Beyond Vengeance: Pacific Prep #3

by R. A. Smyth

  Seeing us approach, Barton gains the room's attention, beginning his speech.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to have you here this evening. We have some momentous news to share with you all. Not only are we lucky to have our blessed daughter back in our lives, but she has found true love in Wilder Clearwater.”

  I cough, hiding my snort as Wilder elbows me in the ribs, looking equally as amused. I’m sure the guys are somewhere nearby, grumbling under their breaths.

  “The two met at a family gathering and it was love at first sight.” The audience coos and awes—are they seriously that fucking gullible?! “Tonight, I am so very honored to introduce to you my soon to be son-in-law, my daughter's fiancé, Wilder Clearwater.” The room erupts into claps and cheers as Wilder practically drags me up to stand beside my father.

  “We haven’t finalized a date for the wedding yet, but the two of them are excited for a short engagement”—We’re what now?!—“so I'm sure we will have a date for you all very soon.”

  Somehow, in the midst of all this mayhem, I forgot there would be an actual wedding. I’d kind of figured we’d be engaged for at least a year. I mean, that’s what most people do, right? I definitely thought it would be enough time for us to wrangle our way out of it before it occurred, but my father is making it sound like it’s weeks, months at most, away.

  I’m pretty sure I’m sporting a ‘deer caught in the headlights’ look as Wilder maneuvers me back into the crowd, quickly fobbing everyone off as he ushers me out of the room.

  “Wilder,” I whisper-hiss, clinging onto his arm for dear life. “I am not marrying you.”

  “Oh, Sunshine, you wound me. There I thought we were in love.” I try to glower at him, but the whole panicked eye thing kind of ruins it, and he chuckles at my freak out. He directs me into a back kitchen, quickly kicking the few staff members out, and grabs me a glass of water while I collapse onto a stool.

  I’m not someone who freaks out. Usually, I’m pretty calm in the face of challenging situations. Give me a surprise dead body any day, and I’ll happily deal with it, but this is unchartered territory. I’ve never really given any thought to marriage. Growing up the way I did, it’s not something I thought I’d have the luxury of experiencing—unless it was to Lawrence, in which case, fuck no—but now that it’s a real-life possibility staring me right in the face, I’m kind of freaking the fuck out.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Mason snaps out, barging into the kitchen.

  “She’s fine, chill your nuts.” Wilder rolls his eyes. “She’s just freaking out a little.”

  “What is she freaking out about? What did you do to her?”

  “I don’t think she’d really expected an actual wedding,” he says far too casually. How is he not freaking out as badly as I am?!

  The next thing I know, Mason has bumped Wilder out of the way and taken the glass of water from my hands, setting it on the table. Cupping my face in both of his hands, he focuses my gaze on his eyes.

  “Hey, Little Warrior.” His soothing voice washes over me and he smiles when he sees I’m looking at him.

  “Mason, I can’t marry him,” I whisper.

  “You’re not going to, baby. It’s all for show, remember?”

  “But Barton made it sound like we’d be getting married in a few weeks, or a few months.” The pitch of my voice climbs with each word.

  “These things take time to plan, and we’re not going to let that happen, okay?”

  I want to believe him, but I don’t. He must see it in my eyes—as his own harden—and he moves his hand to pinch my chin.

  “If you’re marrying anyone, it will be one of us, you got that?”

  The steely resolve in his tone breaks through my panic, and I nod my head. Seeing that I trust in what he’s saying, he dives in, sealing his words with a searing kiss that I can feel all the way to my toes.

  “Good, now get back out there and put on a show so I can tear that dress off you later and make you forget about this whole night.”

  He goes to move away, but I wrap my hand around his blue-gray tie, pulling him back into me. He searches my eyes as I repeat the words he said to me in the library. “You’re mine, and I’m yours.”

  His eyes soften and he plants another kiss on my lips. “I’m yours, and you're mine, baby. To the end.”

  “Truly heartwarming,” Wilder drawls when we break apart. “Armor back in place, Wifey?”

