“Come all over me,” I gasp, the thought of being covered in their seed making wetness seep out of me. “Show me I belong to you and no other.”
His nostrils flare, his jaw grinding as his arm pumps faster. Jude and Tarl are grunting and cursing as they continue to fuck me hard, and I look down and watch as Knox’s dick swells. I lick my lower lip, and it seems to be that which tips him over the edge as thick, hot ropes of cum shoot out of his shaft and cover my lower stomach. I moan with the feel of his hot cum hitting my skin, my pussy clamping down on Tarl as I almost tumble off the precipice with Knox.
“Look at me and open your fucking mouth,” Aeron orders, and I twist my head to look at him, my mouth automatically opening. With a deep groan, he climaxes, and I flinch when the first spurt hits my breast, more hitting my chin and finally my mouth.
It’s the salty taste of him that sends me over, white lights flashing before my eyes as I writhe and scream my release. It feels as though the world aligns, as though something momentous has happened when a snarl in front of me brings me back enough to see Tarl come, thrusting deep inside me. Jude is quick to follow, burying himself in my ass as he orgasms, andtheir releases keep mine going, my legs twitching and the one holding me up threatening to buckle beneath me.
My eyes drift closed as I come down, my entire body, including my fucking teeth tingling. Vaguely, I feel Tarl and Jude pull out, my body protesting as they leave it, but I’m too tired, too fucked out to make a fuss, and soon I’m wrapped up in a jacket smelling of clean cotton, vanilla, and sandalwood. Knox picks me up, adding his motor oil, cloves, and leather scent as he carries me back inside the box.
I don’t know what happens after that, allowing myself to succumb to the darkness that, for once, feels welcoming and not threatening.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“CONTAMINATED” BY BANKS
LARK
Abeam of sunlight tickles my face, my eyelids fluttering open to the semi-darkness of a room which I don’t recognize.
“Morning, Little Bird,” a deep, husky voice says beside me, and twisting my head, I see Knox staring at me with softness in his hazel eyes.
“Do you often stare at women when they sleep?” I grouch, and he chuckles, the rasping sound making my core clench. I wince at the slight ache there, my body heating as memories from the balcony yesterday flit before my eyes.
“Only when they’re beautiful birds in my bed,” he replies, reaching a hand out to push aside some of my tangled hair. I’m actually feeling kind of fresh, which is a surprise considering our activities yesterday at the races.
“Why am I not more gross? More cum-covered?” I ask him, earning Knox’s raised, dirty-blonde brows and a devilish grin.
“Our illustrious leader cleaned you up himself before he left last night after I called dibs.”
“I’m not some fucking dog toy to call dibs on, you know,” I tell him, my lips pulled down in a pout.
“That is what bothers you about what I just said? Not the part about you being unconscious and having someone clean your sweet pussy?” he asks, his fingers toying with the strand of hair that he pushed back before.
“I’ve had worse done to me when I’ve been unconscious, Knox,” I say quietly, dropping my gaze to his bare, inked-up chest and trying not to fall into those dark memories when I would wake up with no knowledge of how I got the bruises on my inner thighs or the sharp ache in my cunt.
His fingers still, and I chance a glance upwards to see his jaw clenched so tightly I’m surprised that he doesn’t crack a tooth. His gaze settles on mine, and I take a sharp inhale at the fire that rages in his eyes, hot enough to burn the entire world down. He drops my hair before cupping my face in his warm palm.
“I will kill them all, Little Bird. Every fucking cunt who touched you without your permission will drown in their own blood.” His voice has dropped until it’s the savage whisper of an avenging god, and my heart thuds in my chest at his vehemence.
I don’t know what to say, how to process his words. I’ve never had someone on my side, a protector. Well, not since Mom passed away anyway. It’s always been me, myself, and I up against the monsters that make up the Dead Soldiers. I swallow, deciding that it’s too fucking early to process everything that’s being thrown at me.
“What’s the beef between you and Devil Man?” I ask, having noticed the tension between the two men frequently. He sighs, his exhale almost pained as it leaves his lips. His hand leaves my cheek, and runs through his thick hair, leaving it deliciously disarrayed.
“He blames me for June’s death,” he confesses with a slight hitch in his voice. Unconsciously, I reach my hand up and tangle my fingers with his, his own gripping mine tightly back.
“What happened?”
The skin around his eyes tightens, and it’s only now that I can see he, like Aeron, is older than me by some years.
“She snuck out to meet me after Aeron forbade her to leave their home on her own, but June was full of fire, much like you are, Little Bird, and wouldn’t listen. You two probably would have gotten on like a fucking house on fire.” He gives a rueful laugh, and my lips tug up into a smile at his words. I would have liked a female friend. “Anyway, she was walking towards me, with that swagger she had that said ‘fuck you’ to the entire world. I don’t remember seeing the car, but suddenly I heard gunshots, three—Bam! Bam! Bam!” His body twitches with each one, as if he’s remembering each shot as if they were for him. “Then the squeal of tires as the car sped off. I had instinctively crouched down, hidden in the shadows of a building, but when I looked up, it was like the entire fucking world had stopped. Somehow, Jude was there, a crumpled and unresponsive June held in his lap. I scrambled up, dropping next to him, and there was so much blood, Lark. It covered her.” His haunted eyes glisten, and my own fills with tears at the picture he’s painting; of Jude holding his own twin as she died in his arms. I almost miss that he called me by name, my stomach dropping with the sound of it on his lips, like when you fall from a great height. “Jude was crying, screaming at me to just do fucking something, but the light in her eyes had gone. She wasn’t there anymore, and there was nothing I could do. Fucking nothing.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Knox,” I tell him, letting go of his hand and wrapping myself around his body, pressing our naked bodies close. “You didn’t pull the trigger.”
His body shudders, his arms encasing me and pulling me even closer so that not even a breath of air remains between us.
“I couldn’t protect her when I needed to, Little Bird. I couldn’t do anything but watch her bleed out, knowing that it was me she was coming to see.” His voice is thick, like the words are being pulled from him after being trapped for so long.
“Knox, this happened around eight years ago right? After…after they shot my mom down?” He nods. “You need to forgive yourself for something that you had no control over. It wasn’t your fault,” I tell him again, willing this powerful man to believe it as I snuggle into his body, his pounding heartbeat under my cheek. “Shit happens that we can’t control, that we can’t do a fucking thing about apart from keep going and hope that one day, things will be better.” Tears are streaming down my cheeks, landing on his chest and making his ink darken. I didn’t know until this moment that’s what I needed to do; admit that my mother’s murder wasn’t my fault. That everything which followed wasn’t my fault.
