by Kit Rocha
"Far enough that you'll be able to get your men into place."
But not so far that he could betray her. He screwed the top back on to the whiskey bottle and held it out to her with a grin. "Why don't you take it with you? That stuff you call liquor in Two could use some bite."
Cerys threw back her head with a laugh. "Thank you, but no. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd like to be able to deny I was ever here."
That made two of them.
Chapter Nineteen
For the ruthless kingpin of a bootleg liquor operation, Dallas O'Kane lied for shit.
He was even worse at hiding things, though Lex had to admit that might just be her. She'd spent so many years getting to know him, working with him--and yes, frankly, infatuated with him--that she'd memorized his moods. She recognized the tiny shifts in his expression, the way his eyes seemed to change color depending on his moods.
Right now, his mood was foul. Dark. Lex laid down her fork and studied him over the rim of her beer. "You've been quiet."
Dallas didn't lift his gaze from his steak. "Have I?"
Evasion--yet another sign something was wrong. "You have, and I'm starting to think it's about me."
That goaded him into addressing her, but his too-charming Dallas O'Kane grin seemed hollow. "You make me a lot of things, love. Quiet ain't one of them."
"Uh-huh. Gonna tell me what's on your mind?"
"I wasn't planning on it." Sighing, he let his fork clatter to his plate. "Which probably makes me a damn fool, thinking I could pull this off."
She forced herself to relax her fingers and set down her beer bottle. "You're starting to scare me, Dallas, and I don't like it."
"It's not--" He swore and shoved back from the table. "I didn't want you to have to think about it. You've got enough to deal with, helping with the recruiting efforts."
Or he just didn't want to tell her. "What is it?"
Dallas met her eyes, and she knew from the tension in his gaze that the words would be bad. She just didn't realize how bad. "Cerys came to see me a few days ago."
Lex crossed her arms over her chest. "What the hell did she want?" Even as she spoke, she suspected she already knew.
"What did she want, or what did she say she wanted?"
Cut the shit. Lex bit back the words and shivered. "She did it, didn't she? She brought it to you."
He frowned. "If you mean she offered us her sector on a silver platter...yeah. But shit, Lex. I wasn't gonna fall for it. Nothing in life is that easy."
"That's where you're wrong." She shivered again, her chill subsiding into a strange sort of numbness. "What if it was that simple?"
"What, if we could just take over Two and own all of it?" He snorted. "Sure. In that world where puppies shit rainbows, I'd be stupid not to take it. I'd know all the dirty secrets about every bastard in Eden, and you'd have the resources to rescue people from dawn 'til dusk. At least until the other sector leaders wiped me off the map for thinking I could own three territories."
And they'd be right about one thing--he'd be thinking he owned it, not Lex.
She blinked at him, struggling to work through his offhand words and her own raging thoughts. "You say we, but you don't mean it. You'd take over, you'd own three territories. You."
Frustration twisted his features as he pushed himself to his feet. "Fuck, quit nitpicking my words. You're taking my ink. What I own, you own."
"Horseshit." Lex lashed out, knocking her beer bottle over to crash into his plate. "What I own, you own, and you can't turn that around on me. I'm not willing to sell your soul for some damn power."
"Back the hell on up, woman." Ignoring the beer spilling over the edge of the table and onto the floor, Dallas clenched both hands around the back of his chair. Wood creaked, and his knuckles stood out stark and white. "I didn't trade your soul. I didn't even put it on the table."
"Only because you don't think you could get away with it." She stood and held his gaze challengingly. "But you would if you could. You said it yourself--you'd be stupid not to."
"In a world without consequences," he snarled. "You wouldn't be tempted? Not even a little? You could decide how the houses run, and you wouldn't have to be my queen. You could be queen all on your own."
They sounded like Cerys's words from his lips. The perfect justification for why it would all be in her best interests as well as his. She could help, change things. Pretty lies, because no one really wanted things to change. The men in power benefited from the situation, and the women in Two knew nothing else. The only way to really change it would be to burn it all to the ground.
