"Fucking filthy," Rick laughed, slapping my ass again and I didn't care if I was filthy. I wanted him owning me and I fucking loved it too.
JJ tugged me down and Rick moved with me and my pulse scattered, but I was done hesitating now. I wanted this. I wanted both of them at once. And I was more than ready to take them.
My breath was stolen all over again as JJ’s cock filled my pussy and all of my dirtiest daydreams about the two of them came true at once.
They started moving, slowly at first then gaining speed as my moans encouraged them, my body owning theirs and theirs owning mine.
We were loud and sweating and the water kept washing over us as we moved together. Every single thought in my mind just fell away as I was lost to them, these two savage men, working as one to bring me to ruin for them. These nightmares of mine who had owned me through all of my hatred and heartache were showing me where I belonged and who I belonged with and in that moment, I knew it was true. I was done fighting it. Fighting them. I was home and I was here to stay even if it would never be whole without Chase amongst us, and as the three of us fell apart in each other's arms with moans and curses and so much fucking pleasure that I could hardly take it, I knew what I had to do.
I had to find a way to do what Luther had asked of me. I needed to try and fix what was left of our family. Because I knew in my soul that I would never have another home aside from this place and these men. And even if the broken parts of what remained of us would never fit together right now that Chase was gone, I knew they’d be better off together than apart. So I was just going to have to figure it the fuck out.
T he rowboat rocked beneath me as I gazed up at the night sky, the side knocking against the dock as I bobbed on the waves. There were so many stars. There had to be endless worlds out there. I wonder if there’s a boy like me on some other planet, but he’s rich and strong and his dad loves him. I wonder if he has a girl like Rogue.
Nah no one’s like Rogue.
Four shadows fell over me up on the dock, blocking out the light of the full moon. I hadn’t called them, and yet they’d found me anyway.
“You can’t sleep there, bro,” Fox said, jumping down into the boat with me and I pushed myself up with a shrug.
“How’d you even find me?” I asked with a frown, glad of the darkness to hide my fresh bruises.
“One of the Harlequins saw you sneak down here,” Fox said. “Dad told me if I didn’t come and move you, one of his men would.”
“Luther’s a killjoy,” I muttered with a frown as Rogue jumped down into the boat too and wrapped her arms around me. She practically nuzzled me and I snorted at her affection, hooking an arm around her waist and keeping her tight against me.
“We can all sleep at the Rosewood summerhouse,” Maverick suggested. “I’ve got a bottle of rum.”
“Where’d you get that?” I asked, getting to my feet and Rogue continued to cling to me like a limpet. I liked that. And I especially liked the way her fingers sought out the bruises along my chest, like she was drawn to my pain, wanting to soothe it away. Her presence alone did that. I was sure I could heal from a gunshot to the head so long as she was there to nurse me better.
“Stole it out of Dad’s liquor cabinet,” Maverick said with a smirk.
“I swear he makes it way too easy to get in there,” Fox said as they shared a grin.
“Nah I’m just the best lock picker in the Cove,” Maverick said with a smug expression.
“Bullshit, Luther’s definitely letting you get in there lately,” Rogue said. “He probably wants to lure you into a sense of false security, then one day he’ll catch you with your hand in the cookie jar and make you pay him back for all the free booze by having to cut off his enemies’ heads or some shit.”
I barked a laugh as JJ turned a little pale.
“Shit if it’s a head per bottle, beautiful, I’m gonna be bloody by the time I’m done paying off our debt,” Maverick laughed.
“We’ll be bloody you mean,” Fox said with a flicker of darkness in his eyes that reminded me of his dad for a second.
“Yeah all of us, you’re not the only one who sank his booze and we’re a team anyway, remember?” Rogue said.
“Come on then, let’s go rack up our debt with a drinking game,” Maverick encouraged.
“I got a new deck of cards,” JJ announced, offering me a hand to help me out of the boat. We climbed up onto the dock and Rogue rested her shoulder against mine as I held her close and we walked along the jetty.
“New or stolen?” I asked.
