by Elena Monroe
Eve sat down next to Jus with a smirk, making me uncomfortable even though my girl had fangs. “Bowey gave me my something blue.” Her eyes found Bowen who was still dancing before she continued, “His mom, CeCe, gave me something old. Her veil. I’m still searching for new and borrowed.”
Grace nudged her elbow, finding Eve’s frail frame. “I’m something new.”
Witnessing Grace less quiet and more friendly was off-putting. I liked her and Bowen quiet enough to wonder if they were plotting against me.
Looking up through my lashes, I found Bowen again. The rest of the night was going to consist of me constantly checking to make sure he stays alive. Stealing a shot off the table, he shot it back with a howl.
Great, now he’s mixing liquors.
When I looked up, I found Eve watching him the same way I was, only she wasn’t stopping him. She was enjoying the antics and it rubbed me the wrong way, violently wrong.
Khaos threw a paper plane at me, jarring my attention. “It’s not her fault. Stand down soldier. You know he’s a drinker.”
“Functioning alcoholic. Not a drunk.” I crumpled his paper plane in my fist and let it drop to the floor all balled up.
Standing up, I wrapped my fingers around the nearly empty bottle, trying to find the Bowen I knew hidden under the influence. “Okay, that’s enough, Bo.”
Wrapping his arms around my neck, he actually hugged me, and my body went stiff trying to recognize the action I’ve never shared with him even though he was my best friend.
Patting his back, I waited for it to be over when his lips pressed against mine in a fleeting kiss.
That action confirmed a lot of questions I had rolling around my head about his sexuality. Not enough confirmation, but enough to know Bo is fluid or something.
None of us had seen him with anyone, girl or guy, and it made marrying Eve seem left field. I didn’t like unforeseen circumstances. I didn’t know her well enough to calculate her up to pros and cons.
Did she keep in touch?
Did she realize how damaged he considered himself?
Did she plan on surviving him?
My eyebrows dipped, trying to absorb the kiss still lingering on my lips. “Okay, buddy, I’m gonna ignore that… forever. Let’s get you to bed.” I was practically holding his entire bodyweight up when the threat of his fun being over was an adrenaline shot. He walked over to the piano, pushing his powder blue, very feminine robe back and sat down at the bench.
“First a song, then we dine!” He mentioned food, and all I could think was how I had never even seen him eat anything edible. Once in a while he’ll chew gum between cigarettes and joints, but no real food.
Why was it taking Eve being here for me to see the real Bo?
Why was her light so harsh and why didn’t I realize my best friend was barely alive?
Eve sauntered over to Bo, dragging her hand across my arm playfully. “Don’t be so uptight, Vic. He’s having fun for once in his life. Something he hasn’t done since I left.”
Grabbing the back of her arm, I held her in place. She wanted to go toe-to-toe with me when neither of us were the little kids she remembered.
“That’s not fun. That’s self-destruction, sweetheart. I recognize it.”
Her smirk faded and all the attitude arrived at the top. “And whose fault is that? You’re the best friend, right?”
Well, fuck me. She blamed me for Bo’s cheery outlook on life and now her sass made all the sense in the world.
My grip on her arm tightened without permission. Being blamed for another human that isn’t my headache of a wife is a problem for me. Humans are messy and I know better than to take responsibility for their actions.
Leaning into her, I whispered between us, “You just arrived, Eve. Maybe take a look around before you start placing blame. Pretty sure it started when you left.”
Watching her face cave in, deflating just like her puffed chest, she ripped her arm from my grasp. We were duking it out to prove how much we both cared for the same person.
Neither of us expected Bowen to rise from the piano and wrap his arms around our necks, pulling us in together. “I love you both.”
Bowen didn’t love anything. No one. Nothing. He was the strongest of us for it, impenetrable.
Eve wrapped her arms around his waist, snuggling into his chest like what he just said was a damn gift instead of the final war cry. Just like that, Bo ended the war with a damn group hug of all things.
Pulling away from him, I watched every part of her anger, aggression, and judgment fade as she inhaled Bowen. There was so much time and distance between them yet it seemed like none had actually passed. They were still thick as thieves.
I had no choice but to respect it.
Justice, my headache and own personal comfort, twisted around facing Bo when she pointed to the cage. “What’s up with the cage?”
Bo chuckled, and that genuine chuckle from the mouth of someone as sinister as him had all of us on edge. Scanning the guys faces, we all sported a terrified look that was unsure of what he would say. No one knew why there was a cage in his damn living room, but we didn’t want the gory details either.
“Act up like your man and I’ll show you…” his laugh halted, and his eyes turned almost black like the painful shit in life turned him on.
Khaos’s hand pushed against Justice trying to push her into misbehaving so we could get the truth out of him one way or another. Grimm seemed to relax just when Abigail grew a small smile like she was silently agreeing with Bo’s taste in pleasure.
I wasn’t blind or deaf. I had heard the rumors and details that made its way around the office about how Grimm liked women gagged, bound, and submissive.
Submissive wasn’t how I liked anything. I wanted to wage a war and claim my spoils, not use a safeword to get my way.
