The Queen

by Skye Warren

  His touch is enough to make my body crazy, but it’s his eyes that I need.

  When his midnight eyes watch me, I come apart. Wild pulses. Muscles clenching and pulsing so hard it hurts. My whole body overtaken, but my gaze never leaves his. It feels like giving something to him, spilling pleasure out like I’ll never be able to find it again. The boundaries so blurred I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to build them back up again.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  In the aftermath the air is moist and salt, an ocean made of our bodies, a sky made from panting breaths. I’ve imagined sex a hundred thousand times—all of them with Damon Scott. My dreams came up with equations, the things he would do to me, the things he would take.

  My dreams could never come up with this.

  I’m blind in these deep waters. Not helpless. I reach for him, feeling along burning skin and clenching muscles. When I find the right place, his whole body shudders. The sound of his gasped breath embeds itself inside me, fitting into some place with its exact shape.

  He grasps my wrist hard enough to make me squeak. “No, Penny.”

  For a moment I struggle with him, tugging at my hand as if I have a chance of dislodging him. As if I’m the one calling the shots right now. Only when I give up does he gently push my hand away.

  My throat swells. “Did I do it wrong?”

  An uneven laugh. “Are you capable of doing things wrong? That’s something I’d like to see.”

  “Then why can’t I touch you?”

  “Because that isn’t what I want from you.”

  This is a game. I knew that. I thought I knew that… but somehow there’s an ache in my chest. There’s more at stake than my body. My heart.

  The pleasure I felt is still here, no longer euphoria, but something darker.

  “You don’t want me to touch you,” I say, more stunned than I have a right to be. “You don’t want me to kiss you. Or suck you. Or do anything to you.”

  “That’s right, Penny. Now run away to your little room.”

  I look at his lap, where the sheet tents an erection so large it would be terrifying if I thought he were going to do anything with it. “Will you touch yourself after?”

  He grins. “Do you want to watch? Or maybe you’d like me to make you come again.”

  Everything is a game with him, but I’m struck by the realization that it’s all a cover. A cover for what? For the fact that nothing is a game to him? That he cares too much?

  “No,” I say simply.

  The pause between us weighs heavy. “Excuse me?”

  “I said no. I’m not going to run away to my little room so that you can jack off while still tasting me. Maybe you’re too shy to want me here, but I deserve to see this. And you deserve to let me.”

  I think I could have punched him in the face and he would have been less shocked. “Shy? Jesus Christ. You’ve seen the parties I have.”

  “And I’ve seen you, fully dressed in them. Watching but not participating.”

  He glances between my legs, where I can still feel the echo of his tongue. “And what about two minutes ago? I think I participated plenty, then.”

  “In a private room with the door locked. And you won’t let me reciprocate.”

  His voice is pure venom. “A blow job, Penny. If you want to do it, you can at least say the words. You want to suck my cock. Say it.”

  I flush from his derision. “Fine, I want to suck your cock. But you won’t let me. What are you afraid of? That I’ll hurt you?”

  “The only thing I’m afraid of is that I’ll be bored out of my mind. I’m not only referring to the men and women at my parties. I own strip clubs, darling. In case you’ve forgotten. I know some of the most”—he smiles a little—“talented women in the city.”

  The more he tries to insult me, the more I see it as the distraction it’s meant to be. “And how many of them have you actually slept with? How many of them have seen you vulnerable? How many of them have touched you?”

  “None,” he says on a hissed breath. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  It’s the truth; the certainty of that sinks inside me like poison. I’ve been trying to make him be honest with me for days. For years, even. Now that he’s finally done it, all I feel is deep sorrow. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t pity me, sweetheart. I’ve had my share of sex.”

  “The kind you wanted?” I ask softly.

  Maybe another woman would be fooled. Maybe the people downstairs think Damon Scott has wild sex because he hosts parties at the Den, because he owns strip clubs.

  I’ve seen Damon before he became this dashing stranger. I knew the wild boy who tried to run away from home. Angry, dangerous. Defensive. There are only a few ways teenage boys get like that.

  “I’m not the only person Jonathan Scott has hurt,” I whisper.

  “You’re the only one he shouldn’t have touched,” he says, voice thick with remorse.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He wanted to create a monster. And he’s good at what he does.”

  I shake my head. “You did what you had to do to survive.”

  “I didn’t just survive what he did to me. I thrived in it, understand? I became what he wanted me to be. Fuck, I was already a monster. Coming from that man. Being his son. I can’t escape that.”

  “You can,” I whisper urgently, my heart fractured at his agony.

  “But you weren’t part of that life. You were the one thing I wanted to be clean, to be safe. To be free from this city. Which is exactly why he targeted you. Don’t you get that? I’m the reason he hurt you.”

  “I know, Damon. He told me, but that doesn’t make it true.”

  A hoarse sound. “Everything you’ve suffered is because of me.”

  “Your father is responsible for what he does. I know you tried to keep people safe. You tried to keep me safe. You’re still doing it. That’s why I’m in that room, isn’t it? Because someone would have to go through you to get to me.”

  “No one’s getting to you,” he says on a low growl.

