THE TEST: Secret Society Dark Romance (4Horsemen Series Book 1)

by Elena Monroe

  “Is that one of my Warhead lollipops?” With my mouth hanging open I sat back, hands on my hips, shocked. He spotted my peace offering before I could nudge him towards my apology presented the same way his was—casual and not all that sorry anyways.

  “Pretty sure they’re my favorite kind though…” Purposely sucking the sour off with a pop, he was taunting me.

  Waiting for his mouth to pop off the circular flaming red lolly, I pushed my tongue to the sour flavor, teasing him by stealing it altogether in a distracting way. The sour hit the back of my throat, and I closed the door behind me, leaning against it, hoping he would chase me.

  Was liking him chasing me similar to saving me?

  I wanted him to always want to come after me, no matter how far I went, and Khaos was now in my head, kicking up dust that was making it hard to detach the way I was used to.

  With any other guy, I could pretend feelings, good sex, and murder didn’t amount to anything.

  Pushing me into the door further, I felt his hands grip my hips, pulling me into his crotch and making me aware of how these games were our foreplay. “Kindergarten rules apply. Hands to yourself please.”

  My grin was ear to ear, and I was full of shit. All I wanted was his hands all over me. His mouth closed around the lollipop, now pinched between my fingers.

  Lowering to one knee, he practically ripped the buttons from the holes on my jeans then pulled them down in this slow motion that had me forgetting how to breathe. He had this hungry look in his eye that pinned me in place when his fingers got caught in my panties before slipping down my thighs.

  His mouth attacked my sensitive thighs, and his hand lifted my leg to his shoulder exposing every wet part of me. Sucking in a sharp breath, I watched his face dip between my thighs, his warm tongue swiping up my slit.

  Looking up at me, he smirked like a kid in a candy shop. “I licked it, so it’s mine. See? We can both act childish; it doesn’t make either of us come any quicker.”

  I wanted to plead with him, beg him to keep going, but he had rendered me silent. The only noise I was offering into the room was a jagged breath and sharp inhales.

  Vic’s head dipped between my thighs again as his tongue pushed against my clit, making my hips square, wanting nothing more than to spill over the edge in his hands. “What a disservice to women to know you’ve only bowed to me…” Biting my lip, I clamped my lashes down, taking in his mouth working over me.

  “I don’t bow to anyone. Ever. Must make you special…” The hot breath attacked my wetness with ease, creating a sensation that made my hips sway slightly.

  Plucking the lollipop from my fingers, he pushed it beyond his lips and pushed it to his cheek when his fingers entered me without warning, making the moans I had been holding back come to surface. My hips found a rhythm that met his fingers each time they entered me when his other hand took the lollipop from his mouth bringing it right up to my clit, swiping over my drenched pussy, then offering it to me.

  “Taste yourself.”

  Taking the lollipop between my lips, I didn’t know why the act of tasting myself felt so erotic. I had tasted myself before, but none of those times felt as personal as when Vic asked me to do something.

  He could have asked me to do just about anything, and I would have. Seriously, I would have made him promises I wouldn’t have made to anyone else.

  The Warhead mixed with my own taste was pushing me over the edge, making my hips ride his fingers, and my hand messing up his perfectly pulled back hair.

  “Vic,” I moaned his name, trying to get some kind of message across, but I didn’t know what. Slow down? Speed up? His mouth was magic already.

  It was like protesting for weeks, sleeping on the ground, marching miles, and finally getting your way.

  It was the perfect amount of Victory.

  Speechless still, he stood up, laying a soft kiss on my neck, while my legs shook under the pressure of coming that hard. “Told you I would ruin you for other men… Speaking of other men, I spoke to Rodriguez this morning...”

  Stealing the lollipop back from me, he rounded his desk, slumping down into his office chair, waiting for me to respond. When I didn’t, he spoke instead: “Anything you want to tell me about your relationship?”

  “No, we’re just friends. I told you that.” Pulling up my panties, I grabbed my jeans leaning against the door for stability.

