Shadowed Heart: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance (A Death So Sweet Book 1)

by Candace Wondrak

  “What?” I asked, causing Viper’s gaze to return to me—and that gaze to eat me up yet again when he saw I no longer had anything on my shoulders. No sleeves hanging off me, no nothing. “Don’t tell me you don’t like what you see.” He’d already seen the scar on my stomach, so I wasn’t concerned about that.

  Maddox… I did wonder what he thought about it, for he had stared at it for a while. But no one knew what Maddox thought. You could only guess. He’d asked about it, but that wasn’t really a story I wanted to tell. Not to him, not to anybody. That was a story I would take to my own grave, and I’d do it gladly.

  “I do,” Viper admitted, frowning at me somewhat. “That’s the problem.”

  My core burned. I hadn’t had my fill yet, and maybe that’s why I leaned closer to him as I whispered, “Why is that a problem?” The night air was cool on my body, but it wasn’t cool enough to bring me down, knock me off the high horse Maddox had placed me on when he’d threatened me, fucked me, and told me he hated me.

  A man out for my own heart, that one.

  “You belong to the Lucianos, not me.”

  “Are you not a Luciano?”

  His brown eyebrows came together as he said, “My last name is Milano.”

  I resisted my urge to roll my eyes at his literalness. I knew he wasn’t a Luciano, but that wasn’t what I meant. Giving him a slow, seductive smile, I murmured, “Yes, but are you not one of them?” I phrased it a bit differently this time. “You’re loyal to them. You’re a part of their family.” I leaned in more, as close as I could be to him without actually touching him, mere inches between us now. “I can belong to you, too.”

  Some girls might take an issue with belonging to someone, let alone an entire family, but I think we all knew by now how fucked up I was. At this rate, I might as well go out with a bang. And by bang, I meant I better bang as many of these sexy fuckers as I could before they got tired of me and decided to get rid of me.

  His gaze moved to my neck, where I bled a little. “You didn’t get your fill from Maddox?”

  “What can I say?” I paused, licking my lips. “I guess I’m ravenous.” His hazel eyes glazed over in lust, and I knew I had him. These guys played a big game, but in the end, they were hardly any better than the fools I’d go home with… and kill.

  I guess I could thank Dickless, in a way. If it wasn’t for him, I never would’ve run across this family of psychopaths and D.O.M.S.—and for all you cool cats wondering what I meant by that: dicks of massive size.

  Yeah, I meant that both literally and figuratively, because their dicks were nice, but they were also kind of dick-ish in their behavior. I deserved it, of course, having killed their precious brother, but still. D.O.M.S. was a good acronym for them, I think. Also kind of a pun, considering how dom-like Maddox could get.

  “I don’t want to anger them—”

  I grinned. “We don’t have to tell anyone, silly goose. Now, why don’t you take off those clothes and show me how many other tattoos you have?” I’d yet to see any of them naked; it really wasn’t fair, with how attractive they were. All I wanted was some muscles and tattoos. Was it too much to ask?

  Would we really get in trouble for bumping uglies? Come on. It wasn’t like I was some precious thing they were protecting; I was here to be used, I wanted to scream to Viper, so come on already, use me.

  I was in my own head enough to realize that this was my feeble attempt at getting back to the me I’d been for the last few years, to know that this was me trying to make up for my little mental breakdown earlier. Viper didn’t need to know that, though.

  “Lola…” Viper’s voice came out ragged and husky, so low and deep I felt it in my body. A whispered warning, one last-ditch attempt at playing the knight.

  Maybe I needed to take charge here, then. Maybe I needed to show Viper that I wasn’t afraid of getting down and dirty. I reached for his shirt, running my hand down flat against his chest, feeling his muscles tighten under me.

  That did the trick, for suddenly he grabbed my hand and pushed me off, gripping his shirt and pulling it up and over his head in one smooth movement. Tits tended to get in the way of taking off t-shirts like that; not going to lie, I was kind of jealous guys could do that—and look so cool while doing it.

  He had… so many snake tattoos. Curling up his arms, winding down his chest, even over his abdomen, where six tiny squares sat, all muscle and delicious. I could lick every single one of those abs and not feel weird about it.

