Whenever I moved, my erection stroked against her leg. I cursed inwardly. Two hours later and I had awoken with her curled completely around me, her thigh draped over my leg, opening herself up to me in ways I had dreamt of.
I didn’t want to wake her. The last thing I wanted was for her to wake up and see the raging erection she’d caused. I wanted her, physically, but if we crossed that line, it wouldn’t be fair to her. She needed someone who could care for her emotionally and mentally. I was a walking disaster of emotions. She needed a man that lived in the present, a man who could envision a future, not stuck in his past and haunted by his nightmares.
Lex hummed, stirring against him.
“I want to heal you,” she whispered, and I froze. Her head tilted up and met my gaze, her baby blues taking me in. “I want to help you heal all your pain and darkness. I want to take it all away.”
Those five fucking words destroyed me in more ways than one. She wanted to heal me, to take care of me. My chest pounded, along with my cock.
I wanted her—I wanted her selfishly for myself, but I knew I was so damaged. So ruined.
“I’m toxic, Alexandra,” I whispered back to her, surprised by the gentleness of my own voice.
She shook her head. “I see the good in you.” She brushed her upper lip with the tip of her tongue and slowly lowered until her mouth met my bottom lip and sucked. Fuck, she tasted musky and sweaty, the same as between her legs.
I palmed her round cheeks and circled my hips against hers, the friction only sending me into more of a frenzy. The friction pleasing, but not enough.
She broke the kiss and peppered them along my cheek, each one a prayer and an omen left in its wake. “You have to let go, we have to both let go of the past.”
I stared at the darkness. I couldn’t let go though. I couldn’t let go of Valentina and our unborn child. Two people killed because of my needs, because of my selfishness to feel more human than monster.
She took my mouth again and I didn’t fight her.
Her hand skimmed down my happy trail and into my slacks, finding my rigid length. I moaned into her mouth as she pumped me, her fingers circling the sensitive head.
“Is this too much?” she asked breathlessly between kisses.
My fingers dug into the soft roundness of her butt cheeks. “You’re tempting me to do something wrong.”
She giggled at my raspy voice, too strained to form more words. “I want you to do wrong to me, Beau.”
“You’d be cursing yourself to me.” I moved her so that she sat directly on my hard length, running my callused hands up her smooth, large hips. I stared at her features, shadowed by the darkness, soft and full, as she began a slow rhythm against me, moaning quietly.
I wanted her, couldn’t resist her—and my self-control had been pulverized to nothingness.
“I want to heal your soul,” she whispered. She tugged on the edge of my boxer-briefs, pulling them down to reveal the V-shape of my cut abs towards the tuft of dark hair. My hefty length spilled free and I groaned at the touch of her wet panties. I wanted to tear them off and slide in deep and slow, torturing her, showing her how good I’d make her feel for days, months, years to come. I’d worship her, body and mind.
She wants to heal your soul.
And then a ringing sound echoed in the room. Lex jolted, and I groaned as she rubbed against my erection.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
“What’s that?” she whispered, looking around the room.
I sat up, digging into my pockets. “My phone.”
When I slid out my black phone and saw the Caller ID, I froze.
My mother.
I marched down the avenue with Lex trailing behind me. I’d rather she not come, but she argued with me, saying Dolores was safe with Lance. I wasn’t going to make her walk back to my place by herself.
My anger was a wave and I knew Lex felt it by the way she continued to glance at me. Seeing her so exposed in my arms and saying those things to me made my chest ache and I rubbed at the scar across my left pec where Fallen had ripped my heart out. The heart that had been growing only light by light over the last ten years, a reminder of my humanity, of my former self—the man I would never be again. I didn’t want to care, but it seemed my mind and body felt different. Just like Valentina, I craved to protect Lex.
I want to heal your soul.
I want to heal your soul.
I want to heal your soul.
Yellow taxis flooded the street in the darkness and I ignored the harsh November wind.
My mind drifted back to my mother’s voice when she’d called me. She sounded distant, distraught and I had felt my arms grow heavy, weighing me down.
Something was wrong.
Something was terribly wrong.
Lex tried to keep up, but I didn’t falter. I needed to get to the townhouse and see what was going on.
Was it Tensley? Was he injured? Had he returned from High Court?
Was it my mother? Was she sick?
I shook my hands out as we turned toward the white posh townhouse and up its elegant stone steps. I hadn’t been back to the townhouse since after the attack at the Pit, and regret ate at me.
