by Esme Devlin
I take the bottle and hold it to my lips, pausing while I think it over. Buying time.
“Drink,” he orders, his tone impatient.
I tip the bottle up and let the cool liquid trickle down my throat. He was right; it doesn’t burn like I expected. It barely tastes of anything.
“Good girl,” he says with a low growl in my ear. His hand moves in circles over my breast and I want him to stop. I take another drink. Two. His hand slips down to my bare thigh and I hold my breath until the stroke stops at my knee. His hands are rough, dry. My own are clammy. How can he be so calm? I take another drink. Three. Knock them back, Lacey. Drink until you can’t count. Drink until he can’t hurt you.
Chapter 6
Shaun
She passes the bottle to me with a shaky hand and I take a quick gulp and give it to Stevie, signaling Calvin in the mirror to turn the music down a notch. I don’t enjoy drinking much — normally preferring to drive — but certain situations call for it. This is one of those situations.
It’s not that Lacey is bad… far from it. She’s actually quite beautiful. She’s just not what I’d normally go for. She’s too perfect. I like girls with trouble in their eyes, the type of girls who’ll fight you in a good way. Lacey doesn’t look like she’s ever put a foot wrong in her charmed life. A good girl. A daddy’s girl? Time will tell.
I stroke her neck and feel her swallowing under my fingers. She fears me. She’s terrified I will take something she doesn’t want to give. Perhaps she wouldn’t be trembling if she knew I was saving her from giving it to Liam? Maybe she’ll thank me one day.
I draw her neck back until her head rests on my shoulder and give her tits another sharp squeeze with my free hand. Her hand flies instantly to mine, and she tries to pry it away, her fingers gripping around tightly. She might as well be trying to draw blood from a fucking stone for all the good it’s doing her. Her breathing increases and I feel the pulse on her neck throb.
“You told me to drink, and I did,” she tells me through gritted teeth.
“A small mercy,” I murmur in her ear. “You’ll thank me for that tomorrow.”
“I can assure you right now, that won’t happen,” she says.
“Oh, really?” I chuckle. “You’ve not even had me inside you yet... I’m confident I can change your mind.”
“You’re a psychopath,” she states.
“How would you know? You ever met one?”
“I’ve seen films. I’ve read books.”
“Define one,” I challenge.
She says nothing for a while and I think maybe I’ve won this round? I give her nipple a little tug to let her know I expect either an answer, or at the very least an admittance of defeat.
“No remorse,” she breathes.
I’m disappointed with her lack of imagination but I’ll bite.
“I’ve done nothing wrong to be remorseful about. Yet,” I tell her.
She thinks for a moment and tries again. “No regard for other’s feelings.”
“I told you I’m generous. I’ll make you feel things you didn’t even know you wanted,” I say into her ear, giving her lobe a gentle tug with my teeth.
“Why?”
“Why what?” I ask her.
“Why are you doing this?”
I pause while I think about the best way to reply.
“Because I don’t like Liam, and you do. Because I can. Because I want to. Because you’ve got a look in your eye that’s telling me you’ve not had a decent orgasm in your life. Because fucking you would humiliate him. But mostly because I want to.”
“I’m not going to fuck you,” she tells me.
I shrug. “Not tonight then.”
“Not ever!” she says, her tone fiercely passionate.
“Who says you get a choice, princess?” I chuckle as my hand comes to her thigh. I move it up towards the hem of her dress and feel her shiver.
“You disgust me,” she spits.
“No, I don’t,” I tell her as my hand moves under her dress and strokes her inner thigh. She sucks in a gasp and turns her head towards the window. “I scare you. And that’s all right. I scare most people.” I push the thin strip of fabric to the side easily and run a finger along her opening. She’s fucking soaking. “What do you do when you’re scared, Lacey? Do you run away? Or do you stay and fight?”
She clamps her legs shut around my hand like a vice but it’s already too late.
“Fuck you,” she says. She’s so quiet I can hardly hear it over the music but I fix my eyes on her lips and there’s no mistaking those words.
“I’ll teach you how to enjoy being scared,” I whisper right in her ear, before planting a kiss on it.
I slide the tip of my finger inside her and she squirms against it, but she doesn’t struggle. She just continues to look out of the window. I move further in and watch her as she holds her breath. She’s so fucking tight. My finger circles her opening and then slides out and brushes over her clit while she lets out a breath and shudders.
I don’t know exactly what I expected, but this isn’t it. I thought maybe she’d struggle and fight me. Maybe she’d scream and beg for me to stop. But she doesn’t. She just looks out of the window and tries to control her breathing while she wriggles and squirms against me. I can’t deny it’s getting me fucking hard.
I continue on for a few more moments, switching between her cunt and her clit, increasing the pressure slightly until I hear her moan under her breath. My other hand grips tighter around her neck, not enough to cut off air supply but enough to make her feel completely at my mercy.
“Do you like that, princess?” I murmur in her ear.
She doesn’t reply; she just closes her eyes. I watch as the orange streetlights dance across her face and a single tear slides down her cheek. I move in and kiss it away.
