by Sienna Blake
It’s that moment when my phone decides to ring.
I growl and release Charli. “Apartment. Bag. X. Go. Now. End of discussion.”
Charli shoots me a glare that says, you’ve won for now, but this isn’t over, before letting X lead her to the elevator.
When you have a teenager daughter, when is it ever over?
I snatch my phone from my pocket. “What?” I bark into it.
“Magnar King,” a familiar snake-like voice slides into my ear.
Keegan O’Connor.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“I want my wife back.”
“She’s not yours.”
“She is mine. Return her or else…”
I snort at his hollow threat. “Or else you’ll tell ye ma on me?”
He lets out a hiss. “You took from me, King. Trust me, I will take what’s yours. Little Charli has grown, hasn’t she?”
Charli.
This bastard is threatening my only daughter if I don’t return Waylyn.
He isn’t getting either of them. Hell will freeze over first.
“I will take her,” Keegan continues, “and I will have her. I will soil your precious little daughter so dirty it won’t wash off. I will corrupt her with so much filth and depravity she won’t even remember your name. Then when I’m done, I’ll let every single one of my men have her.”
A rage so fierce sweeps through my body it could turn ice to lava. “You asshole. You listen here—”
He laughs in my ear and hangs up before I can finish.
I let out a furious growl and throw the phone to the floor because right now, I need to destroy something. It smashes into pieces.
I have to send Waylyn away.
Then I have to finish this. Something I should have fucking finished five years ago.
By the end of this, Keegan and I will face off. And only one of us is walking away alive.
Waylyn
“I can’t believe you’re sending me away,” I yell.
Magnar rubs his face.
I’ve been resting in this bedroom, Jace watching over me, telling me funny stories of the drunken nights out that he and the boys used to have when they were younger and making me laugh. The dark cloak of the attack earlier almost being fully shaken off when Magnar storms in, sending Jace out.
“I am not sending you away,” Magnar says, visibly trying to keep his voice even. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“I’m safe here.” With you. With X and Jace.
“Not safe enough. He knows you’re here. And I have to suspect that someone here told him.” Pain seeps through the cold anger on Magnar’s face.
My blood turns icy. Magnar suspects a mole? Here? Among the people he trusts?
The fight bleeds out of me. I step forward once and again until we’re toe to toe. It’s the closest we’ve been since I woke up with him on top of me a few mornings ago; it feels like forever. I realise how much I’ve missed his nearness.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll go.”
His shoulders relax and he lets out a sigh. “Thank you.”
I want to touch him. To rub his arm, to brush his cheek. To soothe him. Comfort him. But I don’t. I’m afraid he’ll pull away if I do and I couldn’t stand the rejection.
“What are you going to be doing?” I ask.
Please say you’re coming with me.
“Rustling up an army. Keegan is coming for you. You understand? He’s going to throw everything behind getting you back. I have to be ready.”
The mention of Keegan unlocks something in me. The backs of my eyes sting as fear—cold, icy fear—grips me in her dead hands. I gulp in air. Why do I have to be so fucking emotional all the time? Why can’t I be strong like Magnar, cool like X or as easy-going as Jace?
Magnar grabs my face, his large warm palms cupping my cheeks, his touch firm, forcing me to meet his gaze. His eyes blaze with intensity. “He won’t get you. You hear me? He’d have to crawl over my dead body and all the bodies of my men to get to you. While there’s still breath in my body, he won’t touch you. Not again.”
It’s a promise.
I nod. I trust him implicitly. Magnar will keep me safe.
His eyes soften, his thumb brushing over my skin, making my face tingle. It runs across the corner of my mouth. I suck in a breath, lips parting, remembering what it’d been like to have this beautiful man kiss me.
Magnar’s gaze drops to my mouth.
Please kiss me.
He leans in. He’s inches away, our breaths mingling.
Please.
Something like guilt flashes across his eyes and he tears his gaze away from me. His hands drop from my face and he steps back, clearing his throat. “Right then. You and X will leave at midnight.”
~* * * *~
X and I make it to the safe house by half past one a.m. that night. I should be tired but I’m wired as hell.
The safe house is a remote farmhouse on the southern fringe of the Wicklow Mountains, south of Dublin. It might look like a dump from the outside but the inside is all modernised, with a state-of-the-art security system, cameras positioned around the perimeter of the house and flat grassy fields surrounding it so there is nowhere for anyone to hide as they approach. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms—one even has a tub—a fully stocked kitchen, a giant office space that I jokingly call the “command centre” with screens showing the live feed from all the cameras. There is even a panic room.
X sits straight-backed on the couch in the command centre monitoring the cameras.
I sit next to him. “Do you ever sleep?” I ask.
The corner of his lip tips up.
I inwardly fist pump. I like to get reactions out of him; it’s so rare I’ve turned it into a little game.
“No.”
“Eat?”
His lip twitches again.
One more point for Waylyn.
“Only the souls of naughty children…”
I blink. Did X make a joke?
“…and girls who won’t stop asking questions.”
