Dukes of Peril (Dark College Bully Romance): Royals of Forsyth U (Royals of Forsyth University Book 6)
Dukes of Peril: Chapter 2

I don’t help her shower.

I sit on the bench in front of the bed and spin the ring on my finger, round and round, listening to the sounds of water hitting her naked body. If things were different–if I were actually fucking normal–I’d be thinking about this ring, and how, for the first time, I feel the weight of its responsibility. I’d be thinking about this hit out on my ass. I’d be wondering what to do about it and when to make a move.

Instead, I’m thinking of her skin.

Consuming it. Biting it. Claiming it. Making her bleed just so I can swallow it down, giving her a home inside of me. It takes a level of willpower I don’t have to stop myself from bursting into that bathroom, slamming her up against the tiles, and fucking her until she’s black and blue.

It’s not because I’m horny–although I absolutely fucking am, twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five. It’s because my mind keeps going over seeing that dot in the river. A vision of her had settled in my mind, dead and cold and still. Maybe someone like Sy or Remy could react to that with romance and tenderness, but my fucked-to-shit lizard brain wants nothing more than to poke her, just to see if she twitches. It wants blood and tears and life. It wants to shoot my cum inside of her and know, deep down, that it’s meant to be there.

I ball my fist, the ring digging into my palm, and resist the urge.

She walks out twenty minutes later, and the first thing I do when I see her standing there, swimming in some rich fucker’s oversized sweater, is whip off my shirt.

“Take it off.” My voice is sharper than I mean it to be, but she doesn’t flinch. Not because of me. Not anymore.

She gives me this little exasperated sigh and lifts the sweater over her head. “It’s cold, Nick.”

But she doesn’t fight when I lower my shirt over her head, wet hair dripping little dots into the dark fabric. I pull it down over the swell of her chest, but my hands go right beneath it, palming her tits idly, letting myself be comforted by their warmth.

“Get some rest.” I say this as if my lips aren’t suddenly on her neck, thumbs caressing her nipples into peaks. It really isn’t fair. She’s barely been mine for a day. I haven’t even had time to explore what that means, how far she’ll let me take it.

She isn’t pushing me away.

Clenching my jaw, I force myself to let her go. To guide her into the bed. To lift the blankets around her shoulders and watch the heaviness of her eyelids as she settles on her side, a palm between her cheek and the pillow.

The feeling that tugs at my chest at the sight of her so small and weary is different than it used to be. I saw her like this plenty back in our old Crane Motel days. Restless, yet somehow still tired. Weighed down and deflated. I used to imagine taking her away from that place, but there wasn’t anything noble about it. I’d just wanted to own her. Didn’t much care what condition she came in.

Now, I just want to make the darkness haunting her eyes go away.

When I go to move away, she grabs for me, wide eyes flashing to mine. “You’re leaving?”

“Responsibilities.” Unthinkingly, I lace our fingers together, letting her feel the metal of the ring between our knuckles. “Remember?”

If she hears the apprehension in my voice, then she doesn’t mention it. She just says, “Oh.”

“I’ll be in… after,” I promise.

After I replace a way to fix something. After I pick up the pieces–at least some of them. I don’t know how to tell her that I can’t be what she wants. I can’t save West End. I can barely fucking save her. But I guess I don’t need to. This is a secret that only the two of us can really know: Bruin–much like Lucia–is just a name. It’s not imbued with divine grace. It doesn’t make me special or qualified or good. It’s just a series of letters on the end of a driver’s license.

But if she wants me to try, then I will.

That’s the only reason I pull away.

“Hey, Nick? Could you…” She hesitates, teeth digging into her plush bottom lip.

I press, “What?”

“Could you bring Sy with you?” she asks, pulling the blanket higher. “Later, when you come to bed?” After a short silence, she adds, “It’s just… I sleep better when he’s–I mean, he knows how to–”

I nod. “Yeah, I’ll bring Sy in with me.”