  “But you can’t keep everyone safe all the time. That’s not your responsibility.”

  “It is,” he says, teeth clenched, and with shock I realize he means it. “I’m the only one who knows what he’s truly capable of doing. The only one capable of stopping him.”

  My heart aches, because he’s right. He’s the only one who knows what Jonathan Scott is fully capable of—because he’s suffered all of it. For years. Because no one stopped him. No one could. In a twisted way it’s why he won’t go after Avery, because he believes he can’t save her. In his mind she’s already lost. The dark place in my mind whispers that he might be right.

  I touch my forefinger lightly to a darker patch of skin on the side of his abdomen, a few inches below the endless stylized waves. “Tell me about this one.”

  His eyes flash. “What are you doing?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Cast iron,” he says, his voice devoid of emotion. “A fireplace poker.”

  I can’t quite control the flinch that comes from imagining that. The wound has healed over, almost smooth to the touch. Which means it happened a very long time ago. How young was he?

  Without commenting on it, I move to a thin white line of raised skin. “This one.”

  “Penny,” he warns.

  “If you tell me, then you won’t be the only one who knows.”

  His breath hitches—I can’t hear it or see it, but I feel the shift in his chest. “And you think I want that? You’re the last person I want to burden with this.”

  “You keep trying to keep me safe, Damon Scott. No matter what it costs you.”

  “That’s right. My life means nothing. It hasn’t meant anything since I met a little girl who stole a hundred-dollar bill from my backpack because she was hungry.”

  Guilt burns like acid. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t you get it, Penny? I would give you a thousand
of those. I’d give you every dollar I have, and then steal even more if that’s what you wanted.”

  “Why?” I whisper, suddenly afraid.

  “God knows,” he says, and it really does sound like a prayer. “My life would be so much simpler if I could just fuck one of those women down there. If I could just stop thinking about you for a single goddamn breath. Instead I’ve spent years taking over the fucking city so that I could give it you.”

  Words are caught in my throat. Words like no and impossible and please.

  “And the worst part is, you don’t want it, do you? You were never fooled by a suit and a smile, were you? You knew that only covered up a wild animal.”

  “That’s not true,” I say, but it is. God, it is.

  “You wanted to leave Tanglewood, and you were right to. You don’t belong here. So get back in your fucking little box, because that’s where I’m going to keep you until I can send you away again.”

  I stand up from the bed like my limbs aren’t shattered, like my body is still in one piece. Like his gaze isn’t battering against my back. The small room is the same as when I left it. I’m the one who’s different. I’m the one hollowed out, blackened. A husk of the girl who went looking for him.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I’m lying awake in bed when I hear the commotion downstairs. A man’s shout. A disturbing thump. I peek out of my little room to find the large bed empty, the sheet thrown back. Is it Damon downstairs? Or did he already go down to investigate?

  I find my answer at the bottom of the stairs.

  Damon stands over a prone body. A large body. One covered in bruises and blood.

  “Daddy,” I whisper.

  He looks up at me with one bloodshot eye, the other too puffy to see. “There you are. I had to make sure you were safe. Had to make sure—”

  “Don’t speak to her,” Damon says, his voice bored.

  It’s a lie, that boredom. The casual look of him, loose pants and no shirt—that’s a lie, too. Everything about this man is deliberate and honed. He’s a blade, and the man on the floor in front of him is sliced into pieces.

  I rush to Daddy’s side, helping him stand. “You need to go to a hospital.”

  “No,” he grunts, leaning on me. “No hospitals.”

  Damon gives a coarse laugh.

  I glare at him. “Did you do this to him?”

  “He deserves what happened to him. Worse, actually.”

  How can my father’s weight feel both heavy and painfully frail at the same time? He seems to have aged a hundred years since I saw him last. “Daddy,” I whisper. “What did you do?”

  He groans. “I made a mistake.”

  “A mistake,” Damon says, mocking. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

  Daddy shudders in my arms, and I lead him to one of the large leather chairs, sending Damon a dirty look. I know that I have no power here, not really. Only what he gives me. I still dare him to tell me no. That Daddy can’t sit down, that this broken man can’t rest here.

  Damon leans against the wall, indolent and muscular, as if unconcerned with any of this.

  I hold two larger hands in mine, terribly aware of all the times this has happened before. The chair was a lumpy armchair instead of leather, the floor thin carpet instead of an oriental rug. But the feeling is the same—the searing disappointment that my father has once again hit the bottom.

  And here I am, kneeling with him. Always with him.

  “I started again,” he says roughly. “I didn’t mean to. Not at first. It was only one game in the Cellar. Old friends, you know. And someone new.”

  “It’s never one game, Daddy.”

  He sighs. “I know. I should never have sat down at the table again. And then next thing you know I’m down five large.”

  I manage not to flinch, but maybe that’s because this is too familiar. How can something that’s happened so many times still hurt so much?

  “I think I could have done it, you know,” he continues. “I could have paid the money on the salary I was getting and still covered your tuition.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I ask, my voice hollow. I know the answer. Addiction.

  “You,” he says softly.

  My gaze snaps to his watery brown eyes. “What?”