I am not a girl. Not a girl. I make a face at him, causing him to smirk. A whole smirk. Not even a half-smirk, but a full one. I’m getting good at this game.
We sit for a few minutes. X always seems so content with silence. Maybe it’s just that he only speaks when there’s something important to say.
I notice that Magnar, Jace and the other guys seem to fall into a hush when he does speak. Each one of X’s words has gravity. Magnitude. Importance.
I watch his deft fingers as he clicks through what looks like a bunch of reports on a screen.
He frowns.
“You never did tell me your real name?” I ask.
He side-eyes me. Then returns his attention to the screen. “I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has a name.”
His knuckles turn white as his hands clench into fists for a second. Even as his voice remains cold. “I don’t.”
I remain silent. I don’t push. This isn’t something X wants to talk about, and that is fine with me. I stand and stretch. “I should go to bed, try to sleep.”
To my surprise X stands up too. “I’ll come with you.”
He’s going to what? Heat blooms inside of me at the thought of this dangerous enforcer lying next to me.
His gaze meets my surprised eyes. “To make sure everything’s okay,” he clarifies. “Then I have to get back to work.”
Oh. Right.
I can feel X’s eyes on me from behind as I walk through the house to the bedroom. I can’t hear him. He moves so silently. But I can feel him… As a prickle between my shoulder blades… As goosebumps on my skin.
When he closes the bedroom door behind me the feeling intensifies. I strip off my jeans quickly and slide into bed, pulling the covers over me, before clicking on the bedside light.
X is standing at the foot of the bed watching me, the glow of the lamp making shadows across his sharp features. He looks carv
ed out of stone.
I wish I could read him, know what he’s thinking, feeling. Like now.
“Magnar’s father found me on the streets as a teenager,” X says, his voice low. “By that stage, I’d been through the foster system for several years. Didn’t like it. Ran away. He took me in. Treated me like a son. Magnar was like my brother. As was Jace. I don’t remember anything from…before.”
Including his name.
My heart almost stops. My God. I want to hold him. To just be there for him. Like he did for me earlier.
“Wait,” I say before he turns away.
I don’t want him to go. Not now. Not ever. I scramble out from under the sheets, crawling down the length of the mattress to kneel at the end, right before him. I see X’s gaze flash down to my underwear and my bare legs, but I don’t care. Heat coats the inside of my thighs.
“I just wanted to say…thank you, for holding me earlier.”
X blinks.
“I know… I know how hard that would have been for you. To be so close to someone like that.”
His eyes narrow. “Jace has been talking to you.”
“He’s mentioned something bad happened to you, but not the details.”
“Don’t you fucking dare pity me.”
“I don’t. I just…” I let all the rage I’ve been hiding bubble up to the surface. I let it spill out in the shape of my mouth, leaking from my eyes, coating my shaking voice. “I want you to know I understand how it feels to have someone do bad things to you. How you sometimes want to rip out all your insides because it feels so fucking wrong to remember them.”
“Bastard,” X hisses.
For a second, I think he’s talking about me.
He grabs me by the back of my neck, his hand so firm it almost hurts. “I promise you Keegan’s broken lifeless body. I promise you his pain, ten times for every hurt he gave you. I promise you, he will never touch you again.”
His mouth slams down over mine.
My body erupts into flames, hot and fiery, like a wildfire, mixed with rage. Anger, hate and need, all at once.
Our tongues wrestle, our bodies crashing together like cymbals. With violent need. With angry desire. With desperate retribution.
We tear clothes off each other, X and I, until we’re both naked.
I pull back for a second to look at him, and him at me.
He is a fucking god. Thick muscle, each one defined as if from a sculptor’s hand. Wide shoulders. And a beautiful thick, hard cock. But his skin…there are what appear to be a thousand scars crisscrossing his beautiful torso.
He knows I’m staring.
“You are so perfect,” he says. “And I…” For a second, he almost looks unsure.
I slide my hands over his chest and around his neck to anchor him to me. “So are you.”
I’m not lying.
His scars don’t take away his beauty. Just the opposite.
It makes him look…dangerous. Perfectly imperfect. And it makes my heart melt and rage all at once to know someone did that to him.
He searches my face. Then nods. “No pity.”
“Never,” I agree.
Suddenly, his hands are all over me, brushing, grabbing, tugging. Clawing me like a cat testing his claws.
It’s like the years of being touchless are bursting out all at once and he can’t touch me enough. We fall back on the bed. He sinks between my legs, pulling my thigh up around him with his large hand, grinding against me. I’m so wet that his erection just slides along the aching core of me.
X rolls me on top of him and positions me over his cock. “You are not a helpless victim anymore. Say it, ‘I will never be powerless again’. Say it and fucking mean it.”
“I will never be powerless again,” I roar.
I drop down onto him, taking him all inside me right to the hilt. I let out a cry. He lets out a curse. I lift and drop again then he slams up into me. Hard. Fast. Rough.
We fuck like animals. Like sinners. Smashing ourselves against each other like we’re trying to kill each other.
This is our revenge.
Our release.
Our absolution.