There’s a flash of surprise in her eyes, as if she’s expecting my mood to turn at the request. The truth is, I’m not gatekeeping Lavinia anymore. The thought of her belonging to Sy and Remy isn’t so bad when I already know she’s mine. If anything, it makes her feel more like she’s mine, as if nothing in this world ever truly could unless I was sharing it with my brothers.

That is, if they can keep her.

I replace Remy in the den, tipping back a bottle of scotch.

Crossing my arms over my bare chest, I prop myself against the jamb and watch him swallow it down, pulling a face when he looks at the label.

“Fuck, I hate scotch,” he croaks, pinching the bottle between his knees to hold it steady as he screws the cap back on one-handed. I look him up and down, and beneath the exhaustion there’s something else. The tremble in his limbs from the Scratch working out of his system, the red eyes from being up for days, the random bruises mottling his skin. He’s coming off a fucking bender.

His hand is shaking.

“You good?” I ask.

He looks up at my tone, carefully absent of any inflection. “Oh, I’m fucking stellar, Nicky. I just leaped off a cliff. My dad wants to lock me up and then kill my best friend. I’ve got one good arm and half a Duchess.” He leans forward to place the bottle on the coffee table, but he doesn’t straighten, the line of his shoulders cutting a dejected figure. “Man, I’m not having the best day ever.”

I nod, thinking over his words. “And whose fault is that?”

Slowly, he raises his gaze, eyebrows dropping to a scowl. “You can’t put all this on me.”

“Not all of it,” I agree. “I should have seen it–your dad being the Baron King. I was around him enough. Plus, I’m the one Lionel’s got beef with. That’s got nothing to do with you.” This is the problem with Remy and Sy. No tough love whatsoever. If someone’s got to tell Remy how it is, then it has to be me. “And maybe if you’d been taking care of yourself, you wouldn’t have been up on a cliff, losing your goddamn mind and taking our Duchess with you.”

“Oh, that’s rich.” He gives a low, humorless laugh, eyes flashing bitterly. “Last I heard, you were the one taking her to see my father for a fun little round of Russian Roulette. Are you really going to pretend you haven’t been our albatross for three years running?”

“Yeah, I’ve fucked up,” I admit. “But I’m fighting like hell to be better. What are you doing?”

Remy inhales deep, nostrils flaring. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Then when, Remy?” I hold his gaze. “When you get your hands on some more Viper Scratch? The next time you go off your meds? Maybe during your next paranoid delusion about everyone being out to get you? I guess I can catch you at the next funeral. Mine, Sy’s, Vinny’s…”

“Stop,” he snaps, digging his fingers into his temple, eyes clenched shut.

I look at him, this guy who used to be the life of West End, and all I see is the living embodiment of misery. “What happened to you?”

Remy gives me a long, incredulous look. “You want a fucking list?” He throws his hand in the air, ranting, “I didn’t ask to be like this. You think I like being paranoid? You think it’s fun being completely fucking unable to rely on your own executive function? You think I liked seeing the look on Vinny’s face when she–” The words clip off, and I don’t even know which way they were going. When she saw him with Haley? When she jumped off that fucking cliff with him? He doesn’t finish, though. He just hangs his head, fingers clawing roughly through his hair as he grits out, “You don’t know how hard it is.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” A silence swells between us, because I might have impulse issues of my own, but I can’t actually imagine what it’s like to be in Remy’s head. Probably chaos. “But right now, we need a fighter, and the one thing I do know is that you’re not fucking fighting.”

His head snaps up. “What are you talking about? I fight all the damn time!”

“You fight for DKS. For me and Sy. You’ll fight for Lavinia. Hell, you’ll fight just because you don’t like the color of someone’s shirt.” I jerk my chin toward the bottle of scotch. “But you don’t fight for yourself, Remy. You let everyone else do that for you.” He just stares at me, unblinking as I turn away. “That’s our albatross.”

