Did they often want to kill each other? Warden patted the couch next to him, and I joined him. “Your house is beautiful. Sort of perfect. No one would have any idea you wreck people’s lives from inside its walls.”

  “Oh, they might.” Kade sat down next to me on the other side. “They might very well think that based on this house alone.”

  Warden pointed to Kade. “This from the guy with no house. And no, underground lairs don’t count. You need a house. Where you have stuff and a mailing address. You need to live like a grown up.”

  “He’s just inventing a blue box to move through space and time.” Yes, I referenced Doctor Who. I’d watched every episode on late night television growing up.

  Kade’s grin was huge. “See, my Rose understands me.”

  And there he went answering my reference.

  Warden groaned loudly. He opened the center drawer of his coffee table while he flipped on the large television from his phone. He could make fun all he wanted, but Lord of the Rings came right on, starting from a pause, which indicated he’d been watching it the last time he had the TV on. I smiled. Maybe he had his own fandom.

  What was he digging around in that drawer for? “What did you guys do with yourselves after you killed your first person?”

  I asked the question without even thinking about it. I hadn’t even known I wanted to know that. It was like there was a disconnect between my mind and my mouth. Would that be forever? Was this my new normal?

  “I had a lot of sex.” Warden pulled a box with a picture of the Joker from Batman on the front. “A shit ton of sex. For maybe two days straight. Then I went back to work.”

  Kade sighed. “I got really drunk. I puked. Then I did it again. Puked. It was a cycle for two days. Funny. That’s how long it took me, too.”

  “Well, two days is about right.” Warden opened the box. “Of all people, the now deceased Josh Kralik told us to take two days when we felt bad about things. Two days was what we got to freak out. Then back to it. Of course, I don’t really ne
ed the two days anymore.”

  Two days? They’d all just taken two days? Was I supposed to be magically cured of everything that bothered me, everything I’d been through, in two days? Well, I hadn’t had the teachings of the guy Derrick choked to death so maybe I didn’t have to worry about it.

  “Sex and drunk. Got it.”

  Warden opened the Joker box. “Drunk tonight. For now, you’re going to chill.”

  “Do you have pills in there? Happy pills?” I rubbed my eyes. I was tired. There was no doubt about that, but I wasn’t certain I could sleep. In fact, I was pretty sure I couldn’t.

  “Not pills. Although I do have those upstairs. In my medicine cabinet. I could go get them if you prefer. No, this is my pot box.”

  I side eyed him. “Your pot box? You have a whole box?”

  He’d had a stash we’d enjoyed in Florida. Warden grinned. “It’s legal in California. I can have as many boxes of it as I want.”

  “Did you have something to do with that?” I raised my eyebrow.

  “I’ll never tell.” He nudged me. “Come on. Let’s relax a little bit.”

  Kade sat up straighter. “I’m in.”

  Well, if they were both in, then I was. It wasn’t like I didn’t like it, I did. I didn’t go around breaking the law. Or maybe I did. I killed people.

  I was a law breaker. I had to get used to the idea.

  Warden passed me the lit joint. I guessed he’d lit it up when I hadn’t been paying attention. That was fine by me. He was right. Drunk later. High now.

  * * *

  I giggled through Lord of the Rings. It wasn’t really a laugh-worthy movie. Viggo was hot and there were life and death issues, but so help me, I couldn’t stop laughing. At some point Warden joined me. The two of us just laughed.

  Kade shot us looks that said he wasn’t amused, but as he put his feet up on the coffee table and stretched out, I really didn’t think he cared. The nurse came downstairs and took food up to Derrick. I was enormously glad we had that help. I’d have been really bad at caretaking right now. Maybe ever. Maybe I was not a naturally giving person.

  Oh well. I didn’t currently care.

  Kade leaned over, kissing my neck. That caught my full attention. “Hi there.”

  I felt his smile on my neck and goosebumps broke out all over me. I squirmed. He answered me, “Hello.”

  Warden shifted on the couch. “Oh, are we playing?”

  “Together, if you want. If she wants.”

  I wanted. “Really? Both of you? Do you do this often?”

  “Never.” Warden nibbled on the other side of my neck. “We don’t like each other that much. But we both adore the fuck out of you. So… new things all around.”

  I’d deal with that statement later. They certainly spent a lot of time together considering they didn’t like one another. But that was fine. They both—what was the word he’d just used?—adored me? Okay. They could adore me all they wanted right now.

  “I’m on the pill. All of three days,” I told them as I pulled my shirt over my head. I didn’t have any modesty right now. Not that I did most of the time.

  Warden bit down on my shoulder. I sighed. That was… just right. “We’ll still use condoms for a while then. A month right? Until it’s safer.”

  “I’m glad one of us is thinking.”

  Kade ran a finger up my side, touching the side of my breast. I shivered. I might die of sensory overload and that was perfectly fine. That seemed like a pretty okay way to go, considering every other way I could die.

  “Stretch out.” Kade got off the couch so I could lie flat across it. He got on his knees by my feet, picking up one of them and rubbing the center of it. Warden was up by my shoulders. He once again kissed my neck.

  Warden whispered in my ear. “You smell like my soap. You can’t imagine what a fucking turn on this has been for the last few hours. You’re not allowed to ever smell like anything else.”

