by Katee Robert
Especially since he’s already shown he’s so easy to provoke.
“You’re not worried about your uncle?”
I almost laugh. As if my uncle isn’t one of the best warriors our faction has to offer. It doesn’t matter what his history with Ezekiel Paine is; he’ll handle himself tonight. “Jasper will be fine.” I tilt my head to the side, smiling widely and enjoying the way Broderick’s jaw clenches in response. I can do nothing to help my sister right now. Best to get this over with and find her in the morning. “Are you stalling, dear husband? If someone weren’t paying attention, they might think you’re scared of little old me.”
“I’m not stalling.” He spins on his heels and resumes his march toward the door that’s obviously our destination. It looks identical to the other doors on the side walls of the warehouse—plain and gray.
I cast one last look at the space behind me and force myself to put aside my worry about Winry. She’ll be okay. She might be soft, but she’s still an Amazon. Someone soft in our faction is still someone a thousand times more capable than anyone else.
The room Broderick leads me to isn’t anything to write home about. It’s spartan in decorations, containing only a bed, a wardrobe, and nothing else. There is a door to what appears to be a private bathroom, which is something, at least.
I turn as Broderick shuts the door. He seems to make himself look at me, and I don’t imagine the heat in his eyes. He wants me. He doesn’t want to want me, but the desire is there all the same. Silly man. Between that and the way he was making heart eyes at the pretty brunette, he’s all but handed me the keys to the kingdom, along with a map to navigate his pressure points.
He motions at the bed. “Let’s make this quick. We don’t have to have sex—”
“Yeah, no. I don’t care how you’ve played this out in your head, but you won yourself a Bride, and you’re going to do this properly.” It’s necessary to ensure the Bridal peace holds…so when I go back to my people at the end of this year, I’ll have all the information I need to crush the Raider faction one and for all.
In the years since Broderick and his brothers were driven out of Sabine Valley, the Raider faction has become the weakest of the three. No matter how brilliant Eli Walsh is at leadership, he never reclaimed what the Paine family had previously accomplished. Eight years is a long time. It means Abel and the others are an unknown quantity. The fact they were able to infiltrate the city long enough to stage that show at Lammas means they’re a threat in a big way.
I’m the Amazon heir. It’s my job to step between my people and whatever threats arise. If that means I need to crawl into bed and ride Broderick’s cock until he passes out to ensure we have a year of peace, then I’ll do it. I would do it anyways, because I want to. But a year? It’s a long time to gather information on the Paine brothers while they can’t move against us. I’d be a fool to let that opportunity go by unexploited.
I am no fool.
I start for the bathroom door. “Give me two seconds to shower the blood off, husband.”
“Don’t call me that.”
I don’t bother to hide my smile as I glance over my shoulder, and his flinch in response is more than reward enough. “How on earth did you survive this long with skin that thin?”
Broderick opens his mouth, seems to reconsider whatever he was about to say, and huffs out a breath. “I don’t have thin skin.”
“All evidence points to the contrary.” I step into the bathroom and almost laugh. It’s just as spartan as the bedroom itself; it’s entirely white tile with only a sink, toilet, and showerhead. It’s also positioned in such a way that if I leave the door open, anyone in the bedroom will be able to see the entire bathroom. Good for security and ensuring a captive doesn’t get into trouble. Bad for Broderick’s blood pressure.
I turn on the shower and pull off my clothing slowly. I can feel his eyes on me. I know what I look like. Beauty is just another weapon in my arsenal, and Broderick might hate me, but he’s affected. Maybe he hates me because he’s affected. Even knowing him all of one evening is enough to make me suspect that’s the truth.
When I’m naked, I step beneath the spray and tilt my head back. The earlier fight in the arena wasn’t a particularly long or brutal one, but my knuckles sting and my thigh is a little sore where that bitch got in a few good kicks. Juniper of the Mystics isn’t heir, and every time I deal with her, I have cause to be grateful for that fact. She’s a blunt instrument waiting for a hand to wield her. She’s got a temper, and she’s remarkably easy to bait. If I’d been fighting her older sister, Fallon, the fight wouldn’t have been nearly as simple.
