13. ~Skylar~

They’d made a grave mistake.

As if Caleb interfering in my mission hadn’t been enough, somebody had fucking tranqed me! Judging by the shock I’d seen all over him, it hadn’t been his idea, nor had he known it was going to happen. His presence, though, suggested it was one of the other two, either Caspian or Bastian. Likely the former. He’d been most adamant about me not going after Jett that first time around. I couldn’t imagine him being on board with it now, especially when things were even more volatile with the whole Bane versus King thing, according to my research.

He was making the wrong decision where Jett was concerned, though.

Where it was all concerned, actually.

There wasn’t just one way to accomplish the goal of tearing those bastards down.

They needed me to do this.

Yet, here I was now chained to a fucking bed and most definitely not in the fun, erotic way.

I’d taken in my surroundings as soon as I’d woken up and I’d discovered that they’d confined me to the guest room that I’d stayed in before.

If they thought that would get to me, get inside my head, and have me melting at the memories, they had another thing coming.

Like I’d told Jer, nothing else could matter until this mission was done.

There was a blanket over me, but I’d managed to shuffle enough to push it down and see that they’d taken all the equipment I’d had stashed in the pockets of my Onyx gear, even the wig. My curls were wild and loose. I’d been sanitized and a couple of mild injuries I’d sustained were even treated and bandaged—a gauze pad taped over a graze I’d sustained to my left upper arm, a bandage wrapped around my left thigh too where a knife had penetrated a little skin, any actual serious damage having been limited by the hard leather of my pants.

I was clad in those neon-blue lounge pants and the white strappy tank that Caspian had gifted me to wear when I’d stayed here that first weekend that was so long ago now.

I’d already scanned the room and found nothing whatsoever to use in order to pick the cuffs binding me to the fucking bed.

“Argh!” I yelled, tugging at them violently in my frustration and no small amount of indignation. How dare they do this to me? As if I was still theirs. As if I still could be after everything that had happened, after everything that still needed to happen.

It wasn’t safe for them either to have me here.

What the hell were they playing at?

They were going to fuck up everything!

They were going to get hurt again! This time, even worse than before!

Why couldn’t they see that?

Me being around them just broke things.

It just broke them.

Not again!

I couldn’t let it happen again.

I couldn’t!

Rattling at the door had me stilling.

A moment later, it opened, and a figure filled the doorway.

Oh my God.

Expecting Caspian or one of his men, I was more than a little startled to see that it was actually Bastian.

He looked… amazing.

His buzz cut had grown out quite a bit, his brown locks giving off a whole sexy bedhead look. He was clad in a black muscle tee which really highlighted how buff he’d gotten. He’d been muscular and toned before, but now there was more bulk too, like he’d been working out non-stop or something. He had those designer ripped navy jeans on that I liked on him. And those amber eyes were fixed on me, those golden flecks shining forth in all their gorgeous glory.

He stared at me for a long few moments, then broke eye contact and locked the door behind him and stepped into the room.

“Stop yanking on those chains, you’ll hurt yourself.”

It took me a moment to move past the shock to my system of laying eyes on him again after all this time, let alone being in the same room as him too. I had to clear my throat to get my words out. “Take them off and that won’t be an issue.”

“No can do. You look ready to jump me. And not in the good way.”

“Is that why you came in here? For a hate-fuck?” I shot back.

He winced and it had my gut twisting that my retort had hurt him. But I had to do whatever I could to keep him at bay—especially emotionally. Physically, that became clear was gonna be way harder to do. Seeing him again, feeling that intensity, all that sexuality buzzing between us fucking instantly… it was heating my blood and he’d only just stepped into the room. Jeez.

He came to the foot of the bed and folded his arms across his chest as he regarded me. “You think I hate you, huh?”

“The tide was turning in that direction before I even had to leave. I know you relapsed, that Caspian has been fending off attacks from Elijah constantly, that Caleb left, the brotherhood fell apart. Putting all the pieces together, it’s not a stretch to come to that conclusion.”

“Plus, it’s what you need from me, isn’t it? From all three of us, actually.”

Shit.

“I don’t need anything from any of you.”

“Ouch,” he said, slapping his hand to his heart. “That would’ve hurt my feelings if I didn’t know it was a load of bullshit.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know I’ve had issues with my own feelings, figuring all that shit out, which you tested to the max, that you’re still testing, Sky. The thing is, what I don’t have an issue with when it comes to that is reading other people’s emotions.” He gave me a withering look. “Even through layers upon layers of bullshit.”

