Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection

by Rebecca Royce

  I gave him a tight smile, and was a little relieved that his bedroom was close to the bathroom. Pregnancy bladder was no joke.

  His room smelled like man. Not like stale socks or anything, but the faint hint of his cologne, and the scent of his skin just under that. It’s decor looked how I imagined a hotel room would look if you lived in it long enough. Impersonal color scheme and furniture, but knick knacks and things strewn around. He had guitars on stands along the walls, and a picture of Reese and Lincoln on the nightstand. A few posters from his concerts lined the walls. The comforter was a dark red, and the sheets were black silk.

  “Reese has just gone to get you a couple of extra pillows. But this is it.” He pointed to a door. “Ensuite. Excuse my mess in there.” He turned. “Bed. The sheets are clean, for now anyway.” He winked and my core clenched. I swallowed hard and attempted to keep my features blank.

  I gave my snow leopard a stern talking to. I needed Reese to help me, and sleeping with his friends probably wasn’t the way to go about it.

  Vincent cocked a brow, tugging his lip ring into his mouth. Fuck me. I wanted to do that, maybe more than I wanted my next breath. As if to remind me what was at stake, the baby moved in my stomach. It was like ice water to my overheated blood. I smiled politely, and he watched me with intelligent eyes. Yeah, there was more in there than a fickle party boy.

  “Thank you,” I said softly, and I meant it. I was kicking him out of his room and he volunteered his space without even blinking. Even if he was doing it for some nefarious reason, I was going to accept the goodwill where it was offered.

  “I emptied you out a drawer for your stuff. I guess if you are here more permanently, we’ll uh, figure something out.”

  I smiled at him then. I’d borrow his room for four months, and then he could have it back. My brain shied away from the idea of leaving this all behind, of leaving the baby behind. But it was for the best. I was a known shifter. I needed to be as far away from my cub as possible if I was going to keep it safe.

  My leopardess yowled in my head and my heart hurt. We both knew it was the best thing to do, but it hurt all the same. I shut the thought away. I’d deal with that when the time came. So I gave Vincent a strained smile. “I appreciate it.”

  He watched me with eyes that saw too much for a heartbeat longer, and then nodded. “Sure thing.”

  He grabbed a duffel bag of stuff and left. I climbed beneath the blankets of his bed, sliding between silk sheets that felt like heaven and sighed.

  A gentle knock at the door and the scent of Reese told me he’d returned with the pillows.

  “Come on in,” I said softly.

  Reese peeked around the doorjamb, his soft, golden curls falling in front of his eyes. “Hey, I grabbed you some pillows not covered in Vincent’s drool.”

  I sat up on my elbows. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

  Reese sat beside me on the bed. “Of course, Celeste. I looked for you, you know, after you left. At first I was angry that you’d just snuck out, but when I thought about that fear in your eyes even though you were trying to hide it, I couldn’t be mad at you. You had no reason to trust me, or anyone.” He grabbed my hand and held it between his bigger ones. “But I promise you can trust me with this. You can trust me to keep you safe. Trust us.”

  I snorted. Yeah, I was pretty sure Lincoln would boot me out on my ass if he could wrangle it. And as for Vincent, I think he was apathetic to the situation entirely.

  “Reese, I appreciate it, but you have to know that we can’t possibly start up something more than this. I have to go in four months and that would just end badly for us both.”

  He smiled at me brightly. “I have to respectfully disagree, but for now, I won’t push it. There's something here, Celeste. I felt it on that night, and I still feel it now.”

  I sighed, mostly because I felt it too, but I was going to be stubborn, dammit. Willpower. “Snow Leopards are not monogamous, Reese. We don’t do well in one on one relationships. Even now, my snow leopard wants to climb all over your roommates.”

  Reese raised both eyebrows, looking between me and the door like he had x-ray vision. “I guess they are kind of hot. I get it.” He frowned. “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “I can share you with my roommates if that's what you want and that's what it takes for me to keep you forever. Hell, it's the perfect solution. I want you, and I love them. They love each other. Actually, this would solve quite a few problems.” Now he was talking more to himself than to me, and I just stared at him, my mouth hanging open.

