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December 4 - December 8, 2023
You can’t fool me, Jiang, because I know what it is to love in a way that never dies. And if that love is taken from you unjustly, I know what it is to live with revenge as your life’s purpose.
I’ll turn you over my knee and tan your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit for a goddamn year.” “I’m not a child anymore, Axe-Man,” I sneered, shoving at him with two hands. He didn’t even budge. “You think I’d threaten to spank you if you were?”
I’d been so hungry for him for so long that it seemed nothing short of cannibalism would satisfy me.
The truth that only served to fuel my fury even as I let myself loose on her body was that I wanted her. Plain. Simple. I wanted to bury myself inside her. Wanted to tame all that wild, reckless energy with my cock and a strong hand on her throat, her tits, her sweet little ass. Wanted to stamp my possession on every inch of that black-inked, white-washed skin ’til she glowed with colour from my lips and teeth and brutal hands.
“But she’s not even Fallen,” Dane pointed out, not judgin’ but curious. “No,” I agreed, swingin’ up into the Ford and lookin’ back at Mei lyin’ prone in the back seat. “But once, she was mine.”
I remembered her name was Harleigh Rose and thought that was fitting. “Am I dreaming?” I croaked, and even the words scraping up my throat hurt. “I didn’t think I was gay, but I’m wondering if this is the start of some kind of sex dream.”
Never thought you were a damsel, Mei Zhen. You’ve always been a dragon.”
How powerful I’d felt fuckin’ a woman with so much of her own wildness, her own power. How she’d matched my ferocity with her own and urged me to give her more.
Bea was there most days, and even though it surprised me at first, Cleo’s two wildly different best friends seemed to get along well enough. I thought it was ’cause Mei was softer than she wanted to seem and Bea was darker than she appeared.
“Next time,” she said in a low, velvety purr. “Don’t waste that cum on my underwear. I can think of better places for it.”
“Thankfully, I’m a gracious bride, so all of you have lovely ladies waiting in private rooms for you. Those of you with Old Ladies might just find somethin’ sexy and familiar inside of yours.” Nova whooped, already standin’ up and makin’ his way to the back of the club. “Which one’s my Flower Child in?” Harleigh Rose laughed. “Name’s are on the doors. Happy dancin’, boys. Now make yourself scarce.”
“Fuckin’ wait ’til I get outta ’ere,” Zeus shouted as he covered his eyes and made his way through the tables. When the music swelled, “Born to Be Wild” blarin’ through the speakers, he cursed and hightailed it outta there.
“I know a little something about making dumb choices. I think I’ll hate myself for being so stupid for the rest of my life, but do you want to know the little truth that makes it possible for me to live with myself every day? I know I’m a good person. I know I might have acted foolishly, but my reasons for doing so came from a good place. A loving place. S-Seth Linley tried to take my goodness from me, but I know…” She sucked in a wavering breath, and I squeezed her hand tightly. “I know he could never do that. He took a lot from me, but he can’t have that. So I might be scarred and broken and
...more
“What does that say about us, huh? That we measure love by our willingness to die for each other?” I teased. Cleo blinked those huge green-grey eyes solemnly. “I think it means we’ve been through hell, and we know what it’s like to die inside, so we know exactly what price we’d pay for the people we care about.”
“I think he’s being mean to you as some kind of test. Like if he can drive you away, it means he was right, and you were never worth the trouble. But if you stay…if you stay, Mei, I think we could all be happy again. I think you could make a home here with us.”
“I think you could make each other happy,” she finished with a little shrug like she was frustrated by her own words. “I’ve thought so for a long time.”
I don’t know what’s between you, what was or what is now, but I know what I see. And you don’t hurt the way you and Dad have been hurting for eight years without a whole lot of love missing from your life. I just wanted to mention it because, well, because if he ever forgives you, forgives himself, then nothing would make me happier, you understand?”
“‘I miss you,” he started to read, voice tight, and my knees almost gave out so I braced myself against the wall. “‘In Chinese or English, there are no words to properly express just how much missing you eats at me. It’s like your absence is a rabid animal, taking huge chunks out of me whenever I’m vulnerable, nipping at my heels just when I think I might be getting too close to some kind of new okay.’”
“Why the fuck didn’t you send them?” “I did,” I gritted out between clenched teeth. “Notice the ‘return to sender’?” “You didn’t send shit for a year and a half,” he retorted. “Why didn’t you send these right away? Why weren’t you there visitin’ me? You fuckin’ disappeared on us!”
“You think that Kang’s side was the only one you cut into that night at Turner Farm? I still fuckin’ bleed from that wound. It never healed right, and the moment I saw you in the hospital again, it was like bein’ cut open all over again. You got the means to heal that hurt, and you’re tellin’ me you won’t?”
“Do I need to threaten to turn you over my knee again to get some honesty from you?” he practically purred, crowding me against the wall beside the door. Without breaking my gaze, he reached out with one hand and carefully closed it around my throat. “You want me to fuck the truth outta you, don’t you?”
The truth was, I ached for the burn, for the danger of all that strength and ferocity under my hands and mouth again. Something about his viciousness was honest and made me feel cared for in a way that was elemental. He wanted me despite everything between us, and it made me feel powerful.
“I can’t. Even though you stabbed me through the fuckin’ heart, it can’t fuckin’ forget how to care about you. Even with my blood on your teeth, I can’t fight the mad urge to kiss you. Maybe especially with my blood on your teeth, your little claws in my chest. I’ve always had the bad habit of wantin’ what wasn’t good for me.”