“Can’t it be both?” JJ said through a grin.
“We could play strip poker,” Maverick suggested.
“That sounds like a dickfest I don’t want a ticket to,” Rogue said and I laughed, knowing exactly who Maverick wanted to see naked. If we played, us boys would probably all end up with our balls out and Rogue fully clothed while she raked in the pretend poker chips – which would likely be a bunch of shit that happened to be floating around in our pockets. That girl had the best damn poker face I’d ever seen.
“We’ll give you an advantage, beautiful,” Maverick teased. “We’ll all start with one item of clothing off. And that makes it an extra advantage because girls have all kinds of extra padding and undergarments going on.”
“Undergarments?” Rogue burst out laughing and me and JJ laughed too.
“Drop it, man,” Fox bit at him, but their shoulders rubbed as they walked and they were soon smiling again as we made it to Fox’s truck parked up on the road.
“I’m just kidding. She’s like a dude to me,” Maverick said, though the hungry look he gave Rogue said he didn’t really think that and it made possessiveness writhe in my chest as I held her tighter.
“I’d never wanna be a stinky dude. I mean, you guys are okay, but most guys are so hairy and sweaty and ew.”
“I pray your opinion on that never changes,” Fox muttered as Rogue got into his truck so she didn’t hear it.
I had to agree with that. There’d been plenty of guys interested in Rogue in our class, but fuck if any of us let them near her. Fox had followed Peter Dirkin home last week after he’d posted a photo of him and Rogue working together in Math with the caption ‘I love math debating with this girl’. The masturbation pun had not been missed, and he’d turned up to school with a bruised face and no more interest in our girl the next day.
We piled into the cab and Rogue sat on my lap, her fingers still trailing over me in a way that made my pulse skip and dance. Everywhere her hands grazed stung and I was addicted to that kind of pain. I hated her seeing me weak, so I never flinched, but I was lost to her caresses and the way her brow pinched as if she could feel each hurt in me.
JJ blasted Billionaire by Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars and we were all soon singing along at the top of our voices, my heart so full I forgot all about my father and the fear of returning to that house where he’d peel away my happiness piece by piece. But I always got it back when I was with my friends. They were the only cure I needed for any wound. I’d do anything for them, and I was pretty sure they’d do anything for me. And I realised I wouldn’t trade that for all the riches in the universe.
My head was heavy, throbbing and there was a rattling noise in the back of my skull that wouldn’t quit since Shawn’s last beating a few days ago. I sat on the floor with my back to the cold stone wall, my bare feet pressed to the equally cold floor as I tried to summon the heat of the sun in my past, sure I was forgetting how it felt already.
The right side of my face was so painful that I couldn’t touch it without fire flaring along my flesh. But sometimes I did, trying to work out how damaged it really was now I had a vicious X slashed through my right eye. Every time it even tried to heal, Shawn made sure it didn’t so now I was blind on one side and that whole area of my face was swollen and fucking unbearable. I didn’t fucking care though. I was a dead man anyway, just waiting for Shawn to grow tired of trying to pull truths out of me whic
h I’d never give up.
I wasn’t sure exactly how long I’d been down here, but it must have been weeks and that meant my time was running out. I knew the drill, I’d been on the other side of this game a few times in my life. You gave a man a while to break, but in the end you had to cut your losses and pull the trigger. Mostly, I was left here alone in the cold and dark for days with nothing but a bucket to piss in and a cheese sandwich pushed through the door twice a day. It was a steel door and sometimes I heard a female voice on the other side of it which seemed to call out to me, but I didn’t answer it.
I remained in a trance for as long as I could, disappearing into the bliss of my past and trying to soak it all in before this was over. There was one thing to be said for being kept a prisoner and tortured, it sure humbled me. I’d spent too much of my life being an arrogant prick, and that was mostly because deep down I thought nothing of myself, so I’d worked hard to try and prove that I did. But it hadn’t worked anyway, so now I’d never get a chance to be anything else in my family’s memories. Just a fuck up who got what he deserved.
