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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

VALE

“Why do you do that?”

Jace watches me surgically extract a tomato slice from my club sandwich.

“These things,” I dangle it over my plate, “are gross. They’ve got seedy jelly in it and are not fit for human consumption.”

“But you’ll bury your face in a bowl of salsa?” He laughs. “Don’t lie. I’ve seen you do it.”

“One time, and it was super fresh, and I had too many margaritas.”

I scarf down a big bite of my sandwich, then burp my compliments to the chef.

“Manners much?” Jace deadpans.

“I’m starving,” I answer. “Whooping a man’s ass builds an appetite.”

Sitting on the stainless-steel table of the service area for the kitchen, I swing my legs while Jace leans, propped beside me, arms folded over his chest.

He’s not in his usual dark suit. So, it’s hard hiding all that muscle stuffed into grey golf pants and a white golf shirt. Like a tube of biscuits, I’m waiting for his biceps to explode.

“So what now?” I whisper.

“We wait.”

“Wait for what? Gunfire? Those POW , BIF , BLAM cartoon fight onomatopoeias to appear out of thin air?”

Jace shakes his head. “God, you’re gonna make this dangerously fun.”

“Make what fun?”

He doesn’t answer.

“So now you take a vow of silence?”

“We all did.”

“Who’s we?”

Again, I’m talking to a silent mountain of muscle.

“Can I tickle it out of you?”

“Don’t,” he advises. “Because one, I’m cursed with ticklish spots. Two, my brothers tortured me over it growing up. And three, Nash will kill me if you touch me.”

“But it would be me touching you . It would be my fault.”

“Again, Nash will kill me .”

“How well do you know him?”

“Like a brother.”

“How well do you know him…” I’m probing. I’m dying to know because if I can crack any nut, it’s Jace. “As a king ?”

“Vale, don’t ask or use that word.” His husky voice seethes, “Don’t let your mouth dig your grave deeper.”

“Uh! Don’t tempt me with threats like that!” I rant. “Now I really want to know because I know it’s something kinky, and I’m not opposed. Hell, we work in a sex shop. You give me sex toy reviews on the daily. You’ve been my wingman in a sex club. You’ve held my hair when I threw up, and I’ve smelled your neck, helping you pick colognes.” Pause. “You smell yummy today, by the way.” His brow twitches. “We’ve worked together for over two years, and I know you love me in a sweet way, so tell me, what does it mean to be a king?”

“It’s not kinky; it’s sacred,” he scolds. “And fuck…” He shakes his head, “Quit trying to make me talk.”

“Sacred? What do you me?—”

“Vale,” he warns, “I’m supposed to protect you, and that’s about to involve me locking you in that pantry to protect you from your mouth.”

“I…”

I’m interrupted by Jace’s phone buzzing in his back pocket. He takes it out, checks it, and grabs my arm. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“To see your king,” he hisses while leading me down a hall.

With a tap-tap, tap, tap-tap-tap on the manager’s office door, it swings open, and I gasp.

It’s Nash. Shirtless. Sweat glistening off his muscles. Breath huffing from his lungs. Murder in his eyes. Blood dripping from his hands.

“Give her to me,” he growls at Jace, who lets go of my arm, only to have Nash yank me by my other arm into the room.

“She’s all yours,” Jace says most tenderly as he closes the door behind him.

“What happ?—”

I don’t get to ask the question.

Nash presses a bloody finger to my lips. “King? Is that who you want me to be for you, poison? Your king? Or is that a cute nickname because you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about?”

This is the beast. This is the side of Nash he warned me about. I can smell his victim in the air. Sweat. Blood. Tears. Piss.

It’s in a puddle across the room on the floor.

Nash made Turner bleed and piss himself.

“I took his eye for looking at you and a piece of his lip for talking to you,” he snarls. “No one disrespects my woman.”

The backdoor to the manager’s office is cracked open, a beam of sunlight streaming in. That’s where they took what’s left of Turner. It’s the only light in the otherwise dark room.

And I know.

I’m in a room with a beast.

“I know what I’m talking about,” I answer, proudly tasting the metallic blood on his finger. “I want you to be my king.”

It’s the beast in Nash who almost slams me against the door. It’s the monster in him who smears the blood off his hands, framing my face with the evidence of his violence. It’s the savage in him, lifting me, pinning my body against the door before he reaches, ripping his zipper down. He’s an animal in heat, about to breed me, freeing his cock, before jerking my panties aside.

