46

46

STACEY

My heart stutters in my chest as Kade’s gaze clashes with mine, but he doesn’t move our hands. Neither do I.

Hesitation flashes across Kade’s face then, his eyes flicking to his friend then back to me. As if he’s silently asking if this is something we should really be doing. Probably not, but Bernadette forced these two together on so many occasions, and I think this is Base’s way of battling his inner demons more than anything else. Because, as his fingers curl over mine, tightening our hold on Kade’s thickness, he uses his body to back Kade into the wall, taking me with them.

“Tell him, Rhodes,” Base says, his chest rising and falling as he starts moving our hands together, stroking, squeezing, watching as Kade looks down at our hands then at us. Base presses his forehead to Kade’s shoulder and continues, “Tell him who he belongs to.”

“Us,” I reply. Then I reach up and grab Kade’s jaw, making him look at me. “You belong to me. Not her.” I glance over my shoulder as Bernadette slouches against the cage, barely conscious. “She’s an irritant.”

When I turn back, Kade’s staring at me, his hand lifting so he can brush his fingertips through my hair, his thumb pressing to my bottom lip. His pupils are expanding, the black taking over the pale blue as Base and I stroke him.

When he draws my lips to his, Base lets out a deep, choked gasp as Kade snatches his throat, holding him back but not removing his hand from his cock.

His tongue pushes its way into my mouth, and I give him everything I can as I kiss him back, sucking on his bottom lip then grabbing his wrist and pulling his other hand to my throat.

He’s not strangling me the way he’s strangling Base, but he’s showing dominance with the hold – showing that if he really wanted to, he could snap my neck without trying.

Not that he ever would.

Kade pulls his mouth away from mine, the back of his head hitting the wall as his cock throbs in our palms. He pulls Base to him and presses his forehead to his. “I know you need this, but I fucking can’t.”

Base fingers falter around mine, his movements slowing.

“I don’t belong to you, and you don’t belong to me.” Kade lets go of his throat and grabs the back of Base’s head. “I fucking love you, but you need to stop. You’re with my sister.”

Base freezes completely, his breaths stalling, then he releases my hand, pulling away from us. His hands run through his hair, and he looks erratically around the room. “Fuck.”

Bernadette tries to chuckle. “S-See? No… No one w-wants you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he spits. I think he’s going to start mocking her more, but instead, he snaps, dragging her from the cage and punching her across the face, making her smash into the floor. “You did this to me!” He hits her again, but Kade grabs my attention by shifting us, so it’s my back against the wall this time.

He slams his mouth to mine then, claiming me as his forever, thrusting into my hand while his best friend cries behind us. He’s losing it as he yells in Bernadette’s face that she tried to ruin his life and failed, before hitting her again. There are tears coursing down his face – it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Base show this level of emotion.

He’s too busy beating the living daylights out of Bernadette to notice us as Kade kisses me deeper, whispering possessive words against my lips as he yanks my body to his, wrapping my legs around his waist.

“Stop looking at me! Stop, stop, stop,” he yells, punching her between words. “Fucking stop looking at me!”

Base drags a bloodied Bernadette to a chair and ties her to it while Kade sucks along my jaw and down my throat, marking the skin at my pulse.

He presses his rock-solid cock between my legs, and I moan and grab a handful of his hair, tugging his mouth back to mine. “We can’t do this in front of him,” I say breathlessly. “It’s not right.”

There’s a horrifying scream that doesn’t stop Kade from grinding against me, and I look over his shoulder as he goes back to kissing and biting my throat to see Base using a small blowtorch on Bernadette’s face.

I look away before I can properly see the details of her eyes melting.

The smell is terrible, but all I can focus on is Kade’s hands sliding down my sides, as if he’s committing each inch of me to memory and not paying any attention to the gruesome torture going on behind him.

Base tosses aside the blowtorch and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You need to force people to be with you, but me and Kade? We have people who love us. We love each other. And you tried and failed to screw with that. Every time you ordered me into your bed, you thought you were breaking me. But up here…?” He taps his temple. “Stronger than ever. I’m going to be a father, and I’ll make sure I’m the best damn father that I can be.”

Bernadette is shaking, her face destroyed. She’s unrecognisable.

Kade grabs my jaw. “Do you want to go home?”

The glint in his eyes makes me smile despite the screaming going on in the background. “My home is wherever you are.”

He kisses the tip of my nose, lowering his voice. “I think I’m ready,” he says quietly, and I’ve never heard him so… vulnerable. “You can go if you don’t want to see this.”

I swallow and kiss him. “Do what you need to do. Then we can live.”

Base steps away from Bernadette, coming towards us. “I’m seconds from killing the bitch.” He hands Kade the blowtorch. “Your turn.”

He laughs and takes it but places it down. “I have a better idea,” he says, staring down at how pathetic Bernadette looks, clawing at her melted face. “The first time she made me kill someone, I was forced to strangle them.”

Base crosses his arms. “Me too.”

