Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)

by J. M. Darhower

  Fighting and fucking.

  Fucking and fighting.

  Emotions heighten sensations. We all know that. But she can’t let herself be happy, she can’t let that guard down, so she gets real goddamn angry. It fuels the fire inside of her until she’s shooting off sparks.

  So yeah, I don’t need her to tell me how she’s feeling, but fuck if I’m not still going to ask.

  “That feel good?” I ask, my other hand sliding away from her back, around the curve of her ass, settling between her thighs. I start rubbing her clit again, and it throws my rhythm off, but not so much that I don’t make it work. Fucking. Stroking. In, out, around, and around... “You love it, huh? Love to have that beautiful pussy played with, to have it worshiped, getting fucked just right.”

  She groans.

  Her breathing is labored, the tension in her body growing as she shifts her hips, writhing. She’s damn close to orgasm.

  “Open your eyes,” I say. “Look at me.”

  She obliges, turning her head more, her eyes meeting mine. I stare at her, saying nothing else, and she stares right back, unyielding. I keep doing what I’m doing, watching her unravel and come apart right in my hands.

  Fuck.

  Orgasm tears through her, muscles pulsating, her entire body shaking as her mouth falls open and a cry of pleasure escapes. It’s beautiful, the way her face contorts, her eyes trying to close again, eyelids fluttering, but she keeps her gaze trained on mine. I ride her through it until she relaxes, the hand from her clit moving back to her ass as I pull my fingers out of her and pop them right in my mouth.

  She makes a guttural noise.

  I suck the taste of her off of me before pulling them back out, my wet fingertips tracing her lips. “You ever taste yourself?”

  “Do you?”

  I slip my fingers into her mouth and groan as she wraps her lips around them, sucking, her tongue caressing my fingertips. “All the time.”

  Her eyes widen as she releases my fingers, pulling her mouth away. “You’re kidding.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, there you go.”

  I sit down beside her. Slowly, she rises up, pushing away from the bed, and drops down to the floor on her knees.

  She sits there, looking up at me, but keeps her hands to herself.

  “Is there something you want, Scarlet?”

  “Do you like how it tastes?”

  The question bursts out of her, like she’s been dying to ask it. I laugh, taking a page from her book by flipping it around. “Do you?”

  She shrugs, carefully reaching toward me, like she’s afraid I might bite. She unbuttons my pants and pulls down the zipper, her hand slipping inside. I groan as she palms my cock, stroking a few times in the confinement of my pants, before she pulls it out.

  “Condom?” she asks.

  I nod my head toward the bedside stand, and she pulls the small drawer open, looking in. She keeps one hand on my cock, stroking, as she searches through my stash with the other, grabbing a plain condom. Nothing special about it. She uses her teeth, tearing the packet, and pulls out the condom, promptly popping it in her mouth.

  In her fucking mouth.

  The condom.

  The entire thing.

  Before I can say anything, she goes down on me, wrapping her lips around my cock, starting at the tip, and takes the entirety of it down her throat in one deep stroke, not stopping as she gags.

  “Goddamn, woman,” I groan, my hands grasping the back of her head, my gaze flickering to the ceiling fan above as tingles flow through me. Round and round it goes, as Scarlet’s mouth works up and down a few strokes.

  She pulls away then, way too soon, and I look down at the condom rolled on my cock.

  She put the fucking thing on with her mouth.

  Her mouth.

  “Witchcraft,” I say as she stands up, shoving against my chest, pushing me so she can climb onto my lap. She straddles me, as I lean back, propping up on my elbows on the bed.

  She sinks down onto me—warm, and tight, and wet… so fucking wet. Where I’m sitting, she doesn’t have much room, but she doesn’t need it. She rolls her hips, arching her back, slowly moving, my cock sliding in and out just enough to drive me crazy. Parts of me are tingling that should never tingle as she teases me. Teases me.

  The woman is giving me a lap dance while I’m balls-deep in her pussy.