“You’re still a fuckin’ liar with a mouth full of sharp teeth and secrets. I hate you, Mei, but I got this madness in me that wants you anyway. This anger I got wants to take pieces outta you with my words and my teeth. Bruises you ’cause I want you to hurt and mark you ’cause some damn dumb part of me remembers what it was like when you were mine.”
“But you’re not a kid anymore, and I wanna fuck ’til you forget all the goddamn lies. I wanna punish your tight cunt with my cock and all this pretty skin with my teeth. I wanna destroy you like you destroyed me.”
“You wanna fuck me?” he asked, his voice cold, so arctic it shot shivers across my skin. “You wanna prove you can handle me? Take off your clothes and do it nice and slow.”
“You little thief,” he snarled, tracing another design up to the lower curve of my small breast before he harshly pinched my nipple and toppled me to the bed. “You have me all fuckin’ over you.”
Meanwhile, he sucked hickeys on my shoulders and collarbones, a necklace of vampire kisses, a wreath of bruises that I’d watch turn from one jewel tone to another. Garnet, ruby, amethyst, hints of sapphire and tourmaline and citrine. Even as he bit into my flesh and pressed his mark into my skin, I started to mourn the loss of those notes. They were written in hate, but after years of my letters being returned to sender unopened, it felt good to get a response.
“If you won’t be quiet,” he murmured, fisting the root of his erection and slowly thrusting forward to smear his precum over my parted lips. “I’ll shut you up myself.”
Axe-Man was a vocal lover, praising me for taking him so good and for having such a pretty, greedy pussy.
“Take what I give you. You asked for this.”
“Tell me you want me,” I whispered as my cunt clenched down on him, and I quivered on the edge of release. “Please.”
“Goddamn you, but yeah, I want you. Never want to stop fuckin’ this pretty, perfect cunt. You’re so fuckin’ dangerous ’cause you make me so fuckin’ weak, Rocky.”
He’d always been a special kind of gravity to me, something to keep me grounded, something I felt on every inch of me, in every molecule in a way that was both natural and profound.
“I don’t know how you felt the moment you knew Kate was dead, but for me, at that moment, after losing you in a way just an hour before, I couldn’t express my grief even in my own head. There were no words or even thoughts, just pain. Throbbing between my temples. In the balls of my feet, in the space between each rib. I just felt stripped of my skin and set on fire, every inch of me in excruciating pain.”
“I was handcuffed to the bed. Florent told me he was pressing charges against me for assault. T-that he was having me committed to a correctional facility.”
BOOOOO WORST DAD EVER AWARD. FUCK U FLORENT
“Even after years passed, you and Cleo were still so elemental to me that it felt impossible that anyone could know me without knowing you. My love for you has always been the cipher needed to decode me.”
“You were never really in love with me, Mei,” he said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You’d just had so little real affection ’til you met Kate, Cleo, and me that you thought we were better than we really were. Really are,” he corrected.
“I lived eight years without that affection and I still think you’re the best.” Admitting that was so vulnerable, like laying down willingly on an autopsy slab and cutting open my own chest. Here, I wanted to say, loo...
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“No feelin’ is immutable, Mei,” Axe-Man said, and I could feel the intensity of his stare on the side of my face. “No feelin’ lasts forever. Not even love, sometimes. Not even hate.”
Henning had never been an angry guy. Even after Kate was ripped away from him, he’d kept his head high, his heart warm and open. He wasn’t like me, prone to bitterness and rage. He was good. So fucking good. My off-white knight. And I’d done the worst thing you ever could to a man like that. I’d broken his heart and his trust.
“You’re not mad?” He sighed so hard it ruffled the pages. “Fuck, don’t think I gotta lotta anger left in me. It’s fuckin’ exhaustin’ tryin’ to stay mad at you.”
“How can I stay mad when it’s obvious you kept Cleo and me with you in every way you could over the last eight years?”
When I looked a little helplessly back over at Nova, King, and Cressida, all of them were grinning a little madly at me. Nova even winked. It wasn’t reassuring at all.
😈😈😈
“Stay still while I fuck you,” he reprimanded when I automatically started gyrating on his hand. “Show me you can be a good girl.”
“You might hate me when you see what I marked you as,” he admitted, voice tight, hands even tighter on my hips as he drove harder and harder into my clenching heat. “But I don’t fuckin’ care. You got your teeth and claws in me, it’s only fair I got my ink on you. Even when I hate you, you’re mine.”
“My cum and ink look fuckin’ beautiful on you,” he told me, quiet and rough as gravel. There was a captivated quality to his tone that told me how genuine those words were. “You were just a girl before, and the moment you came to town and I saw you were a woman, you awoke this fuckin’ beast in me.”
“Don’t know what I’m doin’ with you,” he admitted, patting my cheeks until they jiggled. “But I can’t seem to fuckin’ stop. Lovin’ you feels like a curse, so why don’t I want it to end?”
Seen. Always seen with Axe-Man, even when I tried to hide behind the hate fucking. Even when he tried to pretend he was disgusted by his desire for me. His hands were honest, always.
I went upstairs for bed and checked beneath the gauze on my ass to see what note he’d written into my skin. Property of the Off-White Knight in the same small black, gothic writing of the tattoos love and loss on his knuckles.
