38. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Rome

“What’s this knife for, little flame?”

Quinlan’s shoulders hunch up at Liam’s voice.

Sure, he’s turned sneaking and stalked into a form of art. Except he hasn’t been watching Quinlan alone for the past three minutes. We have, together, arms crossed over our chests, spying on her every movement.

We didn’t mean to, but when she slipped into the shower before our alarm went off, we were curious. Of course, the three of us woke up the moment she got out of bed. We’re light sleepers and we feel her. And trust that her absence was felt.

We let her do her thing. Put on the white T-shirt and dark leggings we left out for her last night, then tiptoe her way out of the room and down the stairs.

Joseph and Elaine Langford were the last thing on my mind when Liam, Damien and I got up and hit the showers. They were supposed to be there, front and center, since I was about to kill them and all.

Quinlan. Sneaky Quinlan. Thoughts of her took center stage in my head. In my heart.

In a matter of minutes, the three of us were clean, dressed in jeans and T-shirts. BLF Capital’s offices were closed for the day, and we had a couple of hours to kill before the story about Joseph Langford’s corrupt ways would break.

And now we’re here, where we’ve been for the past five minutes. Studying this exquisite creator that’s consumed by the six chef’s knives that sit in their knife block.

Quinlan has gripped each one and ran her thumb along the sharp edges, the tips, the points. They weren’t a kitchen tool in her head. They looked like murder weapons.

She swirled each of them around in the light, fisted the handle. It took immense effort to keep quiet when she raised her arm and sliced the blade through the air.

This woman.

After the fifth knife, she found the right one.

“You’ll do,” she whispered to the blade. The metal glinted in the early morning sun, telling her that yes, it’ll do.

Will do?

We’re about to have our answer.

Quinlan spins to us, leaning on the counter.

Without letting go of the knife.

“Just in case.” She’s beautiful. Breathtaking. Even that’s an understatement.

Objectively, she’s the most gorgeous woman to exist. Wild, sandy hair flowing down the front of her body. Her clothes hug her soft curves. Pink cheeks and full lips.

Perfect.

But it’s what shines from inside her that gets my cock hard. That taunting glimmer behind her gray eyes that makes me forget the world. In a little over an hour, my life will change irrevocably. And I don’t care.

With Quinlan here, I just want to be done with it.

On those days, weeks and months that I’d fantasized what today, this scenario has never come to mind.

Controlled. Poised. Bloodthirsty. Impatient. I’ve been so sure that’s all I have in me. All I have to offer the world.

Which I am. I’m also possessive, mesmerized, and hot when I absolutely shouldn’t be.

Anne will walk through the doors to our penthouse in a few hours to join us. Then we’re off to our old home.

I can’t afford this distraction.

Can’t ignore it, either.

Don’t want to.

“In case what, sweetheart?” I’m at her side, my hand curling around the wrist of the hand holding the knife, thumb pressing to her pulse point.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

It’s raging beneath my finger. Her pupils are huge.

Quinlan grips the knife tighter. Her knuckles are white with how much she’s clinging to it.

“Yes, darling.” Damien’s at her other side, twisting her so he’s behind her. He brushes her hair to the side, then his hands are at her waist, mouth pressed to her neck. Smiling. “Tell us, what would you need a knife for? In case what, exactly?”

Quinlan shivers when he bites her, but she collects herself and lifts her chin. Her gaze clashes with mine, and there she is. The fierce girl who kicked the punching bag’s ass yesterday. Who listened to me. Who demanded to commit murders for me.

“You might ask for my help.” Her shoulders are squared, as if we’re not cornering her.

When I raise an eyebrow, she adds, “Killing your parents. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to do it alone. I’d punch them”—Quinlan lifts a fist between us, flexing her bicep and being so fucking adorable—“but I’m a few lessons short. I can’t use my guns. Yet. Hence the knife.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

We were supposed to keep her as our captive. I’d been obsessed with her, sure. Couldn’t stop thinking about what it’d be like to have this woman here, making her ours.

But everything was supposed to be intense. Serious.

Laughing? I can’t be laughing. This is wrong.

It’s what I have.

And I fucking laugh. A warm, short laugh. A laugh that says I love this woman so goddamn much.