I slick my hair back. Fallon is a Bride, too. I wonder how she’s taking the consummation. That woman has ice in her veins, and she’s as feral as a wolf when it comes to… Well, literally anything. Poor little Gabriel Paine. He’s bitten off more than he can chew, too.
I feel Broderick standing in the doorway before he speaks. “That’s enough. Let’s get this over with.” His voice has gone hoarse.
I turn slowly to face him and open my eyes. Gods, the way he looks at me. Like he wants to fight and fuck and then run as far and fast from me as he can. He’s got a shit poker face; another fact I file away. Those blue eyes are practically an inferno as his gaze follows the path of the water down my body, tracing over my lips, my breasts, my stomach, my pussy, my legs.
“See something you like?”
He shakes his head slowly, but he can’t seem to raise his gaze from my breasts. The sheer intensity on his face has goose bumps rising over my skin. I don’t know what changed in the last few minutes, but any hesitation is gone. He flicks his fingers at me. “Get over here.”
I wring out my hair slowly, letting the tension between us become thicker and thicker. It feels like the moment before a storm breaks, the air thick and heavy with promised violence. I lick my lips. “Make me.”
“Monroe.”
Gods, the way he says my name. A warning I have no intention of heeding. When’s the last time I danced on the edge of true danger? I can’t remember. No matter how brutal life can be in Sabine Valley, I’m at the top of the hierarchy. Aside from clashes with the other factions from time to time, no one fucks with me. No one even dares to try.
I suddenly very much want Broderick to do more than try.
I flick my hair over my shoulder. “Make me,” I repeat. His eyes flare in response, but he doesn’t move. That’s okay. I have more than enough ammunition to provoke him at this point. Still, Broderick seems to have an honorable streak—to his eventual detriment—so I throw him the smallest of bones. “Play with me, Broderick Paine. If you want to be the conquering warlord, you can’t just ride in on your big brother’s coattails and let him do all the work. You want the Amazon heir?” I motion to my body, my nipples going tight when he follows the movement. “Earn it.”
He tenses, obviously fighting himself. “I have no desire to hurt you by accident.”
He really is too easy. I laugh. “Please. As if you could.” I weave my wet hair into a quick braid to keep it out of my face. “Do you know what I think?”
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“I think you’re weak.” I tilt my head to the side, pretending to think. “Or is it because of the pretty little girl-next-door brunette that we met on the way in here? What was her name…” I snap my fingers. “Shiloh.”
“Keep her name out of your mouth.” He takes a step forward.
I weigh the distance between us. Close but not close enough. He just needs one last little push to send him hurtling over the edge. I lower my voice and lean forward a bit. “You can call me by her name if you want. Since you’re obviously too much a coward to have closed the deal with her.”
“Monroe.” On his tongue, my name sounds like a curse. I kind of like it.
“Actually, I have a better idea.” I give him a slow, predatory smile. “Maybe I’ll say her name instead. I bet her pussy tastes as sweet and inn
ocent as she looks.”
Broderick moves, faster than I would have given him credit for. If I weren’t waiting for it, he would have caught me flat-footed. As it is, I sucker punch him and slip past. He careens into the wall with a muffled curse, but he’s recovered by the time I reach the bathroom door. Tough bastard.
“You bitch.”
“Don’t think you’ll turn my head with pretty compliments.” I twist around and back toward the bed.
Broderick looks like he wants to wring my neck. He rushes me, and even though I try to dodge, he hooks an arm around my waist and takes us both to the bed. I’m fighting as soon as my back hits the mattress, but he’s ready for me this time. He grabs my wrists and forces them over my head, dodges my attempt to knee him in the balls, and wedges himself between my thighs. All in the span of three seconds.
Impressive.
He growls. “It didn’t have to be like this.”