  I raise up a bit, reaching out, my fingertips brushing across a tit, circling a nipple. I’m about to pinch that son of a bitch when Scarlet slaps my hand. SMACK. “No touching.”

  The sharp blow stings, catching me off guard. I pull my hand back, stalling mid-air. She hit me. Hit me. And not just some love tap... a full on fucking slap. “Hit me again. I dare you.”

  “If you don’t keep your hands to yourself, I will.”

  She sounds pretty damn sure of herself. I lower my hand, propping on my elbow again as I stare at her.

  Look, let’s be real here. It takes a lot of balls to lay a hand on me. I’ll cut the damn thing off and beat you to death with it, let you die by your own hand, since you must be suicidal to try that shit. I’m not even going to sit here and pretend the urge to lash out didn’t strike me the second I felt the sting, but being as my balls are aching for a release, that’s not really in my best interest.

  So I do some meditative woosah bullshit and calm the hell down, since I’m not into necrophilia, and I’d rather be fucking her than killing her at the moment. I might be a bit screwed up in the head, but I’m not that far gone.

  “I’m not paying for this shit,” I tell her.

  A smirk turns the corners of her lips as she says, “Didn’t think you would.”

  Scarlet fucks around for a little while longer, tits tauntingly in my face, slowly riding me. She’s trying to get a rise out of me. Figuratively, that is. I’m already as hard as a rock, but it’s the rest of me she wants heated.

  I’m going to tell you a secret.

  A big secret.

  It’s working.

  What she’s doing, the way she moves? The way her body fits on top of mine, forming to me, warming me? It’s got me feeling some type of way. I want to throw her off and pin her down, fuck her until she can’t even walk and then make her crawl out of my goddamn house. But then I’d just want to drag her right back, because she’s under my skin, and what she’s doing? It’s hot.

  I can think of a lot worse ways to spend my time.

  So I wait her out.

  Eventually, she sighs, leaning down over me, bringing her face just inches from mine, as she whispers, “You’re good at this.”

  “At what?”

  “At being a fucking jackass.”

  Laughing, I grab her, yanking her off and throwing her over on the bed before she can stop me. She lets out a loud squeal, startled, before she starts giggling.

  She’s fucking giggling.

  I crawl on top of her, shoving my way between her legs, forcing her knees up to her chest with my weight pressing against them, pinning her there. She reaches for me, but I grab her wrists, holding them as she struggles. “Wait! This isn’t fair!”

  “You want me to let you go?” I ask, leaning down, pausing just shy of her lips.

  “Yes.”

  “Ask nicely,” I tell her. “Say ‘Lorenzo Gambini, I beg of you, please, let me go and I’ll suck your dick.’”

  She laughs again, harder. “You wish.”

  “I do,” I say. “No doubt about it.”

  Her struggling is pathetic. She could break free if she really wanted to, but she’s barely even fighting.

  I close the rest of the distance, kissing her lips, as I grind my cock against her, the tip of it rubbing her clit. She moans into my mouth as she stops struggling, relaxing into the bed.

  Surrendering.

  “Lorenzo Gambini,” she whispers between kisses, “I beg of you, please... fuck me.”

  I kiss her onc
e more before pulling back, shifting position, smirking. “Well, since you asked so nicely...”

  I thrust hard, sliding right in first goddamn try.

  BAM.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  You know that dream people have where they’re out somewhere—school, work, somewhere—only to realize they forgot to put clothes on that morning and everybody is staring at them?

  I think I might know what that feels like.

  The kitchen is quiet, strangely so, considering there are five of us packed in the room. I’m sitting at a round table, in a matching wooden chair, across from Leo and Melody. She’s playing on a cell phone, cutting her eyes at me every now and then, her expression full of curiosity, while Leo isn’t even pretending to be interested in anything else. He’s just blatantly staring.

  And he’s not the only one.

  Seven stands across the room, leaning against the counter. I can feel his eyes watching me, too.

  Yep, I showed up naked to class.

  It’s funny, really, because I’ve been naked in public, around plenty of people, and it wasn’t always pleasant for me, but it rarely felt this awkward.

