For me, apparently, my psyche needs to go through the process of healing by seeing ghosts. The Kali creature, not at all banished by the weed as I’d hoped, skitters across the top of the wooden headboard like a rat. Jesus, this is either really good weed or really bad weed. I’m not sure how to categorize what I’m seeing.
Manifested fucking trauma.
With a groan, I push myself up and crawl over to the nightstand, retrieving two pairs of fuzzy cuffs that Hael bought for me and Victor as a wedding present. Pretty sure it was a Homer Simpson gift that he himself intended on using with me. Such an asshole. Victor is basic, and we both know it. I mean that in the best way possible, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
I take the handcuffs back to Aaron and straddle him again, feeling his body sweaty and hot beneath mine. He might not have been able to get hard for Kali, but he’s most definitely hard for me. His cock is thick and needy beneath me, and he groans when I wiggle in place.
Presumably, Oscar is still watching us, but I ignore him as I hook my no-longer-ex-boyfriend to the bed. His breathing picks up, heart thundering as I lay my palm on his sweaty chest. I don’t ask again if he’s sure. I won’t question him, and I won’t hesitate. I promised I never would again.
I scoot back and free his cock from his sweatpants, taking the hot length of him in my palm and stroking him until his hips move to meet my hand. All the while, he keeps his eyes on mine, silently suffering in the dark.
My own hand sneaks between my thighs, pushing aside the loose boxers I’m wearing to find the swollen heat of my cunt, teasing the slick readiness and coming away wet. I wish absently that it weren’t so dark in here, so I could see Aaron’s face as I torment him, slipping my fingers into my mouth and sucking them clean.
We exchange a long look, one shared by lovers in the dead of night. It says I know your body aches the way mine does; I know your heart pounds. It’s a look that can be summed up with dark chocolate, black vodka, and clove cigarettes. It’s a look that, for me, tastes like the blackest night of the year when there’s no moon, only stars across a velvet sky.
I exhale and readjust my body so that the length of him rubs against that scalding space between my thighs, the one that wants him so badly that she’s lost any hope of rational thought. Life gets that way, melodramatic and meaningful both, when you come close to losing one of your few reasons for existence. It scares you in a way that’s indescribable, a way that digs into the soul.
Aaron watches me as I lower myself onto his cock, nice and slow, savoring every second. I keep going, until he’s fully sheathed in my body. I bite my lower lip, closing my eyes for a moment as I dig the fingers of my inked left hand into my hair. Rocking my hips forward, I tear a groan from Aaron’s throat that’s only half pleasure. The rest of it is agony.
I open my eyes to look down at him, but I don’t stop the rolling of my hips, stomach muscles tightening and releasing as I work his body with my own. The way Aaron stares back at me, the way the muscles in his arms tense as he strains against the pull of the handcuffs, it all tells me one thing: he might be tied up, but I’m still not the one in charge here.
“Faster, harder,” he orders, and I comply, even as pain ripples through my side and I cry out. The movement of my hips slows just a little as I place a hand over the bandage on my side. This is probably a stupid idea, to fuck Aaron like this, when we’re both injured the way we are.
I hear Oscar make a sound behind me. Something like a laugh, nothing like I’d expect from him.
Sweeping my pink-tinged hair over my shoulder, I glance back and see him watching us.
“What the hell do you want, pervert?” I shoot out, wondering what this tight feeling inside my chest is. Aaron’s body stiffens up beneath me, but he can’t possibly be jealous, not with the way I feel about him. When he was missing, I felt like an Egyptian mummy, my heart stolen and placed in a ceramic jar.
“Maybe I want to fuck you?” Oscar asks, voice so mild that it’s become acidic. Like, nobody is that even and straitlaced. When you hear a sound so perfect, you know you’re looking into the face of either a thespian or a psychopath. “Maybe, after he’s done, I want a turn?”
“Hah.” I work my hips in a slow, delicious roll, making Aaron groan in wicked agony. “Like I’m a pony to ride? Fuck you, Montauk.” I turn back to Aaron, digging my nails into the bare skin of his chest. He’s bruised like crazy, wicked purple marks that look like butterflies in the flickering light of the TV screen. I lean down and put my lips near his ear, hissing a bit in pain as my stitches pull.