  Sucking on the lolly, he asked me again in a different way, “Just friends? So you haven’t fucked him? He didn’t knock you up when you were eighteen?”

  All the air in the room seemed stale, and I was choking on it. I wasn’t even sure what to say or how he knew. Nothing I said would change the past. Stuttering and already feeling my face get red, I responded, “Friends. You know that game, it’s what we’re doing, Vic. We’re friends fucking.”

  “So he’s just allowed to be the only one who saves you? Only one you run to for help?”

  Buttoning the last button on my jeans and sitting in the chair across from his desk, I pushed my Converse back on. He was pushing buttons I didn’t know I had, and the sudden anger was making my hands shake. “What is this about, Vic? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It has to do with everything, Justice. You lied to me when I asked you who he was to you…” he said, still tonguing the lolly I wanted to shove down his throat now.

  “I didn’t lie! He’s a friend. I don’t let anyone save me—you or him.” I was too angry to sit when I stood up with my arms crossed.

  “Friends is keeping that term really loose, babe. Maybe if you weren’t such a fucking slut you’d know the difference between friends, lovers, and baby daddies.” His voice branded me with a word I didn’t pay much attention to, because it demeaned women and was created by men exactly like Vic—the men in tall buildings, wearing suits who fucked just as many women without the offensive title.

  The silence was heavy between us, both forcing us quiet instead of more fighting. Fighting wasn’t going to solve anything; we both knew that much. It seemed like the only thing we agreed on right now.

  “Wow,” I rasped out, swallowing back the feelings Vic was making me bleed.

  “Just get out.”

  Dismissing me, I closed the door behind me and internally screamed. Vic was drawing all the right conclusions, but putting a spin on things that made me look like his villain and Rodriguez his competition.

  Rodriguez was never more than a friend I fucked, and that’s exactly why at eighteen having his baby wasn’t ideal.

  My Grams was all I had at the time, and I had already made her life hell with all of the other trouble I would get into. I couldn’t be pregnant at eighteen too.

  I guess Vic was choosing to be my enemy after all if he couldn’t get past this—the fact that everyone has a past full of ugly mistakes and moments that change everything you are into something new.

  Still on the other side of his door, I jumped at the sound of a crash coming from inside.

  I couldn’t underestimate Vic mad when I knew firsthand now that pulling a trigger was normal.

  Did I want him to take out his anger on Rodriguez? No.

  Did I want to see the ugly side of him willing to call me names? No.

  Was some part of me not as angry as I was leaning into? Yes. This was disappointment that whatever had been awakened in me was now tarnished.

  I was catching feelings, and now those feelings hit a damn wall. This is why I didn’t let people in, because people held all the ways of how to destroy you right in their hands.

  Opting to leave the posters behind, I grabbed my bag and went to leave for the day, when Vic’s old assistant Samantha snickered at my glassy eyes as I picked up my pace to go by her desk. That anger I was leaning into? Well, it just wrapped its arms around me, and I felt myself get pulled into bad behavior.

  “What did you say to me?”

  “Oh, I didn’t say anything… Guess he’s done playing with you too now.” Her lips thi
nned and twisted into a smirk that made my fists ball up into tight weapons.

  Dropping my bag to the floor, making a hard thump, my eyes locked on her, who was still sitting pretty on her throne of hate. I wanted to hurt her like I did to everything around me when I was younger. I wanted to strangle all of these feelings out of the room.

  Leaning my forearms onto her desk and raising to my tippy toes, I hissed, “Next time you look in my direction, maybe you should contemplate me saving your ass. Do you know what happens when you get fired here? They take you out back and put a bullet in your skull so all their little secrets and demons die with you.”

  “Wow. I knew you were a weirdo by the way you dress, but damn you are such a crazy slut.”

  Crazy slut.

  Twice today. Love that for me.

  Those were the same words that kids in high school used to taunt me with when the rumors about our teacher pulling an after school special on me and the part I played in it started to circulate.

