Vote Then Read: Volume II

by Lauren Blakely

  I nipped at her collarbone. “We have all night, sweet girl.”

  Abigail arched her back, pussy hitting my cock. Fuck. She was still so wet. I could slide into her, take her from above, behind, the side. Every fucking way until she couldn’t move.

  Except…

  I lifted my head, finding her eyes.

  “Unless you’re done,” I said. “Then your ass goes to sleep.”

  It was her first time.

  She could be sore.

  In response, Abigail clasped my cheeks between her palms and kissed my cheek. Then my jaw. Then my lips. She feathered soft, tender kisses all across my face until I melted into her lips with a groan, parting her mouth with my tongue.

  Abigail Crowne had the sharpest thorns and the softest petals. Maybe that’s why I was so addicted to bleeding by her, it made her soft touches, looks, and kisses all the more intoxicating.

  We took a breath, foreheads still pressed, as I reached for another condom from my discarded jeans.

  “You…” She swallowed. “You kept your promise.” Maybe she saw the confusion on my face, because she grasped my face in her palms, pulling me to hers.

  There wasn’t a single filter in her clay eyes. Emotion poured out of them like a broken faucet, drowning me. This was the dangerous part. Not the fucking. This.

  I’d do anything to keep that glow in her eyes.

  “There’s no going back. You said when you were done with me—”

  I slammed my mouth over hers. Kissing her deep, harsh, brutal.

  You’ll be ruined for everyone but me.

  “Sweet girl,” I said, eyes still closed, lips still pressed. “I’m not even close to being done with you.”

  18

  ABIGAIL

  I woke sore, rested, and happy for the first time in, I think, ever? Light filtered hazy through my curtains. The joint was dead and had burned the nightstand. I got a vicious glee thinking of how much it would piss off my mom if she ever cared enough to come in my wing.

  I stretched my arms with a small groan, turned my head—and shot up.

  Theo wasn’t in my bed; he wasn’t even in my room or at the doorway. I clasped my satin sheets to my chest, working the material beneath my fingers. Theo’s clothes were gone. Only the burned joint and the wine stain evidence anything had happened at all.

  Beneath my fingers the stain had set; in the morning light, it was bolder, a deep burgundy.

  Horrible, ugly, intrusive thoughts ran a mile a minute.

  It meant nothing.

  It was all just a game.

  This was his plan all along—the door opened, cutting off my thoughts.

  Theo.

  He leaned against the frame, face unreadable. Wild, chocolate hair fell over one eye. His cheekbones were sharper in the shadow of the doorway, the muscle beneath dark and hollow. He folded his arms, back to his regular bodyguard uniform of a shirt and jeans, designed to blend in. Once again, that was a fool’s errand. He looked like a clandestine picture of a celebrity.

  His shirt read: YOU’RE TOO CLOSE.

  “Get up,” Theo said. “We have a plane to catch.”

  He turned around, leaving the door open and empty in his wake. I could hardly breathe.

  Did it really mean nothing to him?

  I suddenly felt naked. So very naked.

  We were in the air for an hour before Theo spoke to me. He was too close to me. His jeans rubbed against my bare thigh, and it was all I could think about. I was doing my best to act like I wasn’t bothered, and that meant I stared out the window.

  For an hour.

  I should’ve known he could see through me.

  “Something wrong, Abigail?” His breath was against my ear, voice low and sultry like an intoxicating drug. I folded my arms.

  Clouds. Focus on clouds.

  “No.” The grumpiness in my tone must have been much too obvious, because he smirked.

  He placed a hand on my bare thigh, and I nearly startled at the contact. When will I learn to wear pants? I looked around to see if anyone was watching—of course not, no one ever paid attention to me.

  A sudden thought came to me. “Did you tell my mom anything?”

  He was acting weird again, and paranoia was taking hold.

  At my question, he turned, rotating me with him, and slid a jean-clad knee between my bare thighs. His eyes locked with mine.

  “Maybe.”

