Shadowed Heart: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance (A Death So Sweet Book 1)

by Candace Wondrak

  “We can’t get rid of you,” he went on, his hand tugging my head to the side to allow his face to dip toward my neck. With each word he murmured, those lips brushed against the most tender skin on my body, and I shivered into him without meaning to. “You will do great things for us, Lola. Great things.”

  Being used, being theirs… it was probably something that should turn me the fuck off, but there I was, the complete opposite: turned the fuck on. The violence of tonight, the way Sylvester’s mood changed so rapidly, it was all just too much. What the fuck was a girl to do when she was surrounded by men with handsome faces who wanted to both kill her and fuck her at the same time? I mean, was I crazy for enjoying this?

  Eh, yeah, you know what? I definitely was, but I never claimed to be the sanest tool in the shed.

  Those lips pressed against my neck, the fingers in my hair curling to pull the strands they held. One side of my head hurt a bit, while the other was being caressed with a set of lips that were a lot softer than I imagined they’d be. Hot and cold, just like Sylvester.

  I didn’t know what to make of him, what to make of this, whatever this was supposed to be, but I wasn’t going to stop him. How far would we go tonight, in the back of the car, with Viper a few feet away, nothing but the low hum of the road beneath us? I supposed only time would tell.

  Even though it would only tempt the devil beside me further, I fisted his suit jacket, not wanting him to stop. Let the devil take me, devour me, and spit me out. I didn’t care how much it would hurt during or after; I only cared about right now.

  And right now, Sylvester acted so hungry.

  A small moan escaped my throat when he started sucking a tender spot just below my jaw near my ear, and he responded to that moan by letting go of my hair and dragging that hand down my chest. Beneath the leather jacket, over my shirt, he pawed at my right tit, gripping it hard.

  The way he leaned over to me, how we were currently sitting in the back seat, oh, it wouldn’t do, so I decided to swing myself over him and straddle his lap. We must’ve hit a bump in the road, for the top of my head hit the roof above me, but all I could do was sigh out my breaths and invite him to keep nuzzling my neck.

  His teeth could tear me apart right now, and I wouldn’t care at all. Sylvester could literally rip me apart, piece by piece, and afterward, I would thank him like the good little bitch I was. Who wouldn’t? I mean, look at the guy. He dripped sex and danger, and he made me squirm in all the right ways.

  He then pulled out something I knew, deep down, he must have on him, but until now, it’d gone unseen: a gun. That gun had been tucked beneath his suit jacket, in the waistband of his pants, and he set the black, shiny thing on the seat next to us. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind its safety was on, and if I made a single move toward it, he’d be faster. He’d be faster and he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me with it.

  But I wasn’t going to go for it. Why would I, when there was something I wanted so much more in this backseat? Namely, the man himself.

  Sylvester tore off my jacket, tossing it to the floor of the backseat before returning his mouth to my neck. This time, he nipped, sucked, and licked with equal measure, mixing pain and pleasure and molding them into one. My knees were spread far enough apart around his lap that I could rock against him, grind against his midsection, and that’s exactly what I did; I humped him like the Energizer Bunny kept hitting his drum.

  And, what would you know? A mere five seconds later, he was rock hard under me, a steel rod poking me, trying to frantically slither out of his pants.

  My hands rested on his shoulders, and such wide, strong shoulders they were. He wasn’t as thick as Maddox, but he was a close second, molded by the Lucianos to be one of them. I was at home on the lap of a devil, eager to have him inside of me, to feel him filling me up. Call it wrong, call it sick, call it twisted or whatever have you, but it was clear, neither of us in that moment gave a shit.

  Sylvester should hate me. I shouldn’t care about him. Was that going to stop us from doing what we were about to do?

  Fuck no.

  We would spin around and around on this merry-go-round until the ride itself broke.

  His hands cupped my ass, squeezing my cheeks roughly, his fingers digging into my shorts. Lips on my jaw broke away to whisper, “I want to fuck you so bad, Lola. You look good with blood on you.” A sentence that might be an insult, if someone else had said it, but any of these guys? I knew they’d mean it.

