“Ha!” She runs her hand over her face and gives me a funny look, showing me again that she thinks I’m crazy.
And maybe I am.
“That’s hysterical. A sadistic man makes you feel safe. Did you forget that you just saw him across the street the other night with blood on his hands?”
“Of course not.” I place my hand on my bedroom door and look her right in the eyes. “And tonight, there was someone else’s blood on his hands. Due to him protecting me. That leaves a bigger impression in my book.”
She gets ready to speak but then stops as if she’s trying to think of how to respond. “What almost happened? Are you okay?”
My heart speeds up when I feel Aston’s cum slowly dripping between my thighs. I’m surprised I’m just now noticing it.
I was so wrapped up in him leaving that I forgot I never went to the bathroom after we had sex.
He wanted me full of his cum, and that thought has excitement moving over me again.
I squeeze my legs shut and answer her. “I’m fine. If it wasn’t for Aston showing up when he did, then who knows what would’ve happened to me. I might not even be here right now.”
She gives me a weird look, noticing the way I’m standing. It takes her a few seconds before her eyes go wide as if she’s just figured it out. “Oh God. Please tell me his semen is not dripping down your legs right now? He did wear a condom, right?”
My whole body ignites from her question, sending my heart into overdrive. I feel my face heat, the embarrassment of her being so blunt filling me.
I know we should have used protection, but in the heat of the moment all I wanted was to have him inside of me, feeling him between my legs as he claimed me as his.
He’s the first man I’ve let inside of me without protection, but the way he thrust himself into me bare, knowing without question that I’d want it, only seemed to turn me on more in some sick, twisted way.
I know being on the pill can only do so much, but something tells me he doesn’t just randomly sleep around with women. He seemed surprised that I was even willing to let him within breathing distance of me.
The Locke brothers have a reputation that I’m sure doesn’t have many women knocking down their door for sex.
My silence has her eyes widening even more.
“Holy shit.” She throws her hand over her mouth and takes in the bite marks and redness covering my exposed skin as I stand here smiling at her expression. “Looks like he’s just as rough in the bedroom as he is outside of it.” She appears curious now and less afraid. “Was the sex at least enjoyable?”
“Honestly… I’ve never come so hard in my life.”
I can’t believe I told her that, but the words spilled from my mouth and it’s the absolute truth. There’s no hiding that even if I wanted to.
She stares at me, but I don’t feel like justifying myself.
I’ve never felt this way before, and I don’t want it to end. I don’t want to pretend that I can let this go, just let Aston go. I’ve spent too much of my life sticking up for someone that no one else understood, someone that the whole town tore down, little by little until there was nothing left of her to save.
I will not step back now and judge Aston, especially understanding some of what he’s been through.
Without knowing what that pained expression behind his ice-blue eyes is all about, I have no right to judge his actions.
Melissa may never understand, and that’s because she didn’t grow up with my mother. She didn’t have kids laughing in her face her whole life because her mother was severely depressed and the talk of the damn town.
All because no one took the chance to ask what my mother had been through.
I will never be one of those people to let others’ opinions get in the way and blind me from my own emotions.
Aston Locke is misunderstood.
He’s feared by the whole town.
And I want nothing more than to see the real him.
The one that somehow has a way of making me feel safe around him.
14
Aston
I’m shaken awake in the middle of the night by one of my asshole brothers pushing me around, not giving a fuck that I’m dead asleep.
I left Kadence’s place, not wanting to be without her, but fuck if things hadn’t gotten weird with her roommate.
I figure they had shit to talk about since I got caught in her room, and me not being there was probably for the best. Not to mention I had a feeling this would happen and my brothers would’ve flipped their shit if I was gone.
“Wake your sleeping beauty ass up,” Sterling says above me before slapping me across the face to irritate me. “We’ve got a job to handle.”
Pissed off, I wait until he walks away, then I toss a knife at the wall. It skims right past his grinning face and sticks in the old wood.
“Asshole,” he mutters, but I hear him chuckle, clearly amused by my angry outburst of violence.
Grunting, I pull my tired ass out of bed and run a hand over my face while exhaling. I glance at the clock. It’s still late as hell, but the sun will be rising in a few hours.
Whatever the fuck my brothers want to do will have to be finished while we still have the cover of darkness on our side.
I get ready, head to where my brothers are, and together we leave, ready to take on whatever needs to be handled so damn badly that some fucker is willing to pay us five grand to get the job done.
The atmosphere is pretty fucking somber, and although I don’t know exactly what’s going down, I know it’s a dirty job. They always are.
I let my older brothers handle planning this shit. I just follow along and take care of business. I have been ever since they saved my ass that night.
With grim expressions we climb into the vehicle and head down the road. I pull out my knife and start running my finger over the blade.
It’s a habit, one that calms me, one that lets me know I’m in control. I’m the one who holds the fucking power.
