by V. Darling
He eases his long legs out from under him and sits, pulling me closer to him with his hands on my ass. His mouth covers me, teasing my clit, skating lower, until he laps at my entrance. I close my eyes and throw my head back as his tongue slides deeper. He’s driving me crazy with need as he fucks me with his tongue. I sink my hands into his hair again and tug, wanting him on my clit.
I open my eyes. My mouth gapes, but it isn’t a gasp of surprise that comes out—it’s a moan. Lev stands in the doorway to his bedroom, watching the two of us, just as I’d fantasized. His gaze is narrowed, his lip curled in his ever-present sneer. He wants to kill us both—I know, because that jealousy reflected in his eyes is the same emotion that coursed through me when I saw him earlier in the pool house. I moan, tightening my grip on Nav’s hair as I push him into me. My lip curls in the corner as I watch Lev watch me.
Nav laves at my hungry flesh, quickening the pace of his lashing tongue and I forget all about making Lev jealous. I can’t hold back my moaning, the way my legs quake and my whole body shivers. I open my eyes, afraid Lev will be gone, but he’s not. His gaze meets mine across the bathroom and it’s as if there’s no space between us at all. I imagine it’s his tongue, his hand inside me, working me closer to orgasm, and it hurts.
I don’t muffle my cries. I don’t care who hears, because I’ve made my point. Lev’s furious expression tells me he knows this is one first he’ll never get.
I rock my hips against Nav’s face. All I see are Lev’s eyes on my breasts. All I feel is his brother’s mouth on me, and all I can do as I come against his fingers and tongue is wish I’d never met the Fox brothers.
It’s bittersweet, because I’m no longer just hurting Lev. Not having him, seeing him with other girls and feeling his twin’s hands and mouth on my flesh? It’s hurting me too. It hurts us both, and if we’re not careful it’s going to destroy everything The Royals have built. This empire we reign over? It could all topple tomorrow, and the one man I can rely on to have my back, the one man I know will treat me like a queen regardless of whether or not the castle walls fall, isn’t the one I really want.
Lev’s not a king or a knight coming to save me. He’s the enemy who’ll set the castle walls on fire. He’ll throw me to the lions, feed me to the gators in the moat, and burn me at the stake before he’d ever kneel at my feet.
And if I’m not careful, I’ll let him take my crown, because love makes fools of even the strongest queens. It’s the only way to truly take one down, and Lev knows it.
Love.
Love can suck it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Scout
I sit at the dinner table beside Nav, who can’t stop showering me with kisses. Normally, I wouldn’t mind but the guilt is eating me alive. I shouldn’t be searching Lev’s golden eyes for a tiny morsel of acknowledgement. I shouldn’t feel guilty for making love to my boyfriend. And I shouldn’t have thought of his twin brother the entire time.
I stand. All eyes are on me, but the only ones that matter glower with thinly veiled hatred. He started this. He did this. He left that note, he fucked Charleigh, and he didn’t like it when I gave him just a taste of his own medicine.
“Excuse me,” I blurt. “I need to use the restroom.”
“Of course,” Jessica says, as if she’s the woman of the house. Everyone knows she’s only here to make Senator Fox look good. He’ll probably dump her ass for someone younger as soon as his campaign run is done. “We’ll wait.”
“No.” I turn from the table. “Start without me.”
Nav reaches out and takes my hand. “You okay, babe?”
I nod and muster a weak smile. “Cramps.”
“Well, that’s me done.” Lev rises from his chair. It falls to the floor, the carpet swallowing what would have been a rather impressive disruption. “Way to go, Cub. Now everyone’s going to be thinking of your bleeding pussy while they try not to gag on their rare roast beef.”
“Great. It should make a nice change from the stench of skank coming off you, now, shouldn’t it?”
King laughs. “Dude. She has a point.”
Jessica clears her throat. “Now, now, children.”
“Oh, please. You’re like five minutes older than the rest of us, Jessica,” I snap.