Fuck, I hope it scars. Weird thing to want, maybe, but I feel like I need a physical blight that proves this whole crazy life I’m living is real. For the rest of my life, I will wear Kali’s pain on my skin.
“You deserve worse,” she breathes, the specter of a memory crouching on the floor beside the bed. I stare at her for a moment, my blood slow and my brain thick with THC. But even a dead monster can’t hold my attention for long, not when my body is stretched to accommodate Aaron’s massive cock.
I look back over at him and words come tumbling through me, pausing to perch on my lips like crows, like the ones in the pioneer cemetery that took off when Aaron pulled the trigger on Kali.
“Whatever you’re going to say to me,” Aaron growls out, surprising me with the ferocity in his voice. He’s staring up at me like he can read my mind. I almost wonder if he can, the way he’s looking at me right now. “Don’t. Not tonight.”
He leans back into the pillows, and I start to move my hips again, taking the beauty of his hard body in, eating it up like dirty candy, sipping it slow as fine whiskey. The bruises, the cuts, the cast, it could make Aaron look like a bitch for sure. What can a man in a cast do to defend himself or his girl?
But I’ve seen it.
I can sense it.
The predator in me smells the predator in him. Our gazes lock, and I understand exactly where he’s coming from. Don’t tell me anything important tonight. Don’t tell me all the beautiful things that will remind us both why we breathe. Not tonight, when we’re both too busy punishing ourselves.
“No, not tonight,” I agree, tossing my hair back and curving my neck like a swan’s. You know what I was going to say, right? I was going to tell you that you’re a part of me, and I can’t live without you. You knew that. But not tonight. Not tonight.
I close my eyes, my pelvis moving in the most basic rhythm there is. It’s like, the human race was built on this movement, so I’m going to be fucking good at it. That, and I’m not dating five guys to be a vestal virgin. We’re not just a group of high school friends. This is blood in, blood out, fucked-up family and fucking. As much as I truly believe these five men are in love with me, they’re not going to be happy with kisses on the cheek and quiet nights in the missionary position.
The bed dips behind me and long fingers slide across the front of my exposed throat, squeezing just tight enough that I freeze. Shit, I almost forgot about Oscar.
Not many people make that mistake and live to take another breath.
My body stops moving altogether, muscles tense as warm breath teases the side of my throat.
Oscar could kill me right now if he wanted to. Even if Aaron tried to stop him. Or Vic or Hael or Callum. No, if Oscar ever wants me dead, I won’t make it to the next sunrise.
“Does disobeying orders get you off?” he asks, and Aaron makes a sound that says he’d clearly like to mark his territory here. My eyes open and I find myself staring at the ceiling, at the flashing green and white and blue lights from the show that’s still playing and nobody’s paying any attention to. “Victor told you to rest. This,” and the sound he makes here is caught somewhere between a scoff and a mocking laugh, “is hardly rest. You’re going to pull your stitches and then you’re going to be completely useless to the rest of us.”
I can’t decide if he’s talking about me being a part of Havoc or … being a part of Havoc, if you know what I mean. Figh
ting or fucking. One of the two, and I’m not sure I care to analyze which it is. He surprises me by adding another line of Shakespeare to his admonishment.
“That god forbid, that made me first your slave,” he whispers, tightening his fingers enough on my neck that a gasp of surprise escapes unbidden past my naked lips. It seems inappropriate, that I should be fucking a man handcuffed to a bed without lipstick slashed across my mouth like blood. “I should in thought control your times of pleasure.”
“Leave me alone, Oscar,” I murmur, turning my attention back to Aaron. He’s panting beneath me, seemingly helpless. Trapped. Is this what Kali did to him? Or tried to do to him anyway? I lift my hips until our bodies are barely touching, and then I drop my pelvis hard and fast, causing Aaron to buck and writhe beneath me.
“You’re disobeying again, Bernadette. That’s what got you into this mess in the first place.” Oscar releases my neck abruptly and stands up, that cinnamon smell of his lingering in the air long after he’s moved away from the bed. “Don’t forget: I’m the son of a serial killer. Might be best not to piss me off.”
