Page 43 of The Villain's Beast

He humped me faster, harder, more frantic, then Gideon sank his teeth into my neck hard enough to draw blood and a wet heat soaked through his pants as he went still. I wanted him to stay, tried to hold us together, but with his orgasm, the momentpassed. He extricated himself from my arms and sat up, that soft gorgeous hair falling loose and tangled over his face.

“You deserve nothing from me,” he said, climbing to his feet and leaving me alone on my back, leaves in my hair, blood and cum smeared across the rest of me.

I closed my eyes, scrubbing my hand down my face and trying to pretend it wasn’t tears I wiped from the bottom of my lash line. The cruel truth was, if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change a single thing about the course of our lives. Hurting Gideon then was the only thing that allowed him to be alive now, his cum hot and sticky against my hip.

And that…

That was worth everything.

Chapter 30

Daren

Luca lay on my bed, wearing my shirt, and it was almost like we’d time-traveled back to the year before when everything was so much less serious than it felt now.

“I missed this,” I said softly, tracing a swirl across the jut of his hip bone. His cock lay spent against his thigh, freshly cleaned from the shower we’d taken together after Fletcher took off.

“I don’t want to get used to it again,” he said, scrunching his nose. “Not yet.”

I sighed, desperate to lay down beside him but not trusting the house to alert me to Fletcher’s eventual return.

“Tell me about him,” Luca said, rolling onto his side and propping his head in his hand. “Tell me about this place.”

Never once did it cross my mind that Luca would be asking for underhanded reasons. For as much double-crossing as there had been and would continue to be in our lives, I didn’t doubt the sincerity of him, the truth of us.

“Fletcher isn’t as bad as everyone thinks he is,” I said with a half-shrug. “He’s cold, but he’s not cruel.”

“Have you fucked him?”

I shook my head. “I tried a few times, but he’s not interested in me. The first time he ever paid attention to me naked was when you were beside me.”

Luca’s cheeks turned pink. “Why didn’t he fuck me tonight?”

“Are you jealous?” I asked, pinching his hip. “Are you left wanting? He came on your face, remember?”

Luca’s eye was still tinged red around the corners, in case he’d forgotten.

“He does look like he fucks rough,” Luca said softly.

“You saw the state of Bellamy when we met up for the trade.”

“I’ve been trying to sleep with Gideon since I got to the house,” Luca confessed, rolling onto his back.

This conversation was one we’d had before, but only in hypotheticals and long before either of us had truly understood the depths of the rivalry between the Thorns and the Roses.

“That feels useful.”

“Useful and selfish,” he said, giving me a coy grin. “He’s hot.”

I arched a brow, not jealous in the slightest, just glaringly aroused at the thought of someone else fucking Luca while I watched, or better, with me.

“Aren’t I hot?”

The laughter in Luca’s face died off, and he darted a glance at the closed door to my bedroom before snaking his hand around the back of my neck and pulling our faces closer together.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, kissing the corner of my mouth. “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted.”

I hummed, licking my way into his mouth and finally giving in. Flinging a leg over Luca’s waist, I shifted my weight on top of him and pressed him down into the sheets. I wanted my bed to smell like him for the rest of the term.