“Give me a break. It’s been two years. We’ve all moved on. The only reason I’m here in the house right now instead of some cage of Caspian’s somewhere so he can take me off the board, is so he can try to use false sentiment to manipulate me into standing down.”

“Wow, that’s some theory you’ve got there.” He shifted his weight. “So, you’ve really moved on, huh? With Jeremy Wheeler?”

I started. “What?”

“We know now that your dad is in the wind in a whole other way and that Wheeler is the one who’s been with you in that safehouse. Putting yourself back on the radar enabled Cas to fill in a load of details about your life these last two years. All he needed were crumbs and he was off.”

“Who I fuck around with isn’t your business. It hasn’t been for two years.”

His eyes flashed. “Fuck around with? So that’s how it is.” I saw him struggling to tamper down his reaction, and he walked around the bed to the side. “Fucking your bodyguard… that’s one hell of a cliché right there.”

“He’s not my bodyguard.”

He ignored that and went on, “Isn’t he kind of bland for you? Too straight-laced?”

“None of your concern,” I ground out.

“Hmm. Let me guess, he laid you down and slipped inside you nice and easy, kissing you through it, so afraid to hurt you, treating you like a pane of breakable glass? Was there some cheesy love song playing in the background? Soft strokes of his fingers over your skin as he eased in and out of you nice and slow, maybe gently rubbed your clit too?”

Piece of shit. I needed to shut this line of questioning down, so I went for shock value as I told him, “Actually, it was doggy style, then me straddling him and taking him deep and coming all over his big cock.”

He hissed, his face twisting.

He shocked me, though, as he managed to check his obviously pissed reaction and go on calmly, “Hmm, vivid. More lies, though.”

I moved to speak, but he cut in, “No. Not the fucking part. I don’t doubt you went there with that boring fuck. You were stuck in that house for two years. Over a year of it was just you and him. He was your only point of human contact, I can see it having you snapping and jumping his bones.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “It didn’t work out for you with him, though, did it, Skylar? Like I said, too bland, too careful with you. And that’s not how you like it, how you need it. It’s gotta be rough, depraved and a whole lot twisted to—”

“Stop.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I’m right on the money.” He eased onto the side of the bed right beside my head. “You know Cas has this ace next-level tech division at King, right?” When I just glared, he went on, “Well, he had your phone analyzed by them. He wanted to know how you were getting your leads on Jett’s whereabouts. That team of his works fast, so all that’s been figured out by the way. But Cas will get to that with you soon enough. What caught my attention was the video found on there. Our sextape.”

“Fuck off.”

“Apparently, in the last eighteen months since you’d had it, you’ve watched that thing one hundred and twenty five times.” Off my look, he said, “Yeah, the tech can determine that too.”

Shit.

“Missed me, beautiful?”

“It was to remind myself to stay the fuck away from all the destructiveness and toxicity being with you and the boys brought to my life the last time around.”

Damn, that was a good one.

“You mean all the destructiveness you think you brought to our lives?”

I choked. “What?”

He reached out and fingered my curls and I swallowed hard at the wave of awareness that rolled through me at the sweet familiarity of his touch. Even just with my hair. “Even before when you were pulling away, that was a big part of your reason for it, wasn’t it? You thought you were breaking us, hurting us? Especially me with how intense I was with you. It’s why you’re putting up these walls right now.”

“These walls are because I have a mission and the three of you restraining me here is fucking all over that.”

“Because Jett took from you. Your mom, your home, and the three of us.”

“Stop,” I ground out, moving to jerk my head away.

But he was there suddenly grasping my jaw, forcing my gaze straight to his. “We’re right back where we were before, beautiful. You with your lies and a shitload of denial. Remember what happened last time? How I drew it out of you?”

He startled me then as he suddenly climbed onto the bed and straddled me. “First by claiming your body and having that succumb to me, then your mind, and, finally, your heart.”

“Don’t do this, Sebastian.”

“No? So, you don’t want me to alleviate that need that’s been bubbling up inside you for the last two years, one you couldn’t satiate? One I’m sure is a raging fucking fire now you’re back here with us, all those memories taking you over?”

