by Kit Rocha
Maybe she'd whisper about this later, while she worked as many fingers as Jade could take into her body. Tell her how she'd looked with Dylan buried in her pussy and Mad in her mouth. Scarlet wasn't much for dirty talk, but she knew how to use just the right lewd words to make Jade come that much harder.
It was enough. And as soon as Jade had talked herself into believing it, Mad ruined everything by meeting Dylan's next thrust with one of his own.
The fist in her hair turned to steel. Mad drove deep, and she wasn't ready for it. The head of his cock bumped the back of her throat, stealing her breath as her mind stuttered to a halt. Tears stung her eyes—a physical reaction she couldn't quell, but desperately wished she could. Because if Mad saw, if he stopped—
Dylan rocked forward with a grunt, pushing Jade up the bed. And then it didn't matter, because even if Mad wanted to stop, she was trapped between them, carried along by the rhythm of their thrusts. So rough, but still so precise—every time her vision swam they eased apart long enough for her to take an unsteady breath before filling her again.
Somewhere in the midst of the storm of pleasure, Scarlet touched her—a familiar, firm hand at the small of her back. It could have been nothing more than comfort, a way to center Jade so she wouldn't fly away—until one slippery finger slid down to prod at her ass.
Yes. She would have screamed it if she could, and the enthusiasm of the thought truly did shake her. Bad enough that Dylan had cracked her armor to expose the eager woman who reveled in skills she should have rejected. But this…
Helplessness shouldn't feel this good.
"Deeper," Dylan growled. Scarlet obeyed the command instantly, and Jade struggled to relax, to accept the touch. And Scarlet knew her, knew just how to fuck her, when to go easy and when to push, and it didn't matter that it was only one slender finger. Not with Dylan filling her so completely that Jade could barely take him, much less more.
One of Dylan's hands left her hip, and then Scarlet echoed her moan, low and muffled. Instinct had Jade trying to turn, but Mad held on to her hair, dragging her gaze back to his.
"He's kissing her," he rasped, still pumping lazily up into her mouth. "It's hot. But so are you. Is this what you want?"
She fought his grip to nod, even though the painful pull stung fresh tears in the corner of her eyes. Her heart stopped when he reached out to brush one from her cheek with his thumb, but he didn't pull back. "You can take more, can't you?"
Yes, she could take more. She could take everything he had to give, more than he ever would. She nodded again, and he gritted his teeth and pushed her head down. This time, she didn't let him choke her. She tilted her head and took all of him, let him plunge deep into her throat, and counted his tight, desperate groan as her victory.
Dylan kept fucking her, spurred on by Scarlet whispering filthy encouragement. "Harder." Her voice was velvet, honey. Sex itself. "Make her come and don't stop."
No one had to make Jade come this time. Pleasure was within her grasp, a pulse she could either resist or give in to. It was habit to disassociate, to think too much as a counter to feeling too much.
This, she wanted to feel. The heat. The fullness. She let them in one by one—the slick glide of Mad's cock as he thrust deep and held, his whole body shaking with the effort not to succumb too quickly. The erotic friction of Dylan's as he drove deeper, his hips losing their perfect rhythm when she clenched tight around him. Scarlet's finger, as dark and teasing as her words.
So close. But she wasn't ready to let go. Not until she conquered.
Mad was close, too. She could feel it in every line of his body, and in his short, too-controlled thrusts. She sucked harder and moaned with every retreat, and soon he dragged her head up, his chest heaving. "Where do you want me to come?"
She licked her swollen lips. "Wherever the hell you want."
Dylan groaned as he leaned over her, his skin hot against her back. The position forced Scarlet's finger deeper, and she bit the back of Jade's shoulder when Dylan groaned again. "Come on, give it to her."
"Give it to me," she echoed, a plea and a challenge wrapped into one. And she still wasn't sure he would, not until he curled those strong fingers around his shaft and jerked up, hard and rough. A groan tore free of him, but he held her gaze as he did it again, and again.