I replace Sy in the kitchen, a gleaming white and stainless-steel monstrosity that looks like Martha Stewart should be behind the stove, not my brother. He’s searching the cabinets, opening and closing doors. He’d slam them if they could, but there’s nothing but the soft hiss of the cabinets easing back into place.

When my brother is at a loss for what to do, he falls back on three things: fighting, working, and cooking. There’s no one here to fight and all his books and journals are back home, so all that’s left is feeding us.

There are cans and boxes all over the counter. Random stuff. Pasta, canned olives, waffle mix. I push aside a can of chickpeas and sit at the barstool to watch him. The frantic energy of it all is weirdly soothing, like we’re back in high school, him tearing through Mom’s kitchen at six in the morning for a ridiculous pre-SAT meal.

He bends over, digging around a cabinet, grumbling, “How the fuck do you have a million-dollar home and not have a quality non-stick pan?”

“Remy’s sacked out on the couch, and Lavinia’s in the bedroom,” I say, ignoring his pan tirade. “I think they’ll be asleep for a while.” This whole thing where I play damage control to the people closest to me is a role that fits as awkwardly as the ring on my finger.

“Good,” he grunts, nodding to a package from the freezer. “Maybe there’ll be time to defrost some of this steak. Remy needs protein, and she needs iron.” He wrangles a frying pan out of the cabinet, but three other pots come flying out, clattering to the floor. “Goddamnfuckinghell!”

“Sy,” I say, aware that my brother is teetering on the edge of a tightrope. “Chill.”

His eyes snap to mine. “Don’t you fucking dare tell me to chill. Not after the last twenty-four hours.”

“They’re fine. We’re fine. Everyone made it out alive.”

Sy and I were at my storage locker the last time we spoke to Lavinia. She’d texted and said she was on her way. She never showed up. I know Lavinia hates the tracker, but I’ve never been more thankful—especially since one minute she was up on the cliffs, and then next she was lost in the abyss, a dot bobbing in the nether.

Across from me, Sy shoves the pots back into the cabinet. One slides out, clattering against the tile. I watch silently as he picks it up and beats it against the granite countertop. “Stay inside you motherfucking son of a whore! Just stay fucking inside!” He shoves it in one more time, slamming the door shut before it, or anything else, can fall out.

“They’re cold and banged up,” I say, reaffirming. “Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

He looks up at me, eyes rimmed in red. “The pots?”

I glare at him. Jesus. “Lavinia and Remy, you fucking basket-case.”

“But what if it couldn’t?” His words settle in the room. When he speaks again, it’s low and strained. “What if Maddox killed them? What if they jumped and didn’t make it? What if we couldn’t replace them?” He pales, the set of his chin uncomfortably vulnerable. “What if it was like last time, when we lost him for months? When Tate died.” His eyes flick to mine. “When you left.”

“None of that happened, big brother.” I jerk my head toward the bedroom. “They’re both alive. They’re safe. And trust me, I’m not going anywhere.”

That’s how I know everything is different. Back in South Side, I’d wanted to take Lavinia away. Now, I want to stand my ground to keep what I’ve got. Sy doesn’t know that, though. He stands there, frying pan in his hand, looking lost and worried and completely overwhelmed. If he looked like this after Tate died, then I didn’t see it, because he’s right. I left. Sure, I had a purpose–a mission–but that’s not what he saw. For the first time, I feel the bloom of regret in my chest for it. If I’d told him why I was going to work for Daniel Payne…

Well, he would have followed me into the filth of South Side.

He would have fought with me about it. He would have said it was a stupid plan–and he wouldn’t have been wrong–but in the end, he would have come with me, because that’s just who Sy is. For better or for worse, even when I’m a complete shit who doesn’t deserve it, he’s looked out for me. Cleaned up my messes. Let me back in.

Remy wasn’t wrong before. For three years, and possibly even longer than that, I’ve been the unbearable weight around my brother’s neck.

I step around the counter and wrench the frying pan from him.

“What the—”

I haul him into an aggressive, crushing embrace. A real hug. A bear hug. A Bruin hug.

He stiffens.