Lev chuckles and presses his index finger to his lips in a shushing motion. “The grown-ups are talking now, Jess.”
Rage colors her face and she furiously blinks back tears. I feel a little sorry for her ... and then I remember she’s a gold-digging whore who hit on the twins a month after her nuptials to their dad.
Eww.
I turn from the table and stalk toward the second-floor bathroom. I shut the door and walk to the sink, leaning against it with my head bowed.
Behind me, the door opens and clicks shut as the lock slides into place. The scent of weed and booze waft across the room, and I don’t have to glance up at our reflection to know it isn’t Nav who just walked in.
“Leave me alone, Lev.”
“Cramps, huh?”
I swallow hard and meet his gaze in the mirror as he stops behind me. “I thought the details of my menstrual cycle put you off your food?”
His breath is hot on the back of my neck. It reminds me so much of the night I let him take my virginity that I close my eyes, just for a second, just to escape his cruel and licentious gaze. His arm wraps around my waist and pulls me back against him, hard. I suck in a deep, hissing breath.
“Did you finally fuck him, or did you only let him eat your sweet little cherry?”
“Eat a dick, Lev.”
“I’d rather you eat mine.”
“In your dreams.”
“And yours, apparently.” His hand snakes under my skirt and yanks my panties aside. He doesn’t touch my clit. This isn’t about pleasure; it’s about ownership.
He slides two fingers along my slit, and bares his teeth in a Fox smile when he finds my wetness. He dips inside, hard and rough, claiming my pussy as his once more. “I knew you’d be soaking for me. Were you thinking of me when he shoved his fingers inside you, Cub? Did you think of my mouth on your cunt when he was licking your clit? Did you imagine my face when you glanced down and saw him between your pretty little thighs?”
“Fuck ... you,” I pant, wishing he didn’t know how to make me scream from his touch alone, wishing I didn’t love that fact.
“Well, since you asked so nicely.”
The sharp zing of his zipper echoes through the silent bathroom. I shiver in anticipation.
“You can pretend to hate me all you want.” His whispered words leave a trail of goosebumps in their wake. “But I know what your body needs.”
“I never pretend when it comes to you.”
He grabs a condom from his pocket, tears open the packet with his teeth, and rolls it on. Then he grabs the La Mer Renewal Oil from the vanity and squirts it over the seam of my ass. I gasp in horror as smooth liquid runs between my cheeks, but desire arcs through me. His big hand splays across my back and he pushes me forward, until my cheek is resting against the cool mirror.
“Bear down, Cub. This might hurt,” he whispers in my ear as he teases my pussy with the head of his dick. From front to back he slides his hard shaft through my slippery, wet heat, and then when I’m desperate for the taunting to stop, he positions his head at the entrance to my ass and little by little slowly shoves inside. I cry out at the perfect pain of it, the brutality and the pleasure.
I’m keenly aware that we’re not alone in this house, and Nav could walk by at any given moment. But Lev’s not done collecting the rest of my firsts, and apparently, I’m not done letting him.
His teeth are perfectly imperfect, crooked in the right places, and fully embedded in my heart. They bite down on my shoulder. They pierce my fragile flesh, and they sink deep. This is his hold on me. This is how he keeps me. This is why I’ve loved to hate him since the night of his seventeenth birthday, because I could pretend, but I could never forget his
touch, his lips, and the way he made my body scream for him. The way he never lets me stray far from his perfect, shiny teeth.
He drives his hips mercilessly against me. I open my mouth to cry, to scream, to moan his name, but nothing comes out.
“Cat got your tongue, Cub?”
“Why ... oh, God ... why can’t you just let me be?”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’re sick. You know that?” But even as I say it, I know we’re both infected, tainted, ailing from the same illness, and neither one of us will do anything to cure it. There is no cure for a love as vicious and cruel as this. There’s only embracing what we are, what we have, and what we’ll do to one another. What we’ll do to see each other fall.
