by Elena Monroe
Abigail’s soft side tried to soothe whatever Jus wanted to say next. “Just leave it alone. It’s none of our business.”
Making eye contact with Abigail, I came to her friend’s rescue. “Let her say what she needs to. We’re all going to be stuck together at Clave events so we might as well figure out how to be friendly now.”
Turning my focus to Justice, the doors opened and closed behind me. Tugging on the emergency brake lever, I felt the elevator adjust to a sudden stop when I waved a hand over the space giving her the floor.
The girl in the back with the short dirty blonde hair snorted through the hand already over her mouth. Holding her other hand up, she tried to gain control of her voice when she apologized through giggles.
At least she thought I was funny.
“Do you even know what he does for the Clave? How can you be with someone like that?”
I did know, and I already decided it didn’t matter because nothing would stop my heart from loving the rhythm of his name.
“I think we’ve established that I know everything there is to know about Bowey. We have managed to love each other since we were children, even driven apart by miles. We’ve both been tortured into being people who shouldn’t be able to love at all, but now I’ll finally have my happy ending with my soulmate. Every part of him I accept, good and bad because I love him more than anything. I understand that everything the Clave does is a lot to take in for someone just stepping into this world... The hunt, the initiation, the ball, the grove, the oath—it's all crazy, but I grew up in this. I knew what I was getting into from day one. I’m already brainwashed, so you’re warning the wrong girl. If you’re so worried about his job, what did you do to stop it?”
Waiting for her to digest that I wasn’t in fact shiny and new the way I seemed, she turned even more sour. All that gusto to warn me backfired and now she had to change strategies.
Saying nothing, I must have gotten through to her when I scanned the elevator for any more opinions about my Bowey when the silence only mounted for a few minutes. “Your funeral,” she quipped, letting me finally make my own mistakes and judgments without her unsolicited opinions.
Twisting around, I tugged down on the emergency brake again, prompting the elevator to continue dropping to the garage where we were all headed.
The elevator doors opened, revealing all of their husbands sporting looks of worry when Vic spoke into his phone, “Ernie, forget it. It’s working again.”
Bowen was leaning against his car sharing a joint with Khaos, pinching it from his lips and passing it. He looked amused, and full of attitude instead of whatever was running between the others.
Khaos laughed, telling the only one I liked, the spunky blonde he belonged to, “You so owe me $100. I knew Eve was going to dominate that shitshow.”
“Worth it. That was gold,” the blonde retorted while I watched Reaper hug onto Abigail and Justice start to make out with Vic.
That alone explained the differences between all of us.
A bet.
A hug.
A make out session.
And silent discontent.
Testing Bowen’s limits, I looked at him, “Were you worried about me?” He cared enough to hurry me out, but I wanted to measure all the care he had for me by squeezing it out of him.
“I knew you were the one who pulled the emergency stop latch. You’d use their bodies as a damn ladder to get out. You’re nothing if not wildly resourceful, Princess.” He deadpanned like it was obvious to everyone I was the problem child.
Khaos had this grin plastered to his face that made this seem like a dangerous game. “Great, my troublemaker of a wife and Miss Wild Child over here will probably start enough fires to turn us to ashes.”
Offering her a hand, I joked, “So weird, I hear you’re trouble, I’m apparently wild. I haven’t seen you at the meetings...”
Laughing, she offered her name, “Grace: troublemaker, man-child wrangler, this guy’s star-crossed lover.
BOWEN
There was really nowhere else we could go except Sins and Forgiveness. Carrying our last names meant making sure we portrayed a certain image publicly—not someone getting a photo of us with strippers to circulate on every news outlet.
Our fun had to be more private and S&F was the dungeon of our sins.
Almost all of our taste levels were formed in this club. When you step into power, go to a boarding school for the elite, and are told the world is yours on a string, you develop less than savory habits like killing, drugs, women, pain, party favors, or worse.
We weren’t even scratching the surface with our bad habits. These were accessories we lived with.
Walking in against my will, Vic’s hand in the air guided me forward into the darkness right inside the door. Oleg was standing there with a bottle of Hennessy and a grin like he wished this certain death upon me.
Waiting for the guys to move past me, I lingered in front of the stairs of the VIP with Donte when I threatened him into not making this worse, “No one touches me, or I kill everyone in this club. Got it?”
Throwing his hands up, my eyes floated with the Hennessy bottle’s movements in his hand like it was flirting with me and playing hard to get. “No trouble from me, boss. Congratulations.” Handing me the bottle, I didn’t wait to break the seal to hear that sweet sound of the cap cracking before I took a big gulp.
Upstairs there were lush, dark green velvet couches, small tables, and women in smaller outfits serving every power player of LA. I’m not one to drop names, but I’m sure you’d know them all if I did. We had our fingers on every pulse from influencers, politicians, actors, musicians—you name it and they were probably initiated as an honorary member.
No one gets the joy of doing this job without one of our last names.
Pushing past Vic’s and Khaos’s legs, I fell down to the couch and almost bounced back. I was feather light without any alcohol coursing through me. I was so concerned with trying to figure out what the girls had in store for Eve that I forgot to drink.
