Kings of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #1) - Caroline Peckham ,Susanne Valenti Page 0,114

the room and locking the door on the other side and pocketing the key as he headed back to the other exit.

He lingered in the doorway, pointing at the walk-in shower. “Get every inch of mud off,” he growled. “If there’s one fleck on you when I come back, you’ll pay for it.”

I clenched my jaw, saying nothing as he slammed the door and the noise made my whole body jerk. A key turned in the lock and I sank down to my knees, my heart tearing right up the middle. The tears came, but I pressed my hands to my face to stop them from being heard as more and more of them fell.

I thought I was strong, but it turned out I was made of glass. And they’d finally hit me hard enough to make me shatter.

To say I woke up would be suggesting I’d slept. And I was damn sure I hadn’t. Not knowing she was on the other side of that bathroom door.

We’d gone through her bag and tossed the clothes and toothbrush inside for her, but that was it. She’d screamed a bit, thumped on the doors, the shower had run and then it had gone eerily quiet. Almost like she wasn’t in there at all. But she was. I could practically feel her there. I’d imagined her breath fluttering against my cheek all night long, her whispers in my ears, her false smiles and pretty lies…

In my fitful attempts at sleep, I’d spent the night constantly dipping in and out of dreams which were pretty fucking distracting and all focused around one girl. Tatum Rivers. One minute I was fantasising about fucking her like I had after the initiation party. Her body hot and wet for mine, her screams of pleasure as I thrust deep inside of her and brought her to ruin. The next minute I was imagining how it would feel to wrap my hands around that slender neck of hers and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until she stopped kicking beneath me.

Worst of all was when the fantasies blurred and I imagined fucking her while choking her. Listening while she begged for more while clawing at my arm hard enough to draw blood. I wanted to do that to her on some deep, primal level where the demon in me resided. But only if she wanted it too. I wanted her begging me to hurt her while I pleasured her. I wanted her to accept that she needed to be punished for the crimes of her father and fall to her knees before me, begging for me to make sure that she paid.

I’d never ached for anything the way I was aching for that. And I didn’t know if it was just a product of my grief over losing my mom or if it was a depravity which had always lived within my flesh and had only been brought to light now, in my darkest hour.

I’d always struggled to comprehend why Kyan said he needed pain to feel true pleasure. But I was starting to get an understanding of where he was coming from with that. Everything I had now was coated in a layer of pain and the only outlet I could find for it was when I was transferring it onto someone else. Someone in particular.

I sat up in the darkened room, hearing Saint’s morning music echoing up from the crypt as he abused his body through exercise.

Sometimes I had to wonder about the three of us. On the surface, we were the luckiest sons of bitches I knew. We had money, influence, power. Every material thing we could ever ask for and girls begging us for a taste of our bodies on a daily basis. But we were the most fucked up people I knew too. Three monsters who dwelled in darkness while gilded in gold.

I’d always been the one to pull us back to the light before. But now… Well, now there was no light. Only endless night and the scent of blood on the air. And I found that I was just fine with that.

Saint may have been a controlling, domineering motherfucker but he knew a thing or two about the way to channel bad emotions. He’d been doing it for a long fucking time after all. And if he thought that forming all of it, every feeling of grief, heartache, pain, betrayal and abandonment I had into a cold, hard ball of rage was the