by Violet Blaze
His lips tease heat across my mouth, down the side of my jaw, trail hot across my ear. He's leaning into me, pressing the throbbing thickness of his cock against my thigh. That firm reminder of his arousal turns me inside out, steals my breath away, makes me gasp.
Glacier stiffens up suddenly, his entire body going rigid.
“That sound …” he murmurs, and then he's pressing his face to my throat, kissing me and making me shiver, dragging goose bumps up across my entire body, turning me into a useless puddle on the bed. And then he starts using his teeth, nibbling at the sensitive flesh of my throat, my shoulder. He pauses when he gets to my upper arm, breathing hard against the purple bruises there. “Every proof you should stay away from me,” he whispers, his left hand sliding up my hip, to my upper arm so he can slide his thumb across the mark on the opposite side. “And yet still, you persist.”
“You're not a bad man, Saint,” I tell him and he actually laughs. It's a dark, twisted sort of a laugh and it makes my heart hurt. He's in so much pain and he doesn't even know it. Something must've happened at some point, something bad, something that turned a man with a bright, clear vibrant soul into a monster. I don't care if he ever changes, don't care to fix him, but I would like to see that pain go away.
My left hand curls around his back, fingertips digging into the demon wing tattoos etched across his skin. I want to see more of them, run my lips and tongue across the painted flesh. But there'll be time for that later.
“Come here,” I say and even though Saint's clearly in charge of this encounter, he listens to me—just like he did during the fight with my dad. Even his president couldn't get him to listen … but I could. Somehow, someway, Saint is giving me power over him. The thought is thrilling.
I open my legs and encourage him to settle himself between them, gasping at the brush of his cock against my folds. My body's hypersensitive right now, desperate to be touched by this man and this man alone.
Saint doesn't thrust into me right away, moving his hand back to my hair and holding tight, pulling my face back and exposing my throat. He nips and kisses his way down to my breasts, sighing against the almost painful hardness of my nipples, sliding his mouth over one and drawing a sharp curse from my lips.
For a man that's so cold, Saint's mouth sure is hot. He sucks on my nipple, bites it, sends fireworks flashing behind my lids with the rush of new sensations. He teases and plays with the tender flesh until the pinkness turns to red, pulling back and leaving a shimmer of saliva, the wetness cool, almost painful without his mouth to heat it.
Then he's moving down even further, sliding his tongue down my tummy, straight to the four piercings that surround my belly button. He kisses these, too, nuzzling his face against my skin, making me suck my stomach in, my ribs protruding sharp and painful as I arch my back in a gasp.
“Saint,” I say, but he has an agenda here, and he's not about to stop what he's doing. I relax into his touch because even though I know it makes no sense, I trust him—implicitly.
When his mouth drops to the pink plushness of my pussy, I thrust involuntarily against his face, encouraging him to move his hands to my hips and hold me in place. His grip is hard, maybe even bruising, but I like it. The intensity in his fingers travels all the way through me, straight to my heart. I keep our 'safety word' in mind, but I can't imagine ever using it.
Hot, slick warmth slides along my sex, all the way down to my opening and then back up to my clit, teasing the already hardened flesh into a painful frenzy. My hands come down of their own accord and curl into Saint's pale gold hair, grabbing hard and causing him to freeze in place. I lift my head and look down at him, watching as he sits back a little, his tongue sliding along the shimmering wetness of his lower lip. My fingers are still curled in his hair, but he doesn't look like he minds so much.
“Maybe there's something to all this,” he says, his voice icy cold but his gaze white-hot, “to being touched.”
And then he's sliding his entire body up over mine, the kaleidoscope color of his tattoos flashing as he cradles his pelvis in my hips and mounts me with a single thrust.
A small scream escapes my throat, but it's pure pleasure, and Saint seems to like it, so I don't bother to keep a single sound trapped inside my chest. He props himself up on his forearms, moving with slow, sure strokes, tending the fire between my legs with his body.
