14. ~Killian~

14

~Killian~

I couldn’t believe it.

Here I was walking through campus with my arm draped over the shoulders of my woman—our woman—being openly close and intimate with the person I’d chosen, the person I wanted and cared about so fucking much.

Eyes were on us. That usual blindingly bright spotlight was shining down on me.

But this time it wasn’t so unwelcome, such a fucking burden.

Because I wasn’t trapped within the façade this time. I wasn’t heaping on the fake and putting on a forced show.

And because she was right here with me. Not just in body, but in mind and spirit too.

Aurora had become really well attuned to me.

Sometimes she knew where my head was at, and what I was feeling, before I did.

I wasn’t used to expressing real emotions, the way I actually felt about anything, because of the façade. So it wasn’t a given for me to understand right away where something was rooted, why I was reacting in a certain way to things.

But she was here with me now and she could figure that stuff out. Really well, actually. She was helping me.

Hell, she was helping me in so many ways.

Ways I hadn’t even realized I’d been needing.

I tightened my hold around her.

On our way through campus, drinking our coffees, several of what Aurora termed my fan club made eyes at me or threw daggered looks at her. No longer needing to leash myself and plaster that golden boy bright smile on my face, I gave it back to them the second I noticed the barrage coming anywhere close to her. And, sure enough, people caught on, their gazes bouncing off Aurora real quick after I made my feelings clear. Don’t fuck with what’s mine. I was fucking ready for it to go beyond that, into physical territory, because I didn’t have to hold back there either. Years spent bottling shit up had added up to a ton of time in the octagon with Jonah, so I would destroy whoever came at me.

That had really been proven these last couple of weeks.

We’d being going at it hard, sticking right to Asher’s—and Aurora’s—strategy and taking two dollhouses down every other night. We’d made it to eight now. Jonah had even been surprised just how hard I’d brought it down on those motherfucking guards and trainers that we’d laid into on our missions together.

There was one big one left, triple the size of the others we’d decimated and gotten the victims clear from. That one, we were all gonna do together. Even Ash’s contact, Caleb, was coming in on it as an actual combatant, alongside the four of us. That was happening in a few days. And tomorrow night, Ash and Aurora were gonna take the last smaller one left.

Ash hadn’t been at Hexwood U much, because he’d been called in on a ton of video calls with the Head Infidels and all the faction leaders as a result of this big hit against them—that they had no idea we were responsible for. They were scrambling and torn between thinking it was some new enemy or Revenant. Some figured he was actually dead already because nothing had been heard from him since that one time he’d resurfaced to pull Carson’s focus away from Aurora. Some, including Reed Keller, Jonah’s old man, figured it was somebody carrying on out of a tribute to Revenant. The actions were too bold, they believed, for it to be him.

Asher was really giving them the runaround with this strategy of his.

It wasn’t like him either. He was all about slow and steady action—and manipulation. He didn’t go in for bold displays normally. But this had been perfect to throw those fuckers off.

Of course, the smokescreen he’d created wasn’t gonna last indefinitely.

Not for much longer even.

They were on the hunt now.

And bastards like our fathers wouldn’t stop until they caught their prey and punished.

I knew Asher had plans for his fucking plans, so he’d have a way to deal with that.

All he’d said when I’d asked a few days ago, just before reports had started to come in about the dollhouses falling, was that which plan he used would depend on how the Head Infidels chose to respond to the attack. He wouldn’t know until it really hit.

That time was right upon us.

I figured after him and Aurora took down the last site, he’d roll it out to us.

A beaming smile spread over my face, even bigger than the one I’d already had from being able to be out and about with Aurora in public.

Because I could almost taste it.

That fucking freedom so long denied all three of us.

It was almost here.

So close.

Aurora tensing against me had me pulling from my thoughts. I turned to her and followed her gaze to a crowd of onlookers over by one of the benches in the quad that included Liza Adams and Becca Wild, along with half the cheerleading team. If looks could kill, Aurora would be dust.

But she fucking wasn’t.

And she never would be.

She wouldn’t be made to feel threatened or uncomfortable either.

Not on my watch.