Kade fists his hands then unclenches them, and Bernadette flinches as he grabs her by the hair and forces her to her knees. He’s behind her, holding her up. “Wrap your fingers around her throat.”

I move to the other side of the room so I can watch as Base cracks his neck from side to side and laughs like a maniac. “Bernadette, Bernadette. How weak you are, Bernadette.” He grabs her by the throat with one hand. “Try to scream and beg for mercy – I dare you.”

She bats at his hands, failing to get out of his hold.

“Press your thumb into her carotid artery,” Kade says. “And tighten your grip. Make sure she can’t breathe.”

Base does just that, tightening his fingers around her throat. She’s fighting but getting nowhere between his hold and Kade’s fistful of her hair. She can’t see them – can’t see the look in their eyes as she slowly loses her battle of slapping at them.

I should leave, but I can’t. The depraved part of me wants to watch this.

Her mouth is open, and I can see her tongue as she tries to gasp in air, desperate for that one bit of oxygen that may save her life. If her eyes weren’t melted, I’d see the light slowly vanishing from them.

“That’s it. The blood flowing to your head is reducing,” Kade says, pulling a small blade from his pocket and pressing the sharp edge to her cheek, cutting into the skin while Base chuckles. He grits against her ear, “Your brain is being starved of oxygen and nutrients. Isn’t it, Bernadette? Your skin is changing colour. Feel how we rob you of breath, of life.” He lets go of her hair and holds her nape, pushing her into Base’s hold. “Fucking die.”

“Fucking whore,” Base spits as they both press into her neck from the front and behind, and her legs give up, her body already unmoving, her arms straight and shaking from the pressure going to her head.

A tear slips down Base’s cheek as he grits his teeth, his arms locked, shoving forward, and when he lets go, Kade snaps her neck with a rapid crack to the left. Her body drops to his feet, and he stares at her lifeless form.

“She’s dead,” Kade says, panting as they both stare down at her, as if it’s not yet registered. “She’s dead.”

“Check her pulse.”

“Can you not see the mangled neck?” Kade retorts. “Or did you miss the popping sound it made?”

Base leans down and presses two fingers against her pulse anyway then stands quickly, raking his hand through his hair. “Fuck, we killed her.”

Kade nods. “Yep.”

“She’s dead.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Gone.”

“She’s fucking dead, Base.”

I’m waiting for the relief, the smile, something to show he’s glad this is done. That Bernadette being out of the picture is the beginning of everything for him and us and everyone.

Bernadette Sawyer, the woman who destroyed a part of him that Kade will never get back, is dead.

But no weight lifts from my shoulders.

Base grabs Kade and pulls him into him, and I try not to get involved as Base starts sobbing into his chest. Kade is emotionless, but he’s comforting his friend.

“She fucked us up, man. So fucking much. I just… I can’t fucking forget how much she messed with my head. How the fuck do we move on? How do we forget? How do we live normal lives after what we went through?”

Kade presses his forehead into his. “We do it proudly. We fucking live because we survived the Sawyers. You understand me? You go out there, get my sister, and you try to sort your shit out for her and your kid.”

Base wipes his eyes and nods. “We survived.”

“We did.”

“Then why do I still feel dead inside?” he asks. “Why is it still hurting?”

Kade grabs him by the nape and pulls him back in for a hug, slapping his back a few times. “We’ll be dead together. You die, I die, remember?”

“You die, I die,” he repeats, sniffing and looking down at Bernadette. “How can she still look evil, even when she’s dead?”

Kade kicks her aside, so she’s face down. “Barry will clean this up. Go shower. You have burned flesh on your skin.”

His gaze meets mine. “You okay?”

I chew my lip, looking down at the dead body, waiting for her to bounce up and shoot one of us. “It doesn’t feel over.”

“I don’t think it ever will,” he says, pulling me into his chest and kissing me. “Now, about that home. White picket fence or brown?”

I laugh and shake my head. “I would need to repaint the white more often than the brown.”

Kade walks me until my back hits the wall. “You say that like you’d be the one painting when we both know I’ll be doing it while you burn the house down with your terrible cooking.”

Smiling, I whisper, “Kiss me, Kade.”

He does. He smashes his lips to mine as his body presses me into the wall, his hands grabbing at my hips and sides and breasts, one hand sliding up to my throat, holding me there as he kisses to the corner of my mouth, along my jaw to my ear then pulls my lobe between his teeth.

“How does it feel?” he asks. “Having the hand on your throat that just killed Bernadette Sawyer.”

“I want you to take me to bed.”

He pulls his mouth away, his nose touching mine. “I can’t promise I won’t try to fuck you on the way to our room. It’s too far.”

I grin, curling my fingers into his top and yanking him to me, so his mouth is hovering over mine. “I want you inside me. Now.”

“Without a condom?”

I nod. “I want you, hard and fast, then I want you to fill me with every drop of cum you have.”