  What devil wouldn’t like his angel to be painted in bright red?

  I was seconds from whispering my reply, from telling Sylvester to do it, to fuck me already, but one of his hands curled around my side, moving to the front of my shorts. Seemed he wasn’t going to wait, after all, which I was more than okay with. And then, when I realized what exactly he was doing, I threw my head back and relished in the feeling.

  Sylvester unbuttoned my shorts, undid the zipper, and curled that hand down along my body, fingers dipping low. Past my swollen, aching clit, they dipped all the way to my entrance, sliding easily because I was so turned on. I had to kneel over him a bit to allow his hand down there—no more grinding against the rock-hard cock beneath me—but that was more than fine. He could have me however he wanted me.

  “Fuck,” he breathed out the word. “You’re so wet. Did you like hurting that man?” As he asked the question, two of his fingers slid inside of me, filling me up and making me moan. His other hand still cupped my ass, holding onto me, forcing me to remain still, as if I’d dare try to pull away from him now. “Did you like taking a bat to his legs and destroying them?”

  When he asked that second question, I rocked my hips along his fingers, my inner walls tightening around them. All I could do was nod, because what was the use in denying it? When you didn’t care what the world thought about you, the truth never seemed so bad.

  “You might look like an angel,” he murmured, lips back to the crook of my neck, “but an angel you are not. That’s all right, though… any angel in this town would get her wings plucked. You belong here, you belong with us, whether you killed my brother or not.”

  The more he spoke, the more I rocked myself on his fingers, giving my pussy a good finger-fucking. His palm put pressure on my clit, and I could feel myself losing it. His words, the feeling of his fingers filling me up, how his palm rubbed against my clit with each rock of my hips—and not to mention the fact that Viper was less than two feet away, hearing this and probably watching through the rearview mirror as he drove—well, it was definitely enough to push me to a brutal, unforgiving orgasm.

  And it did. It so did, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  The orgasm ripped through me like a savage, lighting every single nerve in my body on fire, burning me up and causing me to cry out. Sweat lined my skin, everything so fucking hot all of a sudden, but I didn’t stop riding those fingers, didn’t stop until the orgasm settled itself deep within my belly.

  Sylvester watched me come with a dark look in his eyes, and after my orgasm washed away, he was slow in pulling his fingers out of me, leaning back on the leather seat behind him. I could see my wetness on his fingers in the darkness, could see the desire burning in his blue gaze, and I knew right then his fingers wouldn’t be the only thing inside of me tonight, on this endless car ride to nowhere.

  I took his hand, aware that he watched me, and brought those fingers to my mouth. I tasted myself on him, licking my juices off, and then I leaned toward him, pressing my lips to his in an open-mouthed kiss. My tongue pushed its way into his mouth, giving him a taste of me.

  I didn’t know what it was, but Sylvester turned me on like no other.

  Maybe he was right, what he’d said before. Maybe I’d started to get wet while I was beating the shit out of poor Jimmy’s legs. Did it matter?

  Sylvester didn’t bite me like his brother had; he only kissed me back, swallowing anything I fed him with my tongue as I moaned into his mouth and wrapped my arms around his ne
ck. He worked on freeing himself, his belt and his pants in the way for only a few more moments. Our kiss broke when he went to pull down my shorts and my fishnets; everything that impeded the way for his cock.

  God, I couldn’t wait to be impaled by that thing.

  My shorts, my panties, my fishnets; it all had to come off. It was a bit of a hassle, doing it while trying to balance in a moving vehicle while also attempting to do it as quickly as humanly possible because we were both beyond desperate for each other. There was nothing better than some physical relief; I would know, as I was still riding the high from my recent orgasm.

