Riot House (Crooked Sinners, #1)

by Callie Hart

“No! Who said anything about Wren? Why would you think that? I haven’t seen him since he waltzed out of Fitz’s class yesterday. Two fifteen? I think it was around two fifteen in the afternoon.” Carina frowns deeply. “Okaaaay. That was oddly specific.”

and then she tells me in intimate detail how Andre made her come three separate times before coming himself, which apparently makes him a gentleman of the highest order.

WREN: You might as well tell me. I’ll find you either way.

“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in the purple and gold…”

REPPPPPP

“Carina’s gonna be back any second. If she sees you sitting here, talking to me—” “The whole world will implode and burn to ash, and the seas will dry, and meteors will strike the Earth, obliterating all life as we know it.” “—she’ll piece this together, whatever this is. And—” He looks confused. “Whatever this is?” “Oh. I forgot. Piece of Shit Playbook, rule number three. This is the part where you pretend like nothing happened between us last night, right?”

“I’m sorry, Little E. I don’t know what I did to encourage this belief that I give a flying fuck what Carina Mendoza thinks about anything but let me clear this up. I don’t care if Carina comes back and finds me sitting in this chair. I don’t care if she knows that I want you. I don’t care if she knows that I had my tongue down your throat last night and you made my dick harder than it’s been in two fucking years.”

“You do know how crazy you drive me, don’t you, Little E? You know that my body isn’t my own anymore. I fucking crave you. And I really don’t give a fuck who knows it.”

He should not have brought me a gift. It takes all of my courage to gingerly untie the ribbon and lift up the lid. “Oh my god!” I cover my mouth with my hands, trying not to cry out. My eyes sting as I take a step forward, bending over to get a closer look at the tiny little object nestled in amongst a bed of lilac tissue paper inside: the white of his chest, that fades to the blue of his back, that deepens to the dark, midnight blue at the tips of his wings… It’s the bird, my mother’s bird, the one that was shattered into a million pieces…and he’s somehow been pieced back together.

“Come on, Lovett. Wouldn’t want to ruin my birthday now, would you?” “That’s a low fucking blow.” “At least it sounds like we’re flying first class,” Pax mumbles. I grin. “Nothing but the best for my boys.” “God, don’t you just hate it when he does that? It’s fucking terrifying when you smile.”

“The key to convincing a woman that you’re not an evil, heartless piece of shit, Wren, is to not be an evil, heartless piece of shit.”

whhaaAAAAT THE FUCK? I stop dead on the sidewalk, the wind whipping at me, tugging on my clothes, but I barely notice the cold. I can’t be seeing clearly. There’s just no fucking way… Across the other side of the street, in a deserted parking lot on the other side of high chain link fence, two people stand at arm’s distance, talking animatedly. The tall guy on the left gesticulates, using his hands to make his point. The girl—much shorter, dressed like she’s about to clock on for her shift at a strip joint, a sheet of black hair hanging down her back—laughs, shoving him playfully in the chest.

He arches a sardonic eyebrow. Not a flicker of fear in his eyes. Not a scrap of concern on him. He glances down at my mouth, his eyes lingering on my lips, and I just know he’s getting fucking hard right now.

WHATATATTR LMFAAOOOOO

“You don’t look at anything that belongs to me. You don’t touch anything that belongs to me. Outside of your remit as a teacher, you don’t speak to anybody that’s connected with me. Do you understand?” With eyes full of heat, Fitz sucks on his bottom lip, both nostrils flaring. “It doesn’t have to be like this, y’know. Things could be like they were before.”

and Wesley Fitzpatrick knows it most of all. He isn’t gonna say shit. His problem has always been that he wants me to hurt him. To humiliate him. Almost as badly as he wants me to fuck him.

But the bird my mother gave me is mostly whole again, and of all the people in the world, Wren Jacobi put him back together for me. For me.

His crooked smile looks more than a little wolfish. “Well, boys. Better break out the good china,” he rumbles. “Looks like we have ourselves an unexpected house guest.”

