by Dani René
“Lycan,” I gasp, pushing to my feet only to have a heavy hand hold me down. Inching back into my seat, I fist my hands, my fingers tingling with the need to touch him. To feel him alive and breathing. My heart thumps in my throat, threatening to choke me as he watches me with those mesmerizing eyes.
He glances at Darius as the men in leather release their hold on him. “Brother, you should’ve invited me for dinner if you wanted me to visit your home. Taking my wife prisoner is not the way to do it.” Lycan’s voice is cold, unfeeling, and filled with threatening ice even though he’s outnumbered. But then again, he isn’t a man who would walk into a situation without a plan. “Take your hand off her,” he commands, straightening his spine as he glares at his brother.
A dark chuckle rumbles from beside me. “I don’t know if she wants me to take my hand off her. Do you, little one?” I can feel the weight of Darius’s stare on me, challenging me to refuse, to tell my husband we kissed. Or that he made my body react.
Lycan’s stare flicks to mine, the realization that something happened skitters across the soft green that bores a hole right into my soul. “Scarlett.” My name is nothing more than a plea, and my heart drops to my stomach when his face turns to solid steel. The mask he always wore when we first met is firmly in place, and I have a feeling I’ve just lost the man I’ve grown to love.
Kahn’s gaze finds mine. He looks me over from head to waist where the table hides the rest of my body, taking in every inch, and when he finds no bruises visible to the naked eye, he turns to Darius. “My men are waiting.”
“I’m sure they are. You’re welcome to join them,” Darius says right before a loud bang goes off in the distance, and we’re all cowering in fright, except for Darius and his men. “You see, your plan to overthrow my club won’t be as easy. Call them off, or more of them will be blown to bits.” Darius chuckles as if killing is a joke.
“You fucker!” Lycan grits through clenched teeth, and I stare as his jaw ticks. Rage burns in his gaze, and I’m certain he would annihilate us all with a mere glance if he could.
“Call. Them. Off.” The Shaw brother with all the power stands tall as his voice issues the command, and Kahn slowly but surely pulls out his cell phone and presses the screen a few times.
When Kahn nods at Darius, the man beside me says, “Good. Now let’s get some drinks. I think it’s time to celebrate my brother visiting.”
“Cut the shit,” Lycan bites out. “I’m not here to make a social call. I’m here to take my wife home,” he grits, his eyes dancing with angry flames of defiance.
“Perhaps you should sit down, brother,” Darius continues, as if Lycan said nothing at all. “We have a lot to discuss.” He pulls out a chair, which has his men mimicking his actions, and Lycan slowly sinks into the seat opposite his brother. His gaze flicks to me every now and again, but even when he looks at me, something is missing. The fear he regarded me with when he first stepped inside is gone. And that’s what scares me.
“I have a proposition for you,” Darius says as he settles in beside me. The man who allowed me to talk to him earlier, to learn about his brokenness, is gone, and in his place is the VP of a motorcycle club making a business deal. A man who won’t take no for an answer, and one that’s hellbent on revenge.
“What makes you think I’ll listen?”
Darius’s hand lands on my thigh, causing me to jerk up, a gasp falling from my lips, and Lycan pushes to his feet. His hands flat on the smooth, shiny wooden surface of the long table that’s keeping us apart.
“I think you should sit down, brother,” Darius says. “If you don’t listen to me, I’ll have my guys escort Scarlett back to my bedroom where she spent the last few nights.”
“Alone,” I add quickly, keeping my focus on Lycan and ignoring the heat searing me at my side from the brother who stole a kiss while in the bedroom earlier. “Lycan,” I call to him, causing him to finally look at me again. His name on my lips has his warmth returning, but only for a short moment before he slips the mask back on and glares at Darius.
“Speak, or I’ll leave her here with you and you can deal with her bratty ass,” he sneers, the anger in his tone causing tears to burn my eyelids.
“Horatio and Grace Bardot,” Darius starts. “I want them ended; they can no longer rule over everyone’s lives as if they hold our existence in their hands.”