“Don’t.”

He grasped my jaw again, this time a lot harder, intensity radiating through his touch and fucking burning through me. “Tell me you don’t want me to touch you, Sky. Tell me you don’t want me to take away this ache.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

A sudden slap to my breast over my tank had them snapping open again all too soon.

“You don’t get to hide from this. You’ve had two years of that.” He slapped my other breast. Hard. The sting sent a jolt of need straight to my core. As if it wasn’t already bad enough seeing him again and now having him literally on me. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me, that you can’t feel this pull between us taking you over as much as it’s fucking taking me over.”

“Sebastian.”

“Stop calling me that like we’re just acquaintances.”

“We are now.”

“No,” he growled, leaning in and giving my throat a long, slow lick. Sparks of sensation traveled through my body and I had to fist my hands in the cuffs to stop myself from showing a visible reaction. “I know you inside and out, Sky.” Another sensual lick, this time, across my clavicle. “I’ve tasted every part of you, taken you everywhere. I know what makes you tick.” He slicked over the tops of my breasts. God. “I know what gets under your skin. I’ve had your screams, your tears, your laughs, your gorgeous smiles. I’ve even had your anger. Your lows, yours highs. Agony and ecstasy.” His knee shifted between my legs and he nudged against my pussy. “I’ve had every fucking thing from you, just like you’ve had every fucking thing from me.” He lifted his head and then traced his fingers lightly over my lips. “And after all this time, I still feel it from you, that connection, that fucking bond we forged, Sky. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t.”

“Argh!” I yelled, tugging at the chains and rattling them wildly. “You’re fucking up everything!”

“Right back at you, baby.”

He’d been keeping himself in check, for the most part, since he’d come in here and started playing these fucking mind games to screw with me and get under my skin in the way only he, Caleb, and Caspian could. But that cracked as he spoke those words, and I saw a dangerous cocktail of pain and malice glinting in his eyes.

“You shouldn’t have brought me back here!” I screamed, rattling the chains again.

He wrapped his hands around them, stopping me, forcing me to still.

Those amber eyes flamed with that familiar hellfire as he glared down at me right up close, barely a whisper of a breath between us. “Yet, here you are.”

Son of a bitch.

The intensity was another level, my skin was tingling all over, heat surging through me. And that look there as he stared down at me with so many conflicting emotions that matched mine and the battle taking place inside me… it all crashed into one another, decimating everything else around us, all external forces. Leaving nothing but the two of us and this unbearable need.

I lurched up, the chains clanging, and crushed my mouth to his.

A growl rumbled from him as he fisted my hair roughly and kissed me back with a ferociousness that called to that savage part of me in a terrifying, yet exhilarating way, promising a freedom that I’d denied myself for so long.

And now it was right there in my grasp after all this time, I couldn’t deny it, I had to taste it. I had to taste him. Us.

I slicked my tongue over his lips and then he was thrusting his inside my mouth. Groans and moans collided as we tangled in an aggressive whirlwind. I could barely breathe through it, but I couldn’t stop it for the life of me, or ease up. I needed it so badly, just like this.

He shifted his weight, straddling either side of my thighs, giving me the in I needed to roll my hips against his very hard cock, demanding the amazing friction.

A whimper escaped me when I couldn’t do more than that with my legs bound.

Sebastian ripped his mouth from mine. “I know, baby,” he crooned, running his fingers down my throat, over my shoulders, before jerking down my tank to bare my breasts. He kneaded them in that firm and rough way that he knew I liked, then dipped down and sucked one of my nipples into his mouth. He bit and flicked it with his tongue, while pulling at the other with his fingers, exerting painful pressure that zapped straight to my core.

“God!” I cried.

“Fucking missed these,” he ground out.

He continued torturing my breasts until I was writhing on the sheets and twisting against the chains.

And then he trailed his tongue down my stomach, swirling inside my belly button and making me undulate at the sensation, before he slicked across the waistband of my lounge pants, teasing dipping inside.

He looked up at me, eyes hooded in that sexy way, as he uttered hoarsely, “If I dip my hand inside, you’re gonna soak my fingers, aren’t you, beautiful?”

“If?” I panted.

Challenge sparked in his eyes. “Beg me.”

I glared down at him. “It’s not your fingers that I want.”

He smirked. “Damn, I’ve missed this fucking fire from you.”