“On the contrary.” I shiver, my desire making me forget myself for a moment. Broderick really is a worthy opponent, though I’d cut out my own tongue before I admitted as much. “It most definitely had to be like this.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but I stop the words by arching up and kissing him. He tenses against me. For a moment, I think he might keep fighting this, but he makes a low sound against my mouth, and then he’s kissing me back. It’s just as much a battle as everything has been up to this point. We fight for dominance even as he shifts my wrists to one hand and reaches between our bodies to shove two fingers into me.
Broderick lifts his head and glares. “I fucking loathe you.”
Chapter 3
Broderick
I had meant to go about this a different way. To keep things as distant as possible when it comes to consummating the handfast. To not do anything to further the enmity between me and my new Bride. To…
It doesn’t matter now.
Monroe nips my jaw as I fuck her with my fingers. She’s so fucking wet; obviously the manhandling gets her off, even if I don’t know how the hell I feel about it.
No, that’s not true. I know exactly how I feel about it. My cock is so hard, I’m about to come in my pants, and it started the second she met my gaze and whispered those poisoned words with a smile on her lips. Make me. She fucking sucker punched me. “I don’t do this,” I mutter.
Monroe digs her heels into the mattress and lifts her hips as much as she’s able to, trying to take my fingers deeper. “Sounds like…a bore.”
Even now, she’s taunting me. It makes me want to tie her down. It makes me want to fuck her all the more. I pull back, kneeling between her thighs. She tries to kick me, but the position doesn’t allow for it. I press my weight onto her wrists. “Spread your legs wider.”
I already know exactly what she’ll say a moment before the words leave her lips. “Make me, Broderick Paine. You know you want to.”
The worst part?
She’s right.
I’ve never, not once, been this rough with a partner. I might not be as big as some of my brothers, but I’m achingly aware of how much stronger I am than someone like Shiloh.
No, I can’t think about her right now. It feels wrong, and not just because I currently have three fingers buried in Monroe’s pussy. I would never, ever treat Shiloh like this. I would never overpower her or hold her down or fuck her rough. She deserves to be cherished, and you don’t treat something you cherish like it’s the enemy.
Monroe is the enemy.
More, she wants this.
Still…
I move quickly, flipping her onto her stomach and using my weight to pin her again before she has a chance to fight. I catch her wrists and press them to the mattress on either side of her head. My stomach still aches from that sucker punch. I might admire it if she were a different woman and I were a different man. I press my lips to her ear, ignoring the way she arches her hips back in invitation. “You say I want it like this.”
“You do.”
I ignore that, too. “Sounds to me like no one’s been fucking you properly, Monroe.” I bite the back of her neck. I don’t even know what possesses me to do it, other than I need to feel her skin against my teeth, just a little. The moan she makes has what little blood is left in my body surging to my cock. She likes that just as much as I do. “Tell me you want my cock. Ask nicely, and I might even give it to you.”
She surges up, trying to lift me off her, but I’m not going anywhere, and we both know it. Monroe lets out a hoarse laugh. “Give me your cock, Broderick. You’ve won me, fair and square.”
I let go of one of her wrists to undo my pants, but she’s not fighting me anymore. I wrap my fist around my cock and notch myself at her entrance. She’s so wet, it’s achingly easy to slide into her. Some small part of me is trying to sound a warning, but it feels too good to stop. I feed her my cock, inch by inch, driven on by her moans.
It’s not enough, not even when I’m sheathed completely. She clenches around me, and it’s everything I can do not to come on the spot. If I do that, she wins in truth, and that’s something I won’t allow. Not tonight. Not ever.
I wedge my hand between her body and the mattress until I cup her pussy. Monroe jolts and then goes liquid in my arms. “Little circles, Broderick.” I do as she instructs and circle her clit as I start fucking her. Gods, she feels good. It shouldn’t be this pleasurable to fuck someone I hate, but I’m past thinking about it. She drags her braid off her neck. “Bite me again. Harder.”
I bite her. She lets out a cry that vibrates through her entire body, and then she’s coming, pulsing around my cock so strongly, I’m helpless to do anything but follow her over the edge. I pound into her in rough strokes, chasing my own orgasm, and come hard enough that I’m shaking by the end of it.