  Once I lowered my body down onto that rod, when I felt his cock fill me up in a way his fingers could not, my whole body shuddered in ecstasy. Sylvester let out a moan, his hands grasping my waist with a passion mirrored in his gaze. I rocked along him, dragging his length in and out of me in a steady rhythm that slowly picked up the pace. Within a minute, I was fucking him wildly, like an animal would.

  Like a greedy, eager animal who’d do anything for the D.

  I leaned my forehead against his. His skin was on fire, and anywhere he touched me, he practically burned me. I had no idea how he was still in his suit, how he wasn’t exploding from the constricting, stifling fabric. Hell, I only had my shirt and bra on, and that was too much for me; if we would’ve been anywhere else but this car, I would’ve just taken it all off.

  Sylvester leaned his head back, and I let him, figuring he needed to watch me, needed to see the dark glimmer in my eyes. One of the hands on my sides moved to hold my neck, not too tightly, but tight enough to let me know he was there. He was there, he was watching… and he could end me at any given moment. With the gun so close, it was impossible to push those thoughts from my head. Besides that, I didn’t want to.

  Guess I liked living life a quarter-mile at a time.

  With his hand around my neck, I rode him harder, hearing a moan rise from his chest and escape those lips. His cock slid into me easily now, my body having adjusted to his thickness, and I could practically feel that dick in my stomach when it filled me up to the brink.

  “You can hate me,” I whispered, feeling the fingers on my throat tighten just a bit, as if warning me against what I was about to say. I didn’t let it stop me, though. “And still fuck me.”

  His hand tensed more, his eyelids slamming shut as his hips rocked beneath me, spearing me with that dick as he came. If ever there was a more angry, conflicted orgasm, I didn’t think I’d ever see one. Sylvester grunted when he came, his cock filling me up with his cum, his seed.

  I felt, for just a split-second, so incredibly full and content, sitting on his lap, with his dick still inside of me, my arms wrapped around his neck as if we were dating and just getting a little handsy in the back of our car.

  But the feeling was gone almost as soon as it arrived, and I pulled myself off him and got dressed as fast as I could, not meeting his eyes again. I wasn’t scared of what I’d see there, because I knew how he felt, and yet… and yet I didn’t want to face the fact that I’d stumbled upon people I could easily see myself with, people I could go around wreaking havoc with and having wild, kinky sex with day in and day out, all because I’d killed Dickless.

  This wasn’t a reward for what I’d done; this was a punishment. I couldn’t let myself start to feel real, genuine things for any of these fucked up guys, even if they did call out to my inner freak.

  I sat near the window, my shorts pulled up and everything else, shrugging on my leather jacket with my back to Sylvester. In the time it took me to get dressed, he’d taken his time in putting himself away and fixing his belt. I could feel his cum leaking out of me, staining my panties. Not gonna lie, I got a thrill out of it, but at the same time, it made me feel stupid.

  I didn’t like feeling stupid.

  Sylvester didn’t reach for me, didn’t speak other than to tell Viper, “Go home.”

  No one said anything else during the drive, which let me lose myself in my thoughts. My head was not a good place to be, you know? Full of darkness and rage, even regret, nestled deep inside of me. I wasn’t remorseful for what I did, no; the regret wasn’t for that. My only shame in this life was not doing it sooner, not finding him and hurting him the same way.

  If there was one thing in this world I wished I could do, it was change it so no other girls would have to live through what I did. I hated knowing, somewhere out there, other poor, defenseless girls were being used and abused, hated that I couldn’t save them all. Dickless, and all of the other men who’d lost their lives at my hands; they were my way of trying to even the odds, just a little bit.

  But what good did I really do? I was twenty-two years old, and yet I felt so much older than that.

  The scar on my stomach burned, and I set a hand there, wishing I could tear off my skin.

  We got back to the house a while later; Viper had driven us all over town while Sylvester and I were getting down and dirty in the back. As we got out of the car, Sylvester looked to Viper and said, “She’s to shower, then go to bed. I don’t want her wandering the house, not until I speak to my father.”

  It was late, and I had no idea whether Daddy Luciano would be awake right now, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, really.

