Page 50 of Barons of Decay (Royals of Forsyth University #10)

D amon

She’s quiet the whole time we’re walking back to the SUV, her dress rustling with every step, dragging in the dirt. The hem’s a mess, but she doesn’t seem to care. I’m sure she doesn’t plan on keeping it anyway, not after everything that happened tonight.

The crazy thing is that the wilder she looks, the rattier that dress gets, the more I feel like I can see the real Baroness. The true Arianette Hexley. A woman made of bone and flesh, trauma and memory, who can charm a feral cat with her presence.

Tossing the empty trap in the back, I slam the door harder than necessary. She flinches.

Great.

I’m not used to bringing people out here.

Hell, I’m not used to bringing people anywhere.

I’ve been operating on my own for a long time.

But I knew I needed out of that house, and I figured she did too.

I guess I felt like maybe showing her something alive and small and innocent might make her feel less alone. I don’t know.

Christ. It’s been a long day, and tomorrow is going to be worse.

I start the engine, the lights skimming over the river as I turn and shift us back onto the road.

She sits with her hands in her lap, eyes glassy and distant.

The kind of look I used to see on guys after bad phone calls in prison–when the outside world slipped through the cracks and reminded them they were still inside and not getting out any time soon.

The SUV rumbles over gravel, then pavement, then we start over the long, dark stretch of Forsyth backroads. She hasn’t looked at me once.

"You're thinking too loud," I say finally.

She blinks. Turns toward me, like she forgot I was here. "Sorry."

"Didn’t say it was a bad thing. Just loud."

Silence again, and then she shifts in her seat, pulling at the seatbelt and then the neckline of her dress like it’s suffocating her. Her tits look incredible in that dress, all round and swollen, and I feel a sense of pride knowing my little barbells tweak against the fabric here and there.

“You good?” I ask, glancing at her as the headlights sweep through another empty bend in the road.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “Everything’s too tight.”

Her voice breaks, a fray at the edges. I exhale through my nose and roll down the windows an inch. Cold air fills the cabin.

“Better?”

She nods, but it’s not the cold she’s fighting.

“I hate this dress,” she blurts. “It’s like… a costume. Like my body’s not even mine in it.”

“You want me to rip it off right now, doll baby? I can make a real scene for whoever drives past.”

She gives a half laugh, but it dies fast. Her fingers twist, her nerves rising as we get closer to home.

"I've always felt like that," she says. “Like my body belonged to everyone but me. My nannies and teachers: they were the ones picking out my clothes and commenting on my posture. The dance instructors wanting more from my body than I could actually give.” She swallows.

“Everything with my uncle today felt both awful and familiar.”

I grip the wheel tighter. My knuckles pop. It’s the kind of thing you want to fix by breaking something. Or someone.

“I keep thinking, this wedding, this marriage…” Her breath shakes. “Is it just more of the same? Just another cage?”

I don’t say anything. Not right away. Because what the fuck am I supposed to say to that?

We do own her. Me and Hunter. The King. She belongs to us, those are the rules in this city, but I also understand, because I’ve been in that place where my body wasn’t my own.

The prison guards, the warden, they all had dibs.

I understand the lack of autonomy and how it starts to chip away at who you really are.

The first stoplight we hit flashes yellow then red. I roll to a stop and look around, tense. We’re too exposed here. The kind of place someone could see us, or worse, recognize the SUV.

She shifts uncomfortably beside me. I can feel her body wound tight.

“Fuck this,” I mutter and roll through the red, checking the side streets. Nothing. No one. Just dark storefronts and flickering lights. We drive on.

I glance at her again, the way she’s practically folding in on herself. Like she’s shrinking. Like she wants to disappear.

And it hits me. Not just the weight of what she said, but what she didn’t say.

That she’s still trying to hold it together.

That her nervous system really did fry hours ago, and she’s just floating now, barely tethered.

We’ve been here once before, and there was one thing that brought her back to the ground.

“I mean…" I exhale and rake a hand through my hair. “You don’t always have to be used, you know, you can do the using.”

She blinks. “What?”

I don’t look at her. I just keep driving. “Remember when we got ice cream?”

Her head turns slowly. “Yeah.”

“I know what it’s like. Feeling like you have no control. Like people take and take and take. But if you need to, if it helps–” My throat’s dry. I cough once. “If it helps to suck my cock like you did on the way home from the river, you can.”

She stares at me. Those brown eyes wide. Lips parted.

I smirk, but it’s weak. A front. “I mean, I’m not gonna pretend it won’t be hard for me, having that warm little mouth around me.

I’m walking around with a loaded gun in my pants half the time you’re near me.

But this…” I shrug. “This wouldn’t be about that.

You wanna feel like you’ve got a choice, I’ll give you one.

No strings. No pressure. No demands. Just you taking what you need, like you did last time. ”

“No strings,” she repeats. Even in the dark, I can see the embarrassment on her face, but in her voice I hear the interest.

“If that’s what you need, I’m giving it to you.”