“I …” I start to say something, but he fucks the words right out of me, replacing whatever things I might've said with gasps and moans. My hips buck up off the bed to meet his thrusts, trying to pull him as deep as I can, even though it still hurts just a little.
“Mmm.” Glacier makes this sound in his throat as I run my hands up his back, loving the feel of his muscles beneath his skin. “Tell me again what it is you want, Serenity.”
It takes me almost a whole minute to gather enough breath to speak.
“Everything,” I whisper as I press my face to Glacier's neck, feel his pulse thundering against my lips. “I want everything.”
He chuckles and this time, the sound isn't quite so empty.
Saint moves his body in a slow, careful rhythm. Tension and something else—violence, maybe—coils underneath his inked skin, proving how much he's holding back. But I don't want him to hold back. It's what he always does, what he's probably been doing his whole life.
I open my mouth to tell him that, but he slides his left hand over my lips and blocks the words.
“Unless it's your safety word, then don't,” he whispers, his tattooed flesh grinding against the empty whiteness of my own, claiming me with his body the way I claimed him with my words. Pleasure coils deep inside of me, unfurling its bright red petals across my skin, making my vision blur and bringing small pricks of hot, salty tears up at the corners of my eyes.
I meet Glacier's blue ones, so pale and clear that I can see right through him, all the way down to his soul.
“I can't …” I start to say, but I can and I do, closing my eyes against a rush, against a brand-new sensation that I've never felt before, that makes me buck and thrash beneath him, digging my nails into the skin of his back. It hits me then full force, knocking me back, curving my spine, stealing my breath.
I cling to Glacier as he gives me my first orgasm, melting into him, drawing him into me. I'm still panting and gasping and trying to process what just happened to me when he reaches down and grabs my ass, driving into my body as his shudders, muscles rippling. A sound escapes from his throat that's part animal and part … human.
It's the most human sound I've ever heard him make.
Serenity's asleep in her bed, facedown, her gently parted lips drawing me like a moth to flame. I trace my finger across the pink swell of her lower lip and feel myself shudder with need. As if I we didn't fuck mere hours ago, my cock swells and I grit my teeth against the sensation.
That's going to take some getting used to.
I pull my hand away when she moans, suddenly desperate not to wake her. If I do, I won't leave, I know I won't. And outside, the moon slants across the darkness of the forest and the grass outside Serenity's window. Not only could Jack or Fauna pull up at any minute and catch my bike in the driveway, but I have work to do.
My phone rings and I answer it quick, yanking it from the pocket of my jeans with a low growl.
I step out into the hall and close the door softly behind me.
“What do you want?” I snap at Royal, and I can practically see him foaming at the mouth on the other end of the line. Normally, I try so hard to keep that front up, to act cheerful and smile and laugh. But right now, I feel stripped, raw, like Serenity's dragged my frozen body up through the ice and laid me naked across the surface, my skin still wet with water, the wind howling across the snow that blankets the world all around me.
“Got anything for me yet?” he asks, but he doesn't sound particularly hopeful. He knows I'd call if I did.
“No, why?” I ask as I head down the stairs and grab my leather jacke
t from the floor. After a moment, I decide to grab Serenity's discarded clothes, too. Royal sighs as I carry them back up the steps and open her door, tossing them inside onto the floor.
“Special Agent Shelley was at the compound today. Again.” My president sounds like he wants to kill something—or somebody. And believe me, as nice as he acts around everyone else, there's a little monster inside of him, too.
“I'm listening,” I say as I catch myself staring at Serenity again, at the gentle strands of blonde and red that fall across her face, the easy rise and fall of her breath. My own catches and I have to glance away to get control of myself. What are you doing, Glacier? If there's anything at all inside of you that's still human, you'll walk away and leave this girl alone.
Fucking Royal.
He should've sent me to Alaska when I asked, after that night in the dorm room. That was my mistake, letting Serenity get to me like that. Instinctively, I knew. I knew if I let her in, she would destroy us both.
