She had to have been through shit, given her occupation. There had to have been days that brought her to tears, but you’d never know it.
And here the rest of us were, hurt and using it as an excuse to destroy ourselves, while she just kept trudging along day after day, getting closer and closer to what she wanted.
“What if I want to touch you someday?” I whispered to Alex, but leaned my head into Will, holding him close. “What if I want to kick them out and climb into bed with you, just us?”
Will grinned, kissing me without missing a step.
What if I felt safe with her, too, and she deserved better than how Aydin was treating her, and I wanted her to know that?
The lump in her throat moved up and down, and Will moved inside of me, both men watching us and holding us.
I gazed at her, droplets shimmering across her skin as Will nibbled the corner of my mouth.
“What would you do?” she asked, our heads together again. “If the boys weren’t allowed?”
I couldn’t hide the smile that peeked out.
“Yeah, what would you do?” Will panted in my ear.
I closed my eyes, loving the control they made me feel. “I wouldn’t be able to stop myself,” I told Will, loud enough for Aydin and Alex to hear. “I’d lock the door, turn off the light, and climb on top of her, sucking her tits into my mouth before spreading her legs and settling in between, nice and warm.”
Will’s body shook as he thrust faster and harder, losing control, and I looked over, seeing Aydin with her pants open and his hand inside, rubbing her through her panties. She clasped his hand in both of hers, like she wanted to stop him but couldn’t find the strength.
“Then what?” Aydin asked me but stared down at her, brow etched in pain.
“I’d kiss her,” I said. “If I were you and I had her under me, I’d kiss her and breathe her in and feel her body pressed to mine as I tasted her…”
“You like to taste things,” Will taunted me, groaning. “Show me. Show me what you’d do with her in your mouth.”
My belly pooled with heat, and I could feel it seeping out of me as he slid in and out.
“What does she taste like, Emory?” Aydin panted.
I glanced over, the cords in his forearm flexed as he worked her, and her eyes closed, the pleasure taking over.
“Warm,” I whimpered. “She’s warm and soft, and I love the feel of her clit against my lips as I lick between her legs.”
Aydin groaned, and I could see the bulge in his pants growing larger as Alex gripped his shoulder with one hand.
“Open your eyes,” he told her. “Look at me.”
She opened them, holding his gaze as he fingered her.
“She widens her knees,” I continued. “And holds my mouth there because it feels so good.”
“Yeah,” she pants, staring up at him as she bites her bottom lip.
I turn to Will. “I lick her up the sides,” I tease him, gliding the tip of my tongue across his lips and flicking the top one as I looked into his eyes. “And I tug on her clit, sucking it into my mouth.” I catch his top lip between my teeth and drag it out before sucking on it hard and swirling my tongue, playing with him.
He growled under his breath, and I flexed my thighs, riding him as he thrust.
“I’d lick her up and down.” I mimicked it on the corner of his mouth. “And play with her for hours, licking up how hot she gets, because she likes her pussy sucked.”
“Emmy,” Alex moaned, dropping her head back. “Jesus, girl...”
“But God, you know what I really want to do?” I asked.
Will shivered. “What?”
“I want to fuck her,” I panted, nibbling his mouth. “I want to drive her wild, rubbing our pussies together like animals, and screwing her until I sweat, because he needs to remember all that he’ll be missing when he’s sitting like a king at his dining room table someday. Alone and dreaming about his naked little Viking straddling him in his chair and fucking her man, because while he controls all, she controls him.”
Alex cried out, wrapping her arms around Aydin’s neck as she shuddered and came. Her head fell back, spray and steam caressing her face, and he held her head, his lips hovering over hers.
Aydin’s eyes glistened, and he moved over her lips, looking like he was going to kiss her and struggling to hold himself back.
I bobbed up and down on Will, crashing my mouth down on his, unashamed and unconcerned for the first fifteen minutes of my entire life. I didn’t care what else happened or how he might hold anything against me. I felt good and brave and high.