“I’m sorry I left last time,” I say into his shoulder. “It was selfish, but I wasn’t doing it to be a dick. I had to do something, Sy, or I would have gone fucking crazy.”

He slowly returns the hug, giving my shoulder a firm pat. “Yeah.” He sighs, heaving his other arm around my shoulders, palm tight on the back of my neck. “I know, Nicky.”

Hearing him say my name like that–Nicky, without the spite or sarcasm, just like the old days–feels like something slotting into place. It’s a synchrony I thought we’d regained when I became a Duke, but I was wrong. I see that now. It’s always been off, slightly off-kilter, soured. A tension in my back, older than my flame for Lavinia, suddenly unwinds, falling away at the sound of it.

Gruffly, I confess, “I really fucking missed you when I was away, you know.”

“Jesus, Nicky.” Sy’s voice sounds thick, like there’s a lump in his throat, and he gives the side of my head a hard slap. “I didn’t miss you at all, you gigantic pain in my ass.”

Snorting, I jab my fist into his side and he feints left, only to dart forward and put me into an abrupt headlock. “Hey, you fucker!” I kick at his feet, plant my elbow into his ribs, and he digs his knuckles into the top of my head. The scuffle is quick and painful, just like they should be, but we’re both visibly fighting back laughter, struggling to keep our scowls in place as we land playful slaps and sloppy punches.

When I finally shove him off, breathless and amused, I glance at the counter filled with cans and boxes; the scattered efforts of a man trying to stay sane. “We’re Dukes,” I tell him, catching his gaze. “We’re brothers. And fucking hell, we’re fighters. But we don’t fight each other anymore. We can’t keep fighting each other.”

Inhaling deep, he crosses his arms, giving me a firm nod. “No, we can’t.”

I grip his shoulders, willing him to see how serious I am about this. “From now on, we work together, and we stop this bullshit—all of it. We keep our girl safe.”

In the space between the hug and his nod, something shifts in his expression, jaw firming, eyes clearing. “We keep all of us safe,” he says. “And if you mean it–if you’ll really work with us on this–then you’ll listen to my plan.”

My brows rise. “You already have one?”

Sy shrugs. “It’s not the best, but it’s worth a try.”

Maybe that’s why this ring–why being a Bruin–fits so uncomfortably on me. The thought of sitting above everyone else, no one at my side, makes me squirm with the wrongness of it. I wasn’t built to walk alone. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.

This time, I’ll take them with me.

I let her sleep.

I do.

I don’t even bother her once.

Sure, I check on her a couple of times, making sure she doesn’t have a concussion or a fever. I can wait, even knowing she’s half-naked under that blanket, because it’s not about wanting her, or knowing how warm and tight her pussy is, or the fact I want so goddamn badly to fuck her again, just because I can—because she’s mine.

It’s not about those things.

It’s knowing I could’ve lost her.

I spend the next two hours inside that house making a pretty good show of having my shit together. When Sy disappears through the side door, phone pressed to his ear, I don’t hover and wonder what he and Dad are talking about. I trust him. My time working alone in South Side was never about that.

When he comes back, he doesn’t say anything. He just walks into the hallway where I’m waiting by the door to the bedroom, and gives me a jerk of his chin.

“Tonight.” He keeps his voice low, pocketing his phone. I don’t miss that his eyes are ringed with just as much exhaustion as I feel. “It’s all set.”

“We should get some rest, then. Just in case…” My words trail off, unable to form around the thought of shit going south. Yeah, my problem was never that I didn’t trust Sy. It’s everyone else I don’t trust.

Sy cuts his eyes to the door and instantly averts them, ducking his head. Reaching up, he palms the back of his neck. “There’s another bedroom down the hall. Guess I’ll take that one.”

I reach for him when he goes to walk away, grabbing his forearm. “Like hell you will. I promised her I’d take you to bed with me.”

He blinks at me. “Why?”