Kade grabs my hand, pulling me towards the door. We step over Bernadette’s body as he drags me out of the room that stinks of burning flesh, up the stairs and through the first door we come to – a storage cupboard.

It’s dark, empty, and I get a second to look around before Kade snatches my jaw and walks me backwards, until I hit a wall. “Just to clarify, you want my cum in you. You’re okay with that?”

“Yes.”

Kade uses his free hand to unbutton my PJ shirt, exposing my breasts to the cold air, my nipples already tight. “Don’t bullshit me, Stacey. You can’t regret this.”

I whimper as he pinches my nipple then caresses it with the pad of his thumb.

“I’ll give you time to think.”

I frown, but he drops to his knees and pulls one of my legs over his shoulder. A moan slips from my throat as he sinks his teeth into my inner thigh, my PJ shorts still covering me. My head falls back as he licks and bites and sucks the skin as far as he can to the apex, then kisses my core through the annoying fabric.

He looks up at me, his long, dark lashes accentuating the blue of his eyes. “I wanted to do this in front of her, but then again, I want to be the only person to see you this way.” He curls his fingers into the waistband of my shorts and pulls them down, taking my underwear with them. He presses his thumb to my clit, and I tense. “You’re all mine.”

“Yours,” I breathe.

He pockets my thong, and time stands still as he dives between my legs, pulling one back over his shoulder to open me up for him as he sucks on my clit, slipping his tongue inside and then around the sensitive area.

His fingers grip my thighs, and my spine tingles as heat spreads from my core all the way down to my toes. “Kade,” I moan. “Oh fuck.”

Tongue delving into me, he holds my gaze with his hooded one, taking my clit between his teeth. “This pussy is mine,” he says, licking and kissing and trapping my clit between his teeth again. “This ass…” He grasps a handful and squeezes. “All of you belongs to me.”

When my eyes flutter through the explosion rocketing through me, Kade shoves two fingers inside to maximise the orgasm, fingering me through it. I pulse around him, my legs barely holding me up as I scream into the empty room.

“Look at me.”

I do. He pulls his fingers out and stands, holding my leg to his hip. I really look at him. The colour of his eyes, the shape of his lips, the feel of them against my fingertips as I trace them.

“I love you,” I whisper.

“I love you too.” He captures my mouth, kissing me softly. “Last chance, Freckles. If you don’t want to fall pregnant yet, tell me now. We can wait if you want to. Anything you want, it’s yours.”

“All I’ve ever wanted was you. When we first met, when we were eighteen and falling in love, and every moment after.”

Kade pushes inside me, and we both gasp, my lips parting and giving him full access to shove his tongue against my own, taking my breath away. He sinks to the hilt, and I grasp at his shoulders, adjusting to his size from this angle, my walls strangling his cock as he drags it slowly through my needy depths.

The kiss deepens. This time it’s filled with desperation, like I’d disappear if we stopped. He cups the back of my head and pushes into me harder, picking up his pace. I whimper against his lips, and he sucks on my tongue, devouring me as passionately as he can while fucking me so hard, I think we might break the thin wall.

I don’t think he’d even stop if we did.

“This is ours,” he tells me, panting with each thrust.

I tighten around his cock, which is pummelling into me savagely. “Ours,” I whimper.

I moan louder, and we hear voices on the other side of the wall – Barry and Base arguing over something. But I can’t handle holding in my noises, and since Kade still has his shorts on, shoved down only enough to free his cock, he’s able to pull my thong out of his pocket.

“I’m asking… once more,” he says, thrusting harshly between his words. “If I fill you with my cum, I won’t regret it, but will you? Do you want me to stop?”

I answer him by digging my heel into his ass, sucking him deeper inside me. “Don’t stop. Please don’t ever stop, Kade.”

“Open your mouth,” he demands. “I don’t want them to hear you.”

He stuffs my thong into my mouth and presses his palm over it, hammering into me faster, shaking the partition behind us.

“We can hear you!” Base calls out. “I think the entire fucking building hears you.”

Kade punches the wall beside my head, cracking the plaster so a glint of light streaks through, lighting up the dust. I don’t flinch – if anything, his raging impatience makes me clutch his cock like a vice, a vicious building heat catching all my nerves and spreading like wildfire.

His palm and the underwear stop the sounds from escaping, and my eyes roll as Kade keeps going, a thin layer of sweat on his face. “You going to come for me? You going to fucking come?”

I clutch at his cock repeatedly through the orgasm that smacks into me like a car crash, my nails sinking into his shoulders, screaming around my thong as I screw my eyes shut.

“Eyes on me.”

I listen, and he grins at me, biting his lip as he swells inside me, close to his own release. I know he can feel each pulse of my pussy, growing more intense as he keeps thrusting.

“You make me feel alive, Stacey. I’ve been dead for such a long fucking time.”

When my high hits its pinnacle, Kade stills, filling me with everything he has. He removes his hand as he twitches and throbs inside me, then yanks my underwear out and kisses me like we might die tomorrow.