We drive for about twenty minutes before pulling into the driveway of an old-as-fuck, falling-apart house.
This is a meet-up spot, no doubt. No one lives here, not unless they are crackheads, or maybe a teenager looking for a spot to get his dick wet.
A few minutes later and another car pulls up beside us, setting my ass on high alert.
You never know what to expect at one of these, so you always need to come prepared.
Once we are all out of the vehicle, we head inside. The stench of mold, age, and decay surround me. I take in the waste, the despair and toxicity.
It’s exactly the kind of place a person with a black heart—and one cold motherfucker—would live.
Guess that’s why I feel so at home right now.
The guy in front of us looks shifty as fuck. He has two other guys with him, maybe scared being in our presence.
Good, he needs the backup if he decides to fuck us over.
“You can do this?” the guy asks, shifting on his feet, looking around the room, maybe thinking the cops will bust in or some shit.
“Yeah, you want the guy who fucked your sister up real good to get the message,” Sterling says, cocking his head to the side. “That’s our fucking specialty. But you already know that shit, so don’t question it.”
“You can’t fuck him up yourself?” I’m never one to keep my mouth shut, but then again, all the Locke boys are this way.
We get it from our uncle. There’s no doubt about that.
“We don’t want our hands dirty in this, and I don’t want my sister in danger anymore. If they know it’s us, it’ll be an all-out war. I just need this prick to walk away from her. I need him to know there’s someone out there that has the ability to fuck him up and hurt him worse than he’s hurt her.”
“It’s not a problem,” Sterling says and looks at me. I can see in his expression he wants me to shut the fuck up.
Nothing new there.
Hell, it doesn�
�t matter to me, so I shrug. I want this asshole to pay as much as the dick hiring us does.
“You know where to find him?”
Sterling nods. “We got all the information already.”
“We’ll handle it,” Ace adds with a wicked grin.
Yeah, we’d handle it all right. I have some aggression to let out, and a motherfucker who doesn’t know how to treat a woman seems like the perfect outlet.
Without another word Ace snatches the envelope from the dude’s hand and shoves it in the front of his ripped-up jeans. “Let’s go show these motherfuckers who they’re dealing with so little brother here can get some damn beauty rest.”
“Fuck you,” I say with a grin while twirling my knife around. “I’m always down; let’s just do this shit.”
Really, I just want to get back to Kadence.
My brothers and I pile into the SUV again and head toward the address Sterling was provided with.
I’m surprised as hell to see this asshole lives in the rich part of town. Hell, he probably lives in his parents’ basement and gets off on beating his woman, knowing she won’t run because he has money and connections to keep her around.
That’s some twisted-ass shit.
Sterling slows the vehicle down, creeping in front of the house as we scope it out.
There’s no doubt the residents in his neighborhood are nosy as dick and will call the cops the second we step foot out of this thing, looking as rough as we do.
“Well fuck…” Sterling punches the steering wheel and turns the SUV around. “We can’t do this shit here. That asshole should’ve known that before he wasted our motherfucking time by sending us to a damn subdivision.”
Feeling the frustration and anger beginning to creep in, I pull out a cigarette and take a long drag before slowly exhaling.
It’s shit like this that makes me want to go after the idiot that hired us for the job.
I close my eyes and lean my head back on the seat, getting lost in thoughts as we head to the house.
The thought of Kadence instantly gets my cock hard, which considering I’m in the SUV with my brothers, makes me feel awkward as hell. But I don’t give a shit when it’s all said and done.
What I want to do is get out of the vehicle now, go to her place, and fuck her so she knows that she’s mine.
But I’d be an asshole to show up at her house at four in the damn morning, not knowing if she has to be up soon for work.
I have no doubt in my mind I already wore her out for the night. She’s going to need as much sleep as she can get to make it through today.
And all the strength she can get for when I claim her again.
Once we pull into the long-as shit driveway leading to the middle of nowhere we call home, my gaze immediately sets on an old Buick parked in the grass.
My brothers must notice it too, because it has Sterling speeding up, now in a hurry to make it to the house.
Whoever the hell is stupid enough to be creeping around our property in the middle of night must not know shit about who we are and what we’re capable of.
I’m guessing the asshole never made it inside to break in before we pulled up because King, that big bastard of a dog, would be tearing at the front door right now, ready for a late-night snack.
“I got this fucker.” Before Sterling can stop the vehicle, I jump out the back and chase down the stranger who’s now running and weaving his way through the trees behind the house.
He has another thing coming if he thinks this little hunt is something he’ll get away from unscathed.
Fuck that. Not happening.
The adrenaline pumping through my veins has me catching up with the guy and dragging his ass over to the river.
With force, I throw his body down into the dirt and drag him down to the dirty water. “I guess you don’t know what happens to assholes who think they can fuck us over.” Growling out, I push his head down into the water and hold it for a few seconds, feeling the darkness consume me as he struggles in my arms.
