26. Devon

Chapter twenty-six

Devon

W ringing my hands together, I can’t take my eyes off Jaxcen as she sleeps, completely passed out from whatever drugs that fuckwit forced into her system. Finn and Mabel helped me get her into bed when we arrived back at the Palace, Finn forcing me to shower while he watched over her.

It was the fastest fucking shower I’ve ever had.

Mabel brought a tray of food, and took my bloodied clothes away, along with the hospital gown that I tore off my little mouse the moment I entered my suite. I’d ordered Mabel to burn it, and I know she will. She’s always obedient and never questions me.

“Have you slept yet?” Finn asks, stepping into my suite without knocking. He knows if it’s unlocked he can come straight in.

“Not yet,” I mutter from the chair I’d pulled up beside my bed so I could watch Jaxcen sleep.

“She’s gonna be okay.” Finn reassures me, not for the first time since leaving that horrid facility.

I know he’s right, but knowing the fucked up things that doctor did to Jaxcen, knowing the things he could have done to her had we not found her… I can’t fucking bear it.

“Hey.” Finn nudges me with his elbow, so I drag my gaze from my little mouse to my best mate standing beside me. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I lie .

“No, you’re fucking not. Talk to me.” He turns and sits his arse on the edge of my bed, his concerned gaze locking with mine.

We’ve been through a lot, Finn and I. Been best mates since we were kids. He knows me better than anyone so I know I can’t lie to him. He’ll see right through my bullshit.

Sighing, I shake my head, my chest aching in a way I’m not used to.

“I can’t keep her,” I admit

“Why the fuck not?”

“She deserves better than this life,” I practically whisper, my gaze darting to the sleeping beauty in my bed, between my sheets.

“Shouldn’t she be the one to decide that?” Finn asks, keeping his voice low, obviously picking up on the fact I don’t want Jaxcen to wake and hear this conversation.

“She’s too young and inexperienced to know what she wants.” My shoulders drop and I pinch the bridge of my nose.

None of this was supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to find a random woman and bring her to my home. I wasn’t supposed to let her see how truly twisted I can be. And I wasn’t supposed to want to keep her.

“Fuck,” I hiss, shooting wide eyes towards my best mate. “What if I really have gotten her pregnant?”

“What?” Finn’s brows shoot high. “You didn’t tarp up?”

“Nope.” I shake my head remembering how it felt to sink into her bare. To feel the hot silk of her walls gripping my cock.

“She’s not on contraception?” Finn asks, glancing over his shoulder at Jaxcen’s sleeping form.

“Nope.”

“The fuck man?” Finn growls, punching my shoulder. “The fuck were you thinking?”

“You don’t wanna know what I was thinking,” I growl, rubbing at the place he hit.

“Yeah, I fucking do. Tell me,” he snaps and I roll my eyes.

“Fine. But lay off the fucking fists.”

“Then stop making stupid fucking decisions,” he counters.

“Whatever.” I wave him off, trying to figure out how to best explain my thought process from the chapel that first night. “All I can say is I became a little obsessed with the idea of putting my baby in her.”

For a long moment, Finn is silent, his eyes wide as he stares at me like I’ve grown two fucking heads.

“You? Want a kid?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug, shifting my stare back to Jaxcen. She looks so innocent when she’s asleep. More so than normal. “I’ve never thought much about it. Never thought I’d find someone I can actually tolerate being around for longer than an hour besides you.”

“Naw, you wanna have kids with me.” Finn mocks and this time I’m the one to throw a punch into his shoulder.

Chuckling, Finn rubs at where my punch landed, before his gaze shifts between me and Jaxcen. “So when you say you became obsessed with the idea of putting a baby inside her, when did that first start?”

“In the chapel,” I mutter.

“And that’s the first time you fucked her, right?”

I nod, and he grins.

“That’s some crazy arse breeding kink.”

“What?” I ask, frowning at him.

“Dude, you need to read some of the books the women order in. Breeding kink is a thing. Look.” He takes out his phone and I watch his screen upside down, as he searches the internet for breeding kink.

“Here it is.” He grins and reads out the meaning. “Breeding kink refers to the intense arousal at the thought of being impregnated or impregnating someone. It means you’re literally turned on by the idea of making her pregnant, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you want to have a child. Like maybe it’s the danger of the possibility that turns you on.”