The first spurt hit her chin. She parted her lips, dizzy with triumph as he groaned her name and pumped his fist, spilling across her lips and tongue without looking away.
Scarlet nuzzled her ear, moving with her as Dylan fucked her faster, his rhythm furious and desperate. Hard, each quick thrust slamming through her, until she couldn't hold herself above the sensations.
The orgasm started deep, a swift, hard clench that burst into shivery heat. She gasped in a breath that still tasted like Mad, and that tiny detail unraveled her. She buried her face against his hip as the shudders took her, and the fingers that had twisted in her hair loosened now, stroking and soothing.
Panting, Dylan rode her orgasm, his hands grasping her tighter and tighter. He hauled her back roughly into one final thrust and came—shuddering, her name on his lips, his nails biting into her skin.
She'd have marks there. Tiny crescents, little reminders of this moment. This glorious, debauched, shameless moment. She turned her head, found Scarlet's mouth, and shared a lazy kiss that provoked another full-body shudder when Scarlet licked the last drops of Mad from her lips.
And that moment—that helpless, shuddering, blissful moment—transcended everything. It filled all the hollow places, the distant, empty craving she'd expected to carry with her for the rest of her life, because that was what surviving the addiction they cooked up in Sector Five meant. A life where nothing ever touched you the way the drugs had touched you.
But they had—Scarlet and Mad and Dylan, all together. Jade's eyes stung anew at the impossibility of it, at the relief. The sheer, drunken joy.
The moment passed—moments always passed. But the glow remained, lending a new edge of rediscovered hope to the familiarity of Scarlet's kiss.
"Bath," Mad said hoarsely. "Let's go recover in the bath."
Jade laughed against Scarlet's mouth. "I can't. I can't walk."
"We'll all drown," Scarlet agreed.
"Plus one of us would have to get up to fill it." Mad groaned and threw an arm over his head. "Maybe we should just stay in bed for a couple days and get our energy back."
Dylan didn't move. He knelt right where he'd been, his chest heaving, and braced his fists on his thighs. "We have to go back to Four."
Even in blissful afterglow, he was so practical. It took supreme effort, but Jade managed to turn onto her back. She bumped Scarlet with her elbow and nudged Mad in the stomach with the back of her head, but the glorious tangle of bodies only made her smile wider. "We will. Tomorrow. This is still tonight."
After what seemed like forever, Dylan nodded. "You're right."
Scarlet poked him with her foot until he fell over beside them. "Stop thinking."
"He can't." Mad stroked his fingers absently through Jade's hair. "Dylan's brain is always working. Usually about three steps ahead of mine."
"Too bad," Scarlet countered. "It doesn't belong here, not tonight."
Finally, Dylan unbent enough to smile. "Yes, ma'am."
She was right. Nothing harsh and real belonged in this moment. The first time they'd come together had been intense, desperation seething beneath every touch, and reality had intruded just as intensely in the aftermath. This was different. Soft focus. Safe.
Jade closed her eyes and sank her fingers into Scarlet's tangled hair. "As much as I love Sector Four, I have to admit I'll miss this house. And this bed. Scarlet doesn't kick me at night in this one."
Scarlet nipped at the inside of her arm with a low laugh. "Because I can't find you in it."
Jade stretched her other arm out, across Mad's body, until her fingertips brushed Dylan's shoulder. "Are any of the beds in Four this big?"
Mad laughed softly. "Dallas's is close."
"And yours," Dylan rumbled.
Just like that, the world snapped into sharp focus. Tomorrow they'd be back in Sector Four, under the curious eyes of their O'Kane brothers and sisters. There would be no conveniently shared bed, hidden away from gossip and consequences.
If Jade and Scarlet slipped into Mad's oversized bed, it would mean something. It would mean too much, because they'd already used up casual and convenient. They were scraping past the surface layers, brushing against fantasies and fears.