  Sylvester said nothing of his brother, but I assumed he went off and did his own thing all the time. He was the first to disappear in the house, and I stood there for a bit as Viper moved to my side. You know what sucked? Having someone tell you what to do, that same someone talking about you like you weren’t there.

  Just because his cock had been inside of me didn’t mean anything, I knew this, and yet it didn’t stop me from wishing that things were different. That I wasn’t me. That I was not Lola Harding and instead some other nameless girl in this city. Oh, to be innocent and ignorant again. I couldn’t remember a time when I was.

  I craned my neck upward, glancing to the window where light shone. Everywhere else in the house looked dark, except for a room on the third floor. A man stood in the window, one of his arms hanging at his side; his other held a small glass of something. Though he was far from me, though I couldn’t see the details, he looked to be wearing a suit—all black, even the undershirt. He watched me; I knew he did.

  Daddy Luciano?

  It had to be him. I didn’t know who else it would be, standing in the house, drinking what was probably some kind of alcohol, this late at night.

  He didn’t watch me for long; he turned his back to the window and walked away, leaving nothing but an open space where he’d been standing. He didn’t want to see me at all, not after I’d murdered his youngest son. I understood completely, and yet, standing there, having finally seen him—even if only for a split-second—I wanted to know more.

  He didn’t look that old. When I imagined Daddy Luciano, I pictured something of a silver fox, maybe in his fifties or even sixties. But that guy? I hadn’t gotten close enough to inspect his scalp to see if he had any grey hair, but he looked a lot younger than I’d thought.

  Viper must’ve seen the whole thing, for he let me stand there and stare at the empty window for a few moments more. Eventually, though, he gestured to the house and said, “Come on. There’s no use dragging this out.”

  I looked at him. Right. Of course. Time to hop in the shower, rinse off this blood, and go to bed as if nothing out of the ordinary happened tonight. I could do that. Pretending was something of a specialty of mine, anyway.

  I lived to pretend.

  Or did I pretend to live?

  Chapter Nine – Lola

  Grand pianos were a staple in wealthy homes. Good to see sometimes things never changed. The Lucianos had one, and I sat on its wooden bench, my fingers moving across the ivory keys effortlessly. It’d been years since I’d played—I hadn’t touched a piano since leaving my parents’ house—but the skill came back to me instantly.

  Some things, you’ll find out as you get older, never really leave you. They’re ingrained in y
our memory, your muscles knowing how to move. You might be a little rusty at first, but soon enough you could fall back into the groove as if you never stopped doing it in the first place.

  I was my parents’ angel. I could play many instruments, but the piano was one of my better ones. That, and my voice, but I would argue that singing wasn’t the same. It wasn’t an instrument anyone could learn if they sat down and practiced until their fingers bled.

  A voice? You were either born with it, or you weren’t. Sure, some people could take vocal classes and learn how to properly sing, but some people, even with classes like that under their belts, still sounded like dying cats being thrown into a meat grinder. Who wanted to sound like that? And, more than that, who wanted to hear those people sing?

  No, not everyone was born with the innate talent to sing. My parents liked to showcase me, especially around the holidays. I knew all the Christmas jingles, all of the popular songs, even now, after having not practiced for years. I used to enjoy singing, too, but even that had been tainted a long time ago.

  Nothing my parents touched was pure, you see, not even me.

  I looked up, grinning as I met Mike’s gaze. Today the gruff, no-nonsense, stoic man wore a dark blue shirt with paint splatters on it, matching his jeans. With his thick brown hair pulled back into a low bun, he looked like he was ready to go for a motorcycle ride or something.

  I finished what I was playing—No. 9 by the great man himself, Beethoven—breaking my silence to ask, “Can you play anything?”

  Mike didn’t like to talk to me. That much I knew by now. He only shook his head, his answer to my question, but I wasn’t going to let it be. I scooted to the side of the bench, trying to get him to come over and sit beside me. Anyone could play the piano if they had a good teacher; so unlike singing in every way.