I lay staring at Ariel as she sleeps. Love bites and fingerprints cover her body. Satisfaction has climbed into my tainted soul and taken up residence, knowing she’s mine now. Nothing and no one will ever take her from me again.
When there’s a light knock on my door, I grab the gun I keep under my pillow and have it aimed at Atticus’s head before he’s fully opened it.
“Dude, calm the fuck down,” he growls. His eyes linger on my woman’s naked form, and it takes everything in me not to shoot him between the eyes before I cover her up.
“What the fuck do you want?” I bark at him.
He smirks. “Daniel’s found some info.” Happy he’s got my attention, he leaves just as quietly as he came.
Torn between wanting to ravage Ariel again and needing to know what the new information is, I lean forward to kiss her lightly on the lips and nip her nipple. Her entire body shivers with the bold move, and I smirk.
Grabbing a pair of pants, I buckle them and make my way to King’s war room. Proudly displaying Ariel’s teeth marks all over my chest. Just as I want the world to know she’s mine, I want them to know I’m hers, too.
Watching the sun rise through the tall windows behind King’s desk, I’m amazed to realize how long I’ve been hidden away with her.
“Nice of you to join us.” King smirks at me. Knowing exactly how I feel about being interrupted, considering how many times we’d done it to him when Lilith first came.
Ignoring his jab, I pin Daniel with my hard gaze and ask, “What have you got?”
“She mentioned Timothy wants to destroy you. Something you did eight years ago.”
“I remember.”
“Do you remember what you did, though?”
“Not a fucking clue given we hadn’t heard of the McCray’s until Lilith came around.” I’m getting impatient.
“Well, their family has been in the skin trade business for generations. Think of the underground railroad, only in Scotland and all the way across to Ireland. To Africa even. Eight years ago, you rescued a shipment of seventeen girls under the age of ten.”
“I remember that now. The Bugatti family from Italy was buying a shipment of guns from us when we ran across the girls in a shipping container in Jersey.” They’d been half dead when I cracked those doors open. I’d been in a blind rage for weeks afterwards. Killed more men than I was permitted. “I don’t remember the McCray name being mentioned.”
“Yeah, because they were to buy the girls and resell them to a higher bidder in the Horn of Africa. Those girls were going for nearly a million apiece and would have set up the McCray family as the most powerful family in the underworld. Bigger than the Adair’s. You killed every connection they had to finding out where the girls had gone. In one night, you single-handedly took out an entire organization. There was literally no one left to take over that market. The girls were unique and hard to find. It took months for them to be collected.” Daniel’s voice holds such awe. I feel disgust and anger.
“What does he want now?” It’s rhetorical, of course. We’ll likely never know the answer.
“Ariel said Timothy hired a gun a week before you found her, but she didn’t know the target.”
“What about the information she got? The buyers, sellers, all that shit. Won’t it tell you something?”
Daniel looked from me to King and back again as King nodded to him. “It’s heavily encrypted. I doubt she knew that it would download that way. Even my skills aren’t breaking it. Yet.”
“Any word on where either of the brothers is?” I ask the room as a whole. “Where’s Cas?” I finally realize he’s still missing.
“He’s back in Louisiana. He has reason to believe Thomas might go back down there,” Carver answers me.
“There was a sighting of Dimitri and Timothy in Alaska,” Atticus answers.
“Where the sister is?” He nods. “So, who’s going?”
“I am,” Atticus says.
“I want him back here alive.” My voice is deadly. The mere thought of the man makes me homicidal.
Nodding, he leaves the room to prepare for his mission. “Thomas is the head of the snake.” Daniel breaks the silence. “We cut off his head, and they’re done.” I can tell he’ll get satisfaction from that.
“Put a call out.” King looks to Carver. “Anyone with information on McCray will get a crisp two million. No questions. But I want him alive.” His gaze goes cold. “Except the Anderssons. They had their chance.”
“On it, boss.” Carver and Daniel go to spread the word about the hit.
“Kill those bastards in the basement. I’m over them,” he instructs me.
“With fucking pleasure.” My grin glows pure evil as I imagine the ways I can torture them just for the hell of it.
“She alright after what she did?” His question surprises me. Lilith must have told him what happened.
“She will be. She needed a way to work her vengeance out. The things she’s seen and been forced to do, an outlet was required.”
“Lilith said she found her ready to jump from the window.”
My veins run cold. “Likely.” It’s a hard truth that she wants to die. The fact that she imprinted so much excruciating torment on another human being may become a contributing factor as to whether she wants to live or die now.
“Lilith also said Ariel desperately wants something to fight to live for.” He turns to look at me. “Are you going to give her that?”
The answer is easy, “Fuck, yes.”
“Then do it. Stop wasting your time with me.”
Laughter follows as I leave the room.
Ariel
I’m looking out the same window I was the night before when Lilith came into the room. So much has changed in such little time. The most significant being that I don’t have such an overwhelming urge to jump. To plummet to my death.
With my mother’s picture in hand, I wonder what she would think of my life now? What the possibilities with Luther could be. I wonder if she would still feel the anguish I remember so distinctly in her eyes when she looked at me. Even trying to hide it behind a smile never worked. I would like to think she’d be happy that I’ve been chosen by someone who even though he’s a natural born killer, he’s also the epitome of a real man. One who’s not afraid of claiming what is his. One who is loyal to those he holds dear. I’d like to believe that, maybe, she’d be at peace if I could find that same joy I see in Lilith’s eyes when she speaks of King.