The silence after is thick. Her breathing getting shallow, faster.

“You’re serious.”

“As a fucking heart attack.”

And then she shifts. Slowly. Like she’s testing gravity. Like she can’t believe I’m real.

Her hand slips over the console. Rests lightly on my thigh.

“Okay,” she says. “I want to.”

I exhale, long and slow, adjusting my grip on the wheel as she leans over and unbuckles her belt.

She’s hesitant at first, still unsure, and I almost help her, but then her hand presses to my zipper.

Her fingers tremble a little as she pulls it down, pulls me out.

I’m hard, just talking about this got me thick, but I don’t apologize.

This is about her. She needs it, in a way that I don’t really understand.

Her head lowers into my lap, and I keep my eyes on the long, dark road, with nothing but pines and shadows ahead. I adjust my seat back an inch, giving her room while keeping one hand on the wheel, and the other braced against the door, jaw clenched like a vise.

She touches me with careful hands, like she’s holding something delicate, which makes it worse. I bite back a groan when her lips part and the warm, wet heat of her mouth surrounds me.

Fuck .

This is a bad idea.

I use every ounce of strength to keep my hips on the seat.

She takes me in slowly, inch by inch, lip catching on the piercings I have threaded on the underside.

Her eyes flutter closed like it soothes her, like this is the only thing in the world that makes sense.

Her hands curl around the base, steadying herself.

I can feel her breath in sync with mine.

The hum of her contentment melts into the rhythm of tires on the blacktop.

I keep my eyes on the road, but it's getting harder to focus. My thighs tense. Every nerve in me lights up like a match. Still, I don’t move. I don’t thrust. I don’t take . This isn’t about that.

She’s still, barely moving, holding me in her mouth, slick and warm. Her cheeks hollow as she suckles gently. I run my hand down her head, smoothing her hair in the same slow rhythm that she holds me between her lips.

“Good girl,” I manage through clenched teeth. My voice is tight, rough. “Take what you need.”

She hums at the praise, and the wheel jerks. I nearly slam into a telephone pole. I grip the wheel harder. Veins popping in my forearms. I breathe through my nose, steady and low, while her tongue flattens along the piercings, pulling a hiss from my throat.

I could come in seconds. But I don’t.

I won’t.

This is a test, I tell myself. I’ve edged her more than once, drawing her as close as possible before taking it away.

She liked it, and fuck, I think I like this too–the closeness without chasing something bigger.

The soothing feel of her warm mouth around me.

It’s calm and gentle. Her hand squeezes around the base, like she wants me closer.

We drive like that for miles–her body relaxing, the tension melting off of her, while I white-knuckle restraint. Although, after a while, I settle into the rhythm of it, the soothing nature. I’m less on a hair trigger and just enjoying the sensation.

She’s so quiet, so still, that I think she may have fallen asleep.

It’s not until the trees thin and the lights of Forsyth appear on the horizon that she shifts, like she senses that we’re back in the real world.

She pulls back slowly, giving me one suckle of the tip.

There’s a tug on the final piercing that I feel deep in my spine.

Finished, she rises up, lips slick, eyes glazed, tucking and zipping me back into my pants.

When I glance over again, she’s got her hands folded in her lap, but they’re no longer tense and twisting. No, she sits there in that ruined dress, lips a little puffy, like nothing happened.

I exhale, aware that my heart pounds like I ran a race. My cock aches, twitching behind wool. But I don’t complain, knowing she looks calmer. More here . Her back is straighter, chin higher. Her lips are swollen, and she’s breathing steady again.

We don’t talk the rest of the way back. There’s no need. She used me, and I let her, and somehow, that fixed something for her. Gave her control in a world that keeps taking it.

When I park outside the House of Night, it’s quiet, no sign of what’s going to happen in the next twenty-four hours. I hop out, walk around and help her out of the passenger seat. The light over the back door illuminates our way, and we enter the house together.

It’s not until we’re inside standing in front of her bedroom door that I turn to her, brush a stray curl from her cheek, and speak. “Feel better?”

Arms wrapped around her upper body, she nods. “Thank you for letting me do that.”

“We’re in this together,” I tell her, “our fates sealed during the Hunt. There are going to be times we need to rely on one another.”

She looks a little apprehensive, like I’m going to demand to come inside and get repaid for being nice. I’d meant what I said, no strings. Not tonight.

“Good luck tomorrow,” I tell her, straightening up, even though the words feel strange in my mouth. Like I’m sending her off to war, or into something holy, which I guess I probably am.

She nods, clutching her arms a little tighter. I could offer to stay, I could force it, but that’s not who we are tonight.

I brush a final glance over her, messy, that tattered dress hanging off her small frame.

Tomorrow she’ll belong to the King.

But after that?

After that, the rules change.

I head back to my room with that thought burning low in my gut–like a promise I’ve waited too long to keep. Soon I’ll claim Arianette. Not just with my needles and fingertips, but deeper and more lasting. I’ll make her mine.