“Because she asked me to.” I nod toward the door, knowing that when I open it, I’ll replace the shape of there beneath the blanket, cold and alone. “She said she sleeps better with you. I don’t know, man.”

There’s a tightness to his mouth that wasn’t there three seconds ago. “I can’t.”

“You can’t?” I shift, preparing for a fight. “Why the fuck not?”

He gives me a long look. “Come on, Nicky. You know how it is when we’re close to her. We get…” Sy makes a wild, vague gesture. “… all fucking crazy.”

Tiredly, I wonder, “Sy, is this about your dick?”

“It’s not my dick,” he hisses, jaw tense. “It’s what I want to do with it. It’s what I can’t do with it.”

“So because you can’t fuck her, you’re just going to blow her off?” I glare at him, anger welling up as I shove his shoulder. “Fuck that. Your Duchess asked for you. Do you know how many times she’s asked me to come to bed with her? Once. Four hours ago. Barely. But you know what she was crystal fucking clear about? That she wants me to bring you with me. So suck it the fuck up, wrangle your cock into submission, and get into that goddamn bed.”

Christ.

This shit is the blind leading the blind.

Knowing instinctively he’ll follow me, I push the door open. It’s just past noon, but the shades are drawn. They weren’t like that when I tucked her in. She must have gotten up at some point to close them. The sun filters through in a muted, eerie glow, just enough to make undressing quick and painless.

Beside me, Sy follows suit, taking off his shirt, stepping out of his shoes, peeling off his socks. He hesitates with his thumb over the button of his pants, but eventually decides to shuck them off, just like I’m doing.

We climb in slowly, wordlessly, Sy taking the left side, me the right.

Lifting the covers, I’m hit by a wave of her scent. The punch of white-hot need that slams into me isn’t unexpected, but I still have to take a second to shove it back down, teeth clenched on a shudder. It’s worse than it used to be, which is saying a lot. Sy wasn’t lying before. Something about Lavinia just makes us fucking crazy.

She’s on her back, hand curled delicately on the pillow beside her head. Her hair has dried, the blue-dyed ends matted into an impossible nest. She’s in nothing but my dirty shirt and a pair of panties, tits pushing at the fabric. Sy and I both pause halfway into the bed, staring. She looks like the personification of sex. My mouth practically waters at the sight of her like this, so soft and ripe and finally mine. How many times did I see her like this on Daniel’s security monitor? How many times did I walk into that motel room and fucking ache with the impulse to throw her into that bed and fuck the threat of myself into her? How many times back in the tower did I imagine coming home to her like this–in my bed for once, instead of Sy or Remy’s?

I’m so busy obsessing about it that it takes me too long to realize her eyes are open.

Shaking out of the trance, I whisper, “Hey,” and reach out to brush a lock of hair from her cheek. Her eyelids look heavy, slack, but she’s staring sightlessly into the darkness, lips slightly parted.

She doesn’t move.

I touch her cheek. “Little Bird?” Her eyes twitch, but she doesn’t respond, and that punch of need from before is joined by a sledgehammer of panic. I shake her shoulder. “Lavinia!”

Sy’s voice penetrates the staccato of my racing heart. “Hey, hey, chill.” It’s only when he pries my hand from her neck that I realize he’s beneath the blankets beside her, propped up on an elbow. “She’s okay, Nick. She gets like this sometimes. It’s just sleep paralysis.” He leans over her, searching her eyes, and his lips form a tense, unhappy line. “Shit. No telling how long she’s been like this. She can go in and out.”

I stare at her slack face, muscles still coiled tight against the urgency to wake her. “Sleep paralysis?” Little things are more noticeable now. The small, thin divot between her eyebrows. The tightness in her arms. The little jerking movement of her chest. I whip my gaze to Sy, suddenly horrified. “She can’t fucking move?”

“It’s a really common thing,” he assures, but the way the words are rushed out tells me he knows why I’m staring at him like this. Lavinia is claustrophobic. Being completely unable to move has to be fucking agony for her. Sy exhales heavily. “Yeah. It’s probably related to… well, you know.”