We hate what happened to us, as we love each other. We take back these stolen pieces of ourselves as we give ourselves to each other.
“Fuck,” he curses through gritted teeth and it sounds like a Hail Mary. “So. Close.”
I’m close too. So fucking close. I can’t buck any harder or faster. But I need…more.
“Come on, Waylyn,” he grunts as he meets my hips with his.
I shake my head. Dirty. Bad. Wrong. I can’t. I can’t.
He reaches up, wraps a hand around my neck… And squeezes.
My head goes dizzy as oxygen is cut off to my brain. The final part of my mind switches off. Stars dance in my vision between me and X. All I can see is his eyes.
I let go.
My orgasm whiplashes through me. Pleasure mixed with relief. I hear a scream and realise it’s coming from me. Then a roar, coming from X as he finds his release too. As he pours himself into me.
As the waves roll on and on, it feels like a demon being exorcised from me. Grief being wrung from me. Hate being bled from my soul.
When the last drop of energy flicks from my limbs, they feel heavy. I collapse onto X’s chest, our sweaty bodies pressed together, our chests heaving against each other like a heartbeat.
I start to drift off as my breathing steadies. I’m so tired, so drained from everything that’s happened.
“Thank you,” I swear I hear X whisper before I pass out.
Waylyn
I wake as someone moves me. Through my half-open lids, the bedroom is dark, a figure creeping out of the bed. It takes me a second to remember where I am. And who that is next to me.
“X?”
“Go back to sleep, little elm.”
Little elm? That’s new. I’d wonder why he’s calling me that except I have other more urgent thoughts. “Where are you going? Please don’t go.”
“I’ll…” His voice is strained, “I’ll just be outside.”
“What?”
“I just can’t sleep here. But I won’t go far.”
“X?” I grab his arm before he can leave.
“Please, Waylyn. I can’t…” Pain makes his voice flinch.
I wait for an explanation, but it doesn’t come.
Whatever the reason, X can’t sleep here next to me, and I’m going to have to be okay with that. I’m going to have to be okay sleeping alone.
I know if I begged, he’d stay anyway. I can’t beg him to stay. I won’t. He’s done so much for me.
Slowly, I release his arm.
“Can you at least leave the light on?” I ask, feeling like a child.
X clicks on the lamp.
He dresses and I get to see the extent of his scaring. It goes all across his back and over the backs of his thighs. I want to cry. I want to wail over what has been done to him. But I don’t. No pity. Never pity.
X won’t look at me even though I know by the hunch of his shoulders, he knows I can see everything. With the last scar covered, he walks to the door and shuts it behind him.
~* * * *~
I wake up sometime in the afternoon to the smell of…eggs and bacon. X cooks? For some reason the image of X standing in the kitchen wearing an apron and holding a spatula makes me giggle. This I gotta see.
I pull on clothes and hurry out to the kitchen.
But it’s not X in the kitchen.
It’s Jace.
Standing there barefoot in jeans and a vest, his trademark dimple poking out thanks to his radiant smile. “Hey, dollface.”
“Jace!” My heart warms to see him. I’ve only known Jace for a few days, but already it feels like we’ve been friends forever. I’ve never felt so comfortable around anyone as I do him. I run over to him.
He envelops me in a hug before picking me up and setting me onto the counter. “One second.” He spins, turns the he
at off with one hand while using the other to scramble fluffy-looking eggs in one pan, then stirs something in another pan. Toast pops and he snatches them out onto a plate before smearing butter on them.
“What are you making?”
“Breakfast. Well, a very, very late breakfast.”
I spy the plates, each with a thick slab of toasted, buttered sourdough on them. Only two plates.
My face falls. “X isn’t eating with us?”
“Eh, X had to go take care of something.”
Oh. A wave of rejection flashes through me. X just left? After what we shared last night? My cheeks flush at the memory of his hands digging into me, the exquisite violence of our bodies coming together. Obviously, last night didn’t mean as much to X as it did me.
Jace must see the distress in my face. “He didn’t want to wake ye,” he explains. “You looked so peaceful sleeping.”
That’s because I was dead to the world. It took me ages to fall asleep last night. I hated lying there alone while X was somewhere else in the house. I mean, I understand it, sort of. It must have something to do with what he went through and it’s none of my business. But it still sucks.
“It’s just you and me, doll,” Jace says, slipping back between my legs and placing his hands on my waist.
I feel so tiny in his arms.
“Hope that’s okay?”
My worries and disappointment over X fade to the background as I look at Jace’s kind, gorgeous face. I don’t know how Jace manages to be so naturally soothing. I smile and give him a nod. “Of course it’s okay. I think you just might be my favourite,” I admit.
He chuckles before kissing my nose. “I don’t believe you for a second. But I’ll accept the compliment. Now, let’s eat.”
Jace is so damn beautiful. And so sweet. I’m not lying. There is a large part of me that knows Jace is my favourite. I feel most relaxed around him, like we’ve known each other for years.
I feel a strange tug of loss as soon as Jace pulls away again to deal with our food.