He sucks in a burst of air the second I yank him up by his hair. “You gonna tell me what the fuck you’re doing here, or are you still thirsty?”
“Fuck you,” he coughs out. “Not telling you shit.”
I tilt my head and smile. “All right, your choice.”
Before my words can even register, I have the dick’s head back under water, holding it there as I pull out a cigarette and light it, which is harder than hell seeing as the asshole is struggling.
I have all night to do this shit.
“What ya doing, little brother?” Ace walks fast down the hill, grinning like a maniac when he sees the scene before him. “You get more and more like me every day. That shit is scary as fuck. Leave the twisted shit for me. It’s all I have left.”
Exhaling, I release the back of the guy’s hair and give Ace what he wants. We all know he needs this twisted shit to survive more than we do.
“I’ll go find Sterling,” I say stiffly.
“Don’t bother. He found out where the boyfriend was and took off before I could stop him.”
I toss down my cigarette and punch the tree, the skin breaking open, the pain lacing up my arm.
“He’s alone. Sterling can handle it.” He smiles down at the asshole crawling his way out of the water. “And I’ll play with my new friend here.”
I have no doubt about that.
These two assholes will be lucky if they survive my brothers tonight.
15
Kadence
The coffee shop I work at is small, family owned, and older than I am. But I like the owners and feel like I’m part of the family.
They also work with my schedule and allow me to make up my own hours because I take some classes at the community college.
The pay might not be the best, but it allows me to help Melissa with rent and all that shit, and makes me feel like I’m at least contributing.
“Can you clean off the corner table, honey?” Cheryl, the wife of Bryon, and the other owner of this place, calls out from the back room, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Sure,” I say, grabbing a rag and heading to the table she’s referring to.
All I can think about is Aston, what he’s doing right now, if he’s thinking of me…
God, I am still sore in the best of ways. His passion is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, unlike anything I can even think about.
Even my thigh muscles protest as I lean over the table to clean it off. A flash steals over me, the images of what we did last night, of how he fucked me…and that’s exactly what he did.
Another hour passes, and I clock out, anxious to get out of here. I don’t know if I’ll see Aston tonight, or again really. He was vague about it all, just up and leaving, making me wonder.
I need a run, need to get this anxious energy out of me. It’s still light outside, and I’m not stupid enough to go running at night after what happened.
Once I’m back home, changed into my running gear and my phone shoved into my pocket, I take off. I have no particular place to go, no destination in mind. I just need to run as far and as fast as my feet will take me.
I need to be covered in sweat, my heart racing, the blood pumping through my veins. I need a distraction to keep my mind from being stuck on Aston.
I don’t know how long I run, but I end up finding myself at the edge of town, the dirt road that leads to the Locke brothers’ house in front of me.
I only know of this place because Melissa made me very aware, when I moved into town, that this is the road I needed to avoid at all cost.
My heart is thundering, and as much as I know I should leave, go back home before it’s dark, I still stand here, wanting nothing more than to take the forbidden trail.
It’s the sound of tires on gravel that have me glancing over my shoulder to see a dark SUV, the windows tinted, coming right toward me. I move to the side, unable to run back home, knowing this is fucking stupid. Melissa was right;
I’m insane.
And when the SUV comes to a stop right beside me, the window rolling down, my heart jumps into my throat.
I know the man in the driver’s seat…Sterling Locke. The middle brother.
He stares at me, his gaze unwavering, his dark eyes and hair making him seem ominous, dangerous. Hell, he can look like an angel and still be known as the devil himself.
I take note of the tattoos covering his neck, his chest, arms, and hands. But that’s not the only thing I notice.
Blood on his knuckles, splattered on his shirt, his skin.
And then he grins at me, this demonic-looking expression that has my blood going cold.
“I’ve seen you,” he says. “Get in.” That smile is gone, his voice hard, sharp.
I should go, could probably lose him in the woods. But I’m not that stupid. They live out here alone, away from everyone for a reason.
To think he can’t find me, that he probably doesn’t know where I live, is fucking dumb to even contemplate.
“I don’t hurt women,” he finally says. “Besides, I know Aston saw you last night.”
This surprises me. Maybe that realization flickers over my face, because he laughs, low, amused.
“If you think my brother and I don’t know what the fuck is going on with our youngest, you must not know us very well.” He unlocks the passenger-side door. “Get in. Aston is at the house, and I’d like to know what the fuck is really going on with you two.”
And I find myself walking over to the door, opening it, and climbing in.
God, did I just accept an invitation into hell?
16
Aston
Fuck. I wish my asshole brother would hurry the hell up and get his ass back home.
All I want to do is go see Kadence, to put my hands on her sexy little body and possess her. I’ve been itching to since the moment I left her alone, but there’s no way I’m leaving this property until I know Sterling is safe, until I know the job is done.
Locke Brothers Series Page 5