Page 33 of Make Them Bleed (Pretty Deadly Things #1)

Juno

Arrow smiles the moment he kicks my front door shut with his foot.

His mouth lands on mine, and the world snaps into a sharper, brighter focus.

My keys clatter to the floor. His jacket slides off his shoulders.

I fist the front of his shirt and tug him closer until there’s no polite space left between us.

“Hi,” I breathe against his lips.

“Hi,” he answers, voice low, like a secret meant only for me.

He backs me up until my spine meets the wall, his palm braced beside my head, the other hand at my waist. He doesn’t rush. He kisses me like he’s reading a map he already memorized, revisiting every turn. Heat spills through me, quick and sweet. When he pauses, his forehead rests against mine.

“You good?” he asks, and the question steadies me.

“Yes.” I tilt up, tasting coffee and autumn on him. “More.”

We move together, a messy, smiling tangle toward the couch. He catches my laugh with his mouth and I catch his name with my hands, splayed over the beat of his heart. He skims his knuckles along my jaw, reverent, then frames my face like I’m the only thing he plans on holding tonight.

“Juno,” he says, like it matters how he says it.

“Yeah?”

“I want you riding me all night long.”

I smile because I like his idea—so much that I rise slowly, letting him watch me unfurl.

He sits up, head tipped against the back of the couch, eyes locked on mine like he’s pinning me to the room with nothing but a look.

I start to move, a lazy sway of my hips to the rhythm of my own pulse, no music but the soft hush of our breathing.

“Yes,” he exhales—low, rough, wrecked—and heat skates over my skin.

One shoe thuds to the floor, then the other. “You like this?” I tease, fingertips tracing the curve of my waist.

His brown eyes go molten. “I fucking love it.”

The words light me from the inside. I keep going, slow and sure.

Fabric whispers as I gather my dress and peel it over my head.

My hair crackles free in a dark halo. A strap slides off my shoulder.

Goosebumps chase the path of my fingers.

I turn just enough to show him the line of my back, the sway of my hips, the hint of lace.

His throat works as his hands fist in the cushion like he’s holding himself in place.

“Keep going,” he murmurs.

I do. I climb into his lap, knees bracketing his hips, the last scrap of fabric a playful dare between us. Heat blooms where his palms land—claiming and reverent.

“Mine?” he breathes against my collarbone.

“Yours,” I whisper back, and the word sparks through me like lightning.

His hands settle, warm and sure, and my pulse trips. I thread my fingers into his hair and tug him closer until his mouth finds the place beneath my ear that makes my knees go unreliable.

“Juno,” he says there, the word a vow against my skin.

I rock once in his lap and feel the shiver that rips through him.

He bites back a curse, forehead tipping to mine like he needs the contact to stay sane.

I smooth my palms over his shoulders, down his chest, memorizing the heat of him through cotton, the way his muscle shifts under my touch.

He is all restraint and reverence, and I’m all spark and invitation.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he murmurs.

“I won’t,” I breathe. “Not tonight.”

He exhales like I just gave him oxygen. His mouth comes back to mine—deeper, hungrier—while his thumbs trace slow circles at my hips that steal coherent thought.

The last scrap of lace becomes an afterthought, a soft whisper to the floor.

He lifts me like I weigh nothing and eases me down on the couch, staying close, never breaking the kiss until he has to, just to look at me.

“Beautiful,” he says, like it’s a fact he’s filing away for later.

I pull him with me, greedy for the press of him, for the way his control frays when I drag my nails lightly down his back. He hisses through his teeth, then laughs under his breath before kissing a path along my throat, my collarbone, the center of my chest where my heartbeat stumbles for him.

“Stay,” I whisper.

“Always,” he answers, and somehow I believe him.

He pushes up for a quick second to remove his clothing, and once he’s done he presses his body to mine. He grabs my wrists, tying them together with his shirt he snatches from the floor.

“You’re really good at this,” I say as I try to wrangle my hands free.

He smiles. “You trust me, right?”

“Always.” I steal his own words.

His eyes bore into mine as he hooks one leg under the crook of his arm. He slams his dick inside me, and it feels like he’s sliding into home. He pins me in place, slamming his cock deeper inside me.

“Yes,” I chant over and over.

With one hand he holds my hands in place, above my head, tethered together by his shirt. With the other he grips my ass, my leg flung over his shoulder. The sound of each push and pull echoes throughout my apartment.

He keeps pounding as my body builds toward my own release. I chase it, trying my hardest to get there as quickly as I can. It’s a rush, for sure.

Arrow’s gaze anchors to mine, our foreheads pressed together as we trade the same thin ribbon of breath. With every slow blink, constellations burst behind my eyes. I am wildly, ruinously in love. I’m so far gone it feels a little unhinged.

But that’s a perfect way to describe us. We’re unhinged in the best possible way.

“I love you, Juno,” he says at the exact moment I think it. “I’ve always been in love with you.”

I want to touch him, but my hands are tied. I’m completely at his mercy, and I’m not afraid of that thought. “I love you too. I trust you, Arrow.” And I do. More than anyone. More than I trust myself.

He buries his head into the space between my neck and shoulder. He groans as he continues thrusting his dick deeper and deeper inside me. He lifts his head slightly, glancing down at my stomach.

“Look,” he whispers, and I glance down at my stomach. “That slight bulge in your abdomen is me.”

“Is that your dick?”

He flicks his eyes up at me for a quick second before glancing back down at my tummy. “Yes, that’s my dick and I’m showing you where I belong. So deep inside you. You’re mine.”

“Yes. More, please.”

He pulls his dick all the way out, and then slams back into me with all his force. The couch scrapes across the floor as he does, and I beg for more. He does it again, and I beg for him to fuck me harder.

