27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Damien
Calling it a night. That’s what’s expected of me. By Rome. By Quinlan.
We fucked her. Made her come. Bound her.
We added just enough humiliation to the mix that she blushed for us. Cursed us, then sought our affection.
Quinlan’s cheek is warm beneath my touch. Her eyes are hooded. Lips beautifully swollen. Those between her legs, hidden by the covers, are equally swollen.
She’ll stay here by herself, waiting for Liam. He’ll be here later, after she’s had time to think about the comment she made. About us. About the finality of her situation.
She wants answers. Wants to know what happened to me. What will happen to her once we’re done with Rex.
Telling us there’ll be another man wasn’t meant to be a threat. She didn’t say it to get under our skin. She was fishing. Testing us. Seeing whether we could be trusted.
We’re the most trustworthy motherfuckers she’s ever met.
Every punishment, every smack to her sweet, round ass and every bite mark. Nothing screams ownership more than that. She doesn’t see it yet. She will.
Liam was right. She needs to rest. To recover.
So why am I still here? It defeats that purpose, to have me by her side, trailing my thumb along her cheek.
The guilt that’s too big for my chest, that’ll definitely ruin everything.
Tying her up isn’t why my throat closes up. Why my lust and playfulness have simmered.
It’s her. It’s Rex. It’s the report from our investigators and how I got it all wrong. He doesn’t love her. He used her.
And I let it go on for as long as it did. I saw what I wanted to see, mistaken his overprotectiveness for something else.
In doing so, I failed. Failed to look closer. Failed to protect her.
The guilt has been eating at me for hours. I couldn’t face her by myself. Had to calm the fuck down in my room. Then Rome brought her to me.
But now that my dick isn’t hard and I can think, I feel it again, the weight of it crushing my chest.
“Damien,” she mumbles, sinking further into the sheets.
Liam will be here soon. He hasn’t played with her tonight. It’s only fair that he’ll have her for himself. We’re not taking turns or keeping tabs, that’s not the issue. This is about her. Quinlan should get to know the three of us.
Fall for the three of us.
We’re going to make it work, have this fucked-up-ever-after. The three of us. And that can’t happen if she has a favorite.
Yeah, she can pretend to hate Rome and me all she likes. Quinlan had fun today. We’ll be her favorites if we’re not careful.
I should leave her.
“She’s falling asleep,” Rome states, his wet fingers smearing our girl’s saliva on her lips.
Neither of us moves to get up.
“Damien.” A warning from Rome.
“Hmmm,” reaches my ears. Quinlan.
My eyes focus and I notice her brow is scrunched. She’s in pain. My fingers slid low while I was deep in thought, denting the soft skin of her cheek.
I’m directing my frustration at the wrong person.
“Sorry.” I flex my fingers and angle Quinlan’s head to me. “Rome’s right. You are sleepy.”
“Untie me.” She’s angry. She’s also seeking my touch.
“Request denied.” One corner of my mouth ticks up. “Liam will be here later. That’s for him to decide.”
“Asshole.”
“You don’t sound too convincing when you’re smiling, darling.”
“Am not.” Her attempt at a frown is adorable.
I am so fucked.
This goes beyond obsession.
This woman in our home isn’t just beautiful. I don’t love her like I used to love the kid she was, that’s for damn sure.
Quinlan’s not a pawn, either.
Her holes are hot, and I could fill them every waking moment for the rest of my life. I want to stay in her heart most of all.
She’s such a good girl. Giving herself to us. Moaning when I bite and torture her.
Everything isn’t the right word for her.
There isn’t a correct phrase to attach to my feelings.
Not one word says I’m desperate to crawl under your skin, infiltrate your brain and take up all the available space there. Poison your blood and carve my name into your bones.
“I’ll give you two some privacy.” Rome knows me better than I know myself. It’s no surprise that he gets up and leaves.
The door closes behind him. We’re alone here, Quinlan, me and the soft glow from the lamp on her bedside table.
This is sick, to get off on this. To fall harder for her when she’s all tied up. Our little captive. It doesn’t matter. I love it. The sight of her like this takes my goddamn breath away.
“Did he leave so you could have fun by yourself?” For all her exhaustion, Quinlan still manages a scowl. “Hurt me some more by yourself?”
“No.” I slide my thumb onto the space between her eyebrows, massaging the frown lines.
The creases in her forehead smooth. She sighs, her eyelashes fluttering. “Then why? What do you want?”
“Full of questions, aren’t you, darling?”
“And you’re full of answers,” she bites back.
Quinlan fights her heavy eyelids, reminding me of a younger version of myself. When I was between the ages ten and eleven, staying up for as long as I could. Keeping Rex from grabbing one of my foster siblings while I was out.