“They’re beneath your concern,” I told her, stroking her cheek to bring her attention to me and away from them. “Spineless and toothless, all of them.”

“I’m not concerned,” Aurora responded.

So many things she just let roll off her back.

Even when we’d been on opposite sides and I’d punished her, she’d just taken it all in her stride, barely being affected by any of it.

But nobody could be like that all the time, every moment of every day.

Her phone buzzed before I could speak more to it, and she pulled it out from the pocket of her sexy cropped leather jacket with all the studs on it.

She had a fuzzy pink scoop neck sweater on today, a gray and black scarf around her neck because it was getting a little colder out now we were coming into November for real. And she had a pair of bootcut black jeans on that molded to her hot little ass in a majorly cock-teasing way. She wasn’t wearing combat boots, just a pair of block heels. Her white-blonde hair was down in loose waves flowing down her back. And she had that smoky-eye makeup look going on that I liked—and that made Jonah lose his shit whenever he saw it on her. He’d almost jumped her at breakfast this morning before Ash had inadvertently interrupted, asking for his help with some issue with his Beamer.

She was really relaxing in our company now. The sweater was one piece of evidence, breaking up her black-on-black look. Also, not wearing the combat boots all the time. She’d even worn what Ash called her Barbie-pink robe around the house last night. And then she’d had Jonah sitting on her bed with her a couple of nights back—one of our off nights from the takedowns—the two of them reading and discussing their comics. To top it off, she’d actually ridden on the back of my bike with me, when that had seemed completely off the table for the longest time because of trust issues.

It had all started to escalate in the best way and change faster than before since we’d given her the skull ring.

It was like she’d finally seen the proof, or realized right up close, that we were there for her, that we were a team, that she was ours, for real.

I fucking loved it.

And I wasn’t gonna let anything upset that or make her walk back on all that progress.

Especially not outside influences and petty, insignificant ones at that.

As she checked the notification and scrolled to her texts, I saw her jaw tighten, her eyes narrow, before her gaze discreetly flicked over to the girls, and then she swiftly managed to school her expression again.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Everything’s fine.”

The hell it was. “Show me then.”

“What?”

“Aurora.”

She sighed and turned her phone toward me.

I was grinding my teeth in the next moment as I took in the texts that had come in.

Liza: Infidels whore.

Liza: We want you to remember that you don’t belong here and once the novelty wears off, they’ll see it too and drop you like trash. Especially Asher. He gets bored easily. It’s coming up to that time now for him. You’ll see.

Liza: Best get out now before you’re all used up and word spreads beyond the borders all about the slutty little bitch that you are.

I growled low in my throat.

I started over there.

Aurora spun into my path and pressed a firm hand to my chest. “Don’t.”

“You expect me to allow this disrespect to you? To let them believe you’re what Jonah infuriatingly called our fuck slut during the pretense we had to put on to the outside world?”

And what was with all the slut-shaming anyway? How was that shit still happening these days? It was fucking bullshit through and through.

“They know I’m not,” Aurora told me. “This reaction wouldn’t be happening if they didn’t. I’d be of no consequence to them otherwise.”

That stilled me. “Damn, you’re sharp. Just like Ash.”

“Well, there’s a reason we work well together. But it’s not necessarily about smarts or being sharp as you sweetly call it. It’s just analyzing rather than reacting too quickly.”

“Something that doesn’t exactly come easy to me.”

“It’s not your fault. You were forced to repress so much for so long. It had a ton of pressure building up for you over and over.”

I pushed forward against her hand a little. “I hear everything, darlin’, but I can’t let this go. I can’t allow them to—”

She fisted my shirt, jerking me to her.

But it was the look in her beautiful electric-blue eyes that really had me jolting.

Blazing need.

With everything happening with the takedowns, there hadn’t been as much time—or energy—for the physical side of things as any of us would’ve liked.

So this from her right now managed to hold my full focus, even with the need to defend her honor, avenge her, and deal out punishment for her right there tempting my not-so-nice side to breach the surface.

She stretched onto her tiptoes and whispered all husky at my ear, “Come with me.”