I consider that.

“Nope.” I shake my head. “I want my baby to grow inside her and I want him or her to have my eyes and her smile and…” I trail off.

Holy shit, is that really what I want?

“Fuck, man. That’s more than a kink. Is it possible you love her?”

“What? No. I’ve known her for four fucking days,” I snap, looking at him like he’s grown two heads this time, but he just shrugs.

“Crazier things have happened.”

I want to argue that it’s beyond crazy that I could love Jaxcen. That love at first sight is a bullshit concept created to sell movies and books, but what else could this be? Just an infatuation?

“You think that could actually be a thing? Maybe I have a brain tumour or something.” I frown and Finn chuckles.

“You don’t have a fucking brain tumour. But given what you’ve told me, maybe you should keep her for a bit longer. See where it goes.”

“I don’t want to take her from one prison and lock her in another.” I point out.

“Dude. This place isn’t a prison. Hell, she’d probably really like it here if she knows she can come and go as she pleases.”

“That’s just it. As mine. She can’t. She’d need protection everywhere she went.”

“So what?” Finn shrugs, standing to clap me on the shoulder, “Griffin made it work with Aggie.” He reminds me about my cousin Griffin and the woman he lured into a Christmas game that was borderline stalkerish.

Hell, it worked. They fell in love and got married.

Is that something I can even consider?

Hold up.

Marriage?

What the fuck am I thinking about?

“You wanna leave the town locked down for Chrissy Eve?” Finn asks, bringing me out of my spiralling thoughts .

“No.” I shake my head. “We operate as usual, but double the guards. Put them in plain clothes and Santa suits. I want them undercover and on the lookout while we have our gates open to outsiders.”

“Got it.” He nods, looking at Jaxcen again before shooting me a wink and leaving.

Every Christmas we open the town to the public of Timber Valley. It’s only been a tradition for the few years I’ve been king of this town, but it’s become popular, and brings in good money, since we aren’t really about tourism and visitors any other day of the year.

People come to see the Christmas lights, and probably to have a stickybeak at the town no one is permitted to enter any other time of the year, and the local women and children love it. They spend months making Christmas themed handcrafts to sell.

It’s always a risk though, especially now that Mr V is out for blood, but I’m kind of counting on him visiting since we know what he looks like now. We’ll grab him off the street and deal with him swiftly, while the other visitors are none the wiser.

Stirring in my bed, Jaxcen groans, her lids fluttering a little like she’s trying to open them. Like she’s trying to wake herself up. It doesn’t work. The drugs still have their claws in her, and it fucking pisses me off that her father would even consider having her treated that way.

Must be a father thing.

Mine’s a prick, too.

I sit and watch her sleep for another hour like a creeper before finally giving in and slipping under the covers with her. Settling on my side, I slide my hand over her stomach and tug her closer, needing to feel her in my arms.

Even in sleep, she knows she’s safe, curling towards me, a mutter passing her lips that sounds a helluva lot like, devil.

“Shhh, little mouse. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

They are the same words I breathed in her ear after killing her doctor. Just like then, I don’t know if she can hear me or not, but she doesn’t pull away, she stays settled against me, her head pressed to my chest under my chin, and I stroke her hair, hoping she feels it. Hoping she knows she’s safe.

At some point, I must fall asleep, because when I blink my eyes open again, it’s to those big blue eyes staring at me.

I grin, not able to hold back the way the sight of her beautiful ocean eyes finally makes me relax.

“There you are,” I rasp, my voice husky from sleep.

“There you are,” she whispers.

“You’re back?” I ask, as if perhaps I’m dreaming and I need the confirmation.

“I’m back.”

“Fuck, little mouse,” I choke out, dragging my hand from under the sheet to cup her face, pressing my forehead to hers. “Why did you leave?”

“I rang my sister,” she whispers before clearing her throat like she’s feeling just as choked up as me. “She was acting weird trying to find out where I was but almost like she didn’t want to. Then Dr Xavier took the phone. He said he’d take Presley. He was going to do his treatments on her.”

Her big blue eyes glass over, and I can tell she’s fighting back tears.

I don’t want to upset her. I just want to understand.

“So you stole a Corvette and broke out to keep your sister safe?” I ask and she nods, momentarily biting her lip as her gaze dances between mine.

“I’m sorry, Dev. You would have tried to stop me if I told you I needed to leave.”

