Wretched (Never After Series)

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to come to Chicago. I knew where they were staying; I was the one who made the reservations, and so I waited in the wings, ready to hunt down Brayden and either shoot him or cut his dick off.

But then I saw him leading my sister to her room. Pulling on her hair and pressing soft kisses to her cheek, and my stomach turned in on itself, nausea burning through my insides like battery acid.

I went to his hotel door afterward, but the sharp one-eighty of my emotions kept me from entering. I want to hold on to my rage when I see him, not feel like a sick puppy who watched its owners give them up and find another dog.

When he reappeared, his body radiating the worst type of anxious energy, I followed him. And now we’re here, with him looking defeated as my Desert Eagle presses against his head.

“You know,” I start. “You almost had me.”

His entire body stiffens and he turns around. I allow him to, moving my gun from his head down to his chest once we’re face to face. The muscles in my arms are already aching from the weight of the weapon and how tensely I’m holding it, but I don’t falter in my poise. And then, for the first time since I’ve met Brayden Walsh, I see emotion in his gaze. Genuine fear bleeds into his eyes, just a flash, and then it’s gone.

“And you call me the stalker,” he jokes. But there’s no humor in his tone.

“Shut up,” I hiss through clenched teeth. “Explain what you’re doing.”

He nods, placing his hands in his pockets and looking at where the barrel is pressed against his chest. “I didn’t know you were in Chicago.”

“Surprise.” I grin.

He glances behind him at the closed door and blows out a breath, his cheeks puffing slightly when he does. “If you’re planning to shoot me, I’d rather not bleed out all over my friend’s doorstep. It’s rude.”

I tilt my head. “What friend?”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know about her, sweetheart. Just put the gun down and let’s go back outside.”

My hands shake, thick gusts of green whipping through me when he confirms it’s a woman, and then I want to kill myself for feeling any jealousy at all.

“I swear to god, Brayden, if you have a girlfriend…”

He smirks, those stupid fucking dimples lighting up his face and he steps into me, the end of my gun touching his chest. “Jealous?”

“Just not interested in community dick.”

His hand grasps the side of my face, cupping my cheek. He opens his mouth but hesitates, his eyes shuttering like he’s trying to figure out what to say. “It’s not a girlfriend… it’s my sister.”

I squint my eyes. “You don’t have a sister.”

“I do.”

Slowly, I lower the gun.

He grabs my palm immediately, tangling our fingers together and dragging me behind him. I follow, too stunned from his tender touches and his revelations to argue.

My mind races as we walk down the hallway and through the stairwell. He maneuvers around the building as if he knows it intimately, and my heart squeezes tight, wondering if he’s lying.

Cody said he had no relatives.

He opens a side door to the outside and the cool air smacks my face, but even then he doesn’t stop until he’s pulled me around the side of the building into a small, dark alley. He yanks back his hand like I lit him on fire.

I shake my head, raising my gun again. “You’re lying to me.”

His eyes darken and he snaps forward, twisting my arm quickly, my tendons stretching as he steals the Eagle from my hand, and points it at me. His other palm grasps my wrists tightly, binding them with his strong grip and shoving them above my head and against the wall.

“Let me lay something out for you, sweetheart.” He runs the barrel along the side of my face, the metal scraping against my cheek, my heart surging into my throat. “I’ve been a thief for years. And in that time, I’ve stolen from very dangerous men. Important men. You think I’d do all that without ensuring the safety of people important to me?”

I grind my teeth and push against his hold.

He tightens his grip. “I know you’re not stupid enough to believe you’re the only one with access to government files.”

Confusion swims through my head even though everything he’s saying makes sense. In fact, if I were in his situation I would probably do the same. “My guy would know if your documents were fake.”

He smirks, pressing his hips farther into me. “You sure about that?”

“No,” I admit grudgingly. “Get my gun out of my face.”

“Doesn’t feel so good when it’s on the other side, does it?” The barrel is cold as he glides it along the skin of my neck, dragging it down at a torturous pace until it caresses my collarbone. “I scrubbed the fact I had a sister. Made up some stories about a lonely kid who lived a normal life until he lost his mom. Congratulations, you fell for it. Just like everybody else.”