  Crazy slut would get whispered in the halls when I walked by and everyone’s voice would muffle down into bullying.

  Uncapping the lid of my Starbucks coffee, I held it above her head and turned my wrist over watching the brown, probably lukewarm, coffee run down her bleached hair and white blouse. I fixed a polite smile on my face, slipping back into the days I used to sit in her seat and practice being poised like the other girls who worked here.

  She shrieked, and her hands went up, like it was going to do anything to help when Grimm’s ominous figure walked by the desk, giving me a look of pure inquisitiveness. He wasn’t angry or disappointed, but curious.

  Please don’t stop. Please keep walking.

  Being called a slut twice today was bad enough; I didn’t want to have to explain it again.

  “What… is going on…?” His voice didn’t go up at the end, and he stopped to look at the car wreck happening right in front of him.

  Moving backwards, he stopped right at my side, investigating me still leaning over the counter, holding my now empty coffee cup. “She’s fired.”

  I stared at him, waiting for an argument or rebuttal, but he was silently holding my gaze, like he was testing me to change my mind. It wasn’t going to happen; I was firm in my decision to get rid of the people trying to put me in place, including Vic.

  Grimm pulled a gun from behind his back, and I steeled my spine, making sure not to flinch or give away my aversion to objects meant to cause pain. He lifted his arm up, aiming at her without looking, and everything slowed in my body. The anger froze right inside of me, and all I heard was a loud reverberation that shook my entire body.

  Too afraid to look to my left, I maintained eye contact with him when his shoulders shrugged, gun still tight in his clutch.

  Killing was even more normal for Grimm, and I didn’t like how being this close to death felt. It crawled over my body mixing with the leftover anger and basically emotionally fucked me into a darkness I left behind. Being young and resentful were feelings that I turned into the motivation to do good. All my progress was being ripped to shreds inside this moment.

  I didn’t expect Vic to shout over the thoughts in my mind, when he yelled, “What the fuck, Grimm?!”

  Grimm shrugged again. “What? She fired her. I’m just doing my job. Do you want me to come to work or not? This is exactly why I don’t show up… dumbass politics.”

  I felt Vic’s fingers lace around the back of my arm, demanding I respond, for good reason. There was a dead girl in the office now.

  “Don’t touch me.” I yanked my arm from his hold, trying to fight the overflow of emotions storming through me like nuclear launch codes with my name as the target.

  His hold only got tighter, and I felt his chest at my back as his words said quieter, “So you can take out your competition, but I can’t take out mine?”

  Vic was feeding my anger and basically cheering on the mind fuck happening to me with his continuation of slander. I didn’t take out my competition, and that alone was just as insulting as being called a slut. I simply shut her up, and now I was going to have to live with the snap judgment I made for the rest of my life.

  Great, more guilt. I know her well.

  Khaos appeared, on a skateboard per usual, with his hands on his hips and wide eyes. “Samantha is dead? Dammit. We had pick-a-hand penciled in for later!”

  He was trying to lift the mood, but it wasn’t working. I was too irate to slip into another emotion right now.

  Finding an escape route, I pressed the elevator button at least twenty times before the doors opened, finally taking mercy on me. As soon as I was safely inside with the doors closed, again I fell apart.

  All I heard was Vic’s words over and over.

  As much as we were alike, I didn’t want to be reminded that we were both willing to lose some morals in order to ultimately take the win.

  I didn’t even stick around to see what they did with her limp, now dead, body because of me.

  The next day, I came into work feeling like actual shit. I looked horrible and was nursing a hangover only meant for Sunday mornings when you drink the week away on a Saturday night.

  Still wearing my heart-shaped sunglasses inside, I slumped down in my seat behind my desk, awaiting whatever fallout came from yesterday. I waited hours for Vic to arrive or for there to be movement in his dark office, until the curiosity was forcing me upright.

  Pushing his door open, I peeked inside to see it empty.

  I got here late. Vic would never be late.

