“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me,” I said.
“I just needed to use the bathroom,” he continued. “I was standing at the urinal when I heard her scream. God…that scream.”
He paused again and I looked up to see that he’d closed his eyes, pushing tears down from their corners.
“I ran out but I was too late. They’d slashed my tires and I saw them stuff her into a black van. I ran after them and got my hands on one, a big guy with a black heart tattoo with a snake wrapped around it. I pulled him out of the van door but he fought back and the van got away while I struggled with him. I killed the guy.”
“Baby…”
“I saw Maribelle again. Six months later. The cops found her on the side of the road wearing a slave’s collar. She’d been raped and beaten and killed.”
I was silent. No words I could conjure up would make sense. Saying I was sorry wouldn’t make sense. Somehow I knew silence was better.
“Pike is a bad guy,” he said. “He’s evil. I just know it. I’m not sure what his plan is. He’s here for something…and it’s not you.”
“Alé, that’s not fair. You don’t even…”
“You’re being naïve. He is up to something. When I saw him that first night in the woods I had a bad feeling about him. But yesterday, as I watched him getting his cock sucked by one of the younger, single Doves at the club, and I saw his head bent over, watching her do it, I saw it. On the back of his neck. A black heart with a snake wrapped around it.”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying. Pike belonged to the gang that killed his fiancée? I pulled away and climbed out of bed. My head was swimming.
“Lauren…”
“What if it’s a coincidence? That tattoo could mean anything.”
“It doesn’t just mean anything. It means he’s a killer. Even if he wasn’t directly involved win Mari’s death, he was part of that gang. He may still be part of that gang.”
“Then why would he be here?” I asked.
“How the fuck would I know? But he’s here for a reason, Lauren, and however you play into his plan I know his reason for being here isn’t you.”
He doesn’t understand. None of them do. They haven’t seen the way he looks at me. This isn’t just part of some kind of wicked plan.
I needed to get out of my house. I had my hand on the doorknob when Alé rolled off the bed, stood, and dropped down on his knees with his hands in a prayer like gesture.
“I’m begging you, Lauren. Don’t do this. I know you are my Dove and this is ultimately your decision. We all know that. Connor will agree because of it and Bentley will agree because of it and I’ll have no choice either. But I’m begging you. Please. Don’t do this.”
I walked out of the room and slammed the door behind me.
I was being a bitch. That much I knew for sure. Alejandro didn’t deserve for me to walk out on him. Connor didn’t deserve to wonder how he was unable to make me happy. Bentley didn’t deserve to question how many more husbands I would need before I would be truly happy. I was a bitch. Plain and simple.
But for some reason I still couldn’t get Pike out of my head. He’d bewitched me somehow and I wanted him.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I walked the whole compound thinking. When it began to rain, I kept walking, enjoying the feel of the frigid drops on my skin. I felt like my sins were on their way to being washed clean. I was freezing but accepted the torture. I deserved it.
I went out to the suitor cabins and entered the one I’d used with Connor. The air inside was stale as the cabin hadn’t been used in a while. I lit a few candles and sat down on the bed. I opened the bottle of red wine on the nightstand, used my dress to wipe the dust from a glass, and poured myself a warm drink. I could spend the rest of the night in the cabin, alone, in the peace and quiet.
And it was so quiet. I dabbed at my wet skin with the bed comforter and sipped my drink to the sounds of the crickets and owls outside. They were my own low-volume soundtrack.
Any other night I would have been completely at ease, loving my peaceful alone time. But not this night. I had a thunderstorm brewing inside my head. My thoughts were so jumbled. I knew what I wanted to do and I knew what I should do but I couldn’t figure out what I would do.
The quiet didn’t last long. A soft rap at the slightly open door startled me.
“Who’s out there?” I asked.
“Me,” he said.
I wasn’t as familiar with the voice as I was with some others in the community but I knew it was Pike and my heart pounded in my chest.
He stepped inside and locked the door behind him. When he reached the candlelight, I saw he was dressed in loose, white linen pants and a white tank top. He looked almost virginal with his ivory clothes and hopeful smile. The flames brought just a little light to his beautiful face, leaving half of it shrouded in darkness.
Nervousness caused me to shift my gaze downward. I couldn’t believe it. I could see the shape of his cock through the pants. He wasn’t wearing underwear.
“Pike,” I said. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“But you’re here,” he replied.
“I’m here to gather my thoughts. About you. About us. About everything.”
“Let me help you with your decision.”
