Page 24

Skylar

Scarlett’s shoveling food into her mouth like a starved woman, as if I didn’t just feed her a gallon of cum last night.

My eyes stay glued to her lips like a moth to a flame, because I know exactly how that mouth feels wrapped around me. I know the texture and taste of her tongue, and I know the shape her lips twist into when she orgasms.

I know what her blood tastes like.

“Skylar, baby, you’re awfully quiet tonight.” My mom’s voice pulls me out of the fantasy replaying in my head from yesterday. “Did you party a little too hard last night?”

She doesn’t know the half of it. Only three people at this table know exactly what happened at midnight, even if one is unaware of the full extent.

Scarlett looks up for a second—apparently curious to hear the answer to my mother’s pestering question—but returns her attention to the plate in front of her when our eyes inevitably meet.

I haven’t stopped staring since she sat down.

She’s not giving anything away, but I’m dying to know how she feels about what went down. We only had a few uninterrupted minutes of post-coital bliss before she redressed and ran from the room without a single word .

Julian and I didn’t know what to make of it; we were confused, because it seemed like everything went fucking perfectly in the end. She finally let us have her, and then she left us.

The same way she left me after I had her as myself.

I turn my gaze to Mom, blood suddenly boiling in frustration. “Nothing special. The boys had a party at the frat house, we just got back pretty late and haven’t had much sleep.”

She smiles sweetly but doesn’t press further, thankfully willing to let it go without making a big deal of it.

“What about you, Red?”

My eyes shoot to Julian across the table, trying to shut him up before he does more damage. He knows she hates that name, but for some reason he’s trying to fuck with her. Now is not the fucking time. It’s too soon, and she’s clearly still processing it.

Scarlett glowers at him in response, her face bearing a striking resemblance to the one she wore last night when Jules called me out for the note in her bedroom.

How could I forget? She was so angry she bit my fucking dick.

I’m not into the bratty shit, but fuck. Seeing the fire in her eyes really gets me going and fuels my own explosive desire. I want her so badly it hurts.

In similar fashion to what happened last night, she completely ignores him and excuses herself from the table to disappear upstairs.

I kick the fucker under the table, but he just smirks back at me. He’s going to ruin everything, and I’ve never regretted it more than I do now that I let him be a part of this.

For hours after dinner, Scarlett doesn’t leave her room. Julian and I stay downstairs after Mom and Gene go up to bed, but she still hasn’t come down.

The porch feels empty without her, and I hate that I’ve gotten so used to us sharing nightly smokes. Her absence shouldn’t feel this heavy.

A nasty thought pops into my mind. It’s cruel, but I never claimed to be a saint. Pulling the burner phone from my pocket, I type out a message and send it, ignoring Julian’s blatant hovering as he tries to read the screen.

“What’s that about?” he asks, nodding to the phone. “I didn’t even bring my mask with me. Did you?”

It takes a minute to process the words, my attention completely focused on the three dots that keep flashing at the bottom of the screen before disappearing again.

Five minutes go by with no response, so I text again.

I tuck the phone away before lighting up a new cigarette. Now, we wait. “You’ll see.”

Julian looks annoyed, clearly frustrated by my reluctance to explain. I would tell him, but I don’t want to jinx it. If I’ve pegged her correctly, she should be storming down the stairs in a matter of seconds.

But she doesn’t storm out.

The glass door slides open slowly, and out steps a red-faced Scarlett, tears fresh in her eyes as she walks sheepishly towards us on the opposite side of the deck. I only glance up for a moment before turning back to Julian as if we were engaged in an important conversation.

Let her come to me.

I’m a fucking asshole, and it’s probably worse that I let Jules read the texts over my shoulder, but I can’t stand not being around her anymore.

I need to feel her presence and her fire.

I need to feel like she’s mine .

Whatever I have to do to make that happen is worth it to me. I don’t care about the consequences.

“Skylar,” she starts, huddling up against my shoulder to whisper in my ear, “could we watch movies again in the living room?”

I turn to her and feign bafflement at the appearance of her blotchy skin and swollen eyes. My hand rises to cup her cheek as I thumb away a loose tear. Thankfully, she leans into my touch, quickly closing her eyes to hide when I ask, “Scarlett, what’s wrong? What happened?”

Her lids open to reveal two golden-caramel irises staring up at me, glazed and wet. It only takes a second before she shamefully locks them shut again. I’m not proud to see her looking so distraught at my hand—I’d rather it be because I fucked that look out of her—but it means I have her wrapped around my finger.

I don’t know how else to deal with the spiraling thoughts I have about her. What’s even worse is that I have no idea what’s going on inside her head. She’s been the model ‘bigger person’ between the two of us since Thanksgiving when I opened up about my feelings. I mean, I guess I didn’t straight up tell her how I feel, but it was implied: I want her, I want to share something that’s worth a damn, and I’ve wanted it for a while.

She rejected me so nimbly, like my feelings were a joke she’d discovered the punchline to on her own. She all but spat in my face with it before crawling back just because Broody threatened her. She proved that I’m no more than a warm body to use for protection when she’s lonely or scared .

“Scarlett,” I repeat, holding her round, puffy cheeks between both of my palms. “Answer me. What’s wrong?”

She opens her eyes, and I wish she hadn’t. Tears pour down her face as she resists my comfort, shaking her head in denial. “I can’t tell you.”

The only thing left to do is channel my inner Broody . If she’s so scared of him—of me—my only hope is to show her I can be worse.

I slide one hand down to wrap around her throat, applying pressure to her pulse point with my thumb. My other hand travels back to tangle in her hair, using a tight grip to pull her head back in a demanding embrace. She needs to understand how fragile she is in my hands. I could do so much to her if I wanted to, but she needs to be afraid that I will .