  I give him a firm nod.

  “Excellent.” A bright grin spreads across his face, a wicked glint entering his eyes. “Let’s go freak the fuck out of some conservative assholes.”

  Heading back to the party, we do a lap of the room. Wilder is actually the most fun person to be with, at one of these stuck-up events. He turns everything into a game. We spend the next hour trying to figure out who is cheating on whom, while working to see how quickly we can make the women clutch their pearls with our outlandish stories.

  “This was me in Italy last year,” Wilder explains, showing some middle-aged lady his photos from Europe. “And this is me beside the Eiffel Tower.” Swiping across the screen of his phone to the next image, the woman tilts her head looking at the phone in confusion, and Wilder feigns shock. “Oh, oops. My bad. I thought I felt something weird on my ballsack. Such a difficult angle to get a photo.”

  The woman gasps, taking a step back from us, while Wilder continues muttering to himself. I can no longer contain my laughter as she rushes out an excuse to leave. When a little bit of pee dribbles out from laughing so hard, I know I can’t hold off my bathroom break any longer and excuse myself to go in search of one in this ridiculously massive house.

  Refreshed and with a now empty bladder, I pull open the bathroom door, but before I can step out, I’m herded back in, panic flaring as I look into Lawrence’s cold, hard face as he slams the door shut behind him, flicking the lock. Somehow, in all the fun I was having with Wilder, I forgot this fuckface was lurking about. He never openly approaches me in front of any of our parents, showing nothing more than a passing interest in my arrival, but of course he would take the opportunity, out of sight of the other partygoers, to corner me.

  “You’ve been a hard woman to get a private moment with, Dove.”

  “Are you here to congratulate me?” I struggle to keep my voice from shaking, even as my hands tremble and my heart rate skyrockets.

  His hand snaps out, wrapping tightly around my neck, and my mind goes blank as utter terror consumes me. If he was anyone else, I’d be cool and collected right now, strategizing and working out my best move to get out of this situation, but because it’s him, I’m frozen in fear, unable to move as he towers over me.

  It’s fucking ridiculous. I was in a similar situation with Benjamin, and I was able to fight my way out of it without a second thought, but replace that person with Lawrence, and I’m reduced to that scared kid I used to be.

  His face is the thing of nightmares, encompassing my entire field of vision. “You think I’m going to congratulate you,” he sneers in disgust. “Have you forgotten who you belong to, Dove?”

  His hand tightens around my throat, his other one pulling on my hair so I’m forced to stare up at him. I don’t know how it’s possible, but somehow, his features manage to darken. “Has he fucked you yet?”

  His hand untangles itself from my hair as he roughly pulls up my skirt, not caring that he’s tearing it in his haste.

  “Has he?” he barks, roughly cupping my pussy and squeezing it. His loud voice echoes around the small bathroom, making me jump.

  “N…No.”

  Curling his fingers under the fabric, he tears my panties clean off.

  I should be fighting back, kicking out or hitting him—doing something, but my whole body feels numb as he shoves two fingers inside of me.

  “Who does this cunt belong to?” His words are a possessive snarl, leaving no questioning who he thinks it belongs to.

  When I don’t answer fast enough, he
removes his grip on my throat, smacking me across the face.

  “Answer me!” he bellows.

  “Y…you.”

  “And has anyone else had a taste?”

  “No,” I respond immediately, making an evil smirk light up his face in the most menacing way. It’s a look that will haunt my nightmares for years to come.

  He curls his fingers roughly inside me, only hurting me more, before finally pulling out and sniffing them.

  “Good. It better stay that way. I’m getting impatient, Dove. You’ve made friends at that school, haven’t you? The scholarship kids? I might have to get one of my men to pay them a visit if you don’t fall in line soon.”

  Tears are streaming down my face as I all but cower in front of him, my weak state only bolstering his confidence as he preens.