When she'd dangled the possibility in front of Scarlet all those months ago, she hadn't really meant it. She'd known Mad wanted her, and that he came from a place where wanting and taking and loving more than one person wasn't a sin.
She simply hadn't believed Mad could bring himself to take her.
Now, dangerous possibilities taunted her. Dangerous because they sparked too hot, and there were so many ways for two people to implode, much less four.
Dangerous because if they didn't fall apart, if it lasted, they'd find their way under Jade's armor. And if war between the sectors and the city was coming, she needed it more than ever.
Ashwin
He didn't know how she'd gotten out of the city.
Watching from the shadows as Dr. Kora Bellamy tended to her current patient, Ashwin Malhotra found himself plagued by the unfamiliar sensation that events were sliding out of his grasp.
He wasn't supposed to be here. The Base had recalled him immediately after the bombing of Two. The orders he'd received were detailed, precise, and of paramount importance. But he'd programmed these alerts years ago, after the first moment he'd come face-to-face with Kora and realized who she must be.
What she must be.
Ashwin was ruthlessly thorough, and so were his alerts. Eden was full of cameras and checkpoints, especially in the restricted-access medical and government buildings, and Ashwin had mastered network infiltration by the age of ten.
An accounting of Kora's movements appeared on his personal tablet every twelve hours. Where she went, how long she stayed. The names and ranks of everyone who crossed her path, from the lowliest of servants to the Council members themselves. An algorithm he'd built processed the data, analyzed it for warning signs.
Disappearing from Eden's surveillance systems entirely was more than a warning sign. It was a potential crisis.
Because Ashwin was thorough, and because he knew who she was—and what she was—he'd had little trouble locating her. Left to her own devices, Kora would always drift toward the highest concentration of pain, driven by instincts she couldn't possibly understand to assuage that suffering. Until now, he'd counted on Eden's restrictions to check her tendencies, but his assessment of the various forces in play had been flawed.
Another unfamiliar sensation.
At least he'd found her quickly enough. Of course she was here, in the makeshift hospital Gideon Rios had erected in his sector. Compound fractures and lacerations presented little challenge to a woman who could reconstruct vital organs on a cellular level, but Kora wasn't like other city doctors. They fought over who got to perform the flashiest procedures in order to pad their egos and attract Council attention.
Not Kora. She fought pain in all its forms, and there were so many ways to measure human suffering, calculations that were alien to him. He'd been trained to construct a personality profile based on observed data and known psychology, and he still frequently failed to properly account for the most reliable variable of all—the sheer irrationality of human emotion.
Maybe this was his first taste of it. Ashwin had subjected himself to enough brutal self-assessment to recognize irrationality when it presented itself in his own behaviors. It wasn't entirely unexpected—Makhai soldiers who left the Base for long periods of time often destabilized. That could explain why he was standing in One, watching Kora, instead of executing his mission objectives.
If he admitted his own fallibility to the generals, they'd assign him a new domestic handler, a woman who would provide him with the necessary sexual outlet while also tending to his less demanding physical needs. She'd be a spy, of course, trained to seek out fractures in his psyche, to bring them to the surface when she crawled into his bed and report them to the Base so he could be recalibrated as needed.
Perhaps it wouldn't be all bad. His recent duties had prevented him from undertaking the tedious social negotiations involved in obtaining a sexual partner. A domestic handler would already be aware of his particular needs, and most had been so poorly treated that it was only marginally difficult to subvert their loyalties. Even in the face of overwhelming proof to the contrary, a woman could remain stubbornly susceptible to the fantasy that she, and only she, could stir the emotions of a Makhai soldier.
But subverting loyalties took time. It came naturally to some of the soldiers—Ashwin's training partner had been particularly adept. Every handler the Base ever tossed his way had ended up in love with him within a month. He had charm, and the ability to mimic affection. Women melted the first time he touched them.