“Spit in it.” He holds his hand under my lips, and proudly, I look into his merciless eyes and drool for him, letting it pool in his palm.

With anyone else, I’d be terrified. I’d be triggered. I’d be fighting back, but not with Nash. Faced with his force, I don’t flinch. Deep down, all I feel is safe.

He’s my monster. He’s my beast.

He coats his cock with my spit before wedging his fat tip into my entrance. I know he wants to thrust brutally. But he doesn’t. He growls, slowly driving into me, but it’s me. I’m the one who feels like a beast, too.

“Fuck me like a king fucks.” I wrap my legs around him, sinking my nails into his back. “Make me take it like a queen.”

With his teeth, he holds my neck. He’s marking me, bruising me, and I’ll wear it with pride. Like an animal, he fucks me against the door, his hands gripping my thighs so hard, they’ll be bruised, too.

He doesn’t speak. His erotic mouth is gone, seized by the beast inside him. The only sounds are his grunts, my groans, and the force of his body slamming mine against the door.

“Whoa, dude.” A voice in the hallway outside marvels. “You hear that?”

Our audible audience makes Nash thrust harder, stretching my tender sex so much I’m moaning for it.

“Fuck yeah.” Another voice exclaims. “They’re fucking like animals.”

“Fuck off,” Nash growls, and they listen. Their sounds retreat into the bathroom, the door slamming closed.

“You want this, Vale?” He pulls his length out before ramming it back inside me, making me cry out. “You want to be my queen?”

“Yes.” I press my forehead to his, sweating and furrowed.

“Play with your clit,” he growls. “Come on my cock, and prove you like it like this, too.”

Once I reach down, gliding my fingertip over my sensitive hood, I shudder. I’m going to come. I know it. Nash knows it.

He lifts me higher, giving me another angle, his cock rubbing that sweetest spot inside me. “Oh fuck,” I huff. “Oh fuck, that’s it.”

“Do it,” he demands. “Fucking come so I can fill you with mine.”

Pressing down on my nub, I rub hard, matching the maddening intensity of the tender spot Nash is claiming inside me, the dual sensations so intense. The urge is overwhelming. It’s like I have to pee, but I won’t. I’m coming.

“Oh fuck!” I praise, biting his shoulder while I shatter, and he buries himself to the hilt inside me, and we don’t move. I feel his cock jerk, his bite sinking again into my neck. I feel my walls clenching to claim him, to make him growl with my flesh gnashed between his teeth. We let the violent release, the intense connection, the orgasmic pleasure take us together, our breaths and bodies fused.

“Nash,” I sigh in awe, in love.

I expect him to say something like he always does. Something tender that sews the pieces of me back together. Only he can.

But he doesn’t.

He pulls out, and I drip. He lowers my feet to the floor, and he kneels. Swinging my legs over his shoulders, he doesn’t say a word. I’m braced against the door as he spreads me open, burying his face in my pulsing pussy as he groans, feasting on our fuck.

“Oh god,” I moan. He’s going to make me do it. He’s going to make me come again. He’s going to leave me no doubt he’s an animal.

He jerks off to it. His cock is still hard. He’s going to orgasm again. Yes, men can do it. He may not ejaculate, but he wants this. He’s starving for it. It makes him come, eating my pussy out, so I sink my hands into his hair and force him to do it.

“Yes,” I stammer. “Eat my pussy. Drink our cum. Treat me like a fucking queen.”

He grazes his teeth over my clit, his fist pumping hard. Barely, he bites it, and I scream, my thighs shaking over his shoulders. I stare down, watching him glaring back at me like a feral dog, his muscles tense and twitching as he clasps his puckered lips around my clit and sucks so hard I have to come. I have no choice. I cry out, glossing his face with my lust, and it makes him grunt, rolling his eyes like he’s coming again, too. His thighs quiver until he stops pumping his cock.

Shaking, my body sags. I slump against the door, and he catches me. He lays me on the floor where I know he just violently tortured an evil man.

“Open your mouth,” he commands.

I part my lips for him. I let him mount over me, his cock still rigid while he drools the taste of us over my waiting tongue.

I stare back at his shadowed face and proudly swallow while he says, “That’s what it would be like if you were my queen.”

Wait.

Would? If? Were?

Not will? When? Are?

I see it in his solemn eyes. The beast is gone, and Nash is here.

He’s telling me…

It’s over.