Damien’s laughing too, an easy laugh as he pins her to his chest.

Our homicidal woman.

Liam—who’s moved to close our half-circle of three—smiles. Huffs a laugh that takes me aback just as much as the sound of my own laugh.

Ridiculous, I know. Being happy because he’s happy.

Nothing to do about it.

“As hot as it is, the idea of you going all Kill Bill on my behalf…” I pry Quinlan’s fingers off the black handle. “You’re not killing anyone.”

She makes me work for it, I’ll give her that. Liam stands at her side, gripping her chin and tilting her face to him. Damien slides his hand beneath the waistband of her leggings, rubbing her clit.

“Cheaters,” our captive gasps. Her grip on the knife loosens, and I take it from her.

“We would never.” The knife clinks onto the counter. My lips go to Quinlan’s cheek, lingering there, then move her ear.

“You know what I meant.” Her indignant huff is adorable as fuck.

“As I was saying.” My breath on her has Quinlan’s soft skin prickling. Or maybe it’s Damien’s fingers doing that to her. Could be Liam sucking on her bottom lip. Or all three of us together. “You won’t need this knife. We won’t let you kill anyone. You don’t need that.”

“You won’t let me do anything.” Liam parts his lips, going in for a kiss. She’s quick to twist her head to me. “I want to do it.”

I’m harder in my jeans than I was a second ago, my mouth watering to taste her. Her confidence is addictive.

“I want— Damien !”

“What?” He rubs her clit faster, her tight leggings posing no obstacle for him. “I’m being good, listening to you.”

“You’re being an asshole,” she groans. Straightens her spine and strokes my cheek. Fuck, she’s gentle. “I want to be there for you. Kill them with you.” Gasp . “I’ll be fine after that, promise. You don’t have to worry about me.”

For the past eighteen years, Quinlan has been a caged flower. And Rex stole the sun from her. He never cared for what she wanted out of life. Never took care of his dad. Never helped around with Quinlan’s mom.

But we do. We take care of her parents without her knowing.

We give her freedom, even when we lock her up here.

She could do anything. Say anything. And she chose to say this.

I want to be there for you. Kill them with you.

I pull back, taking her face in my palms. Damien, without me saying so, stops rubbing her.

“You’re serious,” I murmur. It’s the same tone I used when I realized Quinlan cried for me. When I was stunned to see that despite the tears, she didn’t pity me.

“I always am.”

“Anne will be here in a few hours.” Depending on what her boss will want to do with the news our reporter is leaking to Chicago’s marketing firms this very minute.

We told him to do that. Prepare the vultures to lure in Langford’s big accounts when the article airs on national TV. They’ll run from Joseph’s company before PR and damage control could convince them otherwise.

Joseph won’t be alive to witness his life’s work burning to the ground. But I will.

So yeah, Anne might be busy.

So will we.

Damien understands the underlying message in my words. He’s already hooking his fingers in the waistline of Quinlan’s leggings, shoving them down her legs. Her white panties go down with them.

“What?” Quinlan doesn’t resist, lifting her arms for me to whip her shirt off her body. “What are you doing?”

Her shirt flies to the floor. Damien’s palms trail up her waist, the sides of her breasts. Cupping her neck. Mine are on her ass, hauling her front to my aching cock.

“This isn’t the time for this,” she whispers, out of breath.

“It is.” Liam leans toward the counter, picking up the knife.

We turn her toward him. His free hand slips between Quinlan’s body and the fabric connecting her bra’s cups. One snap , and Quinlan’s matching white bra is torn out of the way.

“Your nipples are hard.” He skims the dull part of the blade on each one. “Are you that turned on? Killing Rome’s parents does that to you, little flame?”

I hate the fact that anyone would call them my parents, but I put that aside. Truth is, I hardly hear it. I hear her soft breaths. Her heart.

Quinlan, flushed and wide eyed, keeps staring at Liam as she reaches blindly for Damien and me. Her fingers clutch at our T-shirts, going lower to our zippers.

She doesn’t even have to ask. We take out our cocks for her. We wait for her.

“I wish I could kill every person who hurt you.” My fucking God. She arches her back when she says those dirty words come out of her mouth. Desperate for the knife Liam’s holding. The tip he’s tracing over the valley between her breasts. “Helping you get your revenge. It would be right. It would be justice. And hot.”