Women never melted for Ashwin. Oh, they came to him willingly enough, but even those with weak instincts sensed the danger in him, the icy reserve untouched by emotion. They came to him, their hearts pounding with lust and nerves in equal measure, and he worked them over with the same dedication, skill, and unflagging attention to detail he afforded all his missions.
Pleasure was a powerful tool. More powerful than pain, if you had the patience for it. Even the women who feared him usually returned, and in time they forgot everything but the haze of bliss. They confused his willingness to pleasure them with true feelings, because they'd been neglected, if not outright mistreated.
Ashwin watched Kora rise, her movements graceful even though she was exhibiting several symptoms of exhaustion. She placed both hands at the small of her back and stretched, and Ashwin's gaze catalogued the curves of her body by habit. The line of her jaw, the arch of her neck. Her breasts, her hips, the flare of her ass. She was small, but not delicate. Strong beneath all her softness.
Untouched.
He never allowed himself to wonder how she would come to his bed. The moral blankness where his heart should have been balked for some reason, even as he admitted to himself that he had a proprietary interest in every untouched inch of her. He'd watched her halfhearted attempts to date. He'd calculated, with idle curiosity, the number of bones he'd have to break in each suitor's hands to keep him from touching her in the way men in Eden touched women—clumsily, coldly, cruelly.
But she'd known better than to let those men into her heart or her body. She'd known for all the same reasons she'd come here, because of who and what she was.
Because of those reasons, Ashwin would keep her safe. Even if it meant she someday looked into the darkness inside him and knew better than to have anything to do with him.
Chapter Twelve
Mad had never seen the party room looking so damn solemn.
Every O'Kane with ink was assembled in the middle of the room. Fully clothed, which was different. But Dallas hadn't called his people home for a celebration, and the expressions on the faces closest to Mad were grim.
No surprise, when Dallas had just finished outlining everything they'd learned in Sector One. The stark facts were even more chilling now, since more than a week had passed since the bombing, and Eden was still acting like nothing happened. No propaganda, no excuses or explanations.
They'd killed thousands. And they didn't care enough to lie about why.
"So we're at a crossroads," Dallas said from the dais. He held up his right fist, displaying the O'Kane ink around his wrist—the first symbol Mad had ever truly believed in. "O'Kane for life," he continued, skimming the crowd. "That's the promise. But we made it in a different world."
Dallas's gaze clashed with Mad's for a heartbeat, then landed on the spot where Flash stood with his arms around Amira, who had sweet little Hana balanced on her hip. The
only child on the compound, who could be an orphan—or worse—if this war went wrong.
Mad had known Dallas long enough to read the same thought in his leader's eyes. "This is a guilt-free out, folks. A pass. And I wouldn't blame a goddamn one of you for taking it. You can grab what you need to get clear of the sectors and up into the mountains. All you have to do—" he gestured to the right side of the room, "—is walk over there."
Lex was already standing against the wall on the left-hand side of the room, her arms across her chest. "The alternative," she said slowly, "is to stay and fight. But like Dallas said, it's dangerous. And it's not necessarily what any of you joined up for."
"It's war," Dallas told them flatly, still watching Flash and Amira. "Some of you have people depending on you."
"Yeah." Amira pressed her lips to the top of Hana's head and rocked her gently. "And we're not teaching our daughter to walk away from what's right just because it's easier. Flash?"
The man that Mad had first met all those years ago would have tossed his lover and their daughter into the closest car and driven like hell for safety, whether she agreed or not. The man standing next to him now flexed his fingers before planting them firmly at the small of Amira's back and steering her toward Lex. "For life, Dallas."
"For life," Noelle echoed, giving Jas a look that dared him to protest before she crossed to Lex's side.
Jasper shrugged slightly as he started after her, an easy movement that belied the tension in his voice. "What can I say? I've got to see what you come up with, you crazy bastard."
Six didn't say a damn thing. She started moving at the same moment Bren did, as if neither had to question the other's answer. Tatiana looked at her baby sister and then the empty right wall, but Catalina was already joining the slowly moving river of bodies.