“I’ll follow you.” I jump at hearing Luther’s voice, but I don’t turn. I’m curious what he’ll do.
“You’d follow me in death?” I ask, leaning to look out the window. The drop farther than I originally thought.
“I’d follow you to hell,” he mumbles into my hair, hands pulling the sheet from my body so I’m standing naked where anyone passing by could see.
“Someone will see me,” I whisper.
“And they would be jealous.” The heat from his equally bare body warms me bone deep.
Pushing me down so my hands hold my body upright on the window sill, I feel his cock pushing between my legs. Playing lightly with the edge of my lips. “They’ll never know the heat of this sweet, little pussy.” He pushes inside of me in one swift thrust, causing me to cry out. “They’ll never know your nipples perk up and twitch when I bite them.” To prove his point, his fingers twist and pull until there’s a bite of pain.
“Oh, sweet heavens,” I moan as he pumps in and out of my body.
“They’ll never know the blood of your purity on their cocks.” His thrusts become a mix of pleasure and pain as he pushes on my lower back, my ass popping out at him. Leaning forward, one hand circles my body to play with my clit, making it swell and pound with the need for release as he bites my neck. Holding the flesh between his teeth.
Our moans turn animalistic when he slaps my ass with his free hand. Soothing it with circles before each new crack, the sound echoes throughout the room and out the window. The birds chirp in unison as he manipulates my body into believing that every sharp tug of pain magnifies its ecstasy.
I feel both of his hands clamp onto my hips as his thrusts pick up speed, and the pounding pushes him further into my body with each pump of his hips.
“Oh God!” I cry again when he hits a sensitive spot inside me. Throwing my hips back at him, I rocket into a frenzy of uninhibited rapture as my body takes what it wants from Luther.
My screams force the birds to take flight from the trees by our window. His roar of pleasure as he fills me with his seed encourages the dogs on the grounds to howl alongside him. Not recognizing that it’s a man claiming what’s his inside of the house.
Out of breath, he whispers in my ear, “They’ll never see their seed dripping from your body,” as he pulls his cock from me. To prove his point, he swipes his fingers up my thighs and through his semen to wipe it in erotic lines all over my body.
Luther
Awoken by pounding feet on the floor outside our room, I slip from the bed. Once again deserting a sleeping Ariel after satiating her body. I need her pliable and willing for me, so leaving her in a state of bliss works for me.
Cracking open the door, I see Daniel running towards me. Out of breath, his eyes alight with triumph.
“We’ve fucking got him!”
“Which one?” I ask. At the moment, there’s only one McCray I want to get my hands on.
“Timothy. I don’t know who this Dimitri fellow is, but he’s got him drugged and tied up in a hotel room. Says he wants to speak to Ariel, though.”
“What the fuck for?” I have no intentions of letting her anywhere near that son of a bitch. He was in the room when she had been electrocuted and tortured.
“Best guess? He thinks she’ll save him from your wrath.” He pauses. “Says he won’t give his location unless we agree to let him speak to her.”
Fuck. Gazing back at Ariel’s sleeping form, I don’t want her to relive the fear she must have felt, but I can’t let this opportunity pass, either.
“I thought he was in Alaska? It’s why Atticus went the fuck up there.”
“A ruse, I suspect.”
“Tell him to meet us at Beechmont with Timothy in thirty minutes.” Beechmont is a warehouse we use when we need to extract information from our enemies without implementing the deadly force we’d use in the dungeon.
Daniel leaves to call the man, and I turn with regret. If she takes a step back in her mind, I’ll be fucking pissed and likely slaughter Dimitri and Timothy before either can give us what we need regarding Thomas.
“Princess.” I smooth the hair back from her head. I love the feel of her soft, fiery hair entwined between my fingers. It reminds me that there is something softer in life than the killer I am. “Come on, Sleeping Beauty.” She rolls to her back with a soft sigh.
Her perky breasts are uncovered as she moves and temptation calls to me. Bending forward, I suck one nipple into my mouth. A burst of cinnamon scalds my tongue. Her natural flavor is addicting.
Clamping my teeth around the bud, I bite down just enough to dangle her on the precipice of pain before sucking the rosy peak deeply into my mouth.
“Luther.” She breathes out. Her hands ensnare my hair, gripping tightly as I enjoy her flesh.
When her back bows, I let go and capture her lips in a searing lock. Nipping her gently so she opens up, I devour her. Swooping my tongue inside her warm cavern, we tangle in a mating dance.
The sting of her nails digging into my forearms forces my body to lay flat over hers. Digging my hardening cock into her thigh as she rubs her sweet cunt against me, searching for relief.
Pulling away, I tell her, “Later, princess. Right now, we have to leave.”
She pouts before answering. “Where are we going?” A touch of fear clouds her vision.
“Dimitri called. He has Timothy held captive, but he won’t hand the man over until he speaks to you.” My words come out in an angry growl.
“Why would he want to talk to me?” She’s more confused now than fearful.
“I think because he’s hoping you’ll stop me from killing him due to his role in your torture.”
“Oh.” She remains quiet after that.
“Get dressed. We’re meeting them in thirty minutes.”
“I’m going?”
“If it’s the only way to get my hands on Timothy, then yes. I will protect you, Ariel, never doubt that. If you want to leave at any time, you’ll be gone. But I’m not finished there until Timothy is in his grave.”