“I won’t ask again. Tell me, now.”

Scarlett’s brow furrows, and it’s a good thing I know exactly how to read her. She’s comparing me to them . “You swear, you don’t know about Eden?” she asks.

Her eyes flick back and forth between my own, waiting for me to break—waiting for me to reveal that I’m who she’s long suspected me to be. But that won’t happen.

She can never find out who we are.

I glance away for a second and notice something peeking through the collar of her shirt. Releasing her throat, I trail my fingers down and stretch the fabric to reveal what’s underneath.

Two arched rows of tiny horizontal bruises line the space between her neck and shoulder. I brush my thumb lightly across the skin there, my mind circling back to last night when I bit her.

I’d already been inside her twice on my own, but Julian’s punishment turned out to be more than I could have hoped for. We didn’t plan it that way. Really, we didn’t have any sort of plan going into the night—aside from the restraints. As a matter of fact, we were late to the fucking party because we couldn’t decide on how to approach the situation, only settling on the fact that we’d have to play it by ear .

When we found her with Dario , all hell broke loose. I’ve never seen him act so impulsively, but when he ripped her off the guy’s lap, I knew she was done for. I wasn’t about to get in his way and risk ending up on the wrong side of his knife. I saw it in his eyes; he’s not letting her go, not anymore.

Not after last night.

I don’t share well, and he knows that. I was clear that I didn’t want him in this, but he convinced me anyway, and now we’re caught in this fucking predicament. I want her for myself. There’s no denying that last night was a blast, and we’ve shared women before, but this isn’t some trashy college hookup.

This is Scarlett McKenna we’re talking about.

Scarlett, the woman wearing an imprint of my teeth marks. The woman who chose me twice without me having to play a game of chase. Scarlett, the woman who makes my blood boil and my skin set ablaze whenever she’s around me. The woman who moans so perfectly for me, like a siren singing her song of death.

She’s got her claws in me.

I won’t give her up for anything or anyone.

“Is that who did this?” My thumb presses gently into her neck, turning the teeth marks from red to white as the color leaves her skin. “Who is Eden?”

I’m such a fuck.

Her eyelids flutter as she strains to hold our gaze through the tears, ultimately closing them as her shoulders slump in defeat. “No,” she whispers.

“Then who?”

“I-I can’t—”

Her teeth click when I thrust my palm against her chin and wrap my fingers around the bottom of her jaw, shutting her mouth. “Either you tell me now, or I find out on my own. I bet Penelope would be more than happy to explain what the fuck’s got you so worked up,” I warn.

I wouldn’t talk to Penelope if my life depended on it, but she doesn’t know that. Her eyes light up with panic, and she digs her nails into my wrist until I let her go .

“No! Skylar, please. I don’t want to say, it doesn’t matter. It d—” When I pull on her hair and threaten to silence her again, she finally explains. “It’s this club we go to, Eden’s Deliverance. It’s-it’s a sex club, alright?”

Tell me something I don’t know.

“And?” I raise an eyebrow, trying to act unimpressed so she feels more comfortable sharing without fear of judgment.

“That’s where I was last night when this happened.” She tries to look down at her shoulder, but I don’t give her an inch, locking my fingers tightly in her hair. “I was with somebody. I have been for a little while, I’m sorry.”

Her chin drops in shame, but I press my thumb underneath and tilt it back. She’s apologizing, and I’m so genuinely surprised by it, my feigned indifference almost slips.

“You don’t need to be sorry, Red. You made it clear that we weren’t exclusive,” I point out, but when I see the hurt in her eyes, I deflect. “Did he do something else to you?”

Fuck, I think we really broke her last night. Suddenly, she bursts into a violent sob, the tears flowing too quickly for me to wipe them away.

“He got my phone number somehow, and now…and now…” It takes a minute before she calms down enough to catch her breath. “Now he’s threatening me. And you. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, I just wanted to try something new, and everything was fine until it wasn’t, and now—”

I can’t handle the crying, I can’t handle the ranting. I didn’t want this. “Stop. Scarlett, stop,” I say, pulling her closer to wrap my arms around her. One hand cradles the back of her head while I lightly stroke her hair, and the other is pressed against her back, keeping her tight against my chest. “Don’t go there anymore. Don’t see him.”

She nestles her cheek into the warmth of my sweater and whispers, “He’ll come for me. He’ll hurt me again, or he’ll go after you.”

“Nobody’s coming after me,” I assure. “And nobody’s coming after you, I promise. I’ll make sure of it. ”

“He knows where I live, though. He knows things about me. On my birthday, he broke into my room and almost killed me.”

That gets Julian’s attention.

His head shoots up, and for a second, I had forgotten he was even here. The scowl on his face proves otherwise; he’s been listening the whole time. I never told him about what happened on her birthday.

Oops.

“You know Julian and I live off campus too. We can help. Nothing is going to happen to you, I swear it. But you have to cut this off before you get hurt. Don’t go to that place anymore. It’s clearly not safe.” I know she’s considering it when she wraps her arms around my waist to hug me back. “Come on, let’s set up the couches. We’ll stay with you.”

I turn to Jules with a hard stare, making it clear that he’d better shut his mouth and follow my lead. He may have been in charge last night, but that’s not the case anymore. This is my house and my girl.

“Yeah,” he says, meeting my gaze, however defiantly. “Yeah, Red. We’ll help out.”

Leading her into the house with my hand on the small of her back, we never break contact—not even when we reach the living room. I tuck in behind her on the couch, throwing my arm around her waist while she curls her body into mine.

Julian watches us from a couch across the room, throwing knives at me with just his eyes. He’s jealous, but there’s nothing he can do to change the facts of the situation. She’s mine.