“Filthy girl.” In a flash, Liam lowers his arm and slaps Quinlan’s pussy with the blade.

Quinlan’s scream is swallowed in my mouth, because fuck, I can’t take another second without kissing her. I yank her hand to my throbbing cock and I don’t. Stop. Kissing her.

“So filthy,” Damien hisses. In the corner of my eye, I see him sliding her hand along his length.

“Defiling you is such a pleasure, little flame.”

Quinlan half-moans, half-screams into my mouth. Her teeth clamp on my bottom lip, and her hand gives me the most delicious pleasure with the way she’s squeezing me. Stroking me.

My friends are doing something to her, and I need to see that. I break our kiss to look at her. At them.

“More pressure. That’s it.” Damien’s lips are on her neck, his fingers in her hair. He rocks his hips into her hand, sliding the wet tip onto her naked body. “Fuck my hand, darling. Let Liam hurt you. You’re doing so well.”

“She is.” Liam’s fingers are inside Quinlan’s pussy, moving in and out of her. Three of them, glistening with her arousal.

He glares at her, his gaze dark and somewhat unhinged as he presses the tip of the blade into the soft area right over her navel.

“Hold still for me.”

Damien slows his thrusts to a halt. I don’t dare move.

Liam’s intentions are clear. The angle he holds the knife leaves no room for doubt.

It doesn’t look like he’ll be able to stop, but he does, staring at Damien. Liam would never be dismissive when it comes to Dame’s and my traumas.

Damien nods, and Liam continues.

Any other man—any other person—who’d nick Quinlan’s skin would be long dead by now. Anyone who’d make her bleed would’ve had his head served on a motherfucking platter.

Liam isn’t any other man. He isn’t doing this to hurt her.

I check on Damien anyway. Sapphire eyes glint the moment our stares lock, and he offers me the subtlest nod. He’s fine. Better than fine, when he turns to the knife on Quinlan’s skin.

He’s mesmerized by the movement. By the first drops of blood as Liam breaks her skin. One stripe, two inches long.

She’s ours. Our bond is one that’ll last forever, with or without marking her. It doesn’t stop us from going after our most depraved needs to brand her as ours.

Today is the first in a chain of deadly events that are about to happen.

I guess it’s only appropriate to initiate it with blood. With this sick, twisted and hot ceremony.

With Liam’s fingers buried in her pussy while the knife carves into her body.

“Your pretty cunt loves us. Loves the pain.” Once Liam pulls the knife and his fingers away from her, he places the knife behind her on the counter. He grabs her by the hips, bending to run his tongue along the open cut. “You were soaked when I marked you.”

Quinlan tilts her head lower, watching Liam. Moaning for Liam, arching her body to him, she begs him to keep going.

“Fuck, you taste good. You took it like such a good girl.” Fire flickers in his eyes as he gazes up at her. As he sucks on her blood. “This isn’t over, though.” One last swipe of his tongue, and he’s up. “You’ll have three marks on you, little flame. One for each of us.”

“Please.” She nods, squeezing me. Rubbing me.

“Fuck,” he groans, hands on her cheeks. Pauses for the sweetest, longest second before his mouth slants over hers. Before he dips his tongue into her mouth, letting her taste her blood on him.

I’m not sure she’s aware her hands are moving on me and Damien. Neither of us stops her.

“You’re so good. You’re everything,” Liam groans between one desperate kiss and the other. “Hearing the things you’re willing to do for us. We’ll do more for you. So much more. We’ll gut people for you. Destroy anyone who hurts you. You’ve suffered enough, baby. Those days are over. You hear? You have us. You’ll always have us.”

“I have you,” she repeats.

Her fist is small and warm, and she fucks my cock just right, even dry. It’s a goddamn agony to pull away. But I see the look in Liam’s eyes. So does Damien.

“Going to fuck you.” Liam’s jeans come undone, his cock out while I haul Quinlan to the counter. While Damien pushes her legs apart. “Our good girl.”

Liam’s fingers are still damp with her arousal. He smears what’s left of it on her cheeks, down her neck and I can’t help it. I lick it off her. I suck on it until I’m sure her taste won’t ever leave my mouth.