Howler sets a folder in front of Darius, who in turn pushes it toward his brother. “This is my contract. The terms are set out for you. You don’t trust me, and I don’t expect you to jump at this, but if we stand together, the way Shaw’s were always meant to, we can win this war.”
Lycan’s dark brow raises as he regards Darius with surprise. “This war? This is a war you started, brother,” he tells him. “When you took Scarlett, you took the very heart of me. I shouldn’t be telling you just how much she means to me, but I can tell your affections are growing for her as well. Which means, something happened here. I don’t need to know about it, but the moment I agree to anything, you will release Scarlett into my care, and you walk away. We will finish the Bardots, which is something I’d been planning for years—”
“But you never believed Grace had Dad killed,” Darius confesses, exasperation clear in his tone. “The proof is in the folder.” He pushes to his feet, a pair of strong hands loop under my arms and drag me from the chair. “Scarlett will wait in my bedroom while you ponder your decision.”
The man holding me tries to carry me from the room, but Lycan’s stare finds mine once more, a promise burning in those green gemstones—I’ll never leave you. I don’t know how I can read him so well, but I realize the mask he had in place wasn’t for me, it was for his brother. A show of confidence and power.
“No.” Lycan stands. Kahn beside him. Both men look like they’re ready to take on the world. Perhaps they are. They seem like they’re ready to fight for me. And my heart catapults into my throat.
My eyes burn once more, and this time, I allow Lycan to see my pain.
I blink the tears away, the salty emotion trickling down my cheek.
His hands fist at his sides. “She will stay where I can see her.” His voice is dark, filled with poison. “Or I will walk out of here right now, my men will storm the gates, and I will kill you.” He’s so convinced of winning this war between him and Darius, even I feel confident that he can. Possibly.
“You don’t have the—”
“You’ve known me my whole life, brother,” Lycan assures. “Surely you’d know I wouldn’t walk into a gunfight with a knife.” This time, Lycan chuckles, the same demeaning one he gave me when I first tried escaping the Shaw mansion. He knows he’s on top, and that’s something I can’t deny makes my body respond.
For a long, silent moment, they stare at each other. I’m almost certain Darius is about to pull a gun when he turns his body to face his brother fully. The tension in the air is thick with deadly intent. Two alphas in one room have far too much testosterone swirling around.
Then Darius nods. “Fine.” He glances at me and points at the chair at the head of the table. “Sit.” When I don’t obey as quickly as he’d like, he shoves me into the seat, my ass hitting the leather, forcing a whoosh of breath from my lungs.
“If you so much as put another hand on her again, I will rip you limb from fucking limb,” Lycan threatens, moving toward the chair where I’m currently being held prisoner. He reaches his brother, they’re toe to toe, and if I thought there was violence in the air earlier, I had no fucking clue.
Darius lifts his hand from my shoulder, a smirk curling his lips as he challenges Lycan’s strength. Lycan’s still hurt. Still healing. He shouldn’t be fighting a battle while he could relapse at any moment.
“Leave them be,” Darius orders, and his men stand, the chairs screeching against the wooden paneled flooring, as they make their way out of the room. When it’s only Kahn, Lycan, and I, I release a breath I’ve been holding since Darius and Lycan were inches from
each other.
“Are you okay?” Lycan questions, his hands on my shoulders ground me to the moment, and I allow more tears to fall. “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I mumble. The guilt of kissing his brother eats away at me, and I want to confess, but I’m fearful of him leaving me with Darius. However, there is something else I don’t want to acknowledge—my feelings for the older Shaw brother.
11
Lycan
To say I’m angry would be an understatement. More like jealousy raging a war inside me. My brother and I have always vied for the same woman. It is just in our fucking genetics. But this time, I’ve laid a claim. There’s a ring that weighs heavily on her finger, which means she’s mine.
