Havoc's secrets. I need to know if they've castrated someone and carved Rapist into their forehead. I need to know if they have a video of my sister and the Thing. I need to know what Kali truly paid them and why they did what they did to me. “Because I can do that.”
“How many girls have you been with since me?” I ask, rocking my hips again, feeling his muscles tighten underneath me. Carefully, I peel the bandage from his shoulder, staring at Nurse Yes-Scott's tiny, little stitches, watching the blood ooze out from between them. He's going to have a nasty scar there, no doubt about that. Aaron doesn't say anything for several minutes, so I push my panties against his crotch again. They're soaked straight through. I wonder if he can feel that when he reaches down and grabs my ass in two tattooed hands.
“Are you hoping for a specific answer?” he asks, looking me in the face, his eyes the color of the fall leaves outside, this glorious mix of green and gold and brown. Nuanced, just like he is. “Because you're not going to like it.”
I go still, pausing the movement of my hips, waiting for an answer to a simple question.
“Will I be jealous?” I ask carefully, feeling that hungry monster inside of me, green with envy and eating up self-confidence that I know I have. I've got plenty to burn, so it doesn't shake me too much, but I need to hear this answer. I need him to tell me he slept with a hundred girls, but that all of them had my face, that he used them because he couldn't have me. That's what I want to hear. Instead, he surprises the shit out of me.
“I haven't slept with anyone since,” he tells me, and he sounds almost … shamed by it. “I gave up the only girl I ever loved; I hurt her. I don't deserve to be happy, and I most definitely don't need to fuck somebody I don't like. That I'll never love.”
I stay stone-still, unsure about what to think. He said I wasn't going to like his answer: he was right. He isn't supposed to be able to surprise me, to convince me that he's got a spark of the old Aaron deep inside somewhere. That isn't fair, not when I've just finally embraced the dark side.
“You're lying,” I snap back at him, moving to stand up, to storm out, to get the fuck out of this house and away from these boys. I don't know what to think when I'm around them, how to act. But Aaron doesn't let me go; his hands tighten on my ass, bruising me, holding me in place. In retaliation, I stick my thumb into his wound, and he grits his teeth so hard I'm afraid he's going to break one off.
“Why the fuck would I lie about that?” he snarls back at me, using his hands to guide my hips, so that our pelvises grind together. It's been years since I last slept with Aaron, since right before we broke up. Well, except for that one time … I don't let myself go back to that memory, focusing instead on the ardent intensity of the moment.
“Because you thought I'd enjoy such shallow sentimentality?” I quip back, cocking a brow and then reaching down to curl my fingers beneath the bottom of the t-shirt. With an indolent sensuality, I strip it off and toss it aside, leaving my breasts bare and right at the level of Aaron's face. He exhales, and his warm breath feathers across my nipples, hardening them to fine, pink points.
“It isn't sentimentality, Bern. It's just how I fucking feel.” Aaron gathers me close, wrapping tattooed arms around me. They feel like home, those arms, but like I've walked into an entirely new renovation. I'm liking it, I'm just not used to it, not yet.
My head falls back as I groan, tangling my fingers in Aaron's auburn hair as he swirls his hot tongue around my nipple. His arms hold me tight, almost possessively. No, not almost. Definitely possessive.
Well, if Aaron wants to take me away from Vic, he's going to have to stand up for himself. He's going to have to fight.
I'm not expecting him to bite my nipple, and I cry out, clamping my hands over my mouth and closing my eyes as I remember the girls are upstairs. I told them to stay put, but …