Pretty lies. Dallas had to know that on some level, but he'd still considered Cerys's offer, honestly considered it, and Lex's anger died, choked out of existence by the misery that overwhelmed her.
She focused on a thin sheen of bubbles tracking across the table. "I was fifteen when I left Sector Two. One of the maids told me Cerys had found my buyer--sorry, my patron. So I ran. I lived on the streets. I starved, I stole. I did everything but sell myself because I saw how that went down and I swore it wasn't worth it. Even if I died instead, it could never be worth it." Her eyes burned, and her vision blurred. "Shows what I know. I did it anyway, right? Sold myself."
Dallas exploded.
That was the only word for it. The chair shattered under his hands, and he flung the pieces away, upending the table in the process. Plates crashed and shattered, the bottles clattered and rolled, spilling beer across the carpet as Dallas bit off one word at a time. "You are not a whore."
She stood there in the mess, bits of food and broken glass on her shoes, as the first tears fell. "No, I'm worse. I didn't give you anything as simple as my body." He had her heart, her soul, everything.
Glass crunched under his boots as he took a step toward her, but he stopped with a jerk when she backed away. A scowl twisted his features. "Don't you fucking do that."
It wrenched a laugh from her. "Do what? Cry like a girl?"
"Don't twist everything." He took another step, slow and careful this time. "Don't back away from me like I'm some dangerous animal. You haven't even seen me scary."
She wasn't worried he would harm her--partly because he never had, and partly because no blow could ever hurt as much as his words had.
And if she told him that, he really would lose it. "How?" she asked instead. "How could you ever want to ask me to go back there?"
"Because it's not the same," he snapped, and finally it was honesty pouring from his mouth. Painful, brutal honesty. "You'd have the power over all of them. You'd be my equal!"
The icy chill seized up, solidified, leaving Lex frozen. Her wrist itched, and she absently rubbed her thumb over the ink marring her skin.
His equal. Someone who brought enough value to the transaction, who was good enough for him. If he'd made those kinds of judgments about her before, he'd never admitted them. But maybe now was different, now that he wanted to do more than collar her.
The leather was suddenly constricting, unbearable. She couldn't breathe, couldn't even think until she reached up and unbuckled it.
Dallas's teeth clacked together. "What are you doing?" he asked too quietly.
The collar fell away in her hand. "If grabbing at power just to have it is what it takes, I'll never be your equal."
"You're doing it again." He wasn't looking at her, not anymore. His gaze was fixed on her hand. On that scrap of leather. "You're looking for a fucking excuse. You're chickening out."
"Oh, honey. I wish I was." She could get angry, yell at him about this like she had the party for the prospects from Three. But she'd hate herself for giving in, because it would only happen all over again. "You have no idea, Declan."
He growled, his hands curling into fists. "So you're gonna walk away over something I didn't even ask you to do? What the hell else would you call that?"
"Don't act like you were thinking about me. You were just trying to figure out Cerys's game." Her voice cracked, an
d she steadied herself. "Here's the hard truth. It may not be a game. It might be legit. Can you still say you wouldn't ask me to do it?"
He hesitated. Not long, no more than the span of a few heartbeats. But he hesitated, and they both knew it.
The look on his face, hurt and confused, floored her. He still didn't understand, but he would, eventually. He'd know why. But that didn't help as she stood there, collar in hand. Her chest actually ached, which was fucking stupid.
Hearts didn't literally break.
She held out the collar. "Take it. Please."
"No." A storm was brewing behind his eyes, one that would swallow the pain and unleash something far more dangerous. "Not unless you're planning to replace it with my ink."
It hurt so much more, having a glimpse of something perfect only to realize it couldn't exist, that it fell apart when times got hard. "I have to find someplace, but I'll go." Yet another way she'd betrayed herself. It had been years since she'd kept up a place outside the compound, somewhere to go if things went bad. "If you can give me a few days--"
"No." He advanced on her, and she could hear the thunder. "This isn't how it ends. This isn't what kills us. Not stupid, fucking words."