Seeing my woman, my fucking wife, be used as pawn doesn’t sit well with me. If she’s hurt, I’m the one to hurt her because with that she’ll also find pleasure. But then, I also know how Darius enjoys the humiliation, and that Scarlett may find pleasure in it too. Even if she doesn’t want to, her body and mind is synchronized to crave the darkness.
She said so herself.
“You should be in the hospital,” she murmurs, her lips against mine as she speaks the words, and it sends heat coursing through me. She’s right, but I don’t tell her that, instead I stare at her. I can’t stop looking at Scarlett Bardot.
How can I love the woman who’s my enemy’s daughter?
I’m not sure, but I do.
“I need to know what he did to you. I want the truth, little red,” I whisper, my tongue darting out to tease her lips, to taste her flavor that I’ve missed. Even though it hasn’t been that long, I still can’t believe how my body missed hers.
“He kissed me, just before you arrived,” she finally admits, a sigh tumbling from her lips. “I didn’t mean to… I couldn’t…” She shakes her head sadly, her eyes shimmering with tears, and I realize I don’t want to see them fall. Seeing her upset makes my chest tighten in a strange way, which I’ve never experienced before.
“Don’t,” I tell her, cupping her face, holding her steady so she doesn’t turn away from me. “Don’t think about it. You’re mine.” I pull her closer, my lips claiming hers, hoping that with the kiss, I’ll eliminate any doubt she’s had about Darius taking advantage.
I knew he would.
And I’m going to kill him for even thinking he can break us apart. I’m not falling for his bullshit tricks anymore. “Tell me what he wanted from you, from me,” I implore her. I could read the contract, but it will be filled with excuses as to why I should listen to him. Whereas Scarlett spoke to him, she’s obviously learned about Darius, or he would never have taken the chance and kissed her.
“He is your blood,” she finally confesses, but this is a truth I’m aware of, so I nod for her to continue. “He has proof that your father was murdered, not by who you think,” she tells me, her voice falling to nothing more than a whisper. My heart constricts in my chest.
But she doesn’t speak.
Tears form in her eyes once more, and when she blinks, they fall, trickling down her cheeks. She doesn’t meet my gaze, and my lungs give out. For a moment, I think I’m dying because I have a feeling I know what she’s going to say.
“The Bardots,” I finish her thoughts for her. “Your grandmother, her husband. The man who she married.” I won’t refer to him as Scarlett’s grandfather because he’s nothing like the woman before me. But then again, neither is Grace. Perhaps only in her fiery personality. But other than that, Grace is nothing more than a two-faced pawn in a game she thought she could win.
“I’m sorry.” Scarlett finally falls apart, and she does it in my arms as the door swings open and Darius walks in. His gaze lands on our embrace, and I can’t help but smile. Satisfaction courses through me, but deep down, just for a moment, I wonder what it would feel like for her to have us both.
Would I be jealous, or would pride surge through me at seeing my wife take my brother?
“I’m guessing our little one has confessed the truth about her family,” Darius says as he nears the table, settling in beside Scarlett. “What do you say, brother?” he asks, looking at me, and I can tell he’s fighting not to look at my wife.
She’s gotten under his skin. The tough exterior he portrays is nothing more than a façade. I see that, and so does he. For years I was convinced he hated me, but the truth of the matter is, Darius is the same teenage boy who ran away from home the moment he could.
He always hated the fact that there was a family business to run. He didn’t want to walk in Dad’s shoes, whereas I thought it was an honor. For a long time, we kept in touch, while I was becoming more like our father every day. Hell, we even had our fun at Heaven when it was nothing more than a one roomed club.
But then it happened.
The murder we never spoke about.
And the truth that hung over both our heads is what broke us apart.
“I’ll do it.” My words are confident, filled with the threat that the Bardots will pay for killing our father, and Scarlett shakes in my arms as she cries, but she doesn’t release me.
“I never wanted it to come to this,” Darius admits. “I wanted us to be the Shaw brothers.” The regret in his tone is what stills me for a long moment as I regard my brother. It’s been so long since we actually spent time together, since we spoke like adults.