  Wrapping his hand around my throat once more, he presses his lips roughly to mine, his fingers digging into my cheeks until I open for him, allowing him to shove his tongue into my mouth. He takes and takes until he’s satisfied. Finally letting me go, he sneers down at me, “Clean yourself up, you’re a state.”

  Turning, he lets himself out of the room, and I collapse to the floor, tears flowing freely as I beat myself up for being so weak around him.

  I’m supposed to be a badass bitch. I can gut people without a second thought. Slit their throats, drive blades into their heads, you name it. But I can’t stand up to one measly cretin of a man? I’m pathetic. Completely fucking pathetic.

  I don’t know how long I sit there before finding the strength to get to my feet. Looking in the mirror at my tear-stained face and the pins that once held my hair in place, now hanging uselessly from the loose strands, I decide there’s no fucking way I’m going back to that party.

  With shaking hands, I lift my phone out from where I stored it between my boobs, texting Cam to meet me round the side of the house. I’m hoping he’s the least likely to ask questions and just take me home.

  Working my way outside, I notice Cam coming toward me.

  “Hey,” he says quietly, keeping his voice low. “What’s going on? Is everything okay? Ooh, is this a booty call?” I can just about make out his eyebrows waggling in the darkness, and I release a teary chuckle that immediately has the coy smile falling off his face as he rushes to close the distance between us.

  His hand cups my face gently and his eyes darken as he takes in the red palm print smarting my cheek. “What happened?” he growls.

  I extricate myself from his grip. “Can we just go to the car, please?” I plead.

  He doesn’t move. His body is practically vibrating with rage. “Did my father do that?”

  I don’t need to answer that question; he can see the truth in my eyes as he lets go of me, storming away before pacing back toward me, looking like a restrained beast as he fights to unleash all his pent-up anger.

  “Cam,” I plead. That one word is enough to snap him out of his murderous thoughts and he freezes in front of me.

  “Right, yeah, come on, baby.” He drapes an arm over my shoulder, drawing me in against him as he leads me to the car.

  He surprises me when, instead of opening the front passenger door for me to climb in, he opens the back, and slides in behind me. Closing the door, he pulls me into his lap and I burrow my head in the gap between his neck and shoulder, breathing him in. He rubs soothing circles along my back, neither of us saying anything for a long time.

  “I need to know what happened, baby,” he eventually murmurs.

  “Can’t we just go home?” I look up at him through my eyelashes, imploring him with my eyes.

  He grimaces. “We all came together, so we have to wait for the others.”

  “Oh.” That's all I’m capable of saying. I don’t even think I care. Other than wanting to get out of this ruined dress and into bed, I’m comfortable here with Cam, pretending the rest of the world outside our little car bubble doesn’t exist.

  “Tell me what happened,” he repeats with more insistence.

  Sighing, I rehash what happened with his dad in the bathroom, feeling the mounting rage within him with every word out of my mouth. By the time I’m finished, I’m sitting tense on his lap, waiting for him to go absolutely apeshit, but he surprises me by burying his face in my hair.

  “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs in a broken voice. I can still feel all that rage pouring off him, but more than that, I can feel the devastation he feels for what I had to endure, for not being there for me, and most of all for the part he feels he plays in all of this by being related to that monster. “I’m going to kill him someday. I won’t let him get to you again.”

  I shush him, running my fingers through his golden hair. Not because I don’t believe him, but because his father’s death is mine. I don’t know how, when I’m not capable of even lifting a finger in his presence, but somehow, someday, he’s going to die a slow, painful death at my hands.

  Chapter 22

  I don’t know how long Cam and I sit in the car, mostly in silence, occasionally exchanging the odd word, before the back door is wrenched open.

  “Why are you two hiding out in here?” West asks. When he opened the car door, it activated the overhead light, and as he slides into the seat beside us, my swollen eyes and torn dress render him motionless as his eyes frantically check me over, his features hardening.

  His gaze flicks to Cam’s before landing back on me, and he quickly climbs into the backseat, closing the door behind him and bathing us in darkness once again. “What happened?” His voice is a low, menacing growl. I don’t have it in me to go over it all again, so I let Cam explain the gist of it—no doubt it will all need to be brought up again with everyone back in the dorm.