I press the lock on the inside knob of her door and close it quickly but quietly.
“She's pressing us hard for information that we don't have and Glacier, she's getting desperate.”
I pop a piece of gum in my mouth and smack it between my teeth.
“Yeah, okay, I'm on it, Boss.” There's a really long pause that would be uncomfortable if I was inclined toward that sort of thing.
“Did you see Serenity today?”
Hm. There's almost an accusation there, lurking in the background.
“I drove over to Jack's, fucked her, and fell asleep in her bed.”
I narrow my eyes as I stand in the living room and stare at my bike out the front window. I'm testing Royal, I know that. I'm not even sure why I'm doing it, but I stand there and wait for his response with—I won't say anticipation because that's not something I feel—but curiosity? I'm not sure. Right now, it feels like my wiring's as fucked as that bike's back at the shop.
“Saint.” Just that, plus a sigh. “Get your ass out into those woods and find these fuckers for me, alright?” There's the slight murmur of voices in the background and then a grim, “and if you're still there, leave now. Jack just pulled out of the gates on his bike and brother, please don't make my job any harder than it already is.”
Tromping through the woods at night doesn't bother me. Actually, I enjoy it. What the hell else would I be doing? Drinking? Smoking? Fucking? Until recently, none of those things held any sort of joy or excitement for me.
Until recently.
My skin ripples and shivers as I think about Serenity, about the warm, soft silk of her body stretched out beneath me, the scalding heat between her thighs. My jaw clenches and I pause, listening to a distant murmur of voices.
Mm. Fucking idiots. If there's anything I've learned about low-level dealers and addicts, it's that they're like fucking rats. Clean their hidey-hole out, poison them, trap their fellows … and as soon as the air clears, they go crawling right back.
I heft my crossbow over my shoulder and slip between the trees, giant towering monsters in the dark. Even the ferns here are huge, half as tall as I am, green and lush and covered in dew. This whole forest is wet, wet, wet.
But not as wet as Serenity.
Mm. Fuck. My gray matter, it's fucking infected with thoughts of that girl.
My boots move across the damp ground, silent and quick, putting me in view of the old house within minutes, the orange glow of a bonfire casting dark shadows up the nearby trunks, turning the few revelers around it into twenty foot tall demons made of darkness.
My lips pull back in a small smile as I count the crowd: three women, four men. Could be innocent teens out in the woods for a little fun. But probably not.
I push my way between two large ferns, making no attempt to hide the sound of the rustling foliage. Even then, it takes another ten feet before anyone spots me. Blind idiots.
“Having a little party, are we?” I ask and one of the women screams, ducking behind the shoulder of a thin man in a baggy hoodie. The look he gives me is disinterested bullshit.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asks as I continue moving forward, pausing in the circle of orange cast by the bonfire. They all seem to notice my crossbow, but none of them seem particularly worried about it. Maybe they think I use it to hunt animals? Funny thing is, the only blood my weapon's seen is … human.
“Is this your place?” I ask them, nodding my chin in the direction of the dilapidated shack behind them. The house is just one of dozens buried out here, foreclosed on or abandoned, left to rot in the dewy damp of the forest. Whoever these assholes are, it definitely does not belong to them. But I had to ask, didn't I?
The guy on my right, the one sitting on a fallen long, finishes shooting up and tosses the needle aside, rising to his feet and pulling a pistol from inside his dirty denim jacket.
“Why don't you get the hell out of here before I shoot your ass?” he asks me, sneering at the crossbow in my hands like he finds his weapon superior somehow. Interesting.
“No need to get violent,” I say, even though I'm getting ready to shoot him in the shoulder. “I just want to know what you're up to out here. These woods,” I say with another gesture of my chin, “belong to the Alpha Wolves. You should know that by now.”