Her dad locking her in that chest.

Daniel locking her in that motel room.

Me, locking her in that goddamn elevator.

Sy pushes his fingers through his hair. “I guess with the river and everything, she was bound to–”

“How do we wake her up?” I ask, voice hard and demanding. “Hey!” I snap my fingers in front of her face. “Wake up, Lavinia!”

“That doesn’t work,” Sy says, voice clipped. “I need to–” I glance over at my brother when his words cut off. He’s sitting up now, avoiding my gaze. “You need to… stimulate her. When it’s bad like this, that’s the only thing that’s guaranteed to break her out of it.”

“Stimulate her?”

“You know, like…” He makes a slow, rolling gesture. “Physical arousal.” When I just stare back at him expectantly, he palms his face, groaning. “Jesus. Rub her pussy, Nick.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “All this time, you’ve been rubbing her pussy to wake her up?”

“Only when it’s really bad.” He shrugs, flicking his eyes toward me. Whatever he sees in my face makes his eyes harden. “It’s not like that. I just rub her a little and she wakes up, and then we go back to sleep.” A little more defensively, “Genital stimulation is a valid vasovagal maneuver, okay? It’s… fucking clinical.”

I’m remembering now the other reason why I couldn’t let Sy come to South Side with me.

My brother can’t lie for shit.

It’s not all a lie–that much I can see–but the tips of his ears turn a bright magenta, which tells me there’s some shame underneath all that righteousness. Something happened. Something he’s not proud of. Something that meant taking advantage of the vulnerable, frightened, incapacitated girl sleeping in his bed.

It’s not like I have any room to judge.

I add that to the bucket of reasons he’s telling me how to do it instead of doing it himself. Whatever that shame is about, it’s joined by the fact he doesn’t trust himself, as well as the certainty that Lavinia might not, either. Not after what he did that night at the party, forcing his cock into her.

I don’t stand for it. “What’s more important here? Your fuck-up or helping her?”

He curses at me under his breath, but rests his hand on her wrist, touching her more softly than I knew the brute could muster.

“Just draw her out of it,” he says, watching her face closely. “It’s like she gets stuck in that same shitty moment and can’t force her way back out.”

Tucking myself in close to her warm, soft body, I don’t hesitate. I don’t have the patience my brother does. A day. That’s how long it’s been since shit hit the fan. Since Remy fucked up. Since Lavinia was beneath me and I was inside of her. Since we found out about the hit, about Maddox, the jump. It swirls in my head over and over, so many chances for everything to go wrong.

My heart pounds in my chest, hard and drum-like—beating in warning. I stroke her neck with my thumb. Her skin is so soft. So fragile. I skate my palm down her body, grazing the peak of her nipple as it descends, pressing into her ribcage, her belly. When I reach my destination, I can feel the heat of her through her panties, but that’s just background noise to the static that fills my chest when I look at her.

Sy says, “Do it, Nick.”

She’s lifeless, sightless, and silent, just like she’d looked in my head when I saw that blinking dot, floating over the void of the water.

I flinch against the memory, but it’s right fucking here. It’s in the blankness of her eyes, the scant part of her lips, the way the lines of her face look as though they’d frozen in a moment of unspeakable fear.

I kiss it away.

Her lips are soft against mine, and when I lick out to taste her, I can feel her breath, hot and quick. “It’s me,” I tell her, wondering how cognizant she is under there. Is she trapped in a dream, or is she just trapped in her body, listening to me and Sy talk about this? I’m not sure which is worse. Pressing the tips of my fingers right into her clit, I whisper, “Come back to me, Little Bird.”

If I didn’t have my lips on hers, I wouldn’t have heard the sound she makes. It’s small and quiet, delivered on the crest of her exhale, and there’s fear within it. Confusion.

A plea.

My eyes dart to my brother’s and he nods encouragingly. His fingers are still on her skin, rubbing small circles on her wrist with his thumb, as if he’s afraid to do more.