  I’ve got clothes on, although they’re obviously not mine—black long sleeved shirt that could pass for a little dress with a pair of blue shorts underneath. Or well, okay, they’re really boxers. Boxers with alligators all over them. Florida Gators.

  I didn’t know Lorenzo liked sports.

  There’s a lot I didn’t know, I think, as I glance across the room at him, and it smacked me right in the face just a bit ago when I walked in here. Lorenzo’s facing away from me, barefoot, shirtless, dressed only in low-slung black pajama pants and a pair of glasses. Glasses. Black frames, square, thin—not showy, barely even noticeable, but I see them. He moves around, alternating between sorting through paperwork spread out along the counter and tending to whatever’s cooking on the stove.

  Yes, you heard me right.

  He’s cooking.

  And I don’t mean Pop-Tart in the toaster level cooking. The man, who fed me half of a crappy sandwich and a juice pouch last night, has bacon sizzling as he flips pancakes and sips fresh-squeezed orange juice.

  Seriously. I watched him squeeze it.

  He even poured me some.

  I glance down at the glass in my hand, at the pulpy juice, biting the inside of my cheek. No ninety-nine cent generic bodega juice for this family. They all keep looking at me like I’m peculiar, yet they’re acting as if that is normal.

  Lorenzo turns around, and I look up as he steps toward the table, half-expecting him to give me weird looks, too, but no, he’s glaring at his brother. Swinging a spatula, he smacks Leo in the head, the loud thwack echoing through the kitchen.

  “Shit!” Leo winced, the hit pulling him out of his trance as he rubs the back of his head. “What the hell was that for?”

  “The table isn’t set,” Lorenzo says. “What are we, animals?”

  Leo stands up, dramatically rolling his eyes, and Lorenzo swings the spatula again, barely grazing his shoulder with it as he jumps out of the way. “Okay, okay, I’m doing it! Geez...”

  “You’re not too old for me to take over my knee, Pretty Boy,” Lorenzo said, pointing the spatula. “You weren’t raised in a fucking barn.”

  “No, but I was raised on a farm,” Leo says, grabbing some plates from a cabinet.

  “It’s an orange grove,” Lorenzo says, “not a farm.”

  Orange grove.

  I glance at my orange juice again, bringing it to my lips for a sip. This is all starting to feel very TV-sitcom, like Lassie is about to run in and tell us Timmy fell down the well.

  Lorenzo tosses the spatula in the sink and brings platters of food over as Leo sets the table. I look at the empty plate in front of where I’m sitting and go to leave when Lorenzo slides into the chair beside me, gripping my thigh, forcing my ass back into the seat.

  “Help yourself, Seven,” Lorenzo calls over to the guy, still leaning against the counter. “You know how it goes.”

  “I appreciate it, boss,” Seven says, “but the wife made omelets this morning, so I couldn’t eat another bite even if I wanted to.”

  “I figured,” Lorenzo says. “The woman feeds you morning, noon, and night.”

  “And packs me snacks in between,” Seven says, and I think he’s joking until he pulls a protein bar from one coat pocket and a little Ziplock bag of carrots from the other. Wow.

  “You’re married?” I ask.

  “Twenty-five years next month,” he says with a smile. Married longer than I’ve been alive. “She was my high school sweetheart. Married her right after graduation.”

  “Regrets that shit every day,” Lorenzo says as he dishes out food onto plates.

  “I’ve never once regretted it,” Seven says, “not even when she rides my ass about the company I keep.”

  Lorenzo finds that funny, while I’m too busy doing math in my head. That means Seven is about forty-three years old… same age as Kassian.

  I glance at Lorenzo, suddenly curious. “How old are you?”

  Leo laughs at my question. “He’s older than sin.”

  Lorenzo shoots him a look as he says, “Pretty much forever sixteen.”

  “He’s pushing thirty-seven,” Seven chimes in.

  Thirty-seven.

  I look at Leo. “And you’re twenty-one?”

  He nods. “Yep.”