I rolled my hips, grinding and chasing the orgasm, and then finally… I cried out, shaking and coming, my thighs tightening and my belly consumed in a wave of tingles and shocks. I moaned, holding on for dear life as the burn in my back started to register from him rubbing my spine against the wall so hard.
But he wasn’t done, and I wasn’t telling him to stop.
“Say his name,” I heard Aydin tell her.
I breathed hard, heat coursing down every inch of my body.
“Say his name,” he told her again.
I looked over, seeing him still rubbing her and trying to make her come again.
“Please,” he begged.
“Will?” she breathed out, looking confused and still dreamy from her orgasm.
“Again.”
“Will,” she said.
I froze, feeling Will slow as well.
“Again,” he told her. “Again.”
What? His muscles flexed, and I watched him, the same pain etched across his forehead.
She stared up at him, searching his eyes. “Will,” she whispered.
“Moan it,” he growled at her, fingering her.
She closed her eyes, gasping from breath as she started to come again. Will stopped, both of us watching them.
What was Aydin doing? It felt different when I was fantasizing about her, because I wanted him to see her through my eyes, but what did he think he was doing, turning the tables? It wasn’t the same.
“Can’t remember my name, just say his,” he taunted, picking up his pace. “Dive deep into your head where I don’t matter, because you’ve already done it a hundred times, and I was always watching you come, you slut.”
She started sobbing dry tears, and he leaned in, moving rougher over her pussy. “Come on, moan for him. His dick feels so good.”
Will softened inside me, and I dropped to my feet, suddenly cold.
“You didn’t just fuck him,” Aydin told her. “You were close. He feels for you.”
I let my eyes fall, and Will tried lifting my chin, but I jerked away.
“Emmy,” he said.
They were close. Maybe he felt for her in a way he and I could never be. That perfect trust.
Friends.
“Come on, say it,” he urged. “Will, Will, Will…”
She shoved him away, slamming her palm against his face, and Will shoved him next before pulling up his drenched jeans.
Aydin slipped his hand inside Alex’s panties, but he had pulled it back out before she could shove him off again.
He held up his glistening fingers to us, showing us how wet she was.
“While you’ve been buried in this,” he told Will, “she’s been sad and sorry.”
His eyes flashed to me, and Will stood there frozen, while Alex quickly fastened her pants.
“It’s plain as day who really suffered during your time apart,” he bit out. “She owes you nothing.”
I couldn’t look up at Will.
And part of me didn’t want to stop Aydin, either, not because he was going after Will, but because he always found a way to make me less entitled to my guilt.
He was like a power-up, which was a weird turn of events, because I thought for sure he would be chaining me to his bed by my neck when we met.
Maybe if I’d grown up with him instead of Martin, my entire world would’ve been different.
>
He left the shower, dropping his wet clothes on the floor and tying a towel around his waist as he walked back into his bedroom. I left my clothes there and walked out, too, throwing Will’s hand off when he tried to grab me.
I wasn’t mad. I didn’t know what was wrong.
I just wanted to get dressed now.
Wrapping myself in a towel, I left the bathroom and walked for the door, but Aydin’s voice stopped me.
“Emory, come here,” he said.
I looked over, seeing him just inside his closet, pulling clothes off the shelves.
He tossed me some red boxers and a black T-shirt, and I caught them, lamenting the loss of my bra on the shower floor now.
The water stopped running, and Will and Alex walked out of the bathroom, wary with their eyes on me.
Will’s eyes dropped to the items in my hands and then back up to me. “Come here,” he ordered.
I darted my eyes to Aydin without even thinking.
“Don’t look at him.” Will scowled at me.
But I remained rooted, hearing Aydin’s calm voice.
“Do what you want, Emory,” he told me. “It’s okay.”
My heart splintered a little more, and I looked away, shaking my head. What I would have given for Will to say that just once. Or my brother.