I’m not afraid. I’m emboldened and that impulse I’ve had all day–to poke her just to see her twitch–surges through me like a lightning bolt. It drives me forward, crushing my mouth to hers as my hand plunges into her panties.

I use my knee to wrench her thigh open, parting her legs for me, and fuck, I can feel her already getting wet. I slick my fingers with it, sliding one into her tightness as my thumb works her clit. Her mouth is slack against my tongue. I force it through her lips anyway, feeding her a rough, gritty, demanding sound, not even thinking of how this must look to Sy.

Then again, no one knows me better than him. “Easy, Nicky.” He says the words like he’s talking to a wild animal, because Sy sees this for what it is. This sudden, aggressive urgency isn’t because I’m horny. It’s because a Lavinia who doesn’t kick, scratch, or strike back is just… so goddamn wrong. “It takes a while. Be patient.”

But I see in my periphery that it’s working, the fingers of the hand Sy is touching, still resting on the pillow beside her cheek, give a strong twitch. And when I look at her, she’s looking back, her eyes staring right into mine.

They’re fucking screaming.

Not even Sy can stop me now. Maybe for him, fumbling in the dark to keep his touch quick and clinical, it took a while. But nothing about the way I shove her panties down her thighs is clinical. I ruck up the shirt to get a rough handful of her tits, already rolling between her legs.

“Nick,” Sy hisses as I wedge my hand between our bodies, pulling my cock, excruciatingly hard, from my boxers.

I grab her thigh, hiking it up around my hip, and then line myself up. A shudder rolls through her, muscles flexing weakly. Holding her gaze, I push inside, slow and slick. The last time we were together, she asked me to make love to her, but this is beyond that. So fucking beyond.

Her mouth falls open, chest expanding on a gasp as I sink the length of my dick into her. Tipping my forehead to hers, I watch her watch me back, understanding now. She’s in there. She’s so warm, so tight, so goddamn perfect–everything I think and dream about. I linger there, letting my cock expand inside of her, stretching her muscles. I want her body to remember me. To know that I can be the one pulling her free from the darkness. To know that I’m never again going to be the one to put her there.

She gives a long, slow blink back.

“That’s it, Little Bird. Follow me back.”

Suddenly, her fingers move.

It’s jerky and slow, but her fingers seek Sy’s, threading between them, grounding the two of their bodies together. Well, three, since I’m buried inside of her. It doesn’t even matter that her forehead screws up, like she’s in pain, because I know exactly how to ease it.

My cock punches into her, desperate and needy. She gasps at the invasion, but her hips roll, rising back to meet me. I pull out slowly, deliberate, before pushing in again. Her eyes are on mine, tired but bright, worn but alive, and her other hand finally replaces some strength.

She uses it to pull me down.

This time, her lips move against mine. The sound she makes is so guttural, so wanting, that it’s all too easy to let go. To punch my hips into hers. To trail my lips hungrily down her neck, capturing the peak of a nipple. The sheets beneath her pillow get mangled in my fist as I clutch the fabric, slamming into her with a force that makes her whimper.

I don’t mean to use my body as a weapon–not here, not when we’re like this–but I still replace my body surging into hers. Powerfully, relentlessly, like a threat. As if I can break whatever chains are holding her with nothing more than the snap of my hips. It’s wild and mindless, and when I catch sight of Sy beside us, still half-reclined in the bed, I see the shocking rawness of it reflected back at me in his stare.

His mouth is slack, pupils so blown that they’re pools of black.

Beneath me, Lavinia comes to life. First her hand on me, nails digging divots into my nape. Then she lifts her knee, spreading herself wider for me, and I gladly take it, grinding in deeper, until there’s nothing between us but the building slickness of sweat. On the bouncing jostle of my thrust, her neck moves, head digging back into the pillow as her eyes screw shut. A tear squeezes free from the corner of her eye and runs down her temple. I catch it before it can fall, retracing its wake with the point of my tongue.

“Nick,” she gasps, never letting go of Sy’s hand.

