Page 215 of Soul So Dark

“I told you a long time ago, Bostwick’s just a bratty kid with an inferiority complex. If only you’d just listen to me,” Alex teases.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” I give him a playful nudge. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“And as long as you are, no one is ever going to get close enough to hurt you again.”

I glance over my shoulder to the door, at my duffel bag sitting on the floor, and remember my secret; the one that Alex probably won’t like but I haven’t found a way to explain.

“I need to tell you something.” I swallow hard, preparing to out myself. “Something else about Bowen.”

“I know what you’re doing,” he says without missing a beat. “I know you play games with him, and I know why you’re doing it.”

“You do?” I knit my brow. “How?”

Alex grins up at me. “Did you honestly think that Aiden wouldn’t tell me?”

Aiden…what a tattle-tale.

“Are you mad?” I ask.

“Well, I don’tlikeit,” he admits, “I wanted to stop you, but I remember when everything happened with Evie. I rememberyouand what it did to you. We all know Bowen did it, but none of us were going to be able to prove it. But, now, I think you might be able to. And now that you live here with me, I have other ways of making sure you’re safe.”

“Like what?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he smirks.

“I bet Aiden didn’t tell you what I need from you right now. Evenhedoesn’t know that.”

“Must be pretty good then.”

“Bowen said he would show me something he took from Evie,” I lean forward and gently kiss him, “but only if I pay him first.”

Alex runs his hands up my arms, pulling me closer. “Pay him what?” he asks, kissing my throat.

“He wants a video of Riley—gamer boy Riley—fucking his girlfriend,” I hover over his mouth, teasing his lips with my tongue, “ending with a non-consensual cream pie.”

Bowen is vile. And what he said he did to Evie was vile. But I’ll do anything if it means getting justice for her. I’ll do anything if it means destroying Bowen, even sending him a sex tape while pretending to be someone else just to lull him into a false sense of security.

“That’s fucked up,” Alex hooks his fingers in my shirt and peels it over my head, “and it sounds absolutely amazing.”

“You’ll do it?” I ask as he drops my shirt on the floor.

“Yes,” he doesn’t waver, “because this is war, and it’ll just make that moment when he realizes how fucked he is that much more satisfying. And because you’re mine, and I’m yours, and he can either watch this on loop while he’s on death row, or for eternity in hell.”

With a grin, I slide off his lap and reach for his phone. I hold it out for him to unlock it, open the camera, and then mount it against his monitors at just enough of an angle to keep our bodies in the frame from the waist down. Then I slide my pants down my hips and let them fall to my ankles before I pick up the controller and hand it to Alex.

“Keep playing the game,” I instruct, stepping out of my pants and climbing back into his lap.

Alex peers around my body at the phone screen, swiveling his chair to find the right angle that obscures his tattoo. Then he plants his feet on the floor and takes hold of the controller at the small of my back.

I lean away slightly so he can see the monitor. “You better not die, or I’ll stop.”

“Do your worst. I’ll still win, like always.”

Slowly, I slide my hand into his sweatpants, curling my fingers around his cock, rigid against my groin. Freeing it from his pants, I begin stroking him as he resumes the game. The graphics flash in his eyes, already ablaze as I raise up and slide his tip over my slick skin.

“If your name is Riley tonight, does that make me AJ?” I whisper in his ear as I position him at my entrance.

“You alwayswishedyou could be me,” he replies, not looking away from the screen.