  Mischief floated in his pale eyes, and fear collected like beetles in my gut. At my face, he grinned, sliding his knee deeper between my thighs.

  “I told your mom you needed more security. She told me a lot of stories, like how you skinned your knee to get her attention.”

  My gut dropped, and I tried to focus on anything but his jeaned thigh sliding between my bare ones, getting closer. Everything blurred—his eyes, his thigh—the plane’s engine the only thing clear.

  “She really painted a picture of Abigail Crowne,” he said lowly. “A desperate, attention-seeking liar.”

  Hurt and pain at being once again betrayed, and in the most brutal and primeval of ways, somehow heightened Theo. He slid deeper, getting closer to the apex between my thighs, and I was stuck on his eyes. His hand on my thigh. The coarse sensation of his jeans against my bare skin.

  Move, Abigail.

  Run.

  I swallowed. “Oh.” It was all I could manage.

  The plane hit some turbulence, and I broke out of his spell, using the opportunity to run away before Theo could do any more damage to an already brutally bruised heart, sprinting to the bathroom. Before I could even close the door, Theo slammed it open with one hand. The mirror shivered.

  I should have known I wasn’t safe.

  He shut the door behind us with a snick.

  Inside, my mind was screaming: Please don’t do this, please don’t obliterate me once and for all.

  I couldn’t let him see my vulnerability, so I looked left, right, eyes landing on a vase, and chucked it at him. He dodged it easily with a laugh and it shattered to pieces behind him.

  He took a step closer and I turned around, focused on the black marble sink. The bathroom was the size of some of our guest bathrooms at Crowne Hall, but it felt too small. Much too small.

  He wrapped his body around me, and I felt every inch of him—the roped muscles of his forearms, the warmth and security of his biceps.

  His sharp hips.

  His hard cock.

  I tried not to like it, tried not to melt into his embrace. I turned into my shoulder so he couldn’t see my cheeks heating.

  He pushed into me, and a small, treacherous groan fell from my lips. I ground back against him, losing myself.

  “That was the moment I knew, Abigail.”

  My stomach dropped. He was going to gut me, but I was a junkie searching for her next fix. Even though I knew he would hurt me, I couldn’t not ask for the pain.

  “Knew what?”

  “There was no going back. Not with you. I’d rather be kicked to the curb by you than brought home by anyone else. You could leave me over and over again like the fucking dog I was, it didn’t matter. All I could think as she spoke was…” His lips found the side of my neck. “I’m yours forever, Abigail.”

  Our eyes met in the mirror. “Don’t you know that yet?”

  He bit the skin he’d previously been sucking and his name fell from my lips, relief flooding my veins like an opioid.

  Theo tortured me. All morning he’d kept me on the brink of misery. And the sick part? I liked it.

  Because Theo knew me. In the same way he’d physically kept me on the edge last night, twisting the high inside me until I rode the razor-thin line between pleasure and pain; he did it emotionally. Fuck me physically, emotionally; I needed what only he could give me.

  “Where were you this morning?” I practically breathed.

  I felt his grin on my skin before I saw it light up the mirror. “Miss me?”

  Yes.

  I glared ba
ck. “No.”

  “Liar.” He buried his face into my neck, then reached one arm over my shoulder, dangling something shiny.

  I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but then it focused. A small, rose gold key chain of a little dog, with crystals for eyes.

  “You were worried about losing your dog,” he said into my neck, lips warm. “Now you’ll always have one.”

  A gasp fell from my lips. “Theo, thank—”

  “It’s nothing.” His gruff voice cut me off before I could get my thank you out.

  It wasn’t nothing.

  While I thought my nerves and fears were falling on deaf ears, he was listening. But of course he was… that was Theo.

  “Now shut up and let me fuck you.”

  Theo dropped the key chain, and I stumbled to catch it; at the same time he slid a hand under my shirt, grasping my breast. His other free hand dove beneath my skirt, not pushing aside my panties, but ripping them.

  The key chain fell out of my hand, skittering across the sink. I grasped the marble edge, needing stability.