  I spotted a rather large tattoo disappearing beneath his pants, slow to bring my gaze up to his. “How many more snakes you got under the hood, Viper?” He’d been so adamant for me to call him Viper and not Vinny; using the nickname would surely help in getting those pants off quicker.

  I hoped.

  When he gave me a look, I took my opportunity by the balls. And by that, I meant I finally let go of the belt I held onto and pushed Viper back, laying him down on the floor. I worked on his pants, tugging them down, well aware of the budding hardness beneath his boxers.

  Maddox had tattoos, more of them than Viper did, but his were a mishmash of everything. Viper’s were literally only snakes.

  Within a moment, I had Viper one hundred percent naked beneath me, his cock growing harder by the second. I drew my hands up along his legs. Beneath the hair sat more tattoos, more snakes. Most of them were snarling, baring their teeth. Some had venom dripping from their fangs while others only looked menacing. The biggest one traveling down his abdomen and had been covered by his pants ended just above his cock, its tail looking almost like it wrapped around the base.

  You had to adore snakes in every way to adorn your body with this many of them, all over. Seriously, the only places that didn’t hold any tattoos on his body were his lower legs and feet, his hands, and his neck and face.

  Me? I didn’t hate snakes, but I didn’t particularly like them, either. I supposed I could learn to like them more, especially as I gazed down at Viper’s naked, sexy as hell body. I didn’t know anyone who could gaze upon a tatted-up body like his and claim to hate snakes.

  I crawled over him, straddling him as I sat on his lower stomach. I bet he could feel the wetness between my legs, could feel Maddox’s cum dribbling out of me. Was it wrong to want more? Was it wrong to never feel like you had enough? Maybe I was more fucked in the head than I realized, but I didn’t care.

  With my hands on his chest, I leaned down over his face, my blonde hair draping around him. Viper stared up at me, his hands finding my sides, holding onto me with a firmness that told me he wasn’t going to pull himself away this time. No, tonight we were going to cross the point of no return. No looking back.

  “You,” I murmured, my nose grazing his as I grinned at him, “are one sexy beast, Viper. Has anyone ever told you that before?” I bet they had. I bet the girls flocked to him. Whether or not he paid those girls any attention was up in the air; he didn’t seem like Maddox, always hungry and ready to wet his cock. Viper was definitely different, though even he had a wild side to him.

  They all did, really. They were all wild in their own way: Maddox, Sylvester, Viper. Even Tony and Mike had given me glimpses of the animals lying in wait within. To be a part of this family, to do what they did, I supposed they had to be.

  A tiny smile graced his lips, and the hands on my sides moved to my head, swiping through my yellow hair to hold onto the sides of my face. “And you,” Viper whispered back, “are a temptress in every way.”

  The hands holding my head forced me to look away, tilting my neck toward him. He leaned up, kissing the crook of my neck, running his tongue along where the small cut was. I wondered if he tasted any of my blood. Was it wrong to want him to? To want a part of me to be inside of him, at least for a little bit?

  Probably. Like I’d mentioned before, I was kind of fucked up.

  “Beautiful, wicked, and wild,” Viper whispered against my neck, his hushed words and the attention he currently showed my neck c
ausing me to shiver and close my eyes, lose myself to the feeling of tenderness. Something like that in this house was rare, I knew. “If only…” He trailed off, stopping himself from kissing my neck any more, which made my eyelids lift.

  I looked at him, deep down already knowing what he’d stopped himself from saying, but needing to hear it anyways. “If only what?” I could feel Viper’s hard cock near my ass, and even though it twitched every now and then, I wasn’t focused on it. All I wanted to do right now was hear him say it.

  “You fit here,” he said, tucking some of my blonde hair behind my ears, still holding onto the sides of my face, his thumbs rubbing against my cheeks. “You fit with us, Lola. You’re just the right amount of crazy to be perfect for this family, but you… you killed one of us, and that’s not something that can be forgiven. This doesn’t end happily for you.” The way Viper spoke, it was as if he was sorrowful, having to relay this news to me, as if I hadn’t an idea.