I’d been leaning towards no. Seeing the pain I’d caused my husbands had been eating at me all day and all night and I knew I couldn’t marry this man.
But seeing that he was prepared for me, ready to yank off his pants and get right down to business, I felt myself swelling and getting wet. I still wanted him, despite all that Alé had said.
Maybe I’d been wrong the other day. Maybe I was a whore. Maybe this whole Daughters of Venus idea was just an excuse to live out my whoring days, fucking three husbands, possibly soon to be four.
No. I couldn’t believe that. I was a Dove. My sex was a treasure, my body was a temple, and my love was a gift.
His dick was already hard, pressing on his pants.
I wanted it. But I couldn’t have it.
“Pike,” I said as he walked towards me, his cock only a foot from my face. “I…my…”
I needed to tell him but part of me wanted to rip his pants from his waist and take his cock in my mouth. I’d already had him in my hand once and I knew how big he was. I’d never tasted him though.
“I don’t want to wait for the suitor visit,” he said. “Lauren, I need to be inside of you. We’re alone right now. Fuck the rules. Just tell me it’s okay and I’ll make you come like a real goddess tonight. It won’t matter anyway, right? We’ll get married and fuck again and again…so what’s wrong with making this real tonight?”
“My answer is no,” I blurted out.
I wanted to slap myself. How could I pass up such a gorgeous hunk of a man? All he wanted to do was marry me and make me happy and I was saying no.
“No?” he asked. “No about tonight? Or no about it all? About forever?”
“No,” I said. “To all of it. I can’t have you.”
He took a step back and stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at his feet.
“Wow,” he said. “Umm, I wasn’t expecting that. It kinda hurts.”
“It’s not my intention to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But being with you hurts a lot of people. Not being with you only hurts you.”
He lifted his head.
“And you,” he added.
He was right. It wasn’t just his heart wrapped up in this. I felt something too.
I nodded and the tears started flowing. First Connor then Bentley then Alé and now Pike. Seeing a man hurt is one of the hardest things to witness.
He turned away from me and at the top of his shirt, at the base of his neck, I saw the tattoo Alé had mentioned. It was true. Anger washed over me.
“I need to know something,” I said. “What does the tattoo on the back of your neck mean?”
“The snake and heart? That’s the sym
bol for the Brothers of Carnage.”
“And do you make it a habit to take women who don’t belong to you and rape them and kill them?”
A corner of his mouth twisted up and his eyebrows furled.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I told you, I…”
“What are you really doing here? What’s the master plan?”
“I told you. I’m not with the Brotherhood of Carnage anymore. They did some serious shit when I was with them…and my girl, Anna, she got caught in all that. My own girl got killed by them. You asked me the other day about her name on my chest. Well…now you know. So if you think I was involved in anything to do with…”
I knew he was telling the truth and I drowned out the rest of what he was saying. Suddenly I felt bad for questioning him in the first place. I believed him. His story was so much like Alejandro’s. They had more in common than they knew.
But I still couldn’t be with him.
“Forget the damned games, Lauren,” he said. “All the rumors and the bullshit others are saying. You want me. I know you do. We have something. I feel it and I know you do too. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. My dick is hard every time I’m in the same area as you.”
He was right. But this was wrong. We couldn’t be together.
As soon as I opened my mouth to say something strong, something that would make him realize just how serious I was, Pike grabbed my dress in both hands, and pulled, ripping my dress down the middle.
I wasn’t wearing a bra and as the dress ripped, my tits spilled out. His mouth attacked my left breast. His lips were so soft, softer than any I’d ever had, as he worked my nipple.
My chest was wet from the rain and my hair was drenched but Pike didn’t seem to mind as he moved from my left breast to my right.
“I heard you got your cock sucked the other night,” I said.
I expected him to deny it.
“Yes, I did,” he said.
Well damn, I wasn’t expecting that kind of honesty.
“Did you like it?” I asked.
“It was okay. Not great but I came and that’s what I needed.”
I pulled away from him and lashed out. I slapped the shit out of him. I needed that. I was angry for allowing him to seduce me and I was angry at him for the way my husbands were upset with me.
“You have the nerve to get head from one of those single Doves when you were planning to ask me for a suitor visit?”
“Do you know how long it’s been since I came?” he asked.
I slapped him again and he smiled with a speck of blood forming at the corner of his mouth.
“You should have waited for me,” I said.
“And what would you have done?”
“This,” I said.
With that, I grabbed his pants and yanked them to the floor. His cock fell out and bobbed in front of me for a second. I grabbed his balls in my left hand and squeezed.