  “Are you for real right now?”

  He just grinned, but I could see the cogs turning in his head. Fuck it. I was too tired for this shit. I yawned and Reese rocked back on his heels. “I’ll let you rest.”

  He stepped toward the door and panic clawed at my chest. “Wait!” He stopped, a concerned frown on his face. I took a shaky breath. “Can you just, uh, sleep with me? Like on your side of the bed?” I cursed myself. I sounded stupid and pathetic. I’d just given him a big spiel about how we couldn’t start anything and now I wanted him to stay the night. Mixed messages much?

  His face softened. “Of course.”

  He peeled off his shirt and his jeans and climbed beneath the sheets with me. He kept a respectful distance between us, but the comfort of him being close soothed my animal.

  “Want to watch ‘The Witcher’ before bed? I’ve been meaning to binge it, but I’ve never found the time?”

  I smiled softly. When Reese wanted to Netflix and chill, I think he legitimately meant Netflix and chill. It wasn’t a euphemism at all. I nodded, and he fiddled with the remote until the TV screen on the wall flicked on. He tapped something out on his phone, then the screen was alive with the sounds of Henry Cavill.

  Reese switched off the bedside lamp and the room flooded with darkness. I reached out and entwined my fingers in his. I pulled them to my side of the bed and placed it on my stomach.

  Something kept spiking inside my brain though. “What do you mean they love each other?”

  He looked down at me. “Hmm?”

  “You said that Vincent and Lincoln loved each other. What did you mean?” I was blinking rapidly now, trying to keep my eyes open.

  Reese just grinned and pointed at the TV and I narrowed my eyes at him. I watched the show, but I was so tired that I was almost asleep in moments. I’d apologize to Henry in person if I ever got the chance.

  Chapter Nine

  Lincoln

  Vincent threw his duffle bag on my floor, unzipping it and rifling through it just to knock shit on the floor and annoy me. He was doing it on purpose to distract me from what was happening down the hall, and it was working, the fucking asshole.

  “Do you have to do that?” I growled, and he just looked up at me and grinned. That fucking grin was my achilles heel.

  “I’m looking for my toothbrush. I’m sure I stuffed it in here, and don’t particularly want to walk in on Reese and Celeste fucking like monkeys, you know?”

  I huffed, picking up his duffle bag and taking it to my walk-in closet. I hung his band shirts and torn jeans in my closet, though they wouldn’t stay on their hangers. Vincent didn't do order. I couldn’t do chaos. How we coexisted was a mystery.

  I looked up, and he was leaning against the door jamb, a smug smile on his face. I didn’t know if I wanted to punch him or kiss him, but that was the way it was with Vincent. He needled me to make me feel, and I kept him anchored to his sanity. “Are you going to be huffy the whole time she’s here, because I’m down for a few months of angry sex. But I think you need to come to terms with the fact she isn’t a bandaid you can just rip off for him, Linc. He really likes her.”

  I slammed around my bedroom, putting everything back until it was in its place. Control and order. It's what we needed. She was the opposite of all that.

  Vincent stepped toward me, his hands reaching out to grab my wrists. “Linc, he has to make mistakes like the
rest of us miserable bastards. That's his kid-”

  “Allegedly,” I interrupted.

  He rolled his eyes at me. “Allegedly his kid. He isn’t going to abandon it. He isn’t like your parents or mine. Even if it isn’t his kid, he’s going to look after it. We both know it. It's just the way Reese is, it's part of the reason we love him.”

  I hated it when Vince was fucking reasonable. When he was seeing clearly. “You didn’t see the way she was eating you alive with her eyes,” I growled and he laughed low in his throat. It always made me fucking hard, that sound. It was dark and dirty.

  “Jealous, Linc?” he stepped closer until his chest was brushing mine. He was teasing, but I was a little. Not because she was eyefucking Vincent, because he was fucking hot. God, I knew trying to resist Vincent was an exercise in futility better than any person on the planet. But Reese would hang the moon for her and he’s barely known her twenty-four hours, and she can’t even keep her eyes to herself for an hour?

  No. She was a one way street to heartbreak for Reese, and I would protect him at all costs.