"What else could it be?" They'd always lived loud, almost violently. Screaming and shouting. It made sense for their relationship to die quietly.
He stopped toe-to-toe with her, looming over her, taking up all the air, all the light. "Not this. Not her."
"Dallas..." All she had left were harsh words, damning ones, and she had to soften them by lifting her hand to his cheek. "It wasn't her."
Pain flashed across his face, jagged as lightning as the storm broke.
And he kissed her.
No, not a kiss. Nothing as gentle as that. His fingers snagged in her hair, yanking her head back as his mouth came down, forceful and desperate. Bruising.
He'd always touched her with care, even when he gave it to her rough, but not now. This wasn't desire but punishment, not need but some twisted version of it.
Not possession but confinement.
Lex let her hands hang by her sides, and the collar fell to the floor. No matter what, she couldn't fight. A dark thread of longing was already unfurling in her belly, and if she fought him, it would all get tangled up in sex.
His teeth dug into her lip, and he growled. "Gonna pretend you don't feel it? You don't feel us?"
Of course she did. She'd felt it the moment she first laid eyes on him, the zing of awareness that hadn't faded over time but deepened into something inescapable, and strong enough to tear them both to shreds.
She shuddered and gripped his shirt, clenching her fingers in the fabric. "This part isn't the problem."
"But this part is so good." He backed her toward the wall, every step pushing her deeper into his room, deeper into him. "Worth fighting through the rest of it. What happened to trusting me?"
She'd given it all to him, and he'd let her down. Because there was a flip side to that trust, an implicit promise that if she handed him her heart, he'd always put her first. And he hadn't.
"I'll hate both of us," she whispered. "Can't you see that? If I keep letting you do these things to me without standing up for myself, it won't matter. There won't be enough of me left to love you."
Her back thumped against the wall. He was smothering her. So warm, so strong, so familiar. "So stand up for yourself. Just don't walk away."
She put her hands flat on his chest and pushed. "Stop it."
"That's it." He slapped his hands to the wall on either side of her head. "Stand up to me."
She'd finally given in, opened herself. Trusted him. "Not like this, Dallas."
"Fucking fight me, Lex."
"I shouldn't have to!" Shaking, she ducked under his arm.
She only made it two steps before his fingers closed around her shoulder. Desperation drove her to slap away his hand, then dive for one of the knives on the floor.
His expression hardened as she held the blade in front of her. Furrowed brow, compressed lips, narrowed eyes--but she couldn't tell what was going on behind that dark gaze. "Would you stab me, Lex?"
"Only if you make me."
His lips twisted into a terrible smile. "Good. Get out before you have to."
Her eyes stung, and her throat burned. Maybe he understood and maybe he didn't, but more words would get her nowhere. "Fine." She dropped the knife and turned for the door.
As she reached for the doorknob, his voice rolled over her again. "This doesn't mean I'm giving up. Cerys and Two can burn. I'll show you, Lexie. Somehow, I'll fucking well show you. I'm not letting you go."
"I know," she said as she slipped out the door.
It was what she was afraid of.
Bren
She was trying to be sneaky, but she was watching the show.
The door behind the unofficial VIP section led to the back staircase, and stood mostly in shadows. Bren doubted anyone else had noticed her there, braced against the jamb with the fingers of one hand on the doorknob, as if she needed her escape route ready to go.
Out on the stage, beneath the garish lights, Ace was flogging a woman. He had her bent over a low table, completely naked and tied so that all he had to do was turn his wrist to flick the leather tails against her exposed pussy.
And Six was watching every quick slap.
Bren studied her profile in the low light. "Do you like the idea?"
She started at his voice and jerked her gaze from the stage, as if she'd gotten caught doing something far more incriminating than watching. "What idea? Getting whipped?"