  Sixteen year age difference. Lorenzo mentioned he started taking care of his brother when he was around two, which would’ve made Lorenzo—

  “I was eighteen,” Lorenzo says, and my eyes widen, wondering if I was doing the math out loud, but he just cuts his eyes at me with a slight smile, like he’d read my damn mind. “I know the look.”

  “What look?”

  “The trying to riddle shit out look,” he says, grabbing the plate in front of me, shoving it closer. “Eat your breakfast, Scarlet. I’m not opposed to taking you over my knee, either.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” I mutter, grabbing a fork and stabbing the pancake on my plate. Before I even have to ask, Lorenzo picks up a thing of syrup and passes it to me, like he read my mind yet again. Weird.

  I eat in silence. It’s good. Really good.

  He didn’t burn any of it.

  I always burned everything when I tried to cook.

  Melody starts chattering, talking Leo’s ear off, while Seven remains in spot, waiting for whatever.

  A phone rings eventually, coming from the corner. Seven pulls one out of his pocket, holding it up. “It’s yours, boss.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Blocked number.”

  “I don’t talk to cowards,” Lorenzo says, pushing his chair back and standing up. He puts his hand on my shoulder as I set my fork down, my plate empty. “Sun’s up, which means the trucks will be here soon. You coming, Scarlet?”

  I have no idea what that means, which means I don’t know how to answer, but Lorenzo doesn’t wait for a response, so I’m taking that as a rhetorical question.

  “Clear the table when you’re finished, Pretty Boy,” Lorenzo calls back as he walks out. “Don’t forget to do the dishes.”

  Leo rolls his eyes. “I really need to get my own place.”

  Seven walks by the table and says, “Don’t let your brother hear that. He’ll catch a case of empty nest syndrome.”

  “On the bright side,” Leo says, “he could put as many holes in the couch as he wanted, not having to worry about me being around.”

  “That’s not a bright side, kid,” Seven says, laughing. “Without you around, keeping him straight, there’s no telling what he might do. Besides, you’re his saving grace. That’ll never change. No matter where you go, that man is a part of you, just like you’ll always be a part of him. That’s how it goes.”

  Seven walks out, and I get up from the chair, following him as Leo mumbles something about cutting the cord.

  I smile softly, shaking my head as I make
my way upstairs. Lorenzo is in his bedroom, his clothes already changed, sitting on the end of the bed to put on his boots. He glances up as I stall in the doorway and says, “That what you’re wearing today?”

  I look down at myself.

  “To each their own and all that,” he continues, “but you might freeze your nipples off.”

  “My problem, remember? I’m temporarily clothes-less as well as homeless.”

  He looks me over before getting up and waltzing past, stopping at the top of the stairs. “Firecracker! Come here!”

  It takes Melody maybe thirty seconds to appear on the stairs. “Yes?”

  “Most of your shit is here, right?” he asks. “I mean, you pretty much live in my damn house...”

  “Right,” she agrees, looking nervous. “Is that a problem?”

  “It’s actually looking like a solution,” he says. “You got an outfit Scarlet can borrow?”

  I can see the relief on her face as she smiles, trudging up to the second floor. “Of course.”

  “There you go,” Lorenzo says. “Problem solved.”

  Temporarily, I think. I can only survive borrowing off of others for so long before I have to get my own stuff.

  I follow Melody down the hallway, to another bedroom on the opposite end. It’s a complete and utter mess, piles of clothes strewn everywhere, all of it hers. I can hardly tell a guy even sleeps in there. Melody wades through it all, chattering away, talking color schemes and fabric choices and body types, sizing me up. She rattles off a whole slew of questions that I have no idea how to answer, making this ‘putting on clothes’ endeavor feel more like an interview process.

  I mean, yeah, don’t get me wrong here—I’m not a t-shirt and jeans gal by any means. I love pretty clothes and putting on makeup, and if I had to list my greatest talents, there’s a good chance ‘walking in high heels’ would be up there. But at the moment, brand names are the least of my priorities.

  “Something comfortable,” I say. “Warm, preferably.”