  I wanted to be mad, but any kind of expression on my face was making my head pound even more. Turning around, I jumped at the sight of Khaos with his arms folded and this stern look on his face that I’m sure people didn’t see often.

  Stern wasn’t a word I would use to describe him… at all.

  “He’s not here. Any guesses why?” There was a venomous edge to his normally laid back California cadence.

  “Could you be less bitchy? My head already hurts enough without navigating your spirit today.”

  Sitting back down at my desk, I felt myself relax as I pulled my hoodie over my head and tightened the strings until the material closed in on the rims of the hearts. Khaos pushed over the folders on my desk to make himself a spot to sit, instead of on a chair like a normal person would.

  “I’m gonna be honest here. I thought you had more fight in you… Vic needs a fighter, and right now you’re acting like a loser.”

  The insult slammed into my chest with full capacity impact, and my expression tensed. “I don’t care what he needs. He can find another slut.”

  Khaos jammed his elbows into his thighs and pursed his lips in my direction, like I didn’t have the full story. I was there; I was pretty caught up. “That’s what you're hung up on? I mean... I’m not taking sides, but you were throwing your cat at everyone. Pretty sure that’s how he landed on the name.” Hands on his chest, sitting up straighter, he added, “I love a slut. Just saying.”

  I was so annoyed, and I couldn’t get behind how much he was looking out for Vic. I only saw red.

  “Is there more to your point? I’m a loser. Cool. Now get off my desk.” Shooing him off my desk, he stood up leaning into his hand still invading my space.

  “You care, because you thought he respected you enough to not resort to low blows like that. As a third party representative and longtime Vic the Dick for president supporter, I can assure you that he expected you to fight back and defend yourself. You did lie to him about Rodriguez, and when he found out, he probably felt pretty shitty, bro.” He took a gentler approach once he understood that I was still defensive.

  “He is just a friend. I’m not doing this with you—repeating myself.”

  “Okay, but Vic isn’t just a friend. He has enough of those—three actually. Catch my drift?”

  I sneered at him while sipping my coffee, letting Khaos, the unqualified therapist diagnose me with deflection, a high dose of guilt, and an allergy to feelings. T
hank god for Khaos, because I would have walked around my whole life not knowing. The sarcasm filling my head wanted to break his hopeful heart, but he wasn’t wrong.

  As much as I wanted him to be.

  As much as I wanted to just be a strong bitch that no one could read that well.

  Taking my silence as an agreeance, he continued talking. It made me wonder if he talked his way through everything like this and if he talked the girls he fucked to death too.

  “Great, I knew this conversation would help you out. He does mandatory dinners at his dad’s every third Friday.”

  Lifting my head from my hands that were holding it up, I looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m not showing up at his dad’s house just to say I’m sorry. Are you insane?!”

  Hopping on his skateboard, he pushed off and glided along the hardwood floors, speaking up making sure I would hear: “I texted you the address. Go fight it out.”

  My phone was on silent in case Vic decided he was also into virtual warfare too. When I unlocked the screen, I saw a text from an unknown number with an address, just like he said.

  I had the power to turn all my guilt, all my anger, and the reaction I was having to these feelings into something good—the same way I turned things around for myself before. Khaos was right; I didn’t give Vic the whole truth, because him wanting my truth meant something far worse than a confession. It was a commitment.

  Grabbing my bag, I copied the address and plugged it into Uber to schedule a ride for tomorrow into territory you only heard about: rich man’s land. If I didn’t schedule it now when I had the balls, I wasn’t going to at all.

  My hangover thanked me.

  I had an apology tour to do, and the first stop was Vic.

  VIC

  My dad was a man with many faces. It was no wonder I was able to move through different masks so well.

  I was sitting across from my dad, whose age was starting to finally crack his perfect complexion with subtle wrinkles, his Clave ring sitting on his finger prominently as always.

  I’ve never actually seen him with it off.

  It was silver with the snake and the capital “C” filled with a white background for conquest to make it stand out even more.