“For you. I’ll always be that person for you.” Quinlan spreads her attention between the three of us. Fierce and so needy that my sanity is quickly slipping away with how beautiful she is. “Dirty and good for you and murderous for the three of you. Always.”

We sound like animals. We touch and grope and pull on every part of her.

Then it’s Liam lining himself to her soaked cunt, his head throbbing and wet. His hands are firm on her hips, holding her hard enough to make Quinlan cry out. She grasps the sides of his neck, crying louder when he slams himself into her. All the way in.

“Liam, yes.” Every word is punctuated by each one of his punishing strokes. Her hands are on his neck, thumbs pressed to his jaw. Cheek. His scar. “Please. It hurts so good. Don’t stop. There. Yes. Please. Please. Please.”

He goes faster, merciless, drawing screams and pleas and tears out of Quinlan. Her gray eyes grow to black, endless pools. She pulls her to him, his forehead on hers. I can’t stop looking at them. Every part, every movement. I’m drawn. Turned on. I love them.

“Oh, fuck.” His eyes close as he’s fucking her harder.

I see it, how his biceps flex with the effort to keep her in place. Quinlan twists his face, her tongue and lips stroke and trace every inch of his scar.

“Oh, God. Oh, fuck, little flame.” His lips part, and I can tell he’s close. “I love you. How I fucking love you.”

She needs to come. Liam would want it, but he’s too lost in the pleasure he takes from her to notice. So I pinch her nipple, tugging on the hardened peak. Quinlan’s cries are addictive, and I draw more of those out of her as I fuck my fist at a safe distance from Liam.

Damien has stepped behind Liam’s back, his hand wrapped around Quinlan’s foot and he’s sucking on her ankle. Liam ruts into her, and Damien holds her foot in place, his eyes rolling, moaning as his fingers dig into her calf, his free hand stroking his length.

Liam takes her lips again, and he’s not gentle anymore. He’s the most brutal he’s ever been. No more hiding from Quinlan. No more lurking in the shadows. He’s being himself and Quinlan loves it.

She comes from how much she loves it. I don’t have to feel her squeezing my cock to know her orgasm pulses through her beautiful body.

Liam’s growl is such a base one. It reverberates from his chest.

“Every drop, little flame. Take it. Daddy needs this pretty cunt full.” Liam thrusts, his hips hitting the edge of the counter as he empties himself inside her. “Our beautiful girl, taking every. Single. Drop.”

Damien releases her. As soon as Liam draws out of Quinlan, he’s there to take her.

“Fuck.” He grabs her neck and waist, moving her with him. Leaning in to her lips. “You taste good everywhere, darling.”

“I do?” she asks, her feet pinned to Damien’s ass.

I watch her kiss him while I jerk off to the two of them fucking on the counter. He’s being cruel, biting on her bottom lip as mercilessly as he does.

“Well.” His thumb slides to her clit and rubs while Liam tucks himself in, perching his hip on the counter. “I haven’t tasted your tightest hole. Yet.”

“Damien.” It’s a moan and a gasp and fuck, that’s hot.

“Quiet.” He yanks on her hair, lowering her to the counter. Flattening her back on it. Towering over her. Slamming into her. “I’ll do whatever I want. Take whatever I want from you. If I want to circle your rim with my tongue until you scream and cry and beg to be pounded there, guess what, darling?”

Her eyes look at him as if he hung the moon. “You’ll do it.”

“I will.” Damien doesn’t look anywhere except Quinlan’s face when he’s grasping for the knife.

Liam shoves the handle into his palm, and Damien puts the tip of the blade to her stomach. He slows his thrusts, carving and identical, parallel line to Liam’s.

The knife slices through her soft belly, and she’s being so sweet about it. Slapping her hands to the counter, she mumbles “yes” over and over again.

“I’ll always be here.” Damien puts his lips to the tip of the knife, sucking on her blood.

When it’s clean, he throws it to the side, pressing his finger to her open wound.

At that, she screams.

At that he smirks at her, sucking on his bloodied finger. “Always. Say it.”

“You’ll always be here.” Quinlan covers his hands that are on her hips now.

Her fingernails grasp on to him, but it doesn’t help to keep her body from swaying on the counter. Not when Damien’s driving into her as hard as he does.