A new development.
The girls might as well have been a cult of their own when I realized their lips were sewn shut. I couldn’t even get an estimated time of arrival back home from Abigail or Grace. I didn’t even attempt to ask Justice; that would only inspire even worse ideas like leaving LA to go to Vegas or some shit.
Add more risk to the already dangerous situation Eve and I had contained at home.
A parade of girls strutted into the VIP area, and Khaos was punching the air with his fist like his taste for variety would never truly die.
Leaning back and crossing my feet at the ankles that rested on the table in front of me, I drank every time someone annoyed me. It was often and a great rendition of a drinking game to get me through the night—or the bottle, whichever came first.
Khaos swapped spots with one of the girls, pulling out moves that made me uncomfortable, grinding his hips onto her lap and swaying in ways I didn’t know he could. Vic enjoyed his lap dance the traditional way someone should and to the left of me, Grimm’s gun was resting against his thigh to ward off anyone who attempted to come too close.
I was safely untouched while I flirted with the idea of being drunk when I looked down to see that a hefty amount of the liquor was gone. I had my reasons for not wanting to be touched. Most of them stemmed from being molested by creeps every summer after my brother died and ended with Eve being so tempting, I nearly considered giving her my virginity every damn day.
That was one of my secrets—my purity in the form of an untouched dick, but raped ass hole.
Eve wanted something that I had no business giving her.
She wanted parts of me that I didn’t know how to use.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind she knew what she was doing when she walked around the house in next to nothing, baring her skin to me, with her eyes convincing me to be bad with her the same way she did when we were kids.
I wasn�
��t in any rush to give her any more ammunition into how fucked up I truly am before she was truly mine.
One of the girls leaned down, offering me a shot when her spare hand smoothed up my thigh before my alcohol-soaked reflexes kicked in and I grabbed her hand, stopping her. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I said in a low voice that rattled her confidence.
Vic’s attention instantly snapped to me when I didn’t let the girl’s hand go right away. I could feel his heavy stare boring into me, trying to barter with me to behave.
Whispering to the girl, I leaned into her, “Strip. I like to watch, not touch.”
It wasn’t a lie.
I didn’t like to participate; I liked to watch and commit the images I liked to memory for when my cock ached so badly, I had no choice but to touch myself.
She stood up slowly like it might be a game. I watched her every movement with so much focus, I almost scared the buzz away. I followed her bra, falling down her arms and her panties that came next. Her dark hair and big blue eyes were almost a match to Eve, only Eve would make you beg before she did as she was told.
That alone ruined it for me.
Standing bare in front of me, I slowly drew my eyes up her legs, paler than Eve’s, up to her exposed small pussy. I didn’t have a comparison for that, so I mentally took a picture of her body parts that weren’t ruined before I laughed in a way that came on like a train wreck through my body.
Vic’s deep voice cut through the tension, “Bowen. Don’t be a fucking asshole. Tip her.”
Still laughing, I practically folded over trying to get control of myself when my own hand slipped down to the bulge in my jeans where I wanted to be hard. I wanted to imagine everything I captured and splice it onto the Eve stuck in my mind.
“It’s her fucking job to do what she’s told. I’m not apologizing because she got naked and I didn’t like it.” Turning my face towards her direction again, I mumbled, “Not for me, babe. Pack it up.”
Vic tried to snag the bottle of Henny from my hands without success. I had been drinking since the first guy who touched me poured the brown liquor into a cup, feeding me more and more until a euphoric haze clouded what he was actually doing to me.
Vic reached over the velvet booth again as he barked out his command, “Knock it the fuck off.”
I challenged him when my smile wrapped around the top of the opening, and the room temp liquid poured more accelerant on my problems.
I was already drunk, maybe terrorizing that line between being here and passed out somewhere else. I was sitting with the boys, trying to forget I was getting married when Khaos handed me a joint.
“Heads up, I think that’s your fiancé…” Khaos’s voice seemed too casual to not be a joke when I looked up and saw Eve stomping her heels in my direction with his ass mid twerk.
“Who the fuck called my future wife?” The word sizzled on my tongue like in insult, not a title she won. I stared into her eyes, depleted of all care when I watched her face cave in against my tone.
Vic took the bottle from my hand, so I stole the joint back from Khaos, replacing one with the other seamlessly. I wasn’t sober and taking my drink didn’t make me any more sober than with it. “You’ve had too much, Bo. I called you a ride.”
The wives of the guys trampled all over our evening effortlessly. Justice joined Vic in watching the strippers, seeming too turned on by his wandering eye. Grimm immediately became overly protective of Abigail’s forsaken innocence, pulling her as closely as he could against his side. Khaos sat Grace on his lap and cheered her on through enjoying a lap dance of her own as she laughed her way through it.
Each of them defining love in their own odd ways but spitting on my way of doing things.
Ignoring them all, I turned my attention to Eve who was wearing powder blue heels with fishnets and a Pantera band shirt that hit mid-thigh, covered by harness around her breasts, making it impossible to not look.
I was always looking—just not touching.
Always committing her to memory.
Saving her for later.