  “Not jealous. Angry that she can’t even be loyal to him for a single minute.”

  He leaned forward and nipped my jaw. “Liar.”

  I leaned into his lithe body. He was walking art really. Tall, broad shoulders but a lean body covered in tattoos. He complimented my bulk like we were made to be together.

  “I can see what Reese see’s in her though. She has a heady kind of energy. I wouldn’t mind fucking her,” he groaned and I felt the hard line of his dick in his sweats.

  My relationship with Vincent was another thing that was complicated, but easy at the same time. I knew I couldn’t give him everything he needed. I didn’t mean physically, because I could fuck the hell out of him any day of the week. I gave Vincent a sense of home that was wrapped in a parcel of danger. But it wasn’t enough. Whatever he was still searching for was found between the sheets of a multitude of other lovers. I wasn’t mad about it, it was how we worked.

  I loved Vincent, but something in me was broken. If I loved something enough, I tried to break it so it couldn’t leave. I’m sure Reese would say that was some kind of childhood PTSD bullshit. He was smart so he was probably right. Vincent was free enough that I didn’t chafe against the urge.

  “Then fuck her. It would show Reese how much she's just after his money like all the rest.” The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Maybe I would too. I wasn’t blind to the way she’d eyed me in the elevator, or the way she looked at me from the corner of her eye. I didn’t want to be conceited, but the few times Vince and I had taken the same woman to bed, they’d basically been on their knees begging for it.

  Vincent was giving me his contemplative look, like he was trying to work out if I was serious or testing him. We didn’t do that shit. Didn’t test each other like that. To prove my point, I leaned forward and kissed him, sucking his pouty bottom lip between mine and biting it softly. It always made him groan; he liked to ride that edge of pain. He told me because he just wanted to feel; pleasure or pain, it didn’t matter to Vince. I was happy giving him whatever he wanted too.

  I traced my rough fingers over the black and white tattoos that spread across his chest and abs. He was fucking beautiful, and I wanted to lick every inch of him.

  He pulled his lip from my teeth, even though it had to hurt. He grinned up at me, and I frowned. “Get on the bed, Vincent.”

  He slid out of his jeans, his grin getting wider. “Angry Lincoln fucks are my favorite kind. I might need to send the girl some flowers or some shit as a thank you.”

  I growled again and he sauntered toward the bed. He looked over his shoulder, his eyelids hooded. “Make it hurt.”

  I’d make it hurt for the both of us. I shed my own jeans as I walked toward him, kicking them off my feet but taking the moment to throw them in the direction of the hamper. It made Vincent’s eyes light up with amusement, that I couldn’t have disorder, even in a moment like this. Maybe more so in a moment like this. I strolled to the head of the bed and sat with my back against the headboard. The heat in Vincent’s gaze was almost searing as he sucked his lip into his mouth again.

  I beckoned him, curling my finger and he grinned. My lip twitched, but I didn’t smile. I gripped my dick and stroked it, and he followed the action with his eyes. “Suck me,” I growled, and I saw the shiver of pleasure roll over his skin. He crawled toward me, coming to kneel between my knees.

  “How about you suck me?”

  This time I did smile, but it was a savage expression. “Is that how we are going to play it today?”

  Defiance overlaid the lust as he nodded.

  I gave him a dark smirk. “So be it.”

  I gripped the back of his head and slammed my mouth to his, hearing the sound of his piercing scrape against his teeth. I gripped his bleached blonde hair with my hand and pulled his head back, exposing his neck. I bit it hard and he moaned. Even his moans of pleasure were fucking musical and it was my favorite kind of music. I continued to bite, then kiss, my way down his collarbone and over his chest, bending him further and further backwards, until he was stretched out for my pleasure. I tweaked his nipple, twisting the nipple ring until he whimpered and ground his hard dick against mine. I reached down and gripped it, stroking it roughly until he was thrusting into my hand.

  “Linc, please,” he moaned, and I stopped.

  I pulled his head back toward mine, and ran my tongue along his jaw. “Not until you suck my cock.”

  He grinned. “Well, why didn’t you fucking say so?”