Scarlett brought us together.
She mended my family.
While hers wrenched us apart.
The bedroom is lovely. Even though my brother’s compound is nothing more than a house with bikers who lie around, fucking the whores who walk in here expecting a good time. He’s built something from nothing.
Just like I did.
Scarlett’s lying beside me, but she hasn’t spoken since we came upstairs. When Darius escorted us to one of the many guest rooms, she glanced at a door at the end of the hall which I’m convinced is the bedroom he kept her in. His bedroom.
“Are you attracted to him?” I ask and I feel her still. My body cocoons hers, so there’s no movement I won’t notice. “I won’t be mad at you.”
“Did you really share women with him before?” she asks, lifting her head to look at me. Her fingertips still trail my chest, my stomach, and when she reaches the dips on my hips, she teases them, making sure my cock jolts with need.
“I did.” I affirm, knowing she deserves the truth. “It was a long time ago. But he would enjoy being with you.”
“You want to share me?” The shock is clear in her voice, her eyes wide as she regards me. But I don’t answer. Instead, I watch her for a long moment. “Do you?”
“I’m not sure,” I tell her honestly. “There’s no doubt he would and could make you feel good and perhaps having both of us will dull that fire for a time. I would love to see you taken and used, like you want,” I whisper, allowing my hand to caress her shoulder, down her spine, causing a shiver to wrack through her. “He enjoys humiliation, he likes to see women bow for him, break under his touch.”
I’m taunting her. She enjoys the darkness as much as I do. And perhaps, this would show her part of the world she’s so new to. Maybe she’ll see what’s out there. The risk of her wanting him over me is there. It’s always been that way when Darius and I have had the same woman.
A ring and a vow don’t matter when it comes to the bitter truth of knowing that someone doesn’t truly love you. Call it a test. I’m a bastard for even suggesting this. But I need to know where her head is at.
“Tell me, little red,” I coo, tugging her up so she’s straddling my now hard cock. Her heat against me, warming every inch of me. “Would you like to feel so full that you can’t think straight?” I arch a dark brow at her, noting how her irises dilate at my words. “Can you imagine your body being so utterly used by two men, four hands, two thick cocks, that you can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t even speak?” Her hips roll against me, undulating as she finds the friction she needs against my throbbing cock. “If you’re going to do th
at, you better make sure my cock is deep in that little cunt of yours,” I warn her, and she quickly moves to slip my erection inside her body. The heat of her pulsing around me, has my eyes rolling back.
It’s been too long since I’ve been inside her.
“Why are you doing this?” she pleads, her body still moving, still turned on at the thought of being taken by both of us. “Why would you say these things? I love you,” she tells me, her hands cupping my face, her eyes large, glassy as she regards me.
There’s no doubt she loves me.
But she’s struggling with the guilt of wanting Darius.
“Because I want to know if that love is enough to see us through this,” I tell her earnestly, my voice scratchy as I confess, “Because I need to know that my obsessive need for you is matched by your possessive craving for me. To know I’m yours, that’s all I want.”
She stills all movement. My words have hit her hard. Her lower lip trembles as she watches my expression, which I keep guarded. I don’t want her to see the fear that’s coiling deep in my gut.
With all the other women, I’ve never once been concerned about them running off. Yes, it is the fear of not being good enough. I have to be better than Darius, this time because I actually love the woman in question.
This feeling, these emotions, are all new to me. And they scare the shit out of me. I never wanted this. I never wanted to feel so out of control, that I have to play games to make sure that someone wants me.
But with Scarlett, that fear is so real, it’s debilitating.
“Do you want him?” I ask once more, gripping her hips as I move her back and forth. When she doesn’t respond, I lift her up and buck my hips against her. Lifting my ass from the bed, I focus on the pleasure of her cunt and not the pain in my chest.
Her body tightens around me. My cock deep inside her, coaxing whimpers from her plump lips. I continue my assault, my mouth clamping down on one of her hardened nipples, my teeth grazing the flesh as I bite down.