  “I went easy on you last night.”

  That was easy?

  “I’m not stopping until you’re breathless and broken.”

  I heard the tear of a condom wrapper, then he was at my entrance.

  He was waiting—what is he waiting for?

  “You want my cock, Reject?” he asked.

  Reject. Hearing him say it like this wrapped up thorny torment in desire, sharp but soothing like my inhale. I shouldn’t like it.

  I pressed against him, trying to force it.

  His hand was at my neck, pushing away my hair, sliding down my spine, cool and hot at the same time. “Say it.”

  “I-I want it,” I gasped. “I want your cock.”

  He laughed, biting my shoulder blade. “Good girl.”

  He was so big last night, and it was no different now. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Breathe.” His voice was soothing and brutal all at once.

  How does he know? How does he always know?

  I exhaled and he slid into me.

  I see stars. I see the sun. I see the entire fucking universe.

  It didn’t escape me that my mother, everyone, was just outside. If Mom caught us, she’ll send Theo away, I know she will. Bodyguards weren’t even supposed to look us in the eyes, and mine is making me go cross-eyed with pleasure.

  Part of me likes it. It feels reckless and wrong.

  With one hand on my hip, simultaneously holding me in place and up, my legs weak, Theo built a slow, torturous rhythm. Theo fucked like he torments. The same calculating mind that ripped apart my walls and drove me to misery, is now used to bring me absolute pleasure. He knows things about me I never dreamed would work.

  A kiss on my spine. A biting tug on my earlobe. A hot, quick pinch of my nipple. His touches were quick and calculated. Slow and luxurious. I couldn’t see. I could hardly breathe. Just like before, the only thing keeping me tethered was Theo.

  And when his strong hand tightened possessively around my neck, I swear, he unravels me.

  “I like you like this.” His lips are at the base of my neck, whispering against my spine. “Too strung out on my dick to put up walls.”

  In. Out. In. Out.

  I could barely focus on anything else.

  “I can see all of you, Abigail. Your wants. Desires. Needs.” His grasp on my neck pulls me back, bending me until his lips touched my ear. “I’m not stopping till you’ve had them all.”

  I could feel him in my toes, all starting from that one, perfect place.

  I grasped his forearm, digging into the flexing muscle. He didn’t even react. His grip fanned to cover almost all my collarbone, and his breath skated along my neck.

  “Look at me.”

  He said that last night too.

  I lifted my head, catching his eyes in the mirror.

  “Hi, sweet girl.”

  His smile melts me. Devious and sweet and devouring all at once.

  I can’t say if that’s what does it. Or if it was the gentle term of endearment leaving his cruel lips, his soft touch on my neck, anchoring me and grounding me, or his eyes, never once leaving mine, watching me with an almost brutal intensity. Maybe it was his cock hitting just the right spot.

  All I know is it all comes together in the right time and right moment.

  And I come undone.

  Goose bumps shiver along my soul.

  Theo is everywhere.

  I must be loud, because Theo glided his hand up from my neck, to my mouth. I bite on his fingers, too hard, I think, but if he was fazed he doesn’t show it. Through it all, he kept that torturous pace, and he watched me, eyes burning.

  Theo.

  It wasn’t a name; it’s a feeling, dripping inside me. His green, green eyes. His lips. His smile. When he broke our stare, head falling to my shoulder with a rough groan as he comes, it causes an entirely new flurry of goose bumps to erupt along my body. I know the feeling won’t ever leave me.

  We were still for an absolutely perfect minute. Theo whispered along my skin. Stunning. Perfect. Mine.

  I don’t quite catch them all, but I feel them.

  He pulled out too soon.

  I wobbled, but he caught me. He fixed my hair, adjusted my shirt, then skirt, ghosting his fingers briefly along my naked lips, causing me to shiver. He stuffed my torn panties into his pocket, and my breath caught.

  A moment passed, his eyes locked on mine; then he trailed his knuckles along my still-flushed cheeks.

  “Fuck,” he cursed. “I like this look on you.”