  What a brat. He moved down my body, running his tongue over my abs, until his lips were brushing the head of my cock. I loosened my grip on his hair, but kept the strands wrapped around my fingers.

  Vincent slid his mouth around my cock, sliding down until I was hitting the back of his throat. The guy had no gag reflex, and my eyes rolled back in my head. Jesus. I held his hair tighter and thrust up, fucking his face and he grunted around my dick. My balls pulled up tight and I dragged him off.

  “I want to fuck you,” I growled, and he grinned as he wiped his face across my thigh. “On your knees.”

  Vincent crawled up the bed, his smug smirk telling me I only had the illusion of control. I was fine with that. I didn’t need him to submit. But I was going to fuck him until he begged me. I loved listening to him beg with that rough voice.

  He put his hands on the head board and I took another moment to appreciate the long line of his back and the two big angel wings that were spread across his shoulders and down his biceps. His were shaded white, beautifully crafted like they were real, and when he stood under a UV light on stage? They turned blue and lit up like he was transported from heaven itself. They contrasted so perfectly with my tattoo, a rough, sketch style set of black wings across my chest. Chaotic and angry to his smooth and ethereal.

  I reached into the drawer, getting out a condom and sliding it on. I wasn’t a fool. Vincent was a party boy, and he gave zero fucks about his well being. We weren’t exclusive and I didn’t know if we ever would be. Until then, better safe than have my dick fall off because some hepatitis-riddled groupie fucked him in a toilet stall. I got the lube, slicking us both up when I reached around and stroked along his painfully hard cock. I grabbed his hip and slid myself inside him, and we both groaned.

  “Fuck…” Vincent whispered, and I laid a small kiss between his shoulder blades. I pulled out the flogger from the drawer, every third cord tipped with metal. He wanted to hurt. This would be a pain filled answer to his wish.

  As I pulled out and slid slowly back inside him, I flicked my wrist, and the leather came down on his back hard. He hissed out a moan. “Again.”

  I laid it across his back another six strokes, timing it with my thrusts, until red welts scored his flesh. “More,” he whimpered, and I brought it down hard, just one more time, before throwing it to the side. I leaned down and traced the last, big welt with my tongue.
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  I pulled back, gripping his hips as I pounded out my anger into his body. The wet sound of our bodies snapping together became our music, even as Vincent swore rapidly under his breath. I wrapped my hand around his throat and squeezed, and his ass gripped my dick like a vice. Oh fuck.

  I squeezed harder as I fucked him, and he let out a wheezing laugh. He might be bottom, but he was fucking me just as good as I was fucking him.

  I reached around and grabbed his cock, thrusting him into my palm, and then I bit his shoulder hard. I knew it would be too much for him and he came in hot spurts in my palm. I grabbed his hip and pulled him tight against me as I unloaded inside him. I pressed my cheek against his sweaty back as I pulled out. I slid the condom off and threw it in the trash.

  Collapsing on the bed beside Vincent, I dragged him against my body and he pressed himself tightly against me.

  “You know I kind of love you, right? I mean, I’ve always loved you, and Reese, but the way I feel for you isn’t how I feel for Reese,” he mumbled into the room. His fingers twitched and I knew he wanted a cigarette.

  “I’d hope not.”

  He touched my chin and pulled my face in his direction. “This doesn’t have to be chaos.”

  I knew he wasn’t talking about me and him. He was talking about the girl.

  “There’s no other way it can be.”

  Years of growing up in a crackhouse had made me a light sleeper. Vince was passed out, his head on my chest, red welts still criss-crossing over his back from the flogger. I ran my fingers over the raised skin, soothing them. A part of me relished giving them to him, but in the darkness, guilt ate me a little that I could hurt someone I loved like that. He enjoyed it, of that I was certain. My room smelled of sex and sweat because he enjoyed it so much. But still, a part of me thought maybe I enjoyed the violence because I was like them. Like my parents. Maybe I just enjoyed hurting people.

  The soft steps in the hall weren’t Reese’s.

  I slid Vincent off my chest, pulling the blanket up over his shoulders. He just splayed wide, not waking. I envied his ability to sleep through anything.