The next thing I knew, she was grasping my hand and tugging me along with her, walking in the opposite direction to the main building.

“What about lunch?” I asked.

We had a forty-five minute break between classes where we’d planned to grab pizza and eat on campus, immersing ourselves in the normal of it all for a little while before we got back to our real, rather abnormal existence.

“We still have time, but I’ve been wanting to do this for a while and it’s now the perfect time.”

“Really? With me all worked up and on the verge of becoming a punisher any second?”

“Exactly.”

What the—

My thoughts died an immediate death when I realized where she was taking us.

We were ducking inside before it could fully register.

An alcove.

Actually, the alcove.

She let go of my hand and sank against the stone wall, grinning at me, unbridled fucking lust dancing in her eyes.

“So, tell me, Killian, am I just a whore for danger?”

That was what I’d said to her the day we’d first met when I’d dragged her in here in a bid to teach her a lesson for her refusal to bend the knee.

It hadn’t exactly gone the way I’d expected.

And I’d never been so glad for anything going sideways.

I moved closer. “Inside here that day with you was the moment you got under my skin, the moment you saw into me, saw a glimpse of the real me behind the mask.” I reached out and stroked my thumb over her cheek. “You were the only one beyond Ash and J. You are the only one, darlin’.”

She beamed at me. “I feel the same about you.”

“You trusted me to show some of yourself to me that day when I came to your place once I’d found out about the stabbing.”

“I did.”

I grimaced. “Not exactly conventional romantic moments or the stuff dreams are made of, huh?”

“Who cares? They’re our moments. They worked for us.”

She had my grimace shifting to a smile. As only she could. “Yeah. Yeah, they did.”

She shocked me then as she suddenly dropped to her knees. “I might not have bent the knee in the way you wanted, nor will I ever, but right here and now, you get me on my knees for you in a much more… satisfying way.”

“Fuck me,” I choked.

She grinned. “You didn’t get to do what you wanted that day. Do you remember?”

“I should make you open wide and choke on it, then paint a pretty picture all over your face with my hot cum.”

I swallowed hard. “The way that went down, I’m sorry that—”

“You almost had me, you know that?”

“I did?”

She nodded. “I was turned the hell on.”

“Well, you held your ground really well.”

“Salivating over the prospect of sucking your cock?” she teased.

“Jeez, I was a heavy-handed bitch.”

“Because I got under your skin.”

I stepped up close, sinking my hand into her soft hair. “Because I fucking wanted you that day.” I stroked my thumb over her bottom lip, tugging with enough pressure that it had her breath quickening, turning her the fuck on just like any of us getting rough with her always did. “And I fucking want you now, Aurora.”

“Then take me. Make me choke on you.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

I unbuckled my belt and popped my fly, her eyes on me the entire time just intensifying the whole thing and making me harder by the second.

Heady lust engulfed me as I watched her lick her lips when I pulled my cock free.

Pre-cum was already slicking the crown, making my piercings glint even in the muted light of the alcove.

She startled me as she reached out and ran her index finger over them, swiping up the slickness. Her eyes were on mine as she made a show of spreading it over her lips, then slowly, so fucking erotically, licking it all off.

“Damn, darlin’.”

That was only the start. She batted my hand away in the next second, then grasped the base, and took me into her mouth.

Excruciatingly slowly, she slid my cock deeper, making me feel every moment of her wet and warm throat swallowing me whole.

Long, deep groans spilled from me and I threw my head back.

Once she’d taken me right down to the goddamn balls, she swallowed.

Over and over.

“Fuck. Oh fuck, darlin’.”

She grinned around her mouthful of my cock.

Then she drew all the way back to the tip, saliva coating my shaft. She swiped her tongue over the tip, swirling in the next moment.

Sharp pleasure sparked as she slicked my piercings then tugged on them with her teeth.

“Mmm,” she moaned, her eyes shining up at me with the fucking devil in them.

She reached around, her nails digging into my ass and making me grunt. She used the hold as leverage to thrust deep down her throat, right to the fucking back, where her mind-numbing swallowing began all over again, driving me crazier and crazier by the second.

“Ungh, shit,” I groaned, sinking both hands into her silky hair and fisting all over in a frenzy.