  “What look?”

  He grinned, looking more wolfish than man. “Me.”

  19

  THEO

  The Crownes were not the type of people to stay in a hotel, unless they owned that hotel. In France they preferred to stay on their private island. Warm sun beat down on hot sand, and Gemma groaned.

  “This is torture.” She threw her phone down. It landed quietly in a small tuft of sand.

  “Two more islands, sis, two more,” Gray said, his arm across his eyes, blocking out the sun.

  Gemma sighed, lying down on the sand. “Wake me up when we reach Switzerland.”

  Only a Crowne would be bored on a private island.

  They were bored because to them, France, Spain, Switzerland—it was an obligation, not a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. Which meant they usually came up with more and more crazy and dangerous activities.

  It made my abdomen clench in anticipation.

  I wanted to take Abigail and lock her in a room.

  She’d taken a liking to the key chain I’d gotten her and carried it everywhere. She called it T2, for Theo Two. She didn’t know it was also a tracking device.

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about the guilt.

  Normally the odds of the asshole stalking her following us out of the country was low, but that asshole was like them. Wealthy and without limitation.

  “What are you thinking?” Abigail asked, shifting my focus from the turquoise sea to below me, where she sat on the sun-warmed sand.

  I glanced behind me, checking that her family was too preoccupied to hear, and said, “Wondering what those pretty lips will feel like wrapped around my cock.”

  Her lips parted, eyes widening, and she looked away. My cheek twitched. I liked shocking Abigail. She was someone who acted impossible to shock.

  I stood behind her like a good bodyguard, arms behind my back, legs spread, but below me… Abigail was nothing but temptation in a cornflower swimsuit that brought out her honey skin, the rich tones in her dark hair, and the bright color of her clay eyes. It hugged her pert breasts above the glowing lines of her abdomen. My eyes traveled to a barely covered pussy. Was she wet? She got so fucking wet.

  As if hearing my thoughts, she shifted, uncrossing her smooth legs. I clenched my jaw.

  A Crowne vacation was one of the only times family time was enforced, meaning all f
our Crowne family members sat in somewhat close proximity. Meaning I couldn’t haul her ass over my shoulder and fuck her. She looked up at me again, and by the way she stared, wetting her lips, I could tell she was thinking the same.

  “Hey, dog,” Gray yelled from down the beach. I tore my eyes off Abigail, finding him peering at me from under the shadow of his forearm. “Go get me a piece of gum.”

  I arched a brow. He was already chewing a piece.

  “Don’t call him that,” Abigail snapped.

  Gray shifted his gaze to her. “Because only you can?” He rolled his eyes. “Dogs are good at fetching things, and it stimulates their brain, sis.”

  “Why don’t you have Story do it?” Abigail countered. Story was still perched beside Gray, knees to her chin, and still covered head to toe.

  “Shut up,” Gemma groaned, a wide-brimmed hat on her face now. “I’m trying to fall asleep.”

  “Children,” Tansy murmured, not lifting her eyes from her magazine. She sat beneath a cabana in a sunhat and glasses, a pitcher of some fruity liquor beside her and two women in soft linen ready to attend.

  Abigail flipped Gray off, and he blew her a kiss.

  We went back to the sound of the waves and Tansy’s ice clinking as her attendants poured her a drink.

  I bent down, face blank, acting like I had some very important bodyguard business to tell Abigail.

  “Truth or promise, Abigail?” I stared forward at the waves.

  “Now?” she stage-whispered, looking over her shoulder at her family. “Truth…”

  “If I were to slide my hand between your thighs, how fucking wet would you be?”

  Her breath seized.

  Gray opened an eye, but it looked like I was completely detached, eyes on the horizon. Gray closed his eyes, lowering his arm once more. I looked back at Abigail.

  “Show me. Lift up your swimsuit.”

  “My family…” But Abigail was already trailing her fingers down to the ribbed pale blue hem of her swimsuit bottoms. She lifted the hem just so, and I stifled my groan.