He groaned as I pushed a little too hard on his balls but he seemed to like it. I wanted to hurt him for some reason. I wanted to punish him for going to someone else for a blowjob.
He was my man and he needed to know that.
Wait, what? No, he wasn’t my man.
But he was.
I didn’t want him. But I did.
I wanted so badly to take him in my mouth. But I couldn’t.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” I said. “And I can’t do this.”
I dropped his dick and backed away. Pike pulled up his pants and approached me again.
“You need to do this,” he said. “You have to finish what you’ve started.”
“This isn’t even a suitor visit,” I said as I did my best to cover up my breasts. “You’re new here and you’re already breaking all the rules.”
“Breaking them with you,” he reminded me. “We’re both in on this.”
“Not anymore,” I said. “My answer is no.”
“Baby,” he said as he stepped closer and stroked my hair, doing the asshole move where he tried to pull my head closer to his cock as if that would magically make me want to give him a blowjob. “We belong together.”
“No, you belong to Jessica. You’ll be her fellow.”
“I don’t fucking want Jessica!” he yelled. “I want you. What do I have to do to make you believe that?”
For a second I thought Pike was going to hit me. His face was red in the candlelight and his eyes squinted in anger.
“You’re scaring me,” I said. “I want to go home.”
He stepped in front of me, blocking the door.
“Pike, move,” I said. “Let me out of here.”
“You’re a tease,” he said.
“Pike, get the fuck out of my way. I’m going home to my husbands.”
I pushed him out of the way and just as I was about to grab the doorknob, He grabbed my wrist, pulled me away from the door, and threw me onto the bed.
“I’m sorry, Lauren. Please don’t leave.”
The door exploded inward, the frame shattering in broken shards of wood. Pike jumped away from the bed and spun on his heels. Alé stood in the doorway wearing only his black cargo pants from earlier.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he asked.
“You’re interrupting something that’s none of your business, Pal,” Pike replied.
“My wife ain’t my motherfuckin’ business?”
Alé swung his right hand and smashed Pike’s jaw. Pike flew to his right and bounced off the bed before hitting the floor. It happened so fast, too fast for me to stop it.
“Alé, no!” I screamed but it was too late, he’d already hit him.
“Tell me what ain’t my fuckin’ business again, bitch!” Alé said as he grabbed Pike’s arm and yanked him back to his feet.
Pike was a strong bull. He ducked, wrapped his arms around Alé’s waist, then spun around behind him, lifted him up and suplexed him backwards onto the floor.
“Alé!” I screamed.
Pike reached down to grab Alé’s shirt but Alé slapped it away and Pike’s momentum got the best of him. He stumbled forward and Alé leapt back to his feet.
He slammed a fist down against Pike’s cheek, grabbed him by his hair, and smashed his elbow into his eye.
“You came to the wrong place to try to steal someone’s girl!” Alé said as he held onto Pike’s hair and ran towards the door.
Pike fought back, kicking Ale’s kneecap. Alé hit the floor. Pike grabbed the back of Alé’s head and drove his knee into his nose.
I heard the crack. I saw the blood.
Alé crashed backwards onto the floor.
Pike turned away from my husband and walked towards me.
“Come with me, Lauren. You saw what happened. He attacked me and that’s against your rules. Rule number five I think. If a man raises a hand to another…he will be banished.”
“Rule number three,” I said.
He was right. Alé had committed an inexcusable act. I would have stopped him if I’d seen it coming. No violence, at all, would be accepted. He would be banished.
“Get rid of him and you’ll have an open spot for me. No one would blame you or think badly about you for taking a third husband. A fourth maybe. A third, no.”
“I love him,” I said. “Are you crazy? He’s my husband. I’m not going to just ditch him and move on to the next thing.”
“You wouldn’t be ditching him,” Pike said. “He will be banished. Once I tell them…”
“Tell them what?” Alé’s voice thundered from behind. “That you were taking advantage of my wife?”
Pike turned to meet him face to face.
“Taking advantage?”
Pike laughed.
“You should have gotten here earlier. You can’t force the willing.”
Alé’s face twisted in rage. I’d never seen him like that. He looked...monstrous.
“I’
ll fucking kill you,” he roared.
It happened so quickly that I could barely understand myself let alone tell you about it. Alé attacked. He hit Pike with some sort of one-two combo. From behind, I could only see Pike stumble backwards and clutch his throat.
The Trouble with Three Husbands (A Dystopian Romance Novella): Daughters of Venus 1 Page 9