“You’re right. I would have,” I admit, releasing her face so she can move. “Was your sister there?”

“No. My mum had taken her before I got there. It was only Eddie, Dr Xavier and my dad.”

A low growl reverberates in my chest at that whole fucking scenario.

“Eddie wasn’t there when I got there,” I admit.

“You went there?” she asks surprised, her brows shooting high, just like the tone in her voice .

“Yeah, I did. I wasn’t lying when I said you can’t run from me, little mouse.” I grin and her plump lips kick up. “Serious question… on a scale of one to ten, how much would you hate me if I possibly beat your father up?”

Her brows disappear into her hairline. “Did you?”

“What’s your answer first?” I urge, trying not to smirk too much, because the truth may very well upset her.

For a long moment, Jaxcen just stares at me. I can’t tell what’s running through her head, her expression so neutral that I wonder if she’s stopped breathing.

And then she speaks quietly. Almost a whisper.

“I hope you made him cry.”

Slowly, my lips spread wider and hers mimic mine.

Fuck, she’s beautiful.

“I did,” I admit proudly. “He cried when I ground up three of his fingers in the garbage disposal.”

A gasp flies from her lips and she presses her hand to her mouth as the dark fan of her lashes flutters.

“You… what?” she asks into her hand, muffling her voice, so I reach out and ease her fingers back, showing me those pretty lips once again.

“Don’t worry, his hand wasn’t attached to his fingers when I did that. I cut them off first.”

“You did not?” she gasps again, but there’s a smirk pulling at her lips again.

“I fucking did, little mouse.”

“Wow. You really are a monster.”

I can’t tell if she’s unhappy or happy about that. All she can do is blink at me in shock.

Fuck.

“Is that a deal breaker? Me being a monster, I mean.”

Slowly, her teeth appear as she smiles, and she shakes her head against the pillow.

“No. I like your monster.”

“You do?” I reach forward, having a helluva lot of trouble keeping my hands off her, and I graze my thumb over her bottom lip.

Fuck, they are the most kissable lips I’ve ever laid eyes on.

“Yes. Your monster calls to mine.”

I don’t understand her meaning.

Well, I do understand what she’s saying, but I don’t understand how that refers to her, and not for the first time I have to wonder what happened in her past to have her living the life she’s been living.

“Jax… I need to know stuff.” I bite my lip, my eyes focused on hers as I ache to taste them again.

“What stuff?”

“I need to know why you started seeing Dr Xavier in the first place?”

I see the moment a wall slams between us, her eyes changing, going distant, and she shuffles back a little.

Fuck.

I don’t want to lose her yet.

I’m not ready.

“Jax. What is it about what I just said that is making you want to run?”

“I don’t want to run,” she snaps, and I sigh.

“You’ve just looked at the door five times since I asked the question. You want to run. Why? Do I have to take you to the chapel so you can visit the devil?”

That last part manages to put a little warmth back into her gaze, but she shakes her head.

“No. That story doesn’t belong in those sessions,” she admits, and fuck, I want to kill that fucking doctor all over again.

“Little mouse, I can assure you, nothing you can say will change how much I…”

Fuck… How much I what?

“How much you… love making me gag?”

Her laugh follows her words, and I’m helpless not to join her, because fuck, I wasn’t expecting that during this serious conversation.

Instantly, I wrestle her to her back, nipping at her neck as she wraps her legs around my hips, bringing me close to the part I want to drown in.

“I do love making you gag.” I grin, leaning down to press my lips to hers, and she nips at them before I deepen the kiss, and for a few minutes, I get lost in her.

I feel like a teenager again, when all that I was interested in was the kiss. When I could kiss a girl for hours and think that was the ultimate.

That was until the sex part took over when I was a little older, but fuck, as much as I love burying my cock deep in Jaxcen, I’d die a happy man if kissing her like this was all there was left.

Slowly, I ease our kiss into nibbles before pulling back to hover over her, looking down at those fucking amazing lips, her flushed cheeks, and those eyes I want to stare in forever.

Fuck.

I can’t do that.

“I just want to know you. The bad and the good, little mouse.”

Her slight smile falls away, and she remains quiet for so long as I stare down at her that I figure this conversation must be over.

When I go to move off her, she tightens her legs around my hips.

“Don’t go. I need you right there when I tell you this.”