His name on her lips is the start of her second orgasm. Her eyes shut as her teeth grind, and she whimpers, “It hurts. It hurts to come again.”

“Eyes on me,” he grits out. I can barely hear him with my cock begging to be inside her and my hand pumping myself. “Eyes on me when you come, Quinlan. When I’m putting babies inside you.”

She’s being good again. God, is she good, doing what he says, pinning her feet to his ass when she comes. Never taking her gaze off him. She comes harder when a string of curses comes from him, when he jerks his hips and spills himself inside her.

He picks Quinlan up, presses their foreheads together. His fingers thread into her hair and he breathes slowly, his expression serious. “I love you. I. Love. You.”

“I love you too, Damien.”

I’m patient until I’m not. My grip on her neck and thighs is a punishing, bruising one. I take her, or it’s Damien handing her over to me. Anyway, she’s mine now. I push two fingers into her pussy and fuck . Fuck, fuck, fuck. She’s wet, her arousal mixed with Damien’s and Liam’s cum.

“You’re sucking me in.” I’m impatient. I’m ruthless. I’m on a goddamn mission to split Quinlan in half. “You have all this cum in you, but your pussy is still begging for more. Haven’t they hurt you enough, sweetheart?”

“No. Rome, I need you.” Quinlan offers herself to me and I bend for her. I’ll fucking bend for her for the rest of my life. “I need you too.”

I nip and suck and lick one nipple, moving to the other one once I’m satisfied I’ve administered enough pain. That I’ve turned her swollen breast red around Damien’s bite marks.

“You’re going to give me another orgasm, Quinlan.” She’s back there, splayed out on the counter. The knife is in my hand, I don’t know who put it there. Don’t care.

What I care about are her spread legs. Her swollen pussy.

One thrust and—fuck me. Fuck. It feels like home, being inside her. Wet and hot and yes .

“I can’t.” The terror in her voice is real and sexy as fuck.

“I’m not finishing unless you do.” I pin her to the counter with a hand on her pussy, my thumb rubbing circles on her soaking clit. “I’ll fuck you for hours. Screw my revenge plan. Screw everything. I’m not coming without you.”

Quinlan shakes her head, her thighs trembling. Her body will give me what I want, even if she thinks it’s impossible. Nothing’s impossible when we’re the ones demanding it from her. Our little captive will give us everything.

“The only way I stop fucking this pussy is when you come.”

She keeps saying no, and I let her. I slow my thrusts, pressing the tip next to Liam and Damien’s line. Pushing through the resistance of her skin. Her body relents to me, the first drop of blood glistening on the metal. Quinlan moans and grinds her hips on the counter, as desperate as I am for that friction.

It’ll end up hurting her. I won’t have that.

“Don’t move.” My glare is enough to stop her.

“Please, Rome, I’ll be good.”

“Oh, now you want to come?” Damien strokes her hair.

I fix my attention on her stomach, on the red line I’m embedding into her flesh.

She grabs my wrist, her gray eyes wild. “Yes. Do it.”

The cut I’ve made matches that of my friends. I do the same thing they have, swiping my tongue along the blade. Tasting her sweet, addictive blood, then discarding the knife.

“I love it when you’re good.” Carefully, I pull her upper body to me. I wrap an arm around her back and fucking her with everything I have. “I love you.”

“I love—” She clenches around me, her body tight and ready to burst. “I love you back.”

Every part of me fucks every part of her. My cock. My mouth. My soul. This is what I needed today. This connection. The taste of her blood and lips and tongue.

This is the best revenge I could ever hope to have.

Living. I fucking live.

“Rome.” Her orgasm throws me right over the edge with her. I kiss her harder. I fill her up with so much cum it’s trickling out of her, on my cock, on my balls.

We come down from the high, and I pull out, tucking myself in. Liam’s next to me, a wet cloth in his hand. He dabs it over Quinlan’s red, swollen lips, her clit, but not before I shove our cum back in. As much as I can.

“Open wide.” While Liam cleans her and Damien cups her cheek, his thumb stroking her reverently.

She does, sticking her pretty tongue out for me. Sucks and licks my fingers that have our orgasms coating them.

“My turn.” Quinlan’s breathing hard when I remove my fingers from her.