The man in the denim jacket pulls the trigger, but I don't bother to move because clearly, his aim is completely off. The bullet clips the tree behind and to my right as I lift my bow, take aim, and shoot him exactly where I said I would. I killed the last three guys; I need this one alive.
The women take off into the woods, shrieking, but I let them go. That's not to say I won't shoot a woman that deserves it, but those girls, I vaguely recognize them. They're all hookers from downtown. The Wolves don't dabble in prostitution at all, but it happens around the city. When it does, we snuff it out, kill the pimps and move on. A new one always moves in to take his place eventually, but it's just like everything else in life: just takes maintenance.
The thin man in the hoodie and the two guys on his right also fumble to remove their weapons, but I'm strong and I'm quick and all I do is practice, practice, practice for this shit. I drop my bow to the ground, brace it with my foot, and cock it with my hand, loading a bolt as I duck sharply, avoid a second and third shot and then shoot one of the men through the throat.
He drops without a sound, sending the other two thugs into the woods, sprinting for their lives. Wow. Not a lick of fight in these assholes, now is there?
I stand up and take off after them, their movements in the dark as loud and obvious to me as if they were wearing GSP trackers attached to their clothing. Stupidly enough, they also run in the same damn direction.
So I jog after them, not at all winded by this scenario, and end up pausing long enough to cock my bow again, grabbing an arrow from the quiver at my hip and shooting the bright white back of the man in the t-shirt. His clothing makes him an easy fucking target, and he goes down sputtering and gasping.
The last man, I decide I want him alive, too, so I chase after him for a good fifteen minutes, keeping my movements as silent as possible, pausing only when he does, leaning up against a tree and pulling out a cell phone.
I stand in the shadows and watch him try to make a call in the middle of a national forest. Unless he has a satellite phone, he's not getting any fucking service out here. Three or four minutes of cursing and he stands up just as I step around the trunk of a tree and fire off a bolt into his shoulder, following up with a blow to the head.
I roll his body over with my boot and check to make sure he's unconscious and not bleeding too heavily to wait for a few minutes. Nope. He's fine.
Slipping a new stick of gum into my mouth, I put my crossbow on my back and then lift the man up, tossing his bloody form over my shoulder. Now all I have to do is get back to the bonfire, and borrow one of these asshole's cars.
“I don't fuckin' know anything,” the man with the cell phone moans, slumping in the chair and bawling his
eyes out. That's okay; I don't feel sorry for him. Our secretary, Mick, has a way with computers, ways of getting information he shouldn't rightfully have access to. So I know from giving him this man's driver's license that he's just another typical piece of human trash.
I'm standing next to Royal in the basement of my grandma's house, listening to Mick list his priors over the phone.
“Nothing you wouldn't expect: couple of drug related charges, minor theft, resisting arrest, aggravated assault … uh, some rape charges: forcible rape, corruption of a minor, carnal knowledge of a minor …”
I feel the blood drain right out of my face.
“Uh, thanks Mick,” Royal says suddenly, cutting Mick off before he can finish his list. “I think that's enough for now. We'll call if we need anything else.”
My president hangs up the phone as I stand stone still and the walls around me seem to move, twisting and warping in the edges of my vision.
Rape.
No matter what the minor says or does or wants, the law interprets any interaction between an adult and a minor as rape.
“Saint,” Royal starts as I turn and punch the wall as hard as I can. Surely, it hurts, but I don't feel anything as I pull my right hand back and look at the bloodied mess of my knuckles, scraped raw against the unyielding stone of the wall I just hit.
“I didn't rape nobody!” the man is wailing, thrashing around against his bonds. “She was seventeen; she came onto me.”
Before I can stop myself, I have my fingers in the man's hair and I'm jerking his head back with no small amount of force.
“If you don't shut your fucking mouth, I'll break your goddamn neck.”
I let go of him and storm out the door that leads into the wine cellar, climbing up the ladder and bursting into the kitchen with … something happening inside of me. Some boiling, twisting, menacing rage.