“Damien?”
“I needed alone time with you.” I figure I can give her that. She won’t pity me for liking her.
Like . What a fucking joke. What an insult.
“To do what, exactly?”
“Whatever the fuck I want.”
“That isn’t an ans—” When I press a finger to her mouth, she opens it, trying to bite me.
“Now, now.” I pull my feet up on the bed, settling between Quinlan’s spread legs. My grip is firm on her jaw, my face inches from hers. “Is that a way to treat your captor?”
“Fuck you.”
I can’t get enough of her attitude. Fucking addicted.
A compliant student. A dutiful daughter. The half-sister Rex could count on to do everything his lazy ass hasn’t. A business owner who landed raving reviews and five-star ratings.
This isn’t the woman sprawled out beneath me.
This one is my woman. Beautiful in every way.
“I could.” I shove her face to the side, licking her cheek. Getting off on her shivers. “Fuck you again, since that’s what you’re asking for. There’ll never be a moment I’m not hard for you, Quinlan.”
“How can you be sure?” My teeth graze her earlobe, and her tremor is a shot of adrenaline to my veins.
She was testing us. She is unsure. I’ll choke the life out of her doubts. She won’t have any of those, soon.
“Oh, I’m sure.” I trail soft, deceiving kisses along her neck.
When she hums for me, I bite her.
Quinlan’s teeth dig into her lip, silencing the screams that vibrate in her throat.
“You’ve only been stalking me for what, five years, right?” she asks.
My answer is my tongue flattening on the area where I bit her.
“Five years, then.” Quinlan accepts my silence as a yes. “That doesn’t mean you know me. Doesn’t mean you’ll want to keep me. You could get bored with me. And what happens if I like you and…”
Her voice trails. I’m holding still, uncharacteristically silent.
The rest of the sentence is, if she likes us and we decide she’s not for us after all. What if the real her isn’t someone we’d burn down cities for.
“Five years, that’s all,” she repeats. She’s trying her best to make sense of my silence. Of the scattered puzzle pieces. Looking hard, searching for the missing ones. “You couldn’t have known me before that. You were young. No eleven-year-old would follow a baby around.”
Almost no eleven-year-old.
An adoring one, a grateful one, he would.
Without my fucking permission, memories barrel into me.
A fist throwing me into the wall. A knife glinting under cheap fluorescent lights. Mean, brown eyes. Harlow, his now-dead-wife, leaning against the doorframe, her arms folded over her chest, her auburn eyebrow cocked.
“What are you waiting for, Rex? Fucking do it already. Dinner’s getting cold.”
That’s fine, though. Jagger and Laurel are safe for the night. Nothing else matters.
“Nothing else,” I whisper against Quinlan’s skin.
“What?” Quinlan’s voice. A light at the end of a long tunnel. A beacon in a starless night.
My savior.
She won’t be the woman pitying me.
“Nothing.”
I’m on my forearms, bracketing Quinlan’s face and cursing under my breath. I should’ve listened to my own damn self earlier. Should’ve walked out of here when Rome had.
Except this pull . This fucking pull .
“What did he do?” More softness. The lamp on the bedside table has nothing to do with it, though. This time, it’s all Quinlan. She believes me. “What did Rex do to you?”
She’s trying to turn the tables. Be the one who crawls under my skin. Infiltrates my brain. Poisoning my blood.
I could tell her it’s a waste of time.
The day she was born was the day I became hers. My love for her was innocent and now…
Fuck. Now I’m all hers.
But there are layers to place one on top of the others. A pace to stick to.
“I’ll tell you.” The hope in her eyes is short-lived when I add, “One day.”
The answer I offer does more than disappoint Quinlan. It upsets her. She fights the restraints, moving her body in the process. Grinding herself on my very hard cock.
My fingers curl around the side of her neck.
“You’re looking for answers?” I push back, my erection pinning her to the bed. “Or getting fucked? Making you nice and wet for Liam?”
“He did something, didn’t he?” Quinlan purses her lips, unfazed. Determined. “Something terrible. Did he touch you?”
Pity. The emotion I’ve been hoping to avoid. Fucking great.
“I wasn’t molested or sodomized. Rex and Harlow weren’t into that.”
“Okay.” The relief on her face is miniscule. Her pout doesn’t let up. Curiosity remains firm in her gray eyes. “Still. You’re being cruel to me to get back at Rex. What did he do? How bad was it? You have to tell me. You have to trust me. I hate it. I hate all of it.”
“Me?” I raise my eyebrows, feigning shock. “Cruel to you?”
Storm clouds gather behind her gaze. Crimson red taints her cheeks.