Khaos just cared about being loved enough to make how they fucked not matter at all.
We had all sunken back into meaningless conversation when I realized Bo was absent from the room altogether as we all sat down at the long dinner table. I was too bewildered to realize I was moving with everyone into a different room.
I was looking for weapons, an assault, a dirty game of got you.
Leaving Khaos to tell some grandiose story with his hands, different voices, and gestures too big for the room, I ventured off to make sure Bo was in fact still alive.
Without all the chatter filling the room, I could hear the guttural punch of someone hurling up everything but their ambitions.
Pushing the door open to the downstairs bathroom, I saw Bo with his palms on his knees, folded over the toilet while all the poison came back up. The robe was in a pile on the floor, and it forced my eyes to take in Bowen’s vulnerability.
More depth and raw nerves I never saw so bluntly until now. It was assaulting to see the sinister melt down to emotions.
As he stood back up, I saw the cuts lining his biceps, some pink and irritated while the others were healed over in a white that looked embossed. Feelings were still a new development for me, and I had to swallow down the storm of them in my throat that threatened to rip down whatever wall I kept up for my own protection.
“You okay?” My voice was sheepish and underdeveloped.
Bo looked at his arm, holding it up, displaying the lines for me when he pursed his lips. “These? Old news. Nothing to worry about.”
So why didn’t I believe him?
Following him back to the dinner table, I took my time, analyzing the back of him scattered with flesh wounds and more scars. Taking a seat next to Jus, I felt her hand smooth over my thigh at the table, eyes landing on mine and my expression seeping through that protective wall.
Whispering in a low voice, “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I did, his name is Braeden, he was Bo’s twin.” Her expression was pure shock and disarmed with questions I couldn’t answer right now. Pushing her full glass of wine over to me, I chugged it down, trying to
wash away the awareness rattling around my mind.
Bo held up his glass at the head of the table where he had moved his chair over enough for Eve’s to fit perfectly next to his, even though the space was meant for one. “To the bride to be, I lost her and now I won’t ever lose her again. I love you, Evey.”
Her smile couldn’t have been bigger as she looked up at Bo. She was marrying our sinister fourth, a horseman of apocalypse, a wounded soldier of his own life without realizing this wasn’t her Bowey at all.
It’s Braeden, the wrong half of him, living as the protective layer to keep Bo safe.
EVE
Everyone was behaving and it made seeing the dynamics a lot easier—everyone had someone they were close with. But Bowen was more comfortable behind a piano with me on his lap and his hands moving around me.
All these years and he didn’t let any of them in.
This was the most of his true personality they had ever seen, and it was no wonder they all looked bewildered. This was the Bowen I knew before he turned Clave: fun, happy, talented, loving in ways kids shouldn’t know how to love.
He was the epitome of well-adjusted.
His eyes were down in concentration, and he had a big smile hanging from his lips as his fingers floated against the keys. He turned his face as his hands reached around me, and his lips caught mine in a quick robbery, one I was happy to be an accomplice to.
It was hard not to sink into him, especially after he said those three words. I thought would take a lot more convincing that I’m on his side.
Bowen was still drunk, and if he were sober, I wasn’t sure he would have kissed me at all.
It suddenly made me feel like the thief and there was no real denying it when the entire room would see it the same way.
Reaching my arms back around his neck, I leaned into him and decided to embrace it, thief or not.
His hands dropped from the piano, wrapping around me and holding me against the parts of him that were growing excited as his lips found my neck before making their way to my lips. I could feel my jaw go slack and my tongue blocking a moan from slipping out when I opened my mouth on his.
Drunk Bowen was letting me kiss him in front of people.
He traded in cruelty for kisses.
Pulling away, his eyes didn’t leave mine when he shouted to the room, “Everybody out. Go anywhere you want, explore, find my demons—just get out.”
Twisting in his arms, I straddled his lap wanting nothing more than to only stare at him, no obstructions, taking in every painful part of him because that’s how much the line between pain and pleasure blurs when you’re this in love.
I loved him so much it hurt.
“You’re dangerous for me, Evey.” He looked at me differently, like I wasn’t an inconvenience or some bad memory from his past like he normally did.
“Me?” I tried not to laugh at his words even though his hands slipped down to cup my ass.
His one hand came up, pushing the thin strap off my shoulder, letting the silk fabric fold down exposing my breasts. “You’re redemption I didn’t expect. What if I’m not worth it anymore?”
My hands smoothed up his neck to his face, forcing him to keep eye contact. “You’ll always be worth it. You’re worth it because I love you.”
I barely got out the last word before he crashed his lips onto mine. Nothing about him was holding back as we clamored for more of each other. I felt a chill take over my body as his mouth opened on mine and his tongue slithered against mine like a snake.
Too delicate to detect.
His hands held my ass as he stood up, and my legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. I wasn’t ready to rip our mouths apart and act like an individual again.
I seemed to weigh nothing as he took each step with ease, muscles tense and obvious. The strength in Bowey could melt my panties.
Bowen stopped at the top of the stairs, looking down the hall as he set me down on my feet, pushing his fingers to my lips. Once I paid attention, I clamped my hand down over my open mouth.