My heart rate speeds, adrenaline thrumming through every single vein. “Let me go.”

“You’re hardly in the position to be demanding.”

My fingers are starting to go numb from his grip around my wrists, and I shift, the brick scratching against my back even through my clothes. If I wanted to fight, if I truly wanted to, then I know I could, but for whatever reason, I don’t.

If I’m honest, this is why I showed up, isn’t it? Why I jumped in my car, gun half-cocked, ready to get in Brayden’s face and piss him off. It wasn’t to demand answers, not entirely anyway. It was because my emotions were exploding, and the only one who takes the hits, the only one who lets me feel… is him. He doesn’t tell me to get it together, or to not be exactly who I am. Instead, he cushions the blow, making sure my pieces don’t scatter in the wind. And maybe that’s why I revel in his attention, lusting for the way his jaw muscles tic and his eyes grow dark when he puts me in my place. Or when he gives up his control.

He may have given Dorothy soft kisses and fancy dinners, but he doesn’t give her this.

I slacken in his hold, becoming pliant, his breath skating across my cheek as he maneuvers my gun along the planes of my body. He notices the shift and moves in closer until his body is flush with mine.

My teeth sink into my lower lip, and his eyes drop to follow the movement.

“You like this, don’t you, pretty girl,” he rasps, pressing the weapon against the side of my neck. “Does it excite you?”

“Stop flattering yourself.” My voice comes out breathy.

“It does.” He smiles, dipping his head down until his lips graze against my skin. “I’ll tell you a secret. The thought of doing things to you right here in this dirty alley has me so fucking hard.”

My insides quake at his words and I push halfheartedly against him, trying like hell to hold on to my anger from a few minutes ago and failing miserably.

“You have me so. Fucking. Hard.”

He keeps my arms pinned as he works his way over my breasts with the Eagle, slipping the barrel between my cleavage. My nipples tighten, aching for his touch.

“I want to fuck you here,” he says, pulling the gun back so my shirt peels away from my skin. “I spent days memorizing the curves of your body just to go home and take out my cock, stroking it to the vision of you in my head.”

My teeth sink harder into my lip, the flesh splitting until the tang of warm copper hits my tastebuds.

He moves again, gliding the metal down my sides, goose bumps sprouting in every place he roams.

Voices shout from down the street, echoing off the buildings and growing louder as the seconds pass, but he doesn’t stop. In fact, his erection throbs against me, like the thought of them seeing us turns him on.

“You and these skirts,” he groans, finally releasing my wrists and reaching down to slip his free hand underneath the fabric.

My fingertips tingle as blood rushes back and I fling my arms around his neck, my body too shaky to stand on my own.

“Give me your words, pretty girl.” The gun presses against my ribs and his left hand ghosts across my pussy, his fingers stroking my clit through the soaked fabric of my underwear. “I want your little love spells.”

The voices are so close now, it would be a miracle if they don’t see us, and my stomach somersaults when I visualize what we’ll look like when they do. He wants poetry, but I can’t give him mine. It’s too personal, and I’m already giving too much.

“My life had stood, a loaded gun,” I force out between heavy breaths.

The tips of his fingers slip beneath my panties now, sliding through my lips, collecting the wetness seeping from my hole.

His tongue snakes out and licks up the column of my neck, sending a shiver racking through my body.

“Keep going,” he demands.

“In corners till a day.”

As if in slow motion, his hand stops rubbing against me, moving the gun down my side until it too disappears beneath my skirt. He presses the barrel against my clit.

My head flies back, cracking against the wall, my nails digging into his neck.

“The owner passed,” I cry out. “Identified, and carried me away.”

The cool metal pushes into my pussy, and my hips have a mind of their own, sliding along the rail, the evenly spaced deep slots on the top creating a sensation that has heat winding through my core and shooting down my legs.

“Oh, god,” I moan when he moves the gun back and forth.

He leans in, his lips so close that his breath is my air. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”

“And… and now we roam in sovreign woods, and now we hunt… hunt the doe,” I stutter. “And every time I speak for him, the mountains straight reply.”