The next thing I knew, he was pushing off me and the bed.

As soon as his feet hit the floor at the foot of the bed, he was ripping open his jeans, then shoving them down, revealing he was going commando. He’d certainly come prepared. He kicked them off, then gave his very hard cock a couple of rough strokes. I noticed the glint of metal in his free hand, and the next thing I knew, he was spinning a key around, before then unlocking my ankle cuffs and freeing my legs. “Can’t fuck you like that,” he murmured to himself. “Need you wrapped around me.”

He was tugging my pants and panties off next, exposing me from the waist down.

I bent my knees to stretch out my legs and I watched his eyes devouring the sight of my pussy, fixed there with a ravenous look that had my core pulsing with need.

He pounced on me and crawled up my body.

And then his cock was dragging through my folds.

“Yes,” I moaned out, arching my back at the delectable sensation.

“Fucking drenched,” he groaned. “Your sweet cunt is such a filthy little whore for my cock.” He dug his blunt nails into my right hip, making me hiss. “Always will be, won’t it, Sky?”

He continued slicking his cock with my wetness, nudging against my clit over and over.

“Bastian,” I cried, the plea just tumbling free of its own accord. “Fuck me, fill me, hurt me.”

“Fuck, yeah, beautiful.”

One moment he shifted to my entrance, and in the very next he slammed inside me.

“Shit!” I screamed as he tore into me, hitting so deep he stole my breath for several moments.

He stilled, one hand squeezing my breast, the other still digging into my hip. “Jesus Christ,” he uttered through clenched teeth. “So fucking tight.” His eyes gleamed. “I was right on the money, this sweet little cunt has been neglected, big time.”

I wrapped my legs around him and dug my heels into his back. “Shut the hell up and fuck me.”

“You want me to make you hurt, hmm? You’re so tight right now I can barely move, baby. I fuck you the way we both need it and it’s gonna hurt for sure.”

“Careful, that doesn’t sound like hate to me.”

“Maybe it’s not.”

Our eyes locked.

I looked away, grimacing, and not just from the burn of him filling me to the brim, something I was clearly no longer used to.

“Sky,” he pushed.

“Stop!” I yelled, tugging at the chains again. “Untie my hands and I’ll fuck you if you can’t handle it.”

“Can’t handle it?”

“That’s right.”

“Always getting under my skin,” he ground out. “You’re gonna regret that.”

“Good,” I bit back, glaring up at him. “Then make me.”

His eyes flashed with that familiar hellfire and then he snarled, pulled almost all the way out, then rammed back inside, tearing another scream from me.

He didn’t stop then, his brutality unleashing all over me as he fucked me like a madman, the force of every thrust making the chains clang violently against the headboard, and my whole body shaking with it.

And it was fucking glorious, the feel of him fucking into me raw like an unhinged thing, hurting and pleasuring me at the same time, driving me out of my mind with the conflicting intense sensations ripping through me.

“Yes! More! More, Bastian!”

“Fucking right,” he ground out as he pulled his cock free, then yanked my legs over his shoulders, and drove back in, hitting that sweet spot deep inside.

Thrust. Grind. Thrust. Grind.

His fingers slid through my folds, then I felt them sliding along the crack of my ass. I jolted as he started rimming my hole. And then he suddenly shoved them inside, the burn making me choke out a gasp.

He wasn’t gentle about it, twisting and then pulling and stabbing in and out, forcing me open so he could drive deeper and deeper until his digits were fully swallowed by my ass.

“Fuck, this ass feels virgin again. Makes it all the sweeter for me to torment. Cal’s gonna be over the moon to break it in again. Or maybe we’ll let Cas have a go, have his piercings leave their marks deep inside this resisting hole.”

“Oh God,” I breathed.

“Hell, yeah, you like that, don’t you? Definitely still our filthy whore.”

“Fuck, Bastian.”

He pumped his fingers in my ass, then his body covered mine as he angled his cock and slowed his thrusts to deep and brutal, hitting my sweet spot over and over and fucking over, until I was delirious with the overwhelming sensations wracking my body.

He buried his face in my neck and ground out between brutal thrusts of his cock and fingers, “I hate you for leaving us. I hate you for not believing in us. And I hate you for not loving me back.”

I dug my heels into him, gasping as the pleasure built higher and higher, “That’s the problem. It wasn’t that I didn’t love you back.”

