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.”
Nineteen
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 four 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.
“You can’t help it, can you?” I said, low and quiet. “You’re so fucking wet.”
Her fingers shivered, her breath halting—nervous. I loved getting Abigail nervous as much as I loved shocking her. She got high off the nerves; the fear was adrenaline. In Abigail’s world, there wasn’t much to be nervous or afraid of. They had everything, were above the law—it bred comfort and boredom.
I leaned in, my breath licking her ear. “If I asked you to finger yourself right now, would you?”
“Don’t,” she pleaded.
Making sure to keep my posture casual and give nothing away from behind, I leaned forward and bit her earlobe. Her finger dropped, spreading herself as if unconsciously. That image is going to be burned in my goddamn retinas, Abigail giving in, fingering herself in front of her family.
Then a second later, she shot up.
I followed suit, standing casually to my feet, crossing my arms in front so my hands hung over my dick.
Abigail ruffled her hair, cheeks red. “I’ll get you your gum, Gray.”
“What gum?” Gray mumbled, but Abigail was practically running to the main house. I caught up with her just inside the foyer.
Her glare was on me. That fucking Abigail Crowne glare. It shouldn’t turn me on so much.
I pushed her against the door on a laugh, bending down until I was eye to eye with her swimsuit bottoms. I peeled aside the blue material. She was perfect. Naked. Bare. Wet.
I found her eyes. “Fuck, Abigail, when was the last time someone ate you out?”
Her eyelids fluttered. “S-Stop tormenting me.”
“Tormenting?” I laughed. “This is torment?”
Eyes still locked, I took one slow lick from the bottom of her slit to the top. Her mouth parted, eyes stuck on me.
I sucked her lips slowly until she shuddered, tasting the image that had tormented me. A taste I hadn’t been able to get out of my fucking head since the Swan Swell. Now it was a font I could drown in.
Abigail was ambrosia. She was sunscreen and cocoa butter and her. A taste I wouldn’t ever get off my tongue.
I tongue fucked her, ate her, consumed her, watching her disappear to ecstasy. She bit her lip raw, her eyes grew hazy, and goose bumps peppered her flesh. I could hear her family just outside the door. I didn’t give a shit, spurred on by her taste. She didn’t seem to mind either.
“My little attention whore,” I said, sucking her clit harsh enough to draw a gasp. “Do you want to be caught?”
Her hands found my shoulders, nails digging. “Don’t stop.”
At her words, though it killed me, I tore myself from her. I stood up and took a step back. Her swimsuit was torn to the side, messed up in the most distracting of ways, showing too much of her pussy and not enough at once. She looked at me with hazy, confused eyes.
I threw her a grin. “But you asked so nicely before.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist, thrusting her to me, crashing her lips against mine wet with her. My free hand dove between her thighs, finding her swimsuit still pushed aside. As our tongues met, I fingered her deep, hard, and fast, but only for a second, before I stopped.
More confusion muddled her pretty clay eyes.
“I don’t want to torment you, Abigail,” I said, licking her off my fingers.
Realization gave way to anger, and she clenched and unclenched her fist. I thought she might throw something at me, but she only exhaled and raised her chin.
Her eyes glittered, and she adjusted her swimsuit. “I’ll get you back, Theo.”
I grinned. “Looking forward to it.”
ABIGAIL
I would get revenge on Theo. I couldn’t think about anything save him all damn day, and he knew it. He had the smuggest half smile on his face. Not even “accidentally” kicking sand in his face took it away. He’d just brushed the grains out of his eyes like he knew why I’d done it.
By the time the sun was setting in a violent sapphire-violet, I almost had an idea of what I would do. He needed a taste of his own medicine, and I couldn’t do that on this fucking island. Gemma and Gray always snuck off the island, and I never asked to go out with them. They never wanted me, and I didn’t feel like taking that hit to my ego.
Revenge might be worth it.
At dinner, we sat outside beneath the rising stars with the breath of salt air. When I sat next to Gemma, she looked like I’d spat in her food. We always made sure to keep at least one seat between one another or, if you were Gray, you claimed an entire side.
“Wait for me tonight,” I whispered. Gray looked up from his phone at my words, the same look Gemma had written across his face.
“Um, what?” Gemma asked at last.
“You’re not invited,” Gray said slowly, like he was teaching algebra to a toddler.
“Just save a spot for me on the boat,” I hissed. I could tell Gemma was about to not so kindly repeat what Gray had said, so I added, “Or I could tell Mom…” I glanced down the table to where she was eyeing her bouillabaisse like someone was about to get fired.
Gemma’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Fine.”
“Abigail…” my mother trilled. “The Harlingtons will join us in Switzerland this year for an unofficial engagement party.”
I was still smiling from my win with Gemma when she spoke. How could I have gone so long without thinking about my marriage and my fiancé? I was supposed to meet him, and when I didn’t, when everything happened… I got swept away.
I glanced at Theo. He gave nothing away. If he cared I was getting married, he didn’t show it. Beneath the table I rolled T2 between my fingers. I looked at my stew, picking at the fish and onions and tomatoes with my other hand.
“My fiancé didn’t even bother showing up to the Fourth,” I muttered.
Mom glanced at me. “Lying is very beneath a Crowne, Abigail.”
“He didn’t!” I dropped my spoon with a clang. “Am I really supposed to marry someone who doesn’t fucking show up when they say they will? How will I recognize him on my wedding day? What if I accidentally fuck the usher?”
“Let’s be honest,” Gray said. “It won’t be an accident.”
Mom had gone quiet, the time it took for her to speak counted by the waves.
“I think you’re done eating,” she said at l
ast.
I didn’t argue. I pushed away from the table with so much force my bowl toppled over, spilling red stew onto the soft satin linen. Theo followed me quietly back inside.
Theo and I didn’t speak at all after dinner, and I almost didn’t go through with what I’d planned. But what choice did I have, really? If I didn’t, we would be stuck together with the third wheel that was my unmet fiancé.
The reality that was being a Crowne.
After getting dressed, I found Theo in the adjoining room, bent over behind the couch. He turned his head at my footfalls. His profile was breathtaking—then I saw the item in his hand.
“You do still have her diary.”
He shoved it back in a black bag. I tried not to be hurt he was still hiding it from me. I chewed my lip as an awkward silence stretched.
“You really don’t want to look for her?” I asked.
Theo stood to his full height, folding his arms, taking in my pale blue cropped tank top with a plunging vee, my tight skirt that barely hit my thighs. “Where are you going?”
“You didn’t answer my…” I trailed off with a sigh and shrugged. “Off the island.”
He arched a brow. “You don’t get invited to that.”
Ouch.
“Well, tonight I was.” I mashed my lips so he couldn’t see the pain, but it was futile. His eyes softened, seeing through me. I raised my middle finger, showing my dangling T2, trying to change the subject.
“I’m bringing my dog. Nothing to worry about.”
He didn’t argue when I opened my window. I could’ve taken the door… but I liked having him catch me; it was like before everything went to shit. Theo went first and held both his arms out for me, hoisting me down from the window. My chest slid against his, and he held me in place long after I was safely down.
“Sure you want to go out?” he asked, low. My eyes were locked on his soft lips, dusky pink in the dark. The Mediterranean night air was warm, and his lips were so, so close.
There was still so much debris between us. The longer we went without addressing it, the harder it would be to dig ourselves out, but the emotion surging behind his luminous eyes brought me back to the simpler nights. The nights when he caught me from my window, when we both fell to the night dark grass and tried to keep our laughter hidden from roaming Crowne Hall guards. There were times when I thought he would kiss me. When he stared at my lips the way he did now.
Heartless Hero Page 17