“I want you to leave me alone.” I pant as his hands work my pussy faster and his cock pumps into my ass harder.
“I don’t think that’s true,” he whispers.
I gasp, struggling for breath as I climb closer to climax. “I hate you so much it hurts.”
“I know.” He bites down on my shoulder. The way a beast might bite the neck of his consort as he fucks her and claims her as his.
I always thought of Lev as a big bad wolf so in love with his own solitude—angry and untouchable—but he’s not. He’s a fox, sly and cunning, determined to shred, and tear until there is nothing left.
He groans as he spills inside me, and the sensations push me over the edge. My body clenches tight around him, riding him, milking him, and all the while he fucks me harder through my orgasm.
When the only sound in the room is our labored breaths, and the sweat cools on our bodies, he releases my shoulder and smiles. “The feeling is fucking mutual, Cub.”
Look out for the big, bad wolf. That’s what they say, but no one ever said anything about the fox.
CHAPTER NINE
Lev
When I sit down at the table, Jessica is gone. Kingston’s plate is empty, his chair pushed back, and his belly distended. My brother eyes me coolly, as if he knows my dick was just buried in his girlfriend’s tight little ass. If that were true though, he wouldn’t be sitting at the table. He’d be trying to kill me. “Where the hell have you been, and where’s Scout?”
“I went to smoke a joint, and Scout went home.” I spear the roast beef on my plate and eat it without bothering to cut it. “Cramps—you must have fucked the shit out of her, brother.”
His eyes narrow. “Don’t be a dick. I know that’s hard for you, but that’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.”
I grin. “Yeah, I got that. You tell me every five goddamn minutes.”
He shrugs. “Just making sure you don’t forget, brother.”
King clears his throat. “I sense a ... thing happening here, and I don’t do ... things.”
“There’s no thing,” I say to King, taking another bite of my food.
“Oh, there’s a thing,” Nav says, and I roll my eyes.
King wipes his mouth on his napkin and folds the cloth neatly beside his plate. He stands. “Well, thanks for dinner, but my mom’s probably wondering where—”
“You spending the night here, or at River’s?” I ask, because we all know he’s not going home. If it were up to King, he’d never go home again. His mom’s a white-trash junkie and his dad is in jail—when he’s not beating the shit out of women and children that is.
“You don’t need to look out for me,” King whispers glancing at the table still laden with food.
“I know. But your room’s always here.” So long as Dad’s precious conservative voters don’t find out there’s a black man living in our house.
“I was ... gonna go by Blythe’s.”
I cock my head and smile. “You sly fucking dog.”
He shakes his. “Nah. It ain’t even like that.”
“Bullshit.”
“Listen, I’mma let you two do your thing. I’ll crash at River’s tonight.”
“Door’s always open, man.”
“Thanks brother.” He reaches out for a fist bump and then disappears down the hall, leaving me alone with my twin.
I meet Nav’s cool, green gaze across the table. “Let’s hear it then.”
“What did you say to Scout?”
“I’ve said many things to Scout. You’ll have to be more specific.” I spear my asparagus and chew, giving him my “bored now” face.
“I know you talked to her during dinner. You can’t help yourself. What did you say to her?”
“I congratulated her on finally giving it up.”
“You’re an asshole.” He gets to his feet and stalks toward the dining room entrance, but he turns and doubles back. “You think I haven’t seen the way you look at her?”
“And how do I look at her?”
“Like she’s yours, and I’m just borrowing her for a time.”
Because she is mine. “You’re delusional.” I toss my fork onto my plate, it clangs against the fine china, resonating throughout the room.
“Am I?”
I push to my feet and stare him in the eye. We’re nose to nose, toe to toe, and ego to ego, and it just so happens that mine is bigger. “Perhaps you’re afraid now that you’ve finally shown her how lousy a lay you are, she’ll come looking for someone else to really get her off.”