“Tell me to stop,” I challenge as I pick up the pace.
She shakes her head, her eyes now open, and her face set in a determined stare. She’s trying her hardest to sit still now, and I can’t tell if this is fear or defiance or if she’s actually fucking enjoying it. Maybe a mixture of all three. I turn her face away from the window and make her face me. It’s dark, but she manages to meet my eye, even as my fingers are still rubbing against her clit.
“Tell me to stop,” I repeat, my voice turning stern.
She doesn’t shake her head this time; she just looks straight at me. Something about it unsettles me and I stop moving against her and hold my hand steady. Either Calvin or Stevie has turned the music back up and it’s too fucking loud — it’s thumping in my chest and making my heart speed up to match it. I have no clue what Tony and Scoot are doing, and I have no desire to turn around and look. They could be watching whatever this is, or they could have fallen clean out of the car and I doubt I’d notice.
The only thing I notice is the way she’s staring at me and the smell of her perfume. She smells sweet and sticky and it’s going straight to my head because I never intended to have the thoughts that are running through it now.
I know I shouldn’t do it. My head is telling me not to do it. This is a job. This is a direct order from my father. If I do this task well enough, she’ll be gone before the month is out. Fuck it.
I pull her head in to meet mine and crash my lips against hers, feeling her gasp at the shock of it. She opens for me, but only a fraction. I waste no time in forcing my tongue through and devouring her own. Her lips are full, soft, and so fucking enticing. A single taste and I want more. I take more. I can’t tell if she’s trying to resist this or if she’s just inexperienced, but Lacey has absolutely no fucking rhythm. Still, I don’t let it bother me. I control this kiss just like I control everything in my life. I don’t kiss her; I own her mouth.
And then she does something that surprises me for not the first time tonight. She fucking takes control. She lures me in and then she fights me. Her tongue starts to dominate my own and I’m momentarily stunned. She startles me so bad that
I forget what the point was to any of this. When she bites down on my bottom lip, hell I think I forget my own name.
I can’t afford to forget. I pull back and break the kiss and she looks as though she’s waking up from a dream. She’s dazed and slightly breathless, her eyes fixed on my lips. Neither of us speak, I don’t even know what to say anymore so I study her face and watch as her expression changes from bewilderment to indifference. She sniffs and turns her head back around until she’s facing the window again.
I look over to Tony, who’s watching me with interest and nod at him. Tony doesn’t need words to know what I’m thinking. He leans forward, and I assume tells Calvin to head to Stevie’s house.
We achieved what we set out to do.
Chapter 7
Lacey
Shaun doesn’t say another word to me for the rest of the journey. When the car pulls up outside Stevie’s house, he unclips my seatbelt, opens the door, and practically shoves me out of it. I walk around to where Stevie is standing on the pavement and we both watch in silence as the car speeds off into the distance.
“I tried to warn you,” she tells me. I turn around to look at her but she’s still watching the empty road.
I don’t know what to say. It seems like an eternity has passed since we were here, getting into the taxi, on our way to a party to meet a boy I liked. It doesn’t compute that only a few hours have passed.
“Can we go inside?” I ask her. “I’m freezing.”
Stevie nods her head and pivots on her heels before heading up the driveway. The warm air hits me as I enter her house, and that indescribable distinctive house smell that every house has. The lights are off; her parents must be sleeping. We remove our heels in the tiled hallway and I feel unsteady as I bend down and reach out to the wall for balance. I think the effects of the vodka have well and truly kicked in. I was feeling okay in the car, but now everything is sloppy and I’m having trouble deciding where my feet should go. The heat in the house I craved so badly a second ago now feels suffocating.
“Just go up. I’ll get us some water,” she tells me.
I nod and try to concentrate on getting myself up the stairs, one hand on the rail for direction and the other brushing along the wall for balance. I despise alcohol. So I don’t do it. I don’t like not being in control.
I make it to the bedroom and strip off my clothes before I’ve even located my pajamas. I can smell him on my dress and I’m not in any state to mentally process how that makes me feel. I’ll think about that properly tomorrow when the room isn’t spinning and things aren’t so fucking confusing. Why would he do that? No, stop it Lacey. Not tonight.
Stevie arrives and I’m sitting on her bed in my underwear staring at my hands. She immediately puts her glass down on the table and brings mine over, tilting my head up and pushing it to my lips.
“You need to drink. I should have got you some toast, can you eat?” she asks me.
I take a huge gulp of the water and shake my head. My mouth is so dry. I just want to sleep. I want to switch off and make this feeling go away.
She finds my bag and I stumble through to the bathroom to sort myself out. By the time I’m on the toilet I’m drowsy and thinking it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to rest my head against the wall and fall asleep right here.
That’s the last thing I remember.
❖
We must sleep for hours because the sun is flooding the bed with light and the room is warm by the time I come around. I reach over to the bedside table and finish the glass of water, which does little to shift the rusty nails in my throat and the horrible taste in my mouth. My movements wake Stevie and she stirs a little before stretching and turning over.
“Morning,” she says, her voice croaky.
“Morning,” I reply. “How are you feeling?”