In the distance, you could hear a woman, no doubt Justice, moaning the word daddy.
I was trying so hard not to laugh when my forehead pressed against Bowen’s chest with my hand still covering my mouth.
The moaning got more intense, and it was obvious she was close to the goal of calling someone that in the bedroom.
I wonder what I would call Bowey.
I wonder what kinds of things would become a reality in the throes of him.
I wondered every part so much I had a blue vibrator to help act them out until tomorrow.
He spoke into my ear just above a whisper, “I have a gift for you. Come on.” Taking my hand, he dragged me behind him until we were safely behind his bedroom door.
Did it make me a bad person or a horny person that I wanted the gift to be his dick?
The moans got more dramatic, following us into his closed off room at the other end of the hallway. A laughter broke out between us when he looked around for his cracked phone.
This was the first laugh I had heard fall from his lips since we were kids, and it filled my heart to the brim to know he still could. Under all that doom and gloom.
I watched him open a group chat and type out the word: daddy?
KHAOS: I think we’ve found a new nickname… Vic the daddy.
GRIMM: Make it stop. My ears are bleeding.
VIC: That’s your one pass, DuPonte.
KHAOS: Why and how are you even texting? Aren’t you busy, daddy?
VIC: Learn to multitask.
Crossing my ankles, I laid back into his pillows, knowing all the guest rooms were occupied and I would have to share his bed.
Hopefully Grace doesn’t notice my suitcases under the bed while she’s in my temporary room.
Tossing his phone towards the end of the bed, he closed in on me in a way that made my body instantly heat up.
Close proximity to the devil should make you sweat. Even when he’s in disguise.
“Take this off, Evey,” his voice pinned me down and motivated me all at once.
Pulling the silk top over my head, I let it drop next to me. My perky little breasts pinched at the nipples, and I felt on display even though Bowey was only in boxer briefs.
Pulling the tie on my matching silk shorts, he leaned into me before his hands tugged them down my legs painfully slowly.
He was in no rush to have me—even drunk.
I was going to have to soothe my ego for the rest of my life… I was either smothered in love or desperate for it.
His lips dragged against my breasts while his fingers toyed with the lace of my panties. Shifting his eyes up, he almost whispered his words, “Tell me you want me to make you come...”
I didn’t know how to respond so I started to nod my head instead. My voice went hoarse and my panties felt uncomfortably wet.
Gently suckling my skin, he smirked, “Say it, Evey. Tell me I can make you come.”
Drunk Bowen was brave, and I couldn’t see any parts poisoning the well of how much this seemed like the version I imagined he’d grow up to be.
“Make me come. Please.” I was so terrified he was joking that the desperation leaked into my voice.
Our orgasm in the shower and tryst in the car after my tattoo seemed too long ago—long enough ago to make me greedy. I was so used to us toying with each other, pushing each other to the edge and reeling it all back like nothing happened.
We were good at acting like angels but flirting like devils.
His fingers pushed my panties to the side, and he touched me so gently, I felt myself hold my breath just to focus on him. Pushing my knees apart more, the pads of his fingers found my clit.
His punishment didn’t stop as me took his time to explore me, tease me delicately until I was ready to beg. Before I could say a thing, his fingers slipped right inside me, and I clenched down around them, letting a moan escape my mouth as he came to hover over me.
�
�Bow-” I cut off my own words when his ring grazed my already sensitive clit and his mouth dropped down to my neck. He was flush against my skin and close enough to swallow my moans.
His tongue snaked out, licking up my neck to my lips without hesitation.
Confidence looked good on him; I just wish it didn’t smell like a drunk.
His fingers crawled deeper inside me as he mumbled, “I like watching you break. I like being the reason you break more.” I wanted to ask why. He saw it written all over me, concealing anything from him was difficult and when he’s touching me, it’s impossible.
“I can see it in your eyebrows, you want to know why… Because your pretty only breaks for me. No one wants your ugly except me, Evey.”
Almost like he was punishing me for asking, I felt his fingers slip in and out of me at a faster pace, making the vice between my legs feel a lot tighter.
I had a death grip on his fingers, and if this turned out to be a false orgasm, I was going to break the way he wanted.
I was a mess, ugly even, all at his hands and I didn’t care to keep up appearances. Bowen liked my pieces broken, mangled, and ugly—with less purity.
His lips dragged against my ear while my body chased his fingers every time they tried to slip out. “I know you want to, Evey. You want to come so badly. Come for me.”
My body listened to his commands shrouded in confidence and authority. It only made my knees close up and my hips buck against his hand.
“Bowey.” My voice melted into something barely audible when I felt the flames of an orgasm starting at the bottom of my stomach.
His fingers were so deep; I felt the ring pushing into my clit, massaging me while buried inside me. Moans flooded my lungs and throat that my mouth couldn’t hold back anymore.
“That’s it, Evey. I want to hear you. I want everyone to hear how much you’re mine.”
Pushing my ass into his black duvet, my back arched and I felt the flames take over. Every brutal flame built up to my neck and forced my eyes closed just so I could burn a happy death.