  But I did. I knew all of that already. I knew I’d found myself a place where I could’ve belonged, knew I’d fucked it up by killing Dickless. I was the Night Slayer, and I’d chosen the wrong victim, go figure.

  “It’s okay. I wasn’t born for a happy ending,” I whispered, a strange heaviness in my chest—not the same heaviness that had overtaken me in the club, not the flashbacks to my old life, to the old me. It wasn’t the same feeling; it was different, a weight that told me something utterly peculiar.

  I wanted to belong here. I wanted to have a family that loved me and took pride in the things I could do. I wanted to belong, to be supported and trusted. To have fun and smile and laugh and have it not all be a show.

  Those were things a normal person got to have, not me. I meant what I told Viper, and I didn’t say it to get pity or sympathy or any shit like that. I said it because it was true. I was not born for a happy ending. I wouldn’t get one. It wasn’t in the cards for me; I’d faced that fact a long time ago, but being here, surrounded by my brand of crazy, it was like taking a kid with a sweet tooth into a confectionary store and not letting her get anything.

  I had the worst fucking sweet tooth of them all, and yet I’d leave the store empty.

  It sucked. It sucked a lot more than I wanted to admit, but that’s why I was here, with Viper, the both of us naked. Just because I wasn’t allowed to buy anything from the candy shop didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to steal a bit while I had time.

  Call me a thief, because I was about to steal me some D.

  “Let’s not think about the future,” I said, lifting my midsection up and off his abdomen. His hands released my head, allowing me to scoot down on his body. No futures; the only thing I wanted to pay attention to was the present.

  Viper’s lips parted, and I locked gazes with him as I sank myself down on his erect length, taking him in inch after inch. His cock wasn’t as thick as Maddox’s, but it was long, long enough to make me feel like, when he was all the way in, I could feel him in my gut, poking around and touching everything in there.

  I knew that wasn’t possible, but still. The feeling of being full with a long cock was just something that made my body go haywire.

  Once he was fully in, I tightened my inner walls, hearing him let out a low groan. Whether or not he’d come to regret this moment didn’t matter. Viper’s cock was inside me, and I planned on riding it for a good long while.

  Starting to sway my hips, I did wonder if he could feel how wet I was, if he knew my pussy was slick with both my own arousal and Maddox’s. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe sharing girls was something the men around here did a lot.

  With my hands on his stomach, I moved my hips in a way that brought pleasure to us both, riding him slowly at first, dragging his length in and out of me in a rhythm that built pressure in my core. Seeing Viper under me, knowing he was letting me take charge, letting me do the fucking here—it surely helped. That tattooed body… I wanted to lick it all over, no joke.

  I picked up my pace, and Viper let out a groan. I chased my own orgasm, knowing whatever felt good to me would also feel good for him; he looked like he was ready to explode already, so I wasn’t worried about him too much. Oh, yeah, Viper had wanted to fuck me too; it was a good thing I didn’t let him push me away.

  “Were you watching?” I asked, my voice nothing but air as I rode him.

  It took Viper far too long to say, “What?” Too blinded by watching my tits bounce as I rocked my hips, too mesmerized by the feeling of his cock inside me, probably. Who could blame him? Right now I felt like I had a magic coochie.

  “When you were driving,” I whispered, full to the brink with his cock, “when Sylvester was inside of me.” As I spoke, I saw his eyes glaze over in lust, and I knew he had watched as much as he could’ve, given the fact he’d been driving. For some reason, it filled me with satisfaction, knowing he wanted to watch someone else take me.

  Kind of hot, having an audience, not gonna lie.

  “Did you like it?” I barely got the question out before Viper sat up, snaked an arm around my lower back, and flipped us so that I lay on the floor, his body now the one in charge, pounding away between my legs with wild abandon, with not another care in the world.

  “Of course I fucking liked it,” Viper spoke, his voice rough in my ear as he leaned his tattooed body down, his hips never stopping. His cheek brushed against mine, his lips hot as he added, “I’ve thought about it every night since.” He pushed into me deep, eliciting a sharp moan from my lungs. “Except I imagine it was me making you cry out like that.”