I’m full on grinding against the weapon now, so lost in the fog of what’s happening, I forget about anything else. “And do I sm-smile, such cordial light, opon the valley glow. It is as a vesuvian face, had let its pleasure through.”

“They’re watching us, Eveline.” He presses a soft kiss to my lips. “Standing right outside the alley, seeing every depraved thing I do to you.”

The way he says my full name makes my face flush and my back bow, my hips working harder against the top of the rail.

“Do you think they like it?” His other hand grips at the fabric and pulls just enough to make my underwear slide halfway down my thighs. “You think their cocks are thick and hard, their minds spinning with jealousy that they can look but never touch?”

A noise escapes me while he paints the lewd picture, and I squeeze my eyes closed.

“I’d kill them if they touched you. This is mine,” he growls. “There’s a woman too. Do you think she’ll go home tonight and lie down in her bed, fucking herself to the thought of what I’m doing to you?”

I moan as I move on top of my gun, chasing the orgasm I need.

“Spread your legs for me.”

I do, without thought. I’m too busy imagining the look on strangers’ faces as they watch; the men clenching their fists to keep from taking out their cocks and stroking to the sight. The woman, gripping onto one of their arms, her pussy swollen and drenched, throbbing as she watches me get tortured with pleasure.

“Keep going, pretty girl. You’re doing so well.”

My abdomen clenches, muscles tightening until they feel as if they’ll burst through my skin. “And… and when at night, our good day done, I guard my master’s head.”

His free hand reaches around, gripping a handful of my ass, forcing me harder into both the gun and his body.

I open my mouth, and Brayden dips down, catching the moan with his tongue. He slides the Eagle against my core, then drags it back so the front sight—the small protruding piece on the tip—presses into my clit. I soar even higher, the pressure between my legs growing.

He breaks the kiss and speaks the next line against my lips, his voice deep and strained. “Tis better than the eider duck’s deep pillow to have shared.”

My pussy contracts. He knows Emily Dickinson.

“To foe of his, I’m deadly… fuck… I’m deadly foe,” I force out, squeezing my eyes shut tighter as I try and formulate words. “None stir the second time. On whom I lay a yellow eye, or an… an emphatic thumb.”

Brayden’s teeth sink into my throat, hard enough to break the skin as he continues to get me off with my gun, and I gasp, my legs shaking.

“Please,” I beg, my nails destroying the back of his neck. “Please.”

His grip is bruising on my ass cheek as he controls my movements, pushing me forward and dragging me back, and then he changes the angle of his hand until the tip of the gun circles against my entrance.

Sparks ricochet off every single part of me, my body buzzing like I’m high on drugs.

“Finish the poem,” he whispers, pulling back to gaze into my eyes.

My heart stutters as I stare at him, something breaking in my chest, allowing warmth to flood through every crack. “Though I than he, may longer live, he longer must than I,” I pant.

Is the safety switch on? Arousal rushes through me like a storm surge, my back flying off the wall as I hold on to him like I’m drowning.

“For I have but the power to kill,” he rumbles, his arm tensing around me.

“Without the power to die,” I finish.

He slips the tip of the gun inside of me, the metal scratching against my opening, sending pricks of pain, and I’m coming, blinding lights shooting across my vision like fireworks.

His mouth is back on me quickly, holding me tightly as I shatter to pieces, my pussy spasming around the barrel of my weapon, sensation so intense my bones ache.

I black out entirely, and when I come to, I’m panting, collapsed against him with his lips pressing soft kisses to my head. I pry myself off, my body trembling as I look around.

There’s no one there.

That fucking liar. 

He chuckles, and I meet his eyes, my cunt still throbbing from the aftershocks of the most intense orgasm of my life.

His hand cups my cheek and he tilts my head up to meet his eyes. “Spend the night with me.”

I try to talk. I really do. I pry my tongue from the roof of my mouth and search for more words to give. But they’ve all disappeared. And I’m tired of fighting, so I press my face into the palm of his hand and I nod, letting him be the calm to my chaos.