She peeks an eye open and regards me. “Probably not half as bad as you.” She sits up and reaches over for her own glass and then finishes it and sets it down again. “Do you want a cup of tea?”
I nod and the pair of us make our way down the stairs to the kitchen. It’s definitely late, and the house seems empty. She must catch me looking around for her parents because she tells me they always take her brother to football on a Saturday. I grab my purse — which I had abandoned in the hall with my shoes — and check my phone. It’s just past midday, but I barely register that as I draw my eyes to the notifications littering my screen.
A few missed calls and a WhatsApp message from Liam. I flick my phone unlocked and open it. “Are you okay? X” Last active yesterday — I guess he must have really wanted to know, huh?
I flick the app closed and see a little red dot on my messages. Opening it up, my heart sinks when I see it’s an unknown number. “Thanks for a lovely night, princess. I’ll see you around.”
Fuck.
Memories of Shaun that I’d been trying to suppress are now racing through my head. The way he walked me out of that party like a horse with a bridle, they way he touched me, the way he kissed me. The way I kissed him.
I still don’t fully understand why I kissed him back. I try to process it in my head, but the details are fuzzy. I just remember the way he was staring at me, the look in his eye telling me clearly that he wanted me. Maybe the vodka made me bold. I should have hated him. I did hate him. I also feared him and what he could do. Fight or flight, those were the two options he challenged me to, and neither had sounded like they would have worked out for me. So I did the only thing I could think of at the time, and that was the one thing I was pretty sure he couldn’t have anticipated.
I could have bitten his tongue, I could have slapped him. I could have remained motionless and tried to keep my mouth closed and done nothing when he inevitably overpowered me. All predictable, and I doubt any of them would have saved me.
“You okay?” Stevie interrupts my trail of thought and I look up from my phone to see her leaning against the countertop, watching me.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Was that him?” she asks, her expression serious.
I can’t be sure if she’s talking about Liam, or Shaun, but I guess both would provide the same answer anyway, so I nod.
“Liam asked if I was okay, and Shaun… well…” I flick open the message again and read it out to her.
Stevie turns around as the kettle clicks and pours water into two cups.
“That’s a threat if ever I heard one. Will you pass me the milk out, please?”
I turn and cross the room to the fridge, retrieving the milk and putting it on the counter beside her.
“I don’t understand why, though?”
Stevie shrugs. “I seem to recall him giving you a list of reasons last night.”
I remember that part. He hates Liam, and he does what he wants. That was the general gist of it.
“Why did you do all those things he told you? Sitting on Calvin’s knee, getting in the car with them?”
She puts the milk down on the bunker, and I watch her as she stiffens slightly. “You did everything he told you to, too,” she answers, her tone defensive.
“Yeah, because he manipulated me. He threatened to use you against me,” I explain. I couldn’t have fought him and risked pushing her under the bus if I resisted.
“Exactly. Because he had to. The rest of us don’t need him to manipulate us so openly. Shaun doesn’t need to make threats with the rest of us. You don’t know him.”
“Then explain it to me, please, because he seems to want to know me.”
“I hardly know him myself.” She avoids my gaze while she busies herself removing the tea bags and stirring way more than necessary.
“Then tell me what you do know,” I press her.
She sighs and picks up our cups before she moves over to the kitchen table and pulls out a chair.
“His dad is powerful, like, really fucking powerful. They’re an old family — the Kegans. They’ve lived in this town since it was nothing but a crossroads and a scattering
of farmers crofts. They have their fingers in every single pie, always been that way. I heard their ancestors were like wealthy merchants or some shit and dealt in alcohol, spices, slaves, you name it. Then came the oil, that’s how the family make most of their money now.”
“So that’s why him and Liam hate each other? Because, what, their fathers own rival companies?”
“I guess so, although it’s probably more complicated than that. I have a theory,” she says it so quietly it’s almost a whisper and I look around the room wondering who the fuck she thinks is listening. She takes a sip of her tea and watches me closely as if trying to gauge my reaction.
“Go on…”
“So his dad has friends and connections in basically every section of society you could think of. The police — Tony’s dad. Local government — Scoot’s dad. Doeboy’s dad is a landlord and owns most of the town, including half the businesses on the high-street.”
“And Calvin’s father?” I push her, noting that she mentioned all of his friends except him.
She looks down at her cup at the mention of Calvin’s name. “I’m not exactly sure, but I think he’s into illegal stuff. He owns a building company on paper, but how many new builds do you see around here?”
“So your theory is?”
She takes another sip of her tea and I do the same, waiting expectantly.
“I think they’re all part of a club. Well, a club or maybe like a society. They all scratch each other’s backs and look out for each other. Anyone who isn’t a part of it doesn’t get a look-in. In fact, I’d go further than that... I think when you get summoned you either join them or you suffer the consequences.”
I nod and consider what she’s saying for a moment. It’s far-fetched, obviously. I never considered things like that actually existed, but then again, I’ve always been quite logical. I believe they put a man on the moon and I’d question the sanity of someone who genuinely thinks there’s a chance that the royal family could be reptiles.