“Are you being serious right now?” Quinlan tugs on her restraints for emphasis. “And you’re evading. I’m tied up. I have nowhere to run. I won’t go to him, not for anything. Why won’t you tell me?”
“Giving you what you want isn’t being cruel.” I keep deflecting, rolling my hips, pushing my hardness into her softest, warmest place.
Quinlan groans. I smirk.
“See?”
“I see that I’m a captive. That you’re not being honest.”
“Here’s what I see.” She lets out another groan when I pull back, and I chuckle.
I shake my head, my disapproving glare pinning Quinlan back in place. I didn’t stay here to fuck her by myself. I’m here to soak her up. To shed some of the guilt. To be there for her.
Have those late-night talks I’ve been dreaming of. Her nearness that I’ve been craving.
Being together, like this, is a million times better than the lousy photos our investigators have forwarded us. There’s no comparing Quinlan’s scent to the live feed of her showering at home.
When she was far from me.
So far.
“Damien?”
“Well...” Her curiosity has my smirk stretching. “I see you. A woman who had three men take her virginity last night. A woman who loved it.”
Red. She’s beet red everywhere my eyes land on. Her cheeks. The curve of her neck. Her collarbone. The sweet shade reaches as far as up her arms.
“They fucked her hard. Hurt her. Took turns making her feel good.” I lower my face so our foreheads touch. “This woman was stretched. She moaned and sobbed. Orgasmed so beautifully on their fingers. On their cocks.”
It hurts, how hard I am. I’m turned on all fucking over. Wanting Quinlan is a part of my DNA. My heart beats for her. Every muscle, tendon, and cell in my body is hers.
I should be harsher. Colder. Either eat her out or fuck her to lower the intensity of these damn feelings.
I should leave after that, come back colder and more collected tomorrow. Otherwise, I’ll talk.
And that pity. I can’t have that.
She needs to know the real me first. The man I’ve become. She’ll never pity him.
“I…” She sucks in a breath, flustered at my crude words.
“She had the warmest, tightest cunt.” I nuzzle my nose to hers. “Sucked every drop of their cum in. Let them fill her with it. Maybe, maybe she has babies inside her. And she was beautiful and brave while she took them. While she cried for them. While she accepted them. You’re one of a kind. That’s what I see, darling.”
She blinks, her eyelashes fluttering. Her throat bobs. Her pupils are giant.
The pleasure of making her as hungry as I am is indescribable.
This woman has always been mine to bend.
“Rex isn’t the only one, is he?” And she’s curious. Fuck, she’s too curious. She’ll coax me into spilling more than I intended to say. “You, the three of you, haven’t held back on this revenge for twenty-three years just to hurt Rex.”
A switch flips inside my head. Quinlan’s sneaky. Fucking clever, taking more than I’m willing to give. Not to mention these secrets aren’t mine to offer to her.
“This conversation has been lovely.” In one swift movement, I slide off her. The covers twist in my palm and I lift them to her lips. Stuff her mouth with the ball of fabric. A makeshift gag. “Back to your punishment we go.”
Quinlan spits it out—of course she would—and glowers at me. “What the fuck?”
“Shh.” I grab a fistful of the covers again. “It’s for your own good. You’ll thank me for it.”
“Don’t shush me,” she grits behind clenched teeth. “Why did you gag me? Are you insane? We were having a—”
“Wrong. You were asking questions. Trying to manipulate me. This isn’t how this works.”
My fingers pinch her nose shut. Poor Quinlan has no choice other than to open her mouth for air. Her eyebrows knit. Arms and legs kicking against her restraints.
“Asshole, stop!”
“Too late.” I shove the covers back where they belong. In Quinlan’s mouth, with my palm splayed on top of it. “What’s done is done. This is a punishment, not a conversation. You’re keeping the gag until you fall asleep.”
Her furious eyes clash into mine, and fuck. I’m sick for loving this. For watching her helpless and out of her mind with anger.
It’s better like that for her as well. She has to see what a psycho I’ve turned into. She should know what and who she’s dealing with.
I can already tell she likes it. Her nipples are pulled tight beneath the covers. Heat seeps through her body to mine.
“Beautiful.” I kiss Quinlan’s temple. My obsession. My love. My everything. “Think about the things you said. Rest with the gag in your mouth. Liam will be here soon. If you’re good, he’ll be more merciful than I am. If not…”
I let the sentence hang in the air. Hold the gag to her mouth.
She glares and screams through the fabric and my palm for as long as she can. With everything she has in her. I’m there, withholding kisses or affection. I’m just fucking there, waiting her out.
Her body slumps eventually. Eyes fluttering shut.
She’s passed out.
I kiss her nose one last time. “Good night, darling.”