  Leaning in, West presses his forehead against mine. “You did so good, Firefly.”

  I scoff. “I was pathetic. I’m so weak around him. He just has to look at me, and I turn into a little girl again. What’s the point in knowing how to fight when I’m frozen in place every time he’s nearby?”

  “You’re not weak,” he assures me. The fire in his voice almost makes me believe him. “You’ve got so much power in you, you don’t even realize how strong you are. He’s been your monster under the bed for so long that you don’t know how to overcome him, but you’re not alone anymore. You’ve got us. We’re just one more weapon in your arsenal against him.”

  When I look at him in confusion, he explains.

  “He thinks you're all alone. He believes you’re too brainwashed by him to let anyone else in, that you’re too broken to love anyone, but you’ve proven how wrong he is. He thinks he owns every part of you, but you are the one who decides who you give yourself to. No part of you is his.”

  “All of me is yours,” I whisper, catching on to what he’s saying.

  He shakes his head no. “It’s all yours, Firefly. Your heart, your body, your mind, your soul…every part of you is yours to give away to whoever you choose, when you choose.”

  “I gave all of it to you,” I murmur, realizing that at various intervals over the last few months, I’ve given each of these guys—my guys—small parts of myself. So much that, collectively, they now own enough that they could destroy me—yet I don’t, for one second, believe they would. Glancing at Cam, I add on, “All four of you. I’m all yours.”

  “And we’re yours,” they both echo.

  “Lawrence doesn’t know you’ve got an army of guys ready to dive into battle for you. You’re no longer alone in this, Firefly. Whatever you decide to do, we’ll be right beside you.”

  Cam nods his head in agreement with West’s sentiment. “Every step of the way.”

  I smile softly, relaxing back into Cam’s touch. When push comes to shove, I don’t know whether these guys will stay. Taking on our parents, and the compound, and Lawrence is one hell of a battle, but for now, I’ll take comfort in their words and the fact that they’re here with me.

  West pulls out his phone, sending a text, and a few minutes later, he gets a reply. />
  “The guys are getting a lift home with Wilder.” He turns to Cam. “Let's get our girl home to bed.”

  ***

  The next morning, I wake up wedged between two deliciously hot bodies. I fell asleep between Cam and West last night, so when I peel my eyes open to find a very thick, muscular arm that definitely does not belong to either of my leaner guys, cupping my tit, I realize Mason must have climbed into bed with us when he got home—and mostly likely shoved Cam out of the way to steal his spot. A faint smile graces my lips at the thought. I didn’t even hear any of them get back last night. After the adrenaline rush of the evening's events, I crashed as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  Looking away from Mason’s broad arm, my eyes roam over West’s peaceful, sleeping face. He looks so different without his glasses on. He wears them all the time, even during sex, so it’s rare that I get the opportunity to just look at him without them on.

  Moving my gaze away from his face, I stifle a chuckle when I see a broad, tattooed arm draped over his hip.

  Beck is snuggled up against West’s back, his arm hanging over him, the back of his fingers brushing against my stomach.

  “They make a cute couple, don’t they?” Mason murmurs sleepily in my ear. His hand slowly massages my boob, making my back arch and pushing my ass against his morning wood.

  “Mmm.” It’s the only response I can give, both in answer to his question and the way he’s making my body slowly come alive.

  He trails his fingers down my abdomen, slipping beneath my t-shirt, and he groans against the sensitive skin on my neck when he discovers I’m not wearing any panties. After Lawrence divested me of mine last night, I decided to go commando when I got home, not really seeing a need to put on a fresh pair just to get into bed.

  Hitching my thigh over his leg, he pushes down his boxers, sliding his thick length through my folds before achingly slowly pushing his way inside me. He bites down on my earlobe, causing me to moan softly as I push back against him, the two of us thrusting in a slow, easy, early morning rhythm that is just as tantalizing as a good, hot fuck.