  “The new guy, I didn’t even catch his name that night. Can you believe it? He shows up at my door the next night. Says he’ll tell Damon I’m gambling again, that I’m in debt. That was against the rules. He was real firm about that from the beginning.”

  “Loyalty,” Damon says softly. “It doesn’t divide. Like an atom, the smallest unit of matter. It can’t be split apart. If it’s not with me, it’s with someone else.”

  My father doesn’t look up. “This man says, all I have to fix it is call you home for a visit.”

  I blink at him. “Why would he want that?”

  “I don’t know,” he says slowly. “Not for sure. But I think… I think it’s because you mean something to Damon Scott. Or at least he believed you do. And he would have hurt you. He would have used you as leverage. And I couldn’t do that to you. Not when I’ve already hurt you so much.”

  You mean something to Damon Scott.

  I swallow hard. “What did you do?”

  “I panicked. I thought maybe I could make the money back, pay it and no one would know the difference. I took out loans, gambled it all away. It turned out like it always did, Penny. And then I was so ashamed…. God, I didn’t know what to do.”

  Damon pushes off the wall, prowling behind me. “Whoever this asshole is, he went through enough trouble to find your old gambling spot, to get your buddies to lure you back, and to make sure you lost. Even if you had made the money back, it wouldn’t have helped. He didn’t want that.”

  “Daddy,” I whisper. “Who was this man?”

  “I don’t know. I’d never met him before.” He shudders. “His eyes, though. There was something not right about his eyes. I knew not to look at him directly, even during the game. There was something… insane about him.”

  A cold finger runs down my spine. Insane.

  Daddy shakes his head. “The Russians, I borrowed money from them. When they found me tonight, I thought they were going to kill me. Instead they roughed me up and brought me here.”

  “I had to call in quite a favor for that,” Damon says on a drawl.

  My eyes widen, and I turn back to look at him. “You saved him?”

  “‘Saved’ is such a strong word.”

  “Why did you say you had beaten him?”

  “I merely said that he deserved what he got. You made your assumptions.”

  The air feels thin. “So what happens now?”

  “Nothing,” Damon says, sounding weary. “Things will go back to the way they were. Your father will lay low until I can pay his debts.”

  He leaves the room without even a goodbye. Daddy slumps as soon as he’s out of sight, clearly having used the reserves of his energy. He needs medical attention. Or at least rest. But I can’t stop myself from running after Damon.

  I catch him halfway up the stairs. “Wait.”

  He pauses, not quite turned toward me. Not quite turned away. “Yes?”

  “Why did you bid on my father? If loyalty is so important to you, if he has a history of gambling. Why did you even want to win him in the first place? Why did you make that bet with me?”

  A shake of his head, almost a helpless gesture from such a capable man. “You know the answer to that, baby genius. Because it was the only way I could help you. And you don’t just mean something to me. You mean everything. Understand? Every goddamn thing.”

  As if he didn’t just shatter my world and put it back together, he heads upstairs.

  I stay at the bottom, staring up at him for a long time before tending my father’s wounds, lost in contemplation. Daddy’s disappearance wasn’t related to Avery after all. It’s just the garden variety heartbreak of a man who chooses gambling over
family. When does it end?

  How does the cycle stop?

  “Does he hurt you?” Daddy asks when I finish bandaging him.

  Leaning back on my heels I consider the question. The emotional ache is almost unbearable, but can that really be on Damon’s shoulders? Is it his fault if I want more him than he can give? He doesn’t owe me anything. Not like the man in front of me.

  “You hurt me,” I say gently.

  He looks away, a familiar expression of shame on his ruddy face. “I’m sorry.”

  “Daddy.”

  I wait until he looks at me. “Don’t come back.” The words come out as tender as I can make them, as soft as I feel them. There’s no victory in this moment, only resignation. “You aren’t happy in this city. And you aren’t safe. Leave and don’t come back.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I get the call when I’m thirty thousand feet in the air. My cell phone rings, and I fumble through my backpack. Damon doesn’t even look away from the window, ignoring the phone call. Ignoring me.

  He’s hardly spoken to me at all except to tell me when the car would be arriving to take us to the airport. From there we boarded a private jet. Hiro sits in the back of the plane, her eyes closed, her body still. I might believe she’s sleeping except that I sense a deep wariness around her.

  Avery’s face smiles up at me from the phone screen, and my heart skips a beat. I took that picture my first year at Smith when we met up for dinner. I cropped her face in the square, so you can’t see Gabriel in the background. It’s impossible to forget his expression, though—the mixture of tenderness and ferocity.

  “Hello?” I ask cautiously.

  A small sigh. “Penny. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

  My heart beats wildly in my chest. “God. It really is you. Are you okay? Are you safe?”

  She hesitates. “Now I am. Gabriel is here with me. He told me you helped find me.”

  “What about…?” It’s hard to even say his name, impossible to imagine him doing the things he did to me to Avery. I sprang up from between bricks, an unlikely weed. Being crushed beneath his boot wasn’t pleasant, but it was the life that I was made for. Avery has delicate petals and beautiful color.