“That really was quite impressive,” he says, resting his chin in his hand. “No, it was fucking dumb,” Pax snaps, massaging his throat. “She knew I was fucking around. She cranked that shit up to eleven for no reason.” He’s sitting on the floor, leaning up against the wall by the open fire, glaring balefully at me while he tends to his ‘bruised’ windpipe.

“God, you’re pathetic,” Pax laughs. He rips the sock off his right foot, balls it up and hurls it at Wren’s face. “A girl skipped down the hill in the dark, by herself, and you’re standing over there, all, ‘Ohhh, Sherlock Holmes. My favorite book of all time? Credit us with a little common sense. She came here to get some dick, Jacobi.”

What the fuck did I just do? In front of Dashiell and Pax. And Wren. What the fuck? I’m gonna go up to your room? I’m gonna go up to your room??? Oh my god. I barely know the guy.

“I don’t know anymore, though. Now, I like seeing you smile, but it’s hard to paint you like that.” “Why?” The word comes out as a whisper. A single, rush of air past my lips. “Because you’ve never smiled at me, Little E. I could steal those moments where you looked angry, when you weren’t looking, because they were familiar. I’d already earned the anger and the hate you wore. But when you laugh with Carina, or you smile at someone you don’t even fucking know as they pass you in a hallway…” He shakes his head. “I don’t own those moments. They don’t belong to me. I sure as shit have no right to take them and make them my own.”

“Were you—were you hooking up with girls. Is that why you won’t say?” A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Would you be jealous if I had?”

“I wanted to make it right. I wanted to make it right. Not coerce someone else into doing it for me. So, yeah. After the night of the storm, I went and found the janitor. He pointed me in the right direction, and I spent a couple of hours every night sticking my fucking fingers together with Gorilla Glue, trying to make it whole again. I had to use clay to fill in the parts where pieces were missing. And that was it. I fixed it. I gave it back to you. No need to make a big deal out of it.”

“You asked me to trust you,” I whisper, afraid of the words even as I’m saying them. “And I’ve been scared to. I know that wanting to be with you, in whatever capacity, is probably the stupidest thing I can possibly do, Wren. But I do. I do want you, and…the answer’s no. I don’t want you to be done with me. I feel like there could be…” “More,” Wren supplies. “A lot more. Between us.” “Yes.”

“I can’t promise I’m not gonna hurt you, Little E. But I can promise that, if I do, it won’t be on purpose. I can also promise that I’ll do everything in my power not to.” He swallows thickly, his throat bobbing. “Do you think that might be enough?”

Twisting, he grabs me, holding my face in his hands, and his mouth is on mine before I can even react.

Wren lets out a groan, breathing heavily into my mouth, and hearing it, hearing him coming undone, ignites fireworks in my head.

“This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you that we should stop if you’re not… if you… if you don’t…” “Shut up and fuck me, Wren.” His eyes flash a green so vivid and intense that they steal the oxygen right out of my lungs. “As you wish.”

“For every filthy thought you’ve had about me, Stillwater, I’ve bested you ten times over. You’ve no idea how many times I’ve wrapped my hand around my cock and made myself come to you here in this bed. How many times I’ve almost bitten through my own fucking tongue, aching for you as I’ve shot my load all over my own stomach.

I’ve always been a depraved and dirty thing, Elodie Stillwater, but the idea of you has corrupted me to the point of insanity.”

“I can fuck you, Elodie. I can take your breath away. I’ll make you come around my dick so fucking hard, you won’t be able to walk straight for a week. But you cannot make a sound. Do you understand? If they hear…”

“Can you do that?” he asks, nipping at my bottom lip with his teeth. “Can you be quiet for me? Can you do what I tell you, when I tell you, without screaming the house down?”

“Is this what you came here for, Little E? Did you know this was going to happen? Were you thinking about my dick the entire way down the mountain?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he says. The words are dark and full of gravel, promising pain untold. “There’s only so much of me a person can take before it starts to hurt, Little E. And no, I am not talking about my dick.” He smirks ruthlessly. “My heart’s a grenade. It’s safer where it is, locked in its cage. You take it outta there and you’re essentially pulling the pin.” “What happens then?” I’m shaking all over. Wren’s reached the bottom of the bed. He lets go of his straining erection and places his hands on my ankles, curling his fingers around them tightly. “I don’t know. No one’s ever tried.”