“Bowey, maybe we should go home,” her delicate voice was in Pretty Princess mode and I despised her for changing.
Leaning back into the booth, I inhaled on the joint. “Why, so you can beg me to fuck you some more?”
“Bowen! That's inappropriate.” She actually seemed offended, but it was hard to tell when everything is so smooth and polite.
Kicking my feet back up, I watched her squirm. She was uncomfortable and that was an accomplishment for a girl that wasn’t fazed by much.
“Why don’t you take off that top and show me why I should fuck you? Nothing we all haven’t seen before, Eve.” My hand crawled to my crotch again, only this time it wasn’t a Frankensteined image that didn’t live up to her when I gave myself a squeeze.
“Please stop. You're scaring me, Bowey.” Leaning against the rail, she gave herself a thick boundary between the heathenism happening on this side and her distaste for staining her new image.
“You should be scared.” Malice was born from my voice. Standing up, I exhaled the smoke in her face, boxing her in against the railing, as my eyes found her lips. “Give me a taste of what to expect.”
I watched her swallow and her lips turn dry. I was hurting her in front of my friends, and I liked how it felt to watch her be the one hurt instead of me, pulling all the focus. “I could be naked, dripping in Hennessy, and you still wouldn’t touch me so if you want a taste… I’m not wearing any panties so get on your knees.”
A smirk tugged at my lips when my husky voice spoke between us, “Welcome back, Evey.”
Lowering myself to the floor, I let my hands hover without touching her legs. I wanted to be close enough to taste giving in but not dumb enough to fall into it. All my weight pressing into one knee, I held her gaze, knowing I was eye level with her pantie-less pussy.
My hands wrapped around the backs of her thighs covered in fishnets when I slowly lifted her one leg, letting it fall to my shoulder, giving me a perfect view of her butterfly tattoo. Leaning into her, sticking out my tongue, I traced the wings lightly, so lightly I wondered if she could feel me touching her so sinfully.
The sweet way she tasted was making all the blood rush to a dangerous place when I dropped her leg back down. “Too bad I don’t like the taste of absolution.” Leaving a brave kiss in my absence on her thigh, I got up in one motion. “I’m not recanting my sins. Join the celebration or call a cab because I’m not going home until I forget about our unholy union.”
Behind me, Vic barked my name like a warning when my face was so close to Eve’s I could feel the heat in her rosy cheeks waft off her skin.
Slumping back down in the same spot she rose my dead body from, I snatched the bottle off the table, watching her squirm in place.
She was ready to sign her soul over to the devil, but I wasn’t accepting applications.
Her princess manners went out the window as she strutted over to me, standing right between my open legs, her hand stealing the handle of liquor from my me and pushing it to her lonely lips.
Turning a chair around directly across from me, I watched her straddle it the way she’d rather be straddling me when she downed another hard mouthful of Hennessy before speaking, “So who’s responsible for my Bowey turning into this nightmare? Vic the Dick, Spoiled Brat, or Reaper?”
Pointing the bottle at each horseman like we weren’t powerful and dubbed elite, she waited for a response. Nothing scared Eve once you peeled back the poised exterior she didn’t have before.
Grace basically doubled over laughing at the obvious origin of all our nicknames. She may have left for Denmark, but those stuck like glue.
None of the guys copped to anything when she gleaned in their direction. “Oh, really? I just leave thinking you’d all have his back, and this is what I come back to? You all used to be family.” Standing up from the chair, I could see the anger on her. It was stunning, a kind of armor that my thick s
kin never seemed to develop.
“Remind me why we like her?” Vic leaned over the booth, assessing the damage we all took from the firestarter making her way over to Abigail.
EVE
Abigail was a tawny beige dream that sat so politely like I would have if Bowen didn’t ignite something within me with his damn tongue.
She was sober, makeup still all sealed in place, her hand gently resting on top of Grimm’s on his thigh and looking like she wasn’t supposed to have any fun. So, I leaned down, pressing my lips to hers.
I knew what I was doing, but the Henny was driving, and I was just here for the ride. I yanked her upright and dragged her behind me to the pole that was oddly empty for a bachelor party.
Hijacked Jack and Jill now.
Taking a lazy spin around the pole, I looked at the guys, each so different it felt like three different kinds of happy accidents seeing the dynamics unfold.
Khaos was making Grace laugh in this contagious way that only elevated when she convinced him to give her a lap dance around her baby bump. They seemed perfectly balanced, and I could tell their happiness was genuine. There was a deeper connection beyond the light fun and laughter they shared.
Smoothing my hands down Abigail’s thighs, I noticed Justice, the bitchy attitude wrapped in pink hair, competing with the stripper occupying Vic’s lap. I guess she’d had enough of just watching as she practically crawled up to him and invited the stripper in for a three-way kiss. Vic’s hands grabbed a handful of both their asses and smiles broke out between their kisses. Clearly, they had no boundaries.
Grimm shot up like he wanted to rival me when I rounded the pole, standing next to Abigail who was swaying absentmindedly to the music. I tilted Abigail’s chin up and sloppy poured Henny into her mouth, only none of it made it in her mouth at all, instead I soaked her chest in liquor.