I knew they were alive. Shawn’s big mouth meant I got a play by play of everything he got up to involving my old Crew, including the attack he’d struck against The Oasis Clubhouse.
My heart had shuddered with fear as he told the story, especially when he reached the part about getting hold of JJ. He’d spent a lot of time dangling his death over my head before finally revealing that he was alive. The motherfucker liked to do that. He’d figured out my attachment to the people I loved was one of the best ways to get under my skin, so he taunted me about my boys, about Rogue. And I had to endure it, knowing the only thing I could do was protect them by guarding the knowledge I had in my head and ensuring Shawn never got his hands on it.
I scratched at the rough beard coating my jaw and groaned as the movement sent a wave of pain down my left arm. Shawn had burned away the Harlequin tattoo on my shoulder the other day, stealing the last thing that bound me to my brothers. Now I was just a coconut adrift at sea, bob, bob, bobbing away on the tide.
I spent some time thinking about eating a coconut and drooped against the wall, but that only cause more pain to flash through me from the whip marks which striped my back.
That was one of Shawn’s favourite games, he even showed up in a cowboy hat once, his whip in hand as he scarred the inked flesh of my back and cut through the map of Sunset Cove, striking the places he claimed he was gonna own. I cursed him with every word I knew until I grew tired of it and found some numb place to withdraw into. He always got bored after that.
A metallic bang sounded somewhere above me and I drew in a shaky breath as the sound of footfalls came from the basement stairs. Here we go again.
The steel door unlocked then pushed open a beat later and Shawn walked in with two men in tow.
“Good morning, sunshine.” He smiled like we were old friends before clicking his fingers at his men and they moved forward to haul me to my feet. “On the hook,” he commanded and they bound my hands in front of me before dragging me to one side of the room and lifting me up, hanging me from a hook designed for a punching bag.
As I hung there from the rope tethering my wrists, they tied my feet together too and I stared impassively at Shawn as he dismissed his men and walked over to me with swagger in his gait. He causally flexed his fingers, drawing my attention to the chunky gold rings cladding them as his lips lifted in a smirk. My gaze moved to the leather bracelets on his wrist which he’d taken from me, wearing them to taunt me. There were four of them, one for each of my friends, though I’d never told them that. I’d bought them when I was thirteen at the carnival, the man who sold them some mystic who said they were meant to draw your soulmate to you and bind them to you forever. Back then, I’d seen Fox, JJ, Maverick and Rogue as my soulmates, so I’d bought four of them – much to the guy’s surprise. Though Fox had pointed out later that day, the apparent mystic was just the hobo who slept in that part of town who everyone called Carnival Bill. He’d wrapped himself in a fishing net and had probably stolen the bracelets off of some unsuspecting carnival-goer. Anyway, eventually I’d gotten so attached to wearing them that even as an old, bitter asshole, I still kept them on to this day. Well, I had until Shawn had taken them.
“I’m feeling good today, boy, wanna know why?” Shawn asked and I said nothing.
He moved in front of me, pushing me in the chest so I swung back and forth towards him. “The polite thing to do would be to say yes, boss,” he said, his smile flattening. “So let’s try again. Do you wanna know why, Chase Cohen?”
I spat in his face and his lips split into a sneer before his first fist came at me, striking my ribs, then the next and the next. The rings he wore made each blow ten times more vicious and I clenched my teeth through the pain as he hammered away at my body, splitting the skin more than once. It didn’t matter anyway, I was covered in scars and cuts now, he’d fucked me up good and I was used to this ritual. I’d been trained for it by my father, Shawn was just taking that training to another level.
“You should learn to respect your superiors, pretty eyes,” he snarled. “Or should I call you, pretty eye?” He roared a laugh at his own joke, stepping back as he admired the mess he’d made of me. “Hmm, you need a pirate name now. Cap’n Chase Cohen does have something of a ring to it. If you give up the goods on Fox Harlequin, I’ll be sure to buy you a boat and send you on your merry way.” He waited for me to respond, but I didn’t. “No? Pity. You’re making this real hard on yourself, boy. Harder than it needs to be. Why are you protecting them anyway? They aren’t thinking of you, Chase. They’ve already forgotten all about you.”