"That," he agreed easily, "or being on the stage. Not all the shows involve pain."
She folded her arms across her chest, under her breasts. Defensive and wary, and he knew the answer before she spoke. "No, not really. I've never liked being the entertainment."
He stopped beside the curtain and listened to the woman onstage moan and plead. "Is that what you see out there?"
"Maybe. I don't know." She shivered and glanced at him, her expression torn by honest confusion. "Is she acting?"
"Nope." He vaguely recognized the woman as one of Ace's regulars. "She likes it like this. Sometimes he stops when she's ready to fuck, and other times he keeps on whipping her."
"Oh." She seemed flustered, maybe more so when she realized how close she'd drifted to him. No matter how many careful feet he put between them, Six always seemed to cover the distance in a dozen shifts of position or tiny shuffling steps, and she never really relaxed until they stood shoulder to shoulder.
So shy--not about sex, necessarily, but pleasure. Bren held her gaze but tilted his head. "Tell me what you see when you look at that."
She hesitated. "You're not gonna like it."
"Probably not." But he couldn't counter it with his own point of view if she never said it.
Wetting her lips, she glanced at the stage again, just in time to watch Ace drive a choked plea from his lover's lips with a skillful application of leather. Six flinched at the woman's throaty cries and looked away. "A man whipping a woman. And a bunch of other men getting off on it."
"Abso-fucking-lutely. What else?"
Her expression tightened. "That's it. I didn't even see that she liked the pain. You told me that."
"What if I told you that was part of the fantasy for her? Being watched?"
She didn't say anything at first. She took his words and digested them, then turned back to the stage and studied it again, a tiny furrow of concentration appearing between her brows. "So she's using the men to get her fantasy?"
So careful, too, those little leaps in logic. "In a way. She isn't making the best of being on the stage, Six. It's what she wants."
"I don't think I could want that," she admitted after a moment, and there was apology in the glance she threw him. "The people watching, I mean. That was always the part I hated most."
A tiny slip, the kind of glimpse into her former life that made him want to dig up Wilson
Trent and kill him some more. Instead, he smiled. "No shows for you, then."
Her slight exhale of relief sounded almost sad. But her gaze swung back to the stage with renewed curiosity, as if the words had freed her from a sense of foreboding. "The pain... Does it feel good because she always likes it, or because Ace is doing something special?"
"To hear Ace tell it, everything he does is special." Bren leaned closer. "Have you ever had an itch, one of those crazy ones that you can't stop thinking about? On your back or your arm, wherever, but all you could fucking think about was scratching it?"
Still watching the stage, she nodded.
"That's just pain. You scratch your skin and it confuses all the nerves, scrambles them so they can't feel the itch anymore."
"I didn't know that." She shivered, tickling where her arm brushed his, and changed the subject so abruptly he wasn't sure he'd heard her right at first. "You can fuck me if you want to."
Bren blinked at her. Instead of an invitation, it felt more like paying the executioner before laying your head on his chopping block. "Don't take this the wrong way, but if you really wanted to fuck me, you wouldn't need to tell me it was okay."
She winced and looked away. "I don't know if I want to fuck," she admitted after an awkward moment. "But I don't mind it. And the fucking comes with other stuff here. Everyone's always touching."
Comfort. Connection. "If that's what you want, ask for that. I'll give it to you."
It took her two deep breaths and a wary glance at him to form the words, and they came in a whisper. "Do you mind? If you don't want to..."
He pulled her close with one arm, wrapping it around her body as he moved her in front of him. Her body nestled against his, curvy and strong. He stroked his other hand down her arm and whispered in her ear. "Watch."
Ace had moved on to fucking the blonde on stage. She moaned and thrashed fitfully against her bindings, more so every time Ace slammed deep and paused to work her reddened shoulders with the flogger. He had a sense of theatrics suited to the stage, and a finely tuned understanding of the woman beneath him.