Shit. That had just come spilling out of me, like the jarring truth of it had been determined to be heard, that it”d had to be, no matter what.

He lifted his head and I choked as his amber eyes bled with so much emotion. “What?”

I looked away. “Nothing, I—”

He wrapped his hand around my throat, forcing our gazes to connect again. “Don’t do that. Not after what you just confessed.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. Not with the way things are. It can’t matter, Bastian. It can’t.”

“The fuck it can’t, woman.”

My orgasm took me then, slamming into me, and making me convulse in his arms and shriek out into the room.

“Ungh, fuck, Sky. Fuck. The way you grip me.”

He lost his rhythm, then abruptly stilled, and with a growl, he came inside me, taking me higher at the feel of his hot cum filling me, and that erotic look all over his sexy face.

It took both of us several moments to come down from it, and when we did, he pulled out and rolled off me just to the side. I curled my legs up and sank into the sheets.

He startled me as he reached out and fixed my tank back into place.

He stared at me for several moments, pain all over his face.

And then he looked away and pushed off the bed.

He was pulling his jeans on and securing them in the next moment.

Then he came to me and fixed my panties and pants back into place. He eyed the cuffs still binding my hands. “This isn’t how I wanted our first time back together to play out.”

“There wasn’t supposed to be one. I’m not supposed to be here.”

“The fuck, you aren’t. Didn’t what just happened prove—”

“Prove what? Come on, it was as much a hate-fuck to you as it was breakup sex. Closure that neither of us got.”

“No.”

“You’re stable now, you’re doing so well. Me coming back into your life—in that way—I won’t do that to you again, I won’t risk everything going to hell for you again, hurting you. You can’t… you can’t handle it.”

“I’m different now.”

“Because I haven’t been here, haven’t been around you.”

“You’re wrong. You’re just shut down and believe me I know all about that.” He snatched up one of the ankle cuffs. “You’re not going anywhere. Not again. Not fucking again, Sky.”

Shit.

As he went to snap one of the ankle cuffs into place, I reacted, hooking my legs around him, then using all my core strength to drag him between my legs. The shock and suddenness of it served me well and he lost his balance long enough for me to trap him in a chokehold with my thighs.

He struggled and dug his fingers into my legs, but I just gritted my teeth and took the pain, keeping my focus on the task at hand and nothing else.

“Toss the key to me. Now.”

“No,” he rasped. “Not… letting you… go.”

“You have to!”

“No.”

Then he’d left me no choice. I had to choke him out then finagle the dropped key into my hand with a whole lot of painful twisting and contortion then.

I couldn’t do it while he was conscious, though.

I tightened my grip, making him choke, his struggle weakening.

“I’m sorry, Bastian. I have to do this. You need me to do this.”

“I’m sorry too,” Caspian’s voice sounded all of a sudden.

From behind me!

Before I could even react, he snagged me in a sleeper hold.

“No,” I rasped against his constricting grip.

His long hair brushed against my cheek. “The more you fight, the harsher things will become for you. You’re making yourself into my enemy and believe me you don’t want that, love. Consider that when you wake up and then you and I will talk.”

I couldn’t fight against his sleeper hold and still keep my grasp on Sebastian.

It had me releasing him, my thighs falling on the mattress either side of his shoulders.

I heard him choking, then the bed moved and in my peripheral vision I saw him staggering back from the bed, rubbing his throat. “Cas, don’t. It’s okay now,” he croaked.

“Get out of here.”

“Caspian!”

I kicked wildly at the bed, trying to gain leverage despite my fucking arms being bound and severely restricting what I was able to do.

I managed to twist, then kick Caspian in the side, hard enough that it both jarred him and had him grunting.

“Go!” he yelled to Bastian.

I saw him hesitate, pain swimming in his eyes.

“Bastian!” Caspian thundered. “Now!”

That did it and then Bastian was rushing out of the room.

As soon as he was gone, Caspian shifted his hold and position, ending up sitting on me painfully and in a rather degrading way.

No wonder he’d wanted Bastian gone. It wasn’t just so he could concentrate, it was because he knew he wouldn’t take well to this being done to me.

“Don’t make me do this again,” he growled at my ear.

Spots filled my vision, I could barely draw in a breath.

Then he yanked my head back and that was it.

Lights out.