“Look at me,” I demand, fucking into her hard and frantic. Her lashes, wet and dark, flutter as her eyes open. “Talk to me, tell me you’re back.”

Her lips tremble, but she raises her knees, winding her legs around my hips. “I was drowning,” she croaks.

I chase her gaze, not letting her hide. “There’s nowhere you could be that I couldn’t get to you. You understand me?” If my voice weren’t so sharp and punctuated with a smash of my hips, that might not sound like a threat. “Nothing can keep you from us, Little Bird. Nothing.”

I crush my lips into hers and thrust my tongue inside. If I could burrow into her I would, but then her nails dig into my bicep, teeth bearing down on my lower lip, and finally, everything is right.

Loving Lavinia should never be painless.

“Ah!” she cries, arching her back. I run my hand between us, down her stomach to the liquid heat between her legs. I replace her clit, throbbing and slick, and fall into rhythm.

“Come for us, baby,” I tell her, wanting to feel more of that clench building around me. “Let me feel you. Let us hear you.”

Her head falls back, and she turns, swinging glazed, heavy eyes on my brother.

“Give it to him.” Sy’s voice is pure gravel, but the way he touches her, pushing her hair off her damp forehead, is slow and gentle.

She finally comes, the orgasm shuddering through her. I feel her tighten around my cock, her muscles tensing and drawing me toward my own release. I fuck her harder, unleashing the emotions of the day; fear, want, anger, loss, until I’m on a pinpoint, the sheer face of a cliff–one that doesn’t lead to death.

Maybe it leads us to destiny.

It’s on that last punch, the last thread of control, that I grab her chin and force her to look at me. “You’re mine.”

“Yes.” Her fingertips ghost over the tattoo of her lips on my neck, eyes sparkling up at me. “I’m yours, Nick.”

The sound I make when it finally happens–when my cock begins filling her up–is raw and frayed. I bury it into her neck, and there’s no way she comes out of this without bruises, because I’m clutching her like a punishment I’m not even intending to give.

We stay like this for a long moment, her pussy milking my cock for every last drop. As much as I hate it, I pull out, afraid that if I stay one second longer, I won’t be able to stop myself from telling her that I love her again. She didn’t believe me before. I don’t know if she’ll believe me now.

I kiss her and ease out, rolling her toward Sy. Their fingers are still linked, but not in the same death grip as before.

Beneath the hard lines of his face and the tension of a body desperate for relief is a worried frown. He whispers, “You okay?”

Nodding, she tugs at the sheet, fixing her gaze on Sy’s bare chest. “I could hear you, talking him through it. Thanks.”

I feel his shrug on the mattress, but I also see the pleased flush behind his ears. We got through it. We’ll get through everything else tossed our way, too. I have no doubt.

That confidence is what propels me to say, “We could have lost you.” She starts to argue but I shoot her a look. “And don’t tell me it couldn’t happen. It already has. To Tate. To Leticia.” Lazily, I skate my fingertips over her chest, the death’s head moth dark against her skin. “The cliff does terrible things to powerful women.” My hand wanders under the sheet, pushing back to the heat between her legs, feeling my warm cum between her thighs.

Beside her, Sy’s eyes zero in on the motion, like he’s wishing for x-ray vision.

She sighs against my touch, voice lax and sated. “You’re right. It was scary as fuck. We were scared, but at the same time… we weren’t. We had each other, and somehow I just knew we’d make it.” She tilts her head, flashing me a weak smirk. “Fifty-fifty shot.”

I snort, remembering saying that in the Baron’s crypt. We can’t keep putting our lives in his hands.

Sy’s eyebrow arches and he says, “Those are shit odds.”

“Agreed,” I say. “That’s why, starting with your meeting tonight, we flip them back in our favor.”

My brother’s eyes meet mine over Lavinia and he nods in understanding. No more jealousy, no more pettiness, no more rash decisions. From now on, we fight as we were always meant to. We fight as one.

We fight as a family.