He closes the bedroom door behind him as I slow the movement of my hips. What. the. fuck. did he just say?
“Don’t stop,” Aaron growls out, and I dig my fingernails into his chest, marring the tattoos there, scraping his skin and making him moan. The sounds are deep and male and so satisfying to hear. I let them sweep over my heated skin, sweat dripping from my body and onto Aaron’s as I start to move again.
I can worry about whatever the fuck Oscar just said later.
Right now, I have my man between my thighs, and I missed him so much that each second he was gone a mark was burned on my soul, a scar that I won’t soon forget.
“Don’t leave me again,” I warn him, thrusting hard as he curses and yanks on the cuffs in what we both know is a futile effort. For him to get out of this, he’d have to break his hand again. Aaron Atlas Fadler isn’t going anywhere. “I mean it. If you do, I’ll summon your spirit with a Ouija board and kick your ass.”
“Trust me, Bernadette,” he promises me, his words little more than a growl. He’s frustrated and pissed off, but not at me. He wants me to exorcise his demons with my cunt. I move up and down, slicking along the length of him as our gazes stay locked. His eyes are more gold than green right now, like moonlight reflecting off the eyes of a beast.
He has no control over what’s happening as I make him come inside of me, his body shuddering beneath me, hands clenching against the cuffs. The bed creaks and groans from the strength of his pulling, but in the end, he finishes with a few thrusts of his hips and then collapses into the pillows.
I stay where I am, my own body pulsing and aching for release. Instead, I lift up off of him, push the boxers aside, and wait for his cum to drip down my inner thigh so he can see it. Aaron’s eyes lift from my pussy to my face.
He doesn’t ask me to untie him, so I don’t. Instead, I lean over and grab the pack of cigarettes from the nightstand, sitting on Aaron’s stomach as I light up. His abs are so hard that I could probably rock against them and get myself to come.
Instead, I toss the pack back onto the table and smoke the cigarette pinched between two of my inked fingers. Glancing down, I can see that the white bandage on my side has a single dark spot of blood. Shit.
I keep smoking, staring at the headboard and wishing that Kali’s ghost weren’t still crouching beside the bed, her fingers stroking Aaron’s chestnut hair back from his sweaty forehead.
“Thank you,” Aaron finally says, his voice like broken glass. “I needed that.”
“Is this what she did to you?” I ask, feeling my jaw clench against my own stupidity. Sure, I pulled the trigger on her in the cemetery, made the commitment to kill her, but she was a step ahead of me. I won’t soon forget that. It’s why I feel like such a coward, like I don’t belong in Havoc at all.
Not a single man in this house would’ve hesitated.
“Thankfully it never got that far,” he tells me as I use the little key that’s attached to the cuffs to undo them. I leave them on his wrists though; the metal is warm from his skin as he touches both hands to my hips. “I just don’t like feeling helpless. Mostly, I was worried about you.”
“With good reason, it seems,” I murmur, thinking of that awful moment between life and death, that split-second when Aaron pulled the trigger before Kali. I keep smoking my cigarette, leaning over to tap the ash into the tray on the nightstand. As I do, I grab my phone.
There are plenty of messages for me, but I ignore them all. I don’t give a shit about anyone that isn’t located within these four walls. Instead, I pull up Spotify and start a random playlist. The very first thing that comes on is “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.
I raise an eyebrow.
“There’s at least one ho in this house,” I murmur, sliding off of Aaron and off the bed. Coincidentally, I stand directly where Kali’s ghost sits, our forms melding into one beautiful monster. The loose boxers finally slide down my hips and hit the floor as I plug my phone in and turn the volume up.
Aaron sits up, getting a cigarette for himself. He snags a bottle of rum from the nightstand, too. Not sure where it came from or how long it’s been there, but who gives a shit? Alcohol is alcohol. He swigs a huge mouthful of it and passes it over, watching as I down several shots worth in a single drink.