“Okay.” I respond, reaching out to brush her blonde locks behind her ear.

She opens her mouth, and then closes it, her gaze going distant like she is trying to figure out the best way to start. And then, she opens up and starts talking.

“My parents have changed churches so many times over the years. When I was little, we had just moved to a new town and I was at my new Sunday school. They did things differently there.” She frowns as she says that, her brows tugging in, making her look so much younger than she is. “Presley had always told me never to let anyone touch my private parts. She said that no one can do that unless I’m sick in that spot and a doctor needs to treat the area.”

I stiffen at her words, and her blue gaze rejoins the present, staring into mine, worry flickering through them.

“It’s alright, little mouse. Keep going.”

She nods, and takes another moment before she continues.

“At the new Sunday school, Brother Eric used to make us all take our pants off. He used to touch everyone like he was a doctor examining. But the girl next to me was different. She was taller and a bit older and she had a few hairs down there.” She frowns again, shaking her head. “I didn’t know why she had hair there. I was too young to understand anything about puberty. And I didn’t understand why he touched her differently…”

She shakes her head, her eyes distant like she’s trying to shake off the memory.

“I don’t want to go into what he did, but it was wrong and even though it was wrong, I was the one that broke the rule.”

“What rule?”

“What happens in Sunday school, stays in Sunday school, I guess.” She shrugs, looking annoyed at the idea of it. “I went and told my parents as soon as Sunday school ended, and I did it in front of the other parents. I thought I was doing the right thing by speaking up, but everyone treated me like I was the one that did something wrong.”

The fuck!

Now I wish I had killed her old man.

“The real kicker is the girl that he touched called me a sick monster for saying such a thing. She told the grown ups that I was lying. But it was true, and no one believed me.” She sighs, chewing on her lip for a moment before continuing. “I started having nightmares about what I’d seen. What I experienced. I kept telling my parents about the dream and about what I saw, begging them to believe me, but they just wouldn’t believe anything I had to say after that. They grew more and more concerned and instead of taking me to school one day, they took me to Holly River Estate. ”

I may not have killed her dad yesterday, but mark my fucking word, he’ll be dead by my hand soon.

“What happened there?” I dare ask, and she shrugs, like it’s no big deal.

“Exposure.”

“Exposure?” I frown, confused.

“I was forced to watch things no ten year old should watch. Things on TV. Magazines were shown to me. And then the real life stuff happened.” She sucks in a deep breath, like perhaps she’s feeling a little unwell. “Every time they exposed me to something, I would have a session with Dr Xavier the next day, and every time I told him what I saw, I was put in a dark closet for two days in his office.”

A deep growl rumbles in my chest, and this time it’s Jaxcen who reaches up, her nails dragging through my hair like she is trying to offer me comfort.

Fuck. She’s the one that should be offered the comfort.

“Eventually I realised the only way to stay out of the closet was to keep my mouth shut, so I did, and I’d hoped it would get me sent home. Instead the exposure increased from one session to two a day. Then there were the all day and night sessions. I was made to watch. Asked if I wanted to join in.” She shakes her head vigorously. “I never did but some of the other girls did.”

“Were there boys there?”

“Not patients. All the staff were men. All the patients were girls and women.”

Fucking sick fucks.

Now I wish I didn’t kill that fucker, and instead brought him back here and tortured him for days, weeks or even years.

“I don’t know why, but they eventually started drugging me.” She continues. “I didn’t notice at first. It was gradual. It was like they were doing it to see if it would coax me into participating in the… sessions.”

“And did you ever join in?” I ask, hoping she says no, but knowing it’s not her fault if she did. Their manipulation tactics were obviously well versed .

“No, I never joined in, but was always forced to watch, and something about that must have frustrated Dr Xavier because my sessions with him began to change and…” She sucks in another breath, and I can tell this time she’s fighting back tears.

“He used the date rape drug on you,” I answer for her and she nods quickly.

“I guess that’s what it was. I don’t want to talk about what he did.” She shakes her head again, her emotions taking over. “Please. I don’t want to relive that.”

“Okay, little mouse. That’s enough for today. Or forever if that’s what you prefer.” I assure her, because fuck, I wish I hadn’t insisted she relive that part. “I have one more question though.”

She visibly gulps, but nods. “Okay.”

“Why do you think you’re a monster?”