  Kade pulled my pants off and then my undies. I was fully naked, and they hadn’t taken off any clothing yet. I should have objected, but if they wanted to make this all about me for the meantime, I wasn’t going to complain. I was going to be selfish.

  For a little bit. I did love making them come. I’d want to reciprocate before too long. I giggled. I might giggle through this whole thing, too.

  Kade kissed up my leg. I shivered, which only increased as Warden took my nipple in his mouth and sucked. I arched my hips. It was pure reflex. My body didn’t have the slightest idea how to manage this any more than my mind did. That was all fine. I’d soon have a huge grasp of the situation and it seemed, even if they didn’t like each other, both Kade and Warden already did.

  While Warden made love to my breasts, sucking and kneading them like it was the only thing he wanted to do in the world, Kade kissed me on both of my thighs. It was like he inched toward the goal but was in no hurry to get there.

  He finally pushed his mouth against my core. I moaned, squirming. Warden released one of my breasts and then took my mouth. That was when it dawned on me that the nurse was upstairs. I considered this for half a second. Yes, he could come on down. I decided I didn’t give a shit. This was too wonderful. If he got a view of something he shouldn’t see, then so be it.

  If Warden and Kade didn’t care, then neither did I.

  He kissed my clit before he tongued it. Kade must have liked doing so because he moaned loudly. I had to hold onto something. I was going to start shaking. I latched a hand to the back of Warden’s neck, dragging his lips to my own again and again.

  He tasted like coffee, his lips soft, but Warden’s beard scratched at me and I loved it. The pain with the pleasure.

  Kade moved his tongue, and I giggled, which made Warden grin against my mouth. “We’re going to take the giggles as good things right now.”

  They really were.

  Pleasure surged through me. I’d never felt this… wanted before. They were strong, powerful men who both desired me enough to share. And I was sort of floating so probably everything felt even better than it normally did. Or maybe not. Kade and Warden both had incredible tongues.

  Kade increased his pressure and that was all I needed. I came on his mouth. He pressed his hips down on me as he drank me in, and I could feel just how hard he was.

  I dropped my hand down, tracing Warden’s body, which was awkward, but I did it. He was tenting his pants as well. I wanted more.

  And so did they.

  When I could breathe, I spoke. “Clothes off, gentlemen. I want you. Both of you. Naked, now.”

  Warden nodded, and Kade jumped up. I sat back on my elbows to watch them. There was something about undressing a man, about taking his clothes off of him, running my fingers over his abs, feeling the dusting of hair, or sometimes more than dusting, found on his chest. There was beauty in those moments.

  But I’d told Warden and Kade to take off their clothes and they were doing that. Sitting back and watching? Yeah… that fucking ruled, too.

  “My turn on that end.” Warden told Kade, who nodded.

  “Only fair. Besides, that means I get to kiss her.” Kade winked at me. “And I get my turn after.”

  I burned with anticipation. I’d never had sex like this. One at a time, recovery if I felt like going again, which most of the time I didn’t. Two times, right after one another? I shivered in anticipation.

  Warden didn’t just go for it. He leaned forward, drawing me up onto my knees. He met me that way, on his own. We kissed and kissed some more. I’d never get enough of kissing Warden.

  He pressed his thumb inside of me, and I immediately revved back up. I gasped. Kade moved in from behind me, pressing his naked, hard self into my back. I trembled. Yes, more. Please. Kade put his thumb in my mouth, and I bit down.

  He jolted before he moaned in my ear. Yes, he liked that. He tugged his finger back, and I reluctantly let him. If I had the chance, and I was going to see to it that I did, I was going to bite him again.


  Warden took my lips one more time before pulling me to him. I climbed up, keeping Kade at my back. Warden was thick, ready, and beautiful. He stroked himself once, and I sighed. My mouth watered.

  He must have read my thoughts or maybe I was obvious. He shook his head. “Another time.”

  “Okay.” I pouted out my lower lip, and he grinned.

  “That shouldn’t be sexy on you, it should make you a brat, but I fucking love it.”

  He reached around me, opening the drawer to the coffee table one more time, and pulled out a condom. He kept all sorts of stuff in there. Note to self, if ever I needed something, I was looking in that drawer first.

  I took the package from him. I couldn’t put him in my mouth, fine, then I’d sheath him. He didn’t object. After I’d gotten him covered, I pushed down on him, fitting him inside of me. We both cried out, and behind me, Kade jerked his hips against my backside. I loved the duality, the way it felt to have both of them.

  Still, Warden had my total attention as I rode him. I knew Kade was there, I loved the strength of him, but it was still just Warden and me, somehow. It would be the same when I was with Kade. I discovered they could both be here and yet it still be one-on-one.

  I loved it.

  He pulsed inside of me, his hips jerking with each of my movements and his neck muscles visibly straining. Warden held onto the back of my shoulders. His breathing quickened and our joining got rougher. Oh, how I didn’t mind. Like the beard on his face scratched me when we kissed, the way he moved inside of me was just a little bit rough.

  I was going to come from that alone.

  It didn’t take long. I exploded. I threw one of my arms back, grasping onto Kade and the other digging into Warden’s chest. I was going to leave a mark. He pulsed inside of me. My coming must have triggered the same in his.

  I tried to catch my breath and couldn’t so I gave up trying.

  Soon, my heart slowed on its own and I could form words again. “Wow.”

  “Well put.” Warden cupped my cheek. “Wow.”

  Kade whispered in my ear. “My turn.”