Someone to guide me. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it from my life since my parents were gone.
If Will or Martin had given me freedom, I would’ve wanted them more. That was all he had to do. He just had to let me come to him. Like the Homecoming dance.
It just took me longer to figure things out. I didn’t dive into anything head first. Aydin seemed to know that.
Had to hand it to him… I understood why he was the alpha now.
“Emory…” Will said.
I didn’t move.
Aydin dressed, and I clutched the clothes, my legs charged to just head back to my room.
“Em…” he said again in a lower voice.
Tears filled my eyes, and I heard a quiet chuckle come from Aydin. “Micah and Rory are drunk by now,” he told Will, “and you’re going to leave without the only thing you want.”
Me.
Aydin pulled his T-shirt over his head and met my eyes. “You happened to him.”
Nothing happened to me. I wasn’t a victim, and this was the last time I’d hesitate.
I pulled on the shorts and rolled them over a couple of times, and Aydin walked out of the room as Will’s eyes bore a hole in my back. I didn’t even have my shirt on yet before Will charged out of the room, slamming the door against the wall on his way, and I whipped my head around, looking at Alex.
A crash hit the floor downstairs, and a moment passed before she shot off, running after them.
I threw on my T-shirt, pulled off the towel, and flipped my wet hair back out of my face as I ran out of the room. I looked left and right, not seeing anything, but a scuffle hit my ears, and I leaned over the balcony, seeing Aydin with Will in a headlock on the floor of the foyer.
Shit.
Alex rushed in, but Will shot out his hand. “Don’t,” he yelled. “Stay back.”
She halted, and I hurried down the stairs as Will and Aydin rolled over on the floor, Aydin strangling him, and Will struggling for air.
“Stop!” I shouted.
Will laid on top of Aydin and threw his head back, trying to hit Aydin with the back of his skull, but the other man jerked out of the way just in time. They both scrambled, their dark hair wet and messy as Will flipped over and tried to get a hold of Aydin’s neck.
They shot out their legs, tumbling to the side, and the candelabra toppled over, the candles rolling to the edges of the room.
The men wrestled, and I shot my hands to my hair, trying to figure out what to do. Will could wrestle. What was going on?
And if he couldn’t beat Aydin, why had he gone after him?
Enough. They were both getting locked in the cellar tonight.
I ran into the drawing room and pulled the longarm off the wall—an antique from World War I, it looked like—and dashed back into the foyer, stepping in and kicking Aydin off Will.
He fell back to the floor, but before he could dive back in, I pointed the gun, the bayonet pointing right as his neck.
“Enough!” I yelled.
I’d forgotten my glasses in the shower, but I could see Aydin’s cocked eyebrow well enough.
Will shot off the floor, coming for him again, but Alex grabbed him by the jeans and smacked him over the head.
I fought not to laugh, because that’s how funny all of this was.
Grown men…
I didn’t have time do more, though. Taylor, Micah, and Rory arrived on the scene, wet from the pool and their eyes darting between all of us.
Taylor’s gaze finally settled on me with the gun pointed at Aydin, and in a blur, it all happened.
Will charged for Taylor, Aydin scurried off the floor and threw himself at Will, and the next thing I knew, Taylor had grabbed the gun, ripped it out of my hands, tossed it, and gripped the back of my head with one hand and threw a punch into my stomach with the other.
My insides tried to push through my spine, vomit rose up my throat, and I coughed, dropping to my knees.
Tears filled my eyes as everyone, blurry in front of me, scrambled to separate Will and Aydin. Taylor lifted me up and slammed me against the staircase, squeezing my jaw between his fingers and hovering over me.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” he gritted.
My body wracked with pain, and I sucked in air, trying to catch my breath as the inside of my mouth cut on my teeth.
