Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
When they both burned up in a fire, I didn’t feel sadness, I felt relief. That was until I was bounced around from one sick bastard to the next, eventually landing in the clutches of a woman who could smell the fucked-up shadow that lived over me like a second skin, using me to feed and sate her own darkness. Sometimes, I still hear her voice, even though she’s long past dead. My hand still curls around the phantom hilt of the blade she would force me to use to slice my penance into my flesh.
It took me years to trust myself with people again, and I’m not that person anymore. But occasionally, I do lose myself to carnal rage, consumed by the hunger to take what I want. When Vance pushes me to the brink of madness, I crave the punishment my fucked-up brain convinces me I deserve.
Collapsing on my bed, I inhale our mixed scents, and my cock twitches. My hands tremble, wanting to take it in my palm, but I don’t.
We’ve never shared a woman in one of our bedrooms before, we always have them sign a contract and fuck in the room we permit them to use while they’re here, then Vance goes to sleep in his room and I go to mine. We don’t move them in either, only allowing them to stay while we fuck and send them on their way as soon as the fucking ends.
Poppy isn’t like the women before her, though… She’s different. There are no rules—which both terrifies and thrills me. She’s like a gift intended for someone else that you accidentally open, realizing you’ve been waiting for it your whole life. Something you’re not willing to return to the rightful recipient.
I’d skin anyone who tried to take her from us. She’s ours. Mine. And I’m keeping her.
The way she called my name, moaned it like it means something, like I’m worthy of someone as pure as her… I’d never tell her this, but I’m grateful her fiancé prefers cock to pussy since, it means I don’t have to kill him to keep her.
This is a new feeling for me. I’ve always been afraid to want, to have someone touch me and say my name the way she did, in case it’s a trick, and she’ll take it all away in the next breath.
I wonder if Vance realizes that he doesn’t go home and marry any of the women his parents pick out for him because he’s already taken, because he’s mine, and I’m his. And just like with him, when I truly claim something, it’s forever. I claimed him a long time ago, and now Poppy will be ours forever too. I refuse to allow anything or anyone to take them from me.
“Tristan.” Poppy's fingers are stroking down my cheek when my eyes flutter open. I don’t remember falling asleep.
She’s standing by the bed, looking sleepy and mussed in one of Vance’s T-shirts. It’s too big for her, ending in the middle of her delectable thighs.
“Come eat with us.” She phrases it like a question.
I look over to where Vance leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, the veins bulging in his forearms. He’s shirtless, the gorgeous expanse of toned muscles tense, his dark nipples hard. He’s wearing sweatpants, his dark, wavy hair wet and curling around his ears.
I scoot up the mattress and swing my legs off the edge of the bed, head bowed.
“Come on, Tristan.” He jerks his head then pushes off the doorframe. “Let’s eat.”
“Is my punishment over?” I ask, scraping my fingers into the bed sheet.
“This part is,” he tells me.
Poppy’s arms slip around my neck, her ass settling on my lap. I’m still very fucking naked, so my cock takes notice of the skin of her thigh heating mine. Fingers brush over the scars on my back but she doesn’t mention them.
“I missed you,” she whispers into my neck as I clutch her waist, breathing her in. Her stomach rumbles, and she giggles. It’s the best sound I’ve ever heard.
Winding my arms under her thighs, I lift her and carry through to the dining room, planting her on a chair before I head back to the bedroom to slip on a pair of sleep shorts.
When I return, Vance has plated up some pasta dish for each of us. As soon as his eyes land on me, he jabs a finger toward the chair beside his. “Sit.”
“Is he always this bossy?” Poppy grins, a beautiful pink flush spreading over her skin. I can’t believe she’s sitting in our apartment, at our table.
A scoff leaves my lips, and he glares at me. “Only when he’s pleasuring or punishing.” I wink at her, and she bites her lip, pushing her food around her plate with her fork.
This is nice. Her in our space. Like she belongs here.