It’s only as I’m easing out of her that I realize the thing I should have remembered.
I didn’t use a condom. I just came inside Monroe bare.
I scramble off her. “Fuck.”
Monroe gives that throaty laugh of hers and rolls onto her back. A fine sheen of sweat covers her skin, and even with panic blaring through my head, part of me wants to taste her. To do more than taste her. To leave bite marks all over that flawless body. To make her come enough times that she can no longer mouth off. To fuck her until I forget all the reasons coming back to Sabine Valley has messed with my head.
I shake my head. “We didn’t use a condom.”
“Oh. That.” She gingerly touches the back of her neck and shivers in a way that can’t be interpreted as anything other than pleasure. “I’m on birth control, and I’m tested regularly. I also don’t make a habit of having sex without protection.”
I want to believe her, if only because the potential consequences of this slip-up have me reeling. “I was tested before we came back to the city,” I finally manage. We were all tested, and at the time I thought it bullshit because no way would I be having unprotected sex with the enemy. I can’t believe I forgot myself enough to be this reckless. “I have to go.”
“Broderick.” She sits up, her brows drawing together as she watches me rush to get my pants back in place. For a second, I almost believe that I’ve hurt her, but that’s impossible. The way she shrugs and flops back onto bed seems to support that it’s all in my imagination. “Suit yourself.”
I don’t run out of the bedroom, but it’s a near thing. I just need some fucking space, to think. The worst danger has passed if she’s telling the truth. She won’t get pregnant. I don’t have to worry about the potential of tying myself to Monroe for life, rather than a single year.
The dark, feral part of me whispers that, with that taken care of, there’s no reason to stop fucking her. We only needed to do it once to consummate the handfasting, but that doesn’t mean it only has to be once.
I shake my head sharply. No. She managed to unravel my control inside of an hour. Having sex with her again only provides her more opportunity to mess with me. That’s out of the question.
/> “Broderick?”
Shame nearly takes all the strength from my body. I close my eyes, but I hear the familiar footsteps that I know as well as my own. Shiloh. I can’t avoid this conversation. Doing so will only hurt her feelings, and that’s the last thing I want. I try for a smile, but it feels wrong on my face, so I let it drop. “Hey.”
She’s wearing her usual jeans, boots, and black tank top. In all the years she’s been running with our group, I’ve never seen her in shorts, even in the height of summer in the South. I know it has something to do with her past, but we’ve never touched on it beyond broad strokes and I have enough skeletons rattling around in my closet to respect her not wanting to drag hers into the light.
I shouldn’t be thinking about Shiloh or her past right now. I should be… Fuck, I don’t even know. “Can’t sleep?” I finally manage.
“I’m on watch.”
Right. Of course. I should have realized that. Monroe has me so rattled, I don’t know which way is up. Except, I can’t blame it entirely on Monroe. Ever since we crossed the boundary line back into Sabine Valley, things have been different. I knew it would be hard coming back here, but so many of my brothers don’t seem affected and I don’t understand. How can they be here without being tormented by the phantom scent of smoke? Without constantly looking over their shoulder for enemies. Without being hounded by the past.
“Are you…okay?”
“What?” At first, I think she’s intuited that I was sinking into the past, the way we’ve both learned to do with each other during the course of our friendship. But then I follow Shiloh’s gaze down to my forearms, where there are long scratches. I don’t even remember Monroe giving them to me.
I flush. “Uh. Yeah.” What am I supposed to say? Shiloh is my friend, yes, but I’ve never let her know how I truly feel. To her, I’m just her best friend, her safe harbor in the midst of all the fuckery the world likes to throw at us. I am all that for her, the same way she’s that for me.
With all that said, our friendship has never had to navigate something like this before. If Shiloh is intimate with people, she’s been subtle enough that I’ve never known about it. As for me, I haven’t touched another person once I realized I was in love with her about six months after she joined us. I should have moved on once I realized this is only friendship for her, should have at least tried to create a romantic relationship with someone else, but it never felt right so it just…never happened.