On the next thrust, I come in an array of bright colors and vibrating cells. I try to catch my breath, but before I can, Arrow flips me over, wrapping a condom around his dick before I can even question where it came from.

“Suck,” he says, pushing a finger into my mouth.

I do as I’m told, and he pushes another finger into my mouth.

He adds a bit of his own saliva and then his finger rubs around my ass, and he coats his cock with my juices and the spit. He enters my forbidden hole, and I suck in a breath.

“Breathe, Juno. You have to relax. I promise I’ll go as slowly as you need me to.”

I relax, letting my muscles turn fluid which is easier to do after my orgasm. “Do it.”

He pushes in until he’s all the way in, and then stills so I can get use to the feeling of it. “You’re doing so fucking well.”

I breathe, willing my body to accept the intrusion. “Arrow, I feel so full.”

He rocks gently at first, hissing low through his mouth at the intense pleasure it must bring him. “Fuck, you’re incredible. So fucking tight.” He rocks again, and then one more time.

I get used to the feeling, and after a few more minutes it actually starts to feel really good. Not better than sex, but different. It’s all so foreign, and I’m digging it.

“Push in a little harder. I can take it,” I tell him, finally getting my hands free of his shirt.

He does as I ask, always. That’s my Arrow . “Juno, your ass feels too fucking good.” He pushes in a little harder until he’s fucking my ass. One hand squeezes one of my ass cheeks. The other runs up and down my back.

“Fuck me harder,” I shout, and neighbors be damned.

Arrow smacks my ass as he slams into me. “I’m so fucking close.”

My own body builds toward that inevitable release once more, and I push my own hand between my legs, finding my clit so I can get off in rhythm with him.

“That’s it. Fuck your pussy,” he tells me, and I do. I push in one finger, and then his hand is there, pushing in a finger inside my pussy as well.

“Oh god,” I moan out, the feeling of fullness nearly making me buckle. “I’m so full,” I shout.

He slides another finger inside me, and my eyes water from the feeling rushing through my bones.

I’ve never felt anything quite like this before in my life. “Yes. Oh, Arrow.”

“You like me fucking your ass? I want to feel your body come all over my fingers and my cock. Do it, Juno, come all over me. Give me your orgasm. I own it.”

“Ah, Arrow.” I’m so close, and one more push and it tips me over. Next thing I know my body’s tumbling toward its release. My orgasm greets me with an explosion. “Ahh,” is all I can get out as my body wracks with jerks and tremors.

“You’re so fucking amazing. I’m about to come. Fuck, Juno. Don’t ever leave me.” His own body jerks and jolts as his orgasm takes over. “Fuck,” he groans out long and hard. “I fucking love you.”

I smile, my body completely spent. “I love you too.”

I tell myself I’m just “tidying,” but the living room looks like a yard sale for ghosts—old shoeboxes open, tissue paper breathed on, Polaroids curling at the corners like they’re tired of holding their smiles.

Arrow ran off to Maddox an hour ago with a “bagels at eight, op later,” and I’ve been pacing ever since.

The closer we get, the sharper the fear gets—like walking toward a cliff with your eyes on the view and your toes feeling for the edge.

I want Arby’s murderer. I also want my heart rate to stop doing cartwheels. Both things are true.

I sit cross-legged on the rug and pry the lid off a box labeled ARBY / BACKUP JOY in my handwriting.

Receipts. A cracked compact. A keychain shaped like a tiny microphone.

Photo strips from a booth we once crammed into after too much pie.

Under that, a stack of 4x6 prints she must’ve ordered in a wave of nostalgia—glossy, too saturated, the kind of color that turns skin to peach and nights to amber.

Halfway down the stack, I freeze.

Arby stands under string lights—the warm, restaurant kind that make even cheap patios look romantic.

She’s turned three-quarters toward the camera, that old Renegade jacket slouched off one shoulder.

Her hair is blonde. Not the cotton-candy pink she wore for years; the original icy blonde she switched back to a few weeks before she died. The timing slaps me in the chest.

She doesn’t look happy. Her smile is there, technically, but her jaw is tight, eyes not meeting the lens. Her hand is curled, not quite a fist, at her side.

Next to her: a man. Broad shoulders in a dark jacket. He’s facing away, head turned toward something out of frame. All I get is the sweep of short dark hair, a watchband, a sliver of jawline. No face. No easy answers.

The background is a smear of clues: a menu with only the tail of a word visible—“…reed”—and a matchbook on the table catching a glint of gold foil. The image isn’t sharp enough to read it. It could be nothing. It could be everything.

I press my thumb to Arby’s mouth on the photo, like I can smooth the tension out of paper. “Who were you with,” I whisper. “And why does your smile look like a held breath?”

My phone is already in my hand before I’ve decided. I snap a clean shot of the print on the floor, then another close-up of the menu corner and the man’s watch. I flip the photo, check the back—she actually dated it. Three weeks before. My stomach dips.

I text Arrow.

Found this in an old box. Blonde hair… a few weeks before. She doesn’t look happy. Can you pull anything?

I attach the pictures and hover my finger over the send button. A tiny voice in my head says you’re close, and I hit it.

Bubbles pop up almost immediately— working is so much his native language that I can hear his brain booting.

I set the original print beside the others. The room goes quiet the way rooms do when possibility enters. I’m scared, yes. Scared of what this means, scared of who that back-of-head might belong to, scared of how close the ground is getting under my feet.

But I also feel the smallest click of the puzzle shifting. A photo is proof that a moment happened. Arrow will say metadata and compare menu fonts and ask if the wristwatch is a clue or a coincidence. I will color another mandala when the panic spikes.

And between those two things, maybe we’ll drag one more truth into the light.