I stand directly in front of her, and a startled gasp escapes her trembling lips when she notices the knife I’m holding, gleaming in the moonlight. I raise my hand and trail the blade across the exposed, fragile skin of her collarbone, ever so slowly. The sharp edge teases her, but not enough to pierce her skin, just enough for the cold blade to awaken the depraved little demon we know is hiding beneath the surface.
“W-who the fuck are you?” she spits out, seemingly unbothered by the knife now pressed against the nape of her neck, and that only causes me to laugh, low and villainous like. She was always so mouthy back when we were friends, and fuck if I didn’t miss that fire.
“The monster in all your dark, beautiful nightmares.”
“What the fuck kind of sick game is this? You’re a bunch of fucking psychos!” Bailey shouts, but she’s not fooling anyone. She wants this. Her body gives her away, and that tremble in her voice? That’s not fear. No. I’ve watched fear bleed from more bodies than I can count, slipping out with their final, ragged breath, and this is nothing like that. Bailey isn’t afraid of us atall. She’s aroused, and that realization is written all over her face.
“C’mon, Stalker. You might have all your friends fooled, but you can’t fool us,” Colton says, moving around the room before stepping in close behind her until she's flush against his body. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t even flinch as Jace steps in too, his hard body brushing against mine and our girl’s, and his nearness only adds to the desire already ignited in me.
“We know who you really are, baby girl. The woman you’ve been hiding beneath that sexy little costume. We can feel it. You’re burning from the inside out, aching for something no man’s ever been able to give you, isn’t that right?” Jace says, his voice low and calm, but I’d be a fool to miss the hunger buried in his tone.
He raises his hand, gently brushing a pink strand of her messy hair away from her bare shoulder, then lets his finger glide slowly from her shoulder, up to her left ear, leaving goosebumps in his wake. Her skin is almost aglow in the low light, and I fight back the urge to taste every inch of her, because my boys will want to taste her too, and the thought of them claiming her right before my eyes, has my cock wide-a-fucking-wake, hardening in my jeans.
“Why did you do it?” Bailey chokes out, her eyes flicking from me to the blade still pressed against her skin. I’ve got to give it to her, she’s getting straight tothe fucking point. Bailey doesn’t just want to know why I killed that asshole ex of hers. She’s curious to know if the knife in my hand is what I used to do it. It isn’t, but I decide to keep that to myself for now.
Cole grips her by the hips and pulls her body into him, as if he's worried she might try to get away.
She won’t.
“Your lover thought he could blackmail us, but he learned real quick that he couldn’t. Nobody can,” I finally say, moving my knife lower, flattening it across the skin above her heart. Her breathing picks up as she stares up at me, and I watch as a mask of defiance and determination falls right across her face.
There’s the hellcat we know and love.
“He was not my lover,” she spits, but it doesn’t stop the blazing jealousy from clawing up my throat, burning me with each breath that I breathe. I’ve had to watch her with other men over and over again, and I can’t say that it was easy because it wasn’t. I fucking hated it, we all did. Which is why I have zero fucking remorse for Harley, the stupid cunt. The thought of him touching what’s ours has my vision blurring and my fists clenching. Rage coils tight in my chest at the memory of him on his knees out there in the forest, talking like Bailey was still his to claim.
The truth is, I just lost it.
Harley wasn’t getting out of it anyway, not with witnessing us kill a man. The Order would have seenHarley dead by sundown, and that would have only pissed me the fuck off because if anyone was going to take that asshole out, it was going to be me. For not realizing how fucking lucky he was to have Bailey in the first place, but also because I couldn’t stand to hear him speak her name again. Not after everything he did to her.
“He certainly thought he was,” Jace adds, his jaw clenching with the same jealousy that I feel. I hate this feeling. I hate how unhinged she makes me, especially when control is something I need to maintain at all times in our world, but I can’t fucking help it when it comes to her.
“He didn’t skip on the details, that’s for damn sure,” Cole mutters. I can’t see his face, but I can sense his rage from here.
“Harley was nothing. We broke up. He accidentally fell into my roommate's vagina, and for the record, we were never lovers,” Bailey says, and I’m grateful she can’t see the smile on my face because, by her admitting all of this, she’s only revealing the parts of her we always knew were there. She doesn’t give a single fuck about him being dead, and now I’m laughing.
“What’s so fucking funny?” Bailey snaps, and I move in until our bodies are pressed together, and there’s not a hint of space left between us. She squirms in Colton’s hold, but she’s doing a shit job of pretending to be afraid of us.
“Did you fuck him?” I ask because I also like to get right to the point. My eyes lock on her face, searching every inch for a flicker of deceit, my mask mere inches from her. She’s close enough that I feel the hitch in her breath, and I want to rip the mask completely off my face. I want to taste the truth on her lips, but there’s a long-ass oath written in fucking blood in an Elder’s office somewhere, reminding me what a bad idea that would be.
I can’t be Roman Graystone.Her stepbrother.Not when we’re like this. We can’t be anything more than ghosts to her. An echo of a half-forgotten memory she’ll reflect on for years to come.
That’s how it has to be.
She studies my mask, searching for answers she knows she’ll never find, before she closes her eyes and lets out a slow, weary sigh. All signs of determination are gone, and I’m not sure that I like it.
“No. I didn’t fuck him. He didn’t want me like that.” Bailey opens her eyes, brimming with unshed tears, then turns her head to look away from me.
No, fuck that.
I place the flat of my blade below her chin, gently forcing her head back to meet my gaze. Hurt flickers in her eyes, and it’s like a punch to the fucking gut.
“You, Harlequin, are the most irresistible woman I have ever seen. No man, alive or dead, is worthy of your sadness,” I say, my voice thick with hunger, as thejealousy I felt just moments ago melts away, replaced by an urgent need to prove to her just how fucking desirable she really is.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me, what you do to us?” Cole says, burying his mask in the crook of Bailey’s neck. She melts against him, her eyes fluttering closed as he breathes in her sweet, floral scent.
“You're goddamn intoxicating, Bailey,” Jace adds, smoothing his hand down the skin of her arm, before taking her hand in his. She doesn't protest. Instead, she shocks the hell out of us by gripping his hand tightly in silent surrender. Jace’s body goes rigid beside me, and I know he’s feeling the same way that I am.
“You want us, don’t you, baby girl?” Cole says, his voice rough with desperation as he grinds into her from behind, causing her to gasp.