“Don’t. You didn’t fucking come here to hide yourself from me. You know you didn’t. Don’t you want me to taste your cunt?”

Now that she’s admitted that she wants my cock, the word comes out a little easier; poor girl probably thinks that’s the hardest thing I’m gonna make her admit to. I haven’t even gotten started. “Take your bra off,” I command. “Panties, too. Put them on the nightstand.” She hesitates for a second, pulling in a deep breath through her nose. “Now, Elodie.”

“Open,” I order. “All the way. I want to see all of you. Your clit. Your pussy. Your asshole. Wider, Elodie.” I growl when she only inches her legs apart a fraction. “Wider.”

She inhales, her ribs showing through her skin, her tits heaving, nipples peaked—the most devastatingly beautiful thing I’ve ever seen—and when she breathes out, I push my fingers inside her. Inside her pussy and her ass.

I can’t tell her how miserable my housemates will make her life if they know about this. They’ll taunt and ridicule her in front of everyone at the academy, and I won’t fucking have that.

Three separate times, she bucks against my mouth, pleading and whispering for me to let her come before I give in and shove her over the edge of her climax, sucking the sweetness of her into my mouth, allowing her to coat my tongue as she comes.

She’s fucking magnificent. She’s incredible. She’s mesmerizing as she writhes beneath me, shivering out her pleasure, and I feel something jarring grind to a halt in my brain. Like a clock that’s been tick, tick, ticking for the past three years, has suddenly just…stopped.

I share her sentiments. It felt frighteningly good being inside her from behind, but now that we’re face to face and she’s clinging onto me like I’m the only thing keeping her afloat in a sea of madness, it feels… I don’t even know how to describe it.

“Why’d you move me?” she asks. I laugh softly, arching an eyebrow at her. “Why? Wasn’t this position to your liking?” She laughs, too, ducking to hide behind her hair. “No. It was perfectly satisfactory,” she says. I jerk back, feigning surprise. “Satisfactory?” She squeals when I bury my face into the crook of her neck and I bite her, reminding her that I still have teeth. Her question’s forgotten, which is a relief. I promised back in the gazebo that I’d always give her my truths. I just don’t know how to tell her this, though. That I wanted to face her when I was inside her. That I wanted to kiss her. That I wanted to hold her. That I wanted to see her. I don’t even know how to admit it to myself.

“As you well know, Wren’s still pissy at me for what happened with Mara. I haven’t been invited to the party, so I won’t be participating in the planning this time. I’ll still go, though. Dash still has a sweet spot for me, even if Wren is acting like a little bitch. Does Dash still have a sweet spot for you, Carrie? I have a feeling that he does.”

I used to revel in those arcane delights, but things have changed now. There’s Elodie to consider. I haven’t been able to shake the image of her, naked and beautiful, straddling me, the sweet sound of her panting in my ear, since last night. I’ll die an old man in my bed, all of my other memories eaten away by the ravages of time, but that memory will still be burning fiercely behind my eyelids when I go.

Elodie is mine, and I’m not fucking letting her go. And I can’t be master of the hunt and keep Elodie. There’s no way in hell.

Mercy’s blossomed quite spectacularly since she left last year, she’s the hottest little fuckhole at the academy, but she’s also fucking insane.

“She is fucking insane. She’s the bane of my fucking existence. But she’s still my fucking sister. Say something like that again and I’ll take a pair of pliers to your front teeth. Get it?”

“All right. All right. Point made,” he seethes. “Jesus. You take everything so fucking personally.” “I’ll drive over to DC and finger bang your mom then, shall I? See how personally you take that?”

his eyes already searching, searching, searching... He finds me, standing on the bottom step of the stairs, and the lights overhead dim.

Wait. No. Not at me. At Carina. “Asshole,” she grouses. “What kind of sick fuck do you need to be to lead someone on, take their fucking virginity, humiliate them in the worst way imaginable, and then stare at them every available opportunity you get afterward? Like, what is he even trying to accomplish, looking at me like that?”