  I shut my eyes, unable to keep myself grounded. The way he spoke, how he fucked me… it all sent me over the edge, tumbling down into the rabbit hole of carnal bliss and bodily pleasure you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else in the world. Every single part of me caught fire, my belly burning with desire, and I cried out loudly.

  This was it. This was it for me, I knew. I would never escape this family, now that they’d caught me. I was in their web, but unlike all the other insects caught on the web, I wasn’t struggling. I was perfectly fine where I was, waiting to be drained of all life from whichever spider got to me first.

  Viper’s hips thrust a few more times, but it wasn’t too long before his body followed suit, the pleasure becoming too much for him to handle. His top half tensed when he came, and the lips that had been grazing my cheek lowered to my shoulder, where he bared his teeth and bit me. Not hard, but hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough to stop himself from doing anything other than grunting when he shot his cum inside of me.

  A biter. Viper was a biter. Who knew?

  By the time he pulled his cock out of me, we both breathed hard. I could feel his heart racing through the muscles on his chest, and I knew mine did, too. Viper lay beside me, staring at the ceiling, and I did the same, wondering why I always needed to push myself to feel alive.

  Normal people didn’t need to feel pain or pleasure to know they were alive. Normal people didn’t seek to destroy themselves from the inside out like I did. Being normal… I’d never be that, but you know what? That was more than okay. Sometimes life was just too fucking boring when you were normal. Give me a bat and a psychotic criminal family any day, and I’d be happy.

  Happy.

  Me.

  That didn’t sound quite right, but I couldn’t fight the feeling of contentment rising inside of me. Even though it was a fleeting feeling—it disappeared in less than a few minutes, once my heart rate calmed down and I no longer rode the high of fucking Viper—at least I knew I was capable of it.

  Lola Harding could be a happy girl again. Go fucking figure.

  Days passed. You’d be surprised what you could get used to. Being stuck in a house, constantly under guard, surrounded by men who either wanted to fuck you or kill you—or both—it was actually kind of fun. To think, this all started out with a little murder.

  A little murder, a little kidnapping… the usual, you know. The meet-cutes in the movies were usually a
lot tamer than my meet-cute with this family and its wild sons, but who could complain when it led me here?

  I sat with Mike in the piano lounge. Once again, I was at that piano, fiddling with the keys. Mike made no moves to come sit by me, no matter how many times I whined for him to. I think Tony making fun of him that day had embarrassed him, so he refused to do it. A pity.

  Sylvester stood at the foot of the piano, his hands in his pockets. He wore a dark grey shirt, its sleeves down to his wrists, tucked neatly into his pants. The way he watched me… I knew where his mind was. He wanted to bury that clean-shaven face between my legs.

  That, or his cock.

  He made no moves to even try to hide his desire for me, but I supposed that was also because Daddy Luciano kept himself away from me, refusing to see me still, since I’d killed one of his boys.

  Maddox? Still hated me. Still hate-fucked me every chance he got, too. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t going to complain. No one else could hold a torch to Maddox when it came to the hate-fucking. Or, you know, a knife. He liked those.

  Tony and Viper weren’t here; Viper because it wasn’t his time to watch me, and Tony because he was off doing some job or something. It’d been quiet on my front, but I hoped to get another job soon enough, flex my skillset a bit. Get out of this house and make someone bleed. The usual.

  The two men who seemed to handle the grittier jobs—jobs I’d tried unsuccessfully to join in—Roman and Carter, stopped by every now and then. I talked to them a bit; apparently Roman had his own girl that he liked watching. He and Carter shared her.

  I would be the first to admit I was curious about the long-term arrangement of that whole thing, because frankly it was something I wouldn’t mind doing. I was pretty much sleeping with these guys anyway; why not make it official? I could be their bitch they sent to attack their enemies and their slut in bed. The only one who’d have a problem with that was Maddox.

  I was silly for wanting that, though. Eventually this game of house would come to an end, and I’d be buried six feet under. That, or incinerated at the same place they’d taken Dickless. Or tossed off a pier somewhere with weights tied to my ankles. Ooh, or—