“To fuck us?” Damien pulls her face to him, his eyebrow quirked. “It’ll be a first, but I’m up for it. Maybe later, though, after—”

She shakes her head as much as his grip allows, her soft hair moving with her. “Marking you.”

Not cutting you. Not hurting you.

Marking you.

The sound of it is possessive. It’s loving.

It’s derived from understanding. She’s choosing her words carefully, for Damien, if I had to guess. We kidnapped her, tortured her, cut her flawless skin and marked her, and she’s being careful with his heart. With ours.

Regardless, the idea of putting a knife to Damien’s skin…

Liam is done cleaning her, closes her legs, and moves aside. Both of us are visibly concerned. All of us are looking at him.

“I’d be honored.” Damien reaches for the knife, offering it to Quinlan. When she grips it, he releases her face, placing his right hand between them. His offer, verbal and physical, is a breath of fresh air. Damien’s lips twist into a smirk, and he points at his ring finger. “On the left one, we’ll have a real ring. Soon. But I need the second one marked by you.”

Quinlan sits there on the counter. Naked. Her neck is flushed. Her eyes glint.

Three red lines are on her stomach. They’re there to stay. She’s beautiful. And smiling.

She’s being gentle as she curls her fingers around Damien’s wrist and brings his hand toward her.

Damien rubs his free hand over her naked thigh, down her knee. He lets her know it’s okay. That he’s not triggered by the knife she puts to his skin. She leans in to his lips for a kiss, then goes on to cut the shape of a half wedding band on the base of his finger.

His blood trickles onto her thigh, but he’s relaxed. I can swear it’s the most relaxed I’ve seen him in years.

“Thank you.” His hands cover her cheek after she puts the knife aside. He kisses her forehead, sucking a breath, inhaling her. “Thank you.”

He starts moving out of the way. She catches him, wrapping her lips around his finger. The three of us don’t breathe, captivated by how she’s taking him in, sucking on his blood.

“Always here.” She flattens her palm on her heart. Damien covers hers, nods once and walks off to the first aid kit we have in one of the cupboards. It’s not urgent. But it’s a lot for him to be here with his feelings.

And it’s okay. We don’t call him out on it. We wait for him, the three of us.

“Come here, Liam.” Her lips are full and soft, and her smile is the bright light at the end of the tunnel I never thought I’d get to see.

He goes over there, never hesitating when he offers her his hand. Her warmth, attention and use of the knife bring my friend so much happiness and he can’t hide it. He smiles wide.

“Beautiful.” She kisses the bloodied band, swiping her tongue on him.

For a second, he groans, pushing her head down on him. Then he lets out a harsh breath, taking a step back.

“You’re beautiful.” The kiss to her forehead is the last one before he moves out of the way.

“Rome.” Tears line her eyes, her voice breaking near the end. “Would you like to—”

“Sweetheart.” I’m right there, in front of her, shoving my right hand between us. My left hand goes around her wrist, pinning the blade to my finger. “You’re asking all of a sudden?”

She gazes at me, her eyes like the sky after the storm. “I thought about it. Maybe you don’t want to do this today. It’s okay.”

“I do. I’m okay. Everything’s better with you here.” My lips press together, my heart hammering. “Everything. Including today.”

“But—”

“I’ll be very fucking offended if you don’t cut me. Right the fuck now.” I press the knife harder into my skin. “Is that what you’re doing here? Trying to hurt my feelings?”

“No.” Quinlan shakes her head, the slightest movement releasing one tear drop. It rolls down her cheek. “You’re so strong. You’re going to be amazing today. It’ll be okay.”

“It already is.” My teeth graze her plump bottom lip, tug and release. “Do it.”

The knife breaks my skin, and this pain is unlike any other I’ve ever felt. This pain reaches into my soul, and it doesn’t take off the edge. It carries me home. Once she starts, she doesn’t stop until she’s done.

Clink . The cut is complete. I’m aware my friends are here, and I don’t—can’t—care. I shove my finger into her mouth.

“So good, sucking my blood.” Damien and Liam stand next to us, and I keep praising her. “You’re so good, sweetheart. So perfect. That’s it.”

We take her upstairs after that, run a bath. Clean her.

Love her.

We’re hers and she’s ours.

Always.