She liked that, me losing my shit, being the cause of this reaction in me.

It had her going feral in the next moment, her tongue swirling like a whirlwind, then fucking her mouth with my cock like a wild thing.

I slapped one hand to the wall behind her to steady myself as bliss wracked my body, my balls drawing tight.

When she slid my cock all the way out to the tip and bit at my piercings, I slammed my fist into the wall with a roar.

“Killian,” she gasped. “Fuck… fuck my mouth. Make me choke on you.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, woman.”

I didn’t need to be told twice, and I fisted my free hand in the back of her hair, then rammed my cock back down her throat.

I was engulfed in a pleasure haze as I fucked her face like a madman, driving in and out rapid-fire, my thrusts brutal, unhinged, and way fucking out of control.

Our gazes clashed in the midst of it and her eyes were shining, hooded. She was getting off on it big time, jerking my ass, wanting it rougher, deeper, more overwhelming.

She wanted to be fucking well consumed by it.

And she had me right there with her.

We might’ve been in an alcove, but it wasn’t private by any means, and I knew my groans and cursing, the sloppy sounds of me treating her to a hardcore throat fuck could be heard just beyond out in the quad.

I didn’t fucking care.

They didn’t matter for shit.

Nothing did, except this.

Her. Us.

Aurora giving me this, letting me take my fill, and loving every depraved moment of it, as she spluttered and choked around my cock, yet still demanding more.

Wanting every fucking thing.

I stuffed my hand down the front of her jeans and dragged my fingers through her folds, my cock jerking in her mouth when I found her fucking drenched for me. I thrust two fingers into her slick heat, my thumb rubbing over her clit roughly, making her buck on her knees.

“Mmm…. Mmm,” she moaned around my cock, riding my hand frantically.

She swallowed around me again as I drove in and out of her throat rapid-fire, taking me right to the edge. “Fuck, darlin’. I’m gonna come, gonna fucking come deep down your hot little throat.” My thrusts became uneven, jerky, my balls drawing tight. “Work that cunt on my fingers. Shatter all fucking over me.”

She screamed around my cock, her cunt pulsing and squeezing around my fingers a second before she drenched them. Fuck, yes.

The vibrations of her screams around my shaft was the final straw. Ecstasy wracked my body, I stiffened, buried deep down her throat, holding her tight there as I shot my hot cum right down the back of her throat.

“Jesus,” I choked as I pulled my cock from her mouth.

Her sexy eyes were still hooded, staring up at me as she licked some saliva off her lips.

I slid my hand from her jeans, then swept her wetness over her lips, pushing my thumb inside along her tongue and feeding it to her.

She ate it up like a good girl, then beamed up at me, looking very proud of herself.

She fucking well should be.

I grinned and slid my hands to waist, easing her back to her feet.

“You’re incredible, you know that?” I told her, curling my hand around the back of her neck, then kissing the fuck out of her, relishing our combined taste all over our lips and tongues.

When I finally broke the kiss, I wrapped her up tightly, holding her to me. “Thank you,” I whispered, breathing in her strawberry scent, and that warmth she always gave me.

“Right at the back, huh?”

Aurora shrugged. “Old habits, I guess.”

I sank into the seat beside her in the back corner of the auditorium, settling in for class.

“It’s strategic, right?” I asked, as I pulled out my laptop and set it up on the way-too-small table. Whose fucking idea had it been to set up shit like this? Normally, it aggravated me more than it should. But now I wasn’t a powder keg building in pressure over and over again, it just slipped away really quickly. What had happened in that alcove thirty minutes ago just before our pizza fest had definitely helped too.

“In a way, yeah. It just enables me to see everything, all angles, each student, to get a detailed lay of the land and ensure—”

“That nobody is coming at you?”

“It’s always best to be prepared.”

“Because of me, right? Because of what I did in the beginning?”

“As a rule in general.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “All that’s in the past, Killian. I promise.”

“If it’s not, you can voice it.”

She gave me a look. “Do you really think I wouldn’t have already done that if it did actually still bother me?”

