“Y-yours,” I moaned, my voice cracking.
He pressed harder on my throat.
“Louder.”
“YOURS!”
He chuckled, pulling his fingers out and shoving them into my mouth.
“Bonne fille.” (Good girl.)
I sucked his lips without thinking, eyes glazed, as he freed himself and flipped me around. My palms slammed against the vanity mirror, lights buzzing hot around us. Every thrust was brutal, pounding me into my own reflection. Tears messed up my mascara, and lipstick smeared across my cheek. His hand yanked my hair, forcing my head up.
“Tu vois ça?” (You see that?) he whispered, eyes locked with mine in the glass. “Tout ça m’appartient.” (All of that belongs to me.)
My body shattered around him, trembling and clenching, but he didn’t stop. He fucked me through it, grinning darkly at the sight of me falling apart.
“Cry for me,” he demanded, biting my neck. “Make it pretty.”
And I did.
“Et n’oublie jamais… je suis ton roi.”(And never forget… I’m your king.)
After he left me in the dressing room, the room felt empty. I got myself together and stepped out with no shame. Everyone scrambled back into motion like he hadn’t just stopped the world in its tracks. My makeup artist redid my face, still flushed, still trembling, the taste of him lingering on my tongue.
That was the thing about Ares… he didn’t linger. He came in, wrecked everything, and walked out like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just reminded me who I belonged to.
After my set, I sat in my car, smoking a joint. I was scrolling through my phone when the headline hit. The photos from Ares’ party a week ago.
Thirty-three-year-old Ares Delacroix-Jackson Celebrates Billionaire Status at Private Rooftop Gala.
The photos spread everywhere… and on his arm, a woman we’d all heard about.
Amara Kevins. Event planner. Elegant. Quiet. The blogs called her his “newest mystery girlfriend.”
My lips curved into a smirk I didn’t feel. Of course, he was with someone new. Of course, the blogs were eating it up. That was Ares… he didn’t hide us. He never lied about the fact there were others.
But still… that picture burned.
Out of all the women, I wanted that moment. The Forbes one. Theofficialone. The kind of moment that told the world I wasn’t just his artist, his model, his fuck. I was his.
I set my phone down, still smirking. But deep inside, jealousy slid sharply through me.
Because even though the camera loved me…
tonight, it loved Amara more.
CHAPTER 3
Lyric Banks
“I was the one who knew him first.”
My brother Malik used to tell me not to follow behind him and his friends. But I always did. That’s how I first saw Ares. It was back when everybody just called himLil Ghost, Ghost’s son, running wild through Compton, because his momma agreed to lower her standards as a mafia princess to be the mistress to a hood nigga.
And Ares made sure everyone knew he had something to prove. He and Malik were inseparable. They hustled together, fought together, bled together. Until Malik didn’t make it home one night. A drug war took him out before he ever got to see eighteen.
I was sixteen. Broken. Angry. Alone.
