I wrap my hands around her thighs, pushing her legs apart as I sink back to lie between them. I slowly flick my tongue across her clit, lapping and tasting her until she curses my name. Until her back begins to arch and her eyes roll back in her head.
Touching Claudia is like playing music. I coax melody and heart and emotion from every caress. I know what she needs, and I play her until the music hums inside her, until she sees the stars shatter across her eyelids.
When she’s recovered enough to move, she tugs my belt, her touch demanding. But even though my dick is so hard and my balls are squeezed in a vise, I slide off the end of the bed. “I can’t put my dick inside you. Not until I’ve made things right. Otherwise, it’s too easy to convince myself that everything is okay.”
“You’re fucking serious, Fallen?” she cries. “I want you to give up drinking, not become a monk.”
“I know, but this is the way it has to be.” I shrug, even though all I want to do is fall to my knees for her and make her feel so good again. “I need added incentive, and if thinking about sliding into your warm pussy won’t keep me from the bottle, nothing will.”
“But where does that leave me, you selfish prick?” She throws a pillow at me.
I nod sadly. “I’m sorry. I’ll send Eli in. He’ll be happy to oblige.”
I turn. I leave the room on shaking legs. She screams at me to come back, demands that I fuck her, and even though every fiber of my being longs to run back to her, to sheath myself inside her and forget the world for a moment, I won’t be weak.
I’ll earn the right to be in my queen’s bed.
The next time we fuck, it’ll be to make our baby.
8
Claudia
Malloy Manor is being torn apart from the inside.
The monkeys escaped and broke several expensive, ugly statues, shat in a wall sconce, and chewed through the wires in the media room, nearly causing a house fire. Casper refuses to stay in his run, and only stops crying when Eli brings him into the ballroom so he can chase Queen Boudica’s toys. And the turtles chewed off one of the taps in the bathroom and now half the downstairs is flooded.
And that’s just the animals. The humans aren’t doing much better. George is obsessively poring over Howard’s documents, convinced she can figure out what the treasure is and where we can find it. Eli’s moping about his father’s involvement in burying me alive. Noah’s raging because we still haven’t ferreted out Mackenzie’s hiding place, and Gabriel’s refusing to fuck me out of some twisted need to prove himself. It’s enough to drive a crime lord to the bottle.
When I brave the ballroom to drown my stress in top-shelf Scotch, I discover the worst possible disaster has befallen us – the alcohol supply has run out.
This is all a metaphor for my fucked-up life.
I think Gabriel’s been drinking in secret, which is fucking concerning, not least because I’ve just mixed vodka and ouzo together since that’s all he left me. The boys are out – Noah training with Antony for the upcoming Lupercalia fight, Eli at Nero’s, and Gabe to talk to the police about Odette, who’s just been reported missing by her family. Going to the store on my own is a giant hassle since Tiberius insists on shadowing my every move. And did I mention the zoo in my house? I need the sweet sweet release of liquor or I won’t get any shit done tonight, and my disgusting vodka/ouzo shot isn’t going to cut it.
There has to be alcohol in this house.
Gabe and I have already stripped bare the cellar and bar in the basement. But I definitely remember a few cases of wine stacked in that weird eyrie in the master suite. I moved some bottles there in case I needed projectiles to hurl at the barbarians storming the walls. But now I need sustenance more.
I climb up to the master suite and slide the door shut behind me. It’s blissfully quiet in here, away from the squawks and howls and chirps and the endless parade of shit that needs to be dealt with. I flick the light switch, but nothing happens.That’s right, I turned off the circuit breakers for the master wing to save on the electricity bill.
I click on my phone’s flashlight and move through the enormous room. My gaze falls on the four-poster bed covered in a thin layer of dust, perfectly made up like its last occupants will return at any moment.
The last people who lay on that bed were my parents. Myrealparents.
And now they’re dead.
I wish I could go back to seeing Howard and Ainsley as the evil rich strangers who built this freakshow of a house and have no impact on my life beyond their taste in stuffy designer furniture and weird modern sculptures.
But I can’t go back. Because they are my parents.Weremy parents. They made me, birthed me, and sold me to the highest bidder. Was it a complete fluke that I ended up with the Augusts? Was I just the first baby they grabbed out of the crib? How easily could Mackenzie’s life have been my life, and hers mine?
What would I have done in her shoes?
I rub my eyes, but I can’t stop those open coffins from searing across the inside of my skull. My parents and their horrific injuries, inflicted by someone whose heart has been burned up by hatred. Could that have been me?
I think about Brutus, about the locked box bobbing around in the ocean of my memories. Yes, it could have been me. I might not want my sister to win this particular battle, but I understand her need to fight it.
When the Malloys built this house, did they have any idea it would become their tomb?