His eyes widen. He has no idea I watched. He has no idea his girlfriend locked eyes with me—thought of me—as she came, but his clenched teeth and wild-eyed gaze tells me I’ve struck a nerve.
Nav fists his hand in my shirt and pulls back his fist. Before he can let it fly, I sneer. “You look so much like dear old dad right now, it’s uncanny.”
His throat bobs as he swallows and shoves me against the table. “You’re not even worth it.”
“You couldn’t take me even if you wanted to. Face it, little brother—you don’t hate me because you think I’m a threat to your relationship with Scout. You hate me because you feel guilty every time you see my face.”
“What the hell do I have to feel guilty about?”
“Think about it.” I shove him back and walk away. “It shouldn’t take long for you to figure it out.”
“You stay the hell away from Scout.”
CHAPTER TEN
Scout
It’s becoming harder and harder to avoid Lev Fucking Fox. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if this is what it feels like to have an actual stalker. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t have binged the entire season two of You on Netflix in one weekend.
I stare down at the note left in my locker.
You’ve been a bad, bad girl.
Bad girls need to be punished.
I can’t wait.
Oh, I am so going to murder Lev. If anyone but me had found this note, if I’d been with Nav while I read it, our dirty little secret would be out. He’s just lucky I found it while stopping by my locker during class.
Footsteps echo through the hallway, but when I look, there’s no one there. I crumple up the note, shove it to the very depths of my locker past bottles of perfume, my makeup kit and my spare poms for cheer, and check my makeup is still on point in the mirror taped to my locker door. I’m just smoothing out my chocolate locks when I notice Justin standing behind me.
“Jesus, Justin. Creeper much?” I slam my locker closed and turn to face him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Hey, Scout.” A slow smile tips the corners of his mouth. It isn’t friendly; it’s predatory. “Where’s Navrin?”
“Class, probably,” I state, matter-of-factly. If I were anyone else, I’d back away. But I’m not anyone else.
“Why are you here?”
“I have a free.”
“No. I mean why are you talking to me?”
He arches his brow, as if he’s surprised that I don’t talk to desperate losers. He frowns and slides his hands in his pockets. “Just wondering if The Royals were planning on showing at my party after the game.”
I smile snidely and decide the only way to shake this los
er is by heading back to geometry. “We have plans.”
“You and Lev?”
I stop and glare at him. “No, me and Navrin. You remember him? My quarterback boyfriend with the golden arm who—teammate or not—will totally kick your ass for so much as looking in my direction?”
His eyes narrow, and swirl with anger as his cheeks turn pink. “You know, you don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I hurt your feelings?” I feign a sympathetic smile. “Newsflash, asshole. A bitch is all I am, and all I’ll ever be to losers like you.”
I turn on my heel and stalk toward class.
“You know, Scout, one day you’re gonna regret the way you treat everyone who isn’t a Royal. You all are. And I, for one, can’t wait to see you fall.”
I roll my eyes and push into the classroom. There really should be a limit on how much losers are allowed to say to you.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Scout
The last thing I want to do is spend Friday after the game partying at Justin Hearst’s house and inflating his ego by having the Royals show up, but it is a party, and it wouldn’t be one without me or Navrin in attendance.
Still, it took a lot of convincing for Nav to get me here. As we enter the foyer and the living room beyond, I spot him. The traitor in the crowd. His hands are on the waist of Charleigh Waters, his lips at her ear—fucking Charleigh Waters. What is it with this girl? Why the hell are The Royal boys so obsessed with her? Lev’s gaze cuts to mine, and a half smile tugs the corners of his mouth. I let go of Navrin’s hand, and he turns to me with a questioning glance.
“You know what? I’m not feeling so great. I need some air.”
“We just got here.”
“Yeah, and it smells like stale beer, middle-aged-man sweat, and sex. Is it any wonder I’m feeling nauseous?” I fold my arms across my chest and pout at him.
Navrin gives me a smile, as if he finds me adorable. “Okay, can you give me ten minutes to talk to Kingston about the game?”