“Come back here, Bernadette,” Aaron tells me, reaching out for my hand and pulling me back to the bed. He takes the rum bottle away, setting it aside as he half-covers my body with his, making sure to keep his weight on his forearms so he doesn’t hurt me. I touch my hands to either side of his face, savoring the rough feel of stubble against my palms. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll fuck you into the mattress until you come all over my dick.”
I snort and shove at his chest, but he doesn’t move.
“Go get us something to eat,” I purr, licking the sweat from the edge of his jaw. “I’m starving.” Aaron smiles and sits up, swiping his hand over his face. The way he looks down at me, handcuffs dangling from his wrists, I can tell he meant what he said.
“Stoner,” he murmurs with a smile, the air in the room tainted with a tentative sense of relief. Like, here we are, we survived that.
And yet … I know we’re on the precipice of something much bigger, something much more dangerous.
Evil is evil, but evil with money is … relentless.
Aaron stands up, yanking his sweatpants into place and heading for the door. He leaves it cracked, a finger of light cutting the bed in half and illuminating the pink dragon tattoo on my hip. I stare at it for a minute, sitting up and then turning over to dig in the drawer of the nightstand.
“Bodak Yellow”—also by Cardi B—starts to play, and even though I curl my lip a bit, I let it keep going. I’m more of a metalcore kind of girl. I actually beat up a metalhead bitch last year for telling me that metalcore was nothing more than metal without complexity. Pretty sure I smashed her face into the bathroom sink. That’s sort of my signature move, the head-smashing I mean, not the sink part.
I snort as I drag out a vibrator from the drawer, flicking the switch to make sure the batteries are good. A pleasant buzz takes over my hand as I press my fingers to the tip with a sigh. One orgasm is nice, but two is even better.
While I wait for Aaron, I settle into the mountain of pillows and close my eyes. The vibrator slips between my thighs as I rock my hips against it, imagining that the boys are all in the room with me, just a tangle of hands and mouths and cocks. That’s what I want: all of them at the same time.
If Cardi and Megan aren’t afraid to be whores, maybe I should take some inspiration from “WAP” and just roll with it? Nothing wrong with liking sex anyway. As long as it’s consensual, I don’t see why the rest of the world should give a fuck what I do.
The fingers of my left hand dig into the sheets as I writhe and moan, phantom hands sliding across my heated flesh, slick tongues licking bea
ds of sweat from my tattoos. My legs bend at the knees, my toes curling as that pulsing sensation between my thighs bleeds into the rest of me, a demon of pleasure unfurling in my body.
With a violent groan, I arch my back as the climax takes over my body like a possession, pressing the vibrator into my clit as hard as I can and then collapsing with a shuddering moan.
It takes me about thirty seconds of hard breathing to realize that I’m not the only person in the room. My eyes crack open to the easy flicker of the TV. Apparently, the playlist I chose is all Cardi, all the time. “Money” is playing now as I lift up onto my elbows to get a better view of what’s going on.
All five Havoc Boys are standing at the end of the bed, shirtless and wearing skeleton masks.
A flicker of fear passes through me before I wet my lower lip with my tongue and carefully set the vibrator aside, like any sudden movement might trigger their predatory instincts. My skin is white as fuck, almost glowing in the strange half-light; I can feel them all staring at my nakedness.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice steady and even. You wouldn’t think that lying here naked on a bed with five masked men that I would feel safe. But I guess I feel even better than safe because the cockiness in my voice is an eerie mimic of Victor’s even-keeled tone.
“I told you to rest,” Victor says, standing at the head of the group, like always. “Why are you so insistent on disobeying me? Nobody else does.” He gestures at the four men on either side of him. Aaron is on one end, the cuffs still dangling from his wrists, and likely who Vic is referring to right now. He was told to put on a mask and get his ass in here, and he did. “You shouldn’t be fucking anyone, sweetheart.”
I grit my teeth as Victor leans forward and places a hand on either side of me.
“Call me sweetheart again and watch me get violent.” My voice is dark and gritty, like I’m falling apart on the inside. Put me back together again, it says, begging Vic to do what he does best. He owns me. He clears my numbness. He wakes me up inside.
Anarchy at Prescott High Page 11