My chest tugged and I fought against believing those words, but they sliced deep.
“Yeah,” he said, grinning as he observed my expression. “They didn’t even give you a grave to mourn over, pretty eyes. I thought they might get around to it eventually, but I guess they forgot.”
My throat thickened as I gazed at him, seeing the truth in his eyes. He’d been quick to tell me the Harlequins thought I’d died in The Dollhouse, finding that fucking hilarious apparently. I knew I’d been outcasted and Fox, JJ and Rogue didn’t have any reason to care about me anymore, but it still hurt more than I liked to know they’d moved on from me already.
“You’re a ghost now, I guess,” Shawn purred. “I’m the only person in the world who knows you still exist. So maybe you should make more of an effort with me. I can be quite good fun when I want to be.”
He headed over to grab the wooden chair on one side of the room, pulling it over so it screeched across the floor then placing it in front of me before he sat down. He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket that had been among the things he’d taken from me when I’d been kidnapped. He lit one up with my Zippo lighter, puffing on the end of it so the smoke coiled around me and made me pine for a taste of it.
“I coulda been a therapist,” he mused. “Always had a way with people.” He tipped his head back, blowing smoke rings up towards the ceiling.
“You have a way of fucking annoying people that’s for sure,” I growled, my shoulders burning from the restriction.
He barked a laugh. “I’m not in the business of being liked, pretty eyes. I’m in the business of fucking the whole world and taking what I can get from it. She’s a feisty slut who likes sucking my cock now I’ve made her my bitch.” He smirked at his little analogy and went on. “You know who else is a feisty slut?”
My muscles bunched and I tried not to react, but I’d shown my cards on my feelings over this too many times. He knew how to push my buttons.
“Rogue,” he announced like it was a surprise. He grabbed hold of his junk through his jeans, squeezing hard. “I almost had her, pretty eyes. She was one Fox away from coming out and sacrificing herself for Johnny James. Stupid little whore.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I snarled.
He pushed out of his seat, in his element now as he got a rise
from me and he walked forward, taking a drag of his cigarette. “I’m gonna get her, Chase. All I need is the right leverage, and I’ve figured out all of your weaknesses. You, Fox, JJ and her. There’s something there, something beautiful, and I’m gonna twist it to my advantage.”
“If you touch her, I’ll destroy you,” I spat.
“Big words for a man strung up like a rack of meat,” he laughed. “I think I’ll make you watch when I get hold of her. I’ll bring her in here, tie her down and fuck her until she cries.”
“I’ll fucking kill you,” I snapped, blood pounding in my head. I knew he was just trying to goad me, but I also knew he’d do it too. And I couldn’t fucking stand it.
He moved closer to me and stubbed out his cigarette on my chest, making me hiss through the pain.
Worthless, useless, good for nothing.
My father’s voice echoed in the back of my head and I shut my eyes, trying to get out of this inescapable chasm as it swallowed me up. But I was sinking in deep, losing my hold on the inch of control I still had left. I was just a kid again at the mercy of a monster and I felt disgustingly weak. But this time it wasn’t me I wanted to save, it was Rogue, my brothers. I’d been captured by this motherfucker and for what?
“Just tell me Fox’s routines and the pain will end, pretty eyes,” Shawn promised, his breath fanning over my chest where he’d left the burn mark.
I tried to find a good memory in my past to hold onto, but they all seemed to scatter until only the dark ones remained. I saw my father striding towards me while I was huddled in the corner of my bedroom, my knees hugged to my chest while he flexed a belt between his hands. I heard my mother’s screams in the room next to mine, I heard their bed hitting the wall over and over and the way she went so quiet. Like she was just…gone. And wherever she’d checked out to, I wanted to go there now too. I needed to find the sun, my friends, but they weren’t there anymore, there was just darkness and fear and the feeling of being so small I could be crushed under this man’s boots.
Carnival Hill (The Harlequin Crew Book 3) Page 12