But he was pulled away, someone grabbing his hand, bending his finger back, and bringing him to his knees as he cried out. I blinked, gasping as Aydin grabbed the gun, propped it up on the floor for leverage, and shot the bayonet down, slicing off Taylor’s pinky finger.
I widened my eyes as blood spurted, spilling onto the marble, and everyone stopped, their attention caught now.
Taylor screamed, but Aydin didn’t waste any time. He hauled him up, threw him over his shoulder, and headed for the back of the house.
“Bring Will, too!” he shouted.
Huh?
I looked between Rory and Micah, who both looked unsure, but then Rory gritted his teeth and moved first, grabbing Will.
“No!” Alex and I shot forward, reacting, but Micah pushed us back, protecting Rory.
What the hell?
Micah helped him, both of them force-walking Will and following Aydin as Alex and I trailed. I grabbed the gun on my way, sweat coating my body as I watched Alex swipe a candlestick. We were both armed now, a trickle of blood gliding down my blade, and Taylor’s finger on the floor somewhere.
Why had Aydin done that? Taylor was his lapdog.
“Aydin, please,” I begged.
Where was he taking them?
He opened the door to the cellar, descended the stairs with the boys, and we chased, jogging down the stone steps to see them throwing Will on the ground as Aydin tied up Taylor’s wrists and slung them over a hook above his head. Blood poured down his arm, and he breathed hard, his face twisted in pain.
Next, he moved to Will, but shot a glance to us. “Hold them!” he ordered Micah and Rory.
“No!” We raised our weapons, and they stopped in front of us, the confrontation at a stand-still as Aydin squatted next to Will.
He laid there, blood dripping off the corner of his mouth, his eyes cast down, and making no move to fight more.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Alex was right. Will could take these guys. My God. This hurt more than the pain in my gut. I couldn’t watch.
“I like you,” Aydin told him, unknotting some rope. “I didn’t think I would. Life has a weird sense of humor, you know? I watched you with her at parties. I’d see you with her at restaurants. Then, lo and behold, you show up here, our new inmate.”
Her. Alex.
I straightened, a thought taking form in my head. It was strange that out of all the people in the world, they wound up in the same place. Two men who both knew Alex.
One who clearly resented the other for it.
“Remember when you asked me if I could get things other than alcohol and cigarettes?” he questioned Will.
And I gulped. No. He had Will brought here. Either for revenge or to take him away from Alex.
Oh, my God.
But then suddenly Aydin turned and jerked his chin, gesturing to me, instead.
What?
My heart dropped into my stomach, and Will gritted through his teeth, “You son of a bitch.”
I stepped forward, dropping my weapon. “Me?” I said, but I already knew the answer. “You brought me here?”
All the enemies and all the people who had something against me if they knew my secret, and it turned out to be someone I’d never met?
He didn’t sentence Will to Blackchurch. He smuggled me in for revenge.
Aydin’s eyes fell, and he tightened the rope around Will’s wrist. “I want him to know what this feels like,” he murmured. “To watch the one woman it physically hurts to look at, because you want her so much, give her time and loyalty and love to another.” He glared over at me. “I want him to feel this.”
Alex stepped up next to me, and I could hear her breathe.
“Then why not try to seduce me?” I charged before she could say anything. What was with all the big brother shit?
He just chuckled. “The only thing more powerful than the heart is the brain, and it was so much more useful to get into your head than into your bed.”
I shook my head. “Or maybe you didn’t want to take me away from Will, but Will away from Alex. Maybe she was the one you wanted to hurt.”
He shrugged. “Either way.”
The room fell silent except for Taylor’s shaking. I looked over, not that worried about him, but Aydin was going to have to help him. Close the wound or something.
My hand shot to my hair. He brought me here.
But that meant he also gave me the knife. Did he think that was going to be enough protection?
The floor above us creaked—as well as the wood in the walls—and I smelled smoke in the air, but then thunder cracked overhead, the lights flickered, and I raised my weapon again, opening my mouth to speak.
Nightfall Page 44