I opened the door to be met with the familiar row of soldiers spanning down either side of the large front hallway.
None of them looked up and kept their heads bowed as I took large strides down the hall, Lex power-walking behind me.
I turned down the hallway and could hear voices coming from the boardroom. I didn’t waste time and shoved open the door.
All the councilmen sat in their leather chairs, Evelyn at the head and my mother next to her.
She looked pale, sickly and as she raised her head, her dark, lifeless eyes caught mine.
“Only councilmen allowed,” Evelyn clipped.
“What happened?” I asked, ignoring Evelyn’s frosty stare and focusing on my mother.
She opened her mouth, but only a tiny sob left it and she brought the back of her hand to her lips.
“Goddamn it. Just fucking say it,” I hissed, slamming my hand down onto the oak table. The men jumped in surprise.
My reputation didn’t just exist in the Pit and lower class. Even the top men of Scorpios knew my wrath and my temper was a deadly mix.
My mother rose from her chair, cupping her shaking hands in front of her and with bloodshot eyes, she stared back at me. “Beau,” she said, lips trembling. “Your father has passed.”
My vision blurred and my throat grew tight and dry.
The man who shaped me. The man who raised me to be the perfect Dux.
Dead.
Gone.
Multiple emotions clashed within me. Anger. Sadness. Remorse. Guilt.
But anger always won.
It seized me like an iron fist and chained my wrists.
I could feel the beast seek control, burning my temples, aching to punish someone, to destroy anyone in my path.
“And we’ve also heard news from High Court,” my mother said, but I could barely hear her. “They are saying Tensley…has killed Fallen.”
My eyes shot up to hers. All the blood left my head and I felt dizzy. Fallen, the king that had destroyed my life, was dead.
And now my brother…
“He’s king now,” my mother whispered, filling in the pieces. “But…when he was fighting Fallen, just before he was killed…”
I frowned at her, my fists clenching. “What? What happened?”
“Beau, Fallen ripped out Tensley’s heart,” she said, her lips trembling, her eyes growing red and puffy. “But…maybe it’s not true. Maybe it’s just horrible rumors.”
My whole world tilted.
My father was dead.
And my brother…was basically dead too.
He had now suffered the same horrors as me.
I was full beast and…Molly? She was married to a heartless monster.
When I tried to swallow, I choked. The whole room shifted and spun. It was like reliving my past, reliving my horrors. My brother was gone. Everything he worked for, everything he was—everything was gone and now was an empty shell of darkness and horror.
My mind kept returning to Molly. The poor girl who had fallen for Tensley and now had lost him.
It felt like time was repeating itself. I couldn’t outrun my past, I couldn’t escape it. It came back, tenfold, exacting revenge on all of us. Especially me.
And my father…my father was dead.
An emptiness filled me.
And then anger and sadness.
Too many emotions rushing through my veins at once, emotions I didn’t know how to voice, how to explain and process other than through violence and rage.
“Beau?” Lex’s fingers skimmed my arm and I flinched.
I turned, pushing past her and down the hallway, taking the stairs two steps at a time.
“Beau,” Lex called after me, but I kept moving, moving until I was right outside of my father’s bedroom.
I leaned my forehead against the thick wood door and exhaled deeply.
The man that had given me my cruelty. The man that had haunted me for years. All I ever wanted was for him to be proud of the beast I’d become. I had been his ideal son and I had crushed his hope. He died demising me—and somehow, I felt like I had died too.
I growled, pushing off from the door and marching past Lex again, standing in the middle of the hallway with wide, wild eyes.
When I made it to my old bedroom, I ripped open the door and stared at the perfect room. Awards from my days at boarding school hung on the walls. Trophies and other shiny crap I used to put value in.
My past.
My perfect past stained me.
Ruined me.
The perfect future Dux.
I had poison in my veins now, in my blood and bones.
And I used it to destroy the people who came too close to me.
A roar passed my lips and before I could control myself, I ripped the awards off the walls and threw them on the ground.
Every item I touched, I destroyed. Everything was a reminder of my past, of her, of my father—of what I was supposed to be.
But now I was just a savage. A beast. A fuck-up.
And that was the vision of me my father had died believing. And the cruelest parts of me wanted to honor it.
My beast wanted blood, wanted to destroy someone and rip them apart piece by piece.
And who was I to refuse.