I chuckled. “Good point. You would’ve dragged me into the octagon to show me just how much it bothered you.”

“Nah, that wouldn’t have been any fun.”

“How’s that?”

“You wouldn’t have fought back.”

“Fucking right I wouldn’t have,” I said, my words coming out harsher than I’d intended. Just the thought of it, of hurting her like that, made me sick to my stomach. “I’m not Ash,” I ground out.

“He had a purpose for doing that.”

“He stabbed you, Aurora.”

“And I stabbed him.”

“To protect yourself. In self-defense.”

She winced. “I know his methods are harsh sometimes.”

“Harsh is putting it nicely. Really nicely.”

“I know and I get it, believe me. But his overarching goal is to protect you—us. There’s a lot of darkness there engulfing him, but it’s not all that he is. I think you know that, I think you see it. He just… he has this way of putting you on the defensive a lot. Your two conflicting personalities also naturally clash to begin with.”

“And his secretive nature, all that subterfuge and puppet mastery.”

“As leader, he carries a different burden, Killian.”

“So, you’re fine with it then? The secrets?”

“It bothers me too. I’m just trying to ease the tension between the two of you, because it is what it is. Until this is all over, he’s gonna keep to his harshness, that brutality, the no-nonsense commander-in-chief mindset.” She laid her hand on my arm. “But, at the end of the day, that’s what will help to keep us alive.”

Damn, he had her. Asher fucking had her. He was in her head and other places too.

She was advocating for him. Worse—trusting him.

She even thought she was seeing a soft side to him.

“You really think he’s keeping his promise about the whole transparency thing? And as I ask this question, take note that I’m being really fucking generous to him by not including the Caleb thing in it, him taking down a whole doll auction with this guy years back without telling J and me. Because it was years back, and because despite what it might seem like, I’m trying to be a little easier on him like you asked me to be after that blowup in the kitchen during that strategizing meeting.”

She reached out and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. “I know you are. I see you trying, toning it down. And he does too. Although it’s hard and not his thing to speak to it outright, it’s in his actions. His appreciation, I mean. When Jonah and I were doing our comic thing the other night, Asher didn’t retreat to his art studio and pull his whole loner routine. He came to the salon and sat with you to watch that Transporter marathon with you. He even made you a bowl of ice-cream.” She let go as she fixed her laptop into place, inching it at the perfect angle, then bringing out her mouse too. As she fired up a new page for this class and titled it, saving it into her intricately arranged file system, she told me, “As for the transparency thing, he’s clearly struggling, but he’s still continuing to try. He has to go against the grain and fight long-established instincts and his paranoid need for absolute control. It’s a difficult line to walk between maintaining that control over every situation and relinquishing enough to live up to the promise he made us, to function as a team, rather than the dictatorship that you guys had been living under beforehand.”

The professor walked in, a few stragglers following in her wake, and the class started to get underway really soon after, stalling our conversation.

I looked over at Aurora listening attentively, typing away and taking notes.

It was unbelievable to be here sitting next to her, actually being with her, in a public setting.

I shifted my weight and wrapped my arm around her.

She smiled at me, then frowned as she watched me typing with just one hand.

I grinned at the impressed look all over her face.

“That’s right, darlin’, I have my moments,” I whispered to her.

“Believe me, that’s well known at this point.”

“Wanna go riding later and I’ll show you some of my stunting I’ve been teasing?”

Her eyes lit up. “Finally,” she whispered back excitedly. “Let’s do it.”

“Perfect.”

I relaxed into the class then.

Or tried to.

Beneath the surface, though, all that stuff I’d dredged up about Asher was nagging at me.

Transparency.

Aurora wanted to believe it so badly.

And he was doing a good job of giving us crumbs to make it seem believable.

But I couldn’t trust in it.

That thing with the Heretics, him disappearing off-territory… they had explanations that he’d crafted well. But there was just something off about it all, something that screamed of subterfuge. Of him keeping secrets, holding shit back.

Breaking his fucking promise.

I stole another look at Aurora and my chest squeezed.

If Asher was working behind our backs, if he failed to keep his vow, it would break her heart.

And then I’d fucking well break him right back.