Page 20 of Devour

If he wants to find me, he can see where I am. He can take a long look at me in my six-inch hooker heels and pink dress that barely covers my ass.

“You look hot as fuck tonight, by the way.” Kynlee hooks her arm through mine as we cut through the crowd. She’s in a red halter dress that barely covers her chest with an opening that goes down to her stomach. We both look ready to have some fucking fun with whoever is here tonight. “If your psycho Talon shows up, he’s going to lose his goddamn mind. You still haven’t responded to him?”

“He’s not my anything.” It’s the truth. Being a Talon’s whore will give him the ability to fuck me and that’s it. “And no I haven’t. Fuck him. I don’t care if he shows up.”

“Sure you don’t.” She tugs me toward the bar. “That’s why you keep glancing toward the entrance.”

She’s not wrong. I hate that she’s not wrong.

We get drinks from the bar and find a spot near the edge of the dance floor. The music is loud enough that I don’t have to think, which is the whole fucking point of being here. Kynlee hands me a shot, and we throw them back before chasing them with whatever overpriced cocktail the bartender made us.

The pills and the alcohol are mixing now, and my body feels warm and loose. I want to dance. I want to feel a hot body against mine and forget all about the nightmare that I had again last night.

“Come on.” Kynlee grabs my hand and pulls me into the crowd. The beat drops and we move together, hands in the air feeling the music. I close my eyes and let the beat take over. This is what I needed. To feel free and let my body move and not think about anything else going on in our fucked-up world.

I’m halfway through the second song when I feel hands on my waist. I open my eyes. He’s cute and tall with dark hair. He’s got money written all over him, from his watch to his shoes, and he’s smiling at me in a way that tells me he thinks he’s already won the chance to fuck me.

I don’t push him off. I let him pull me closer. His hands slide down to my hips, and I press my body into his, grinding to the music.

Fuck Axl.

It doesn’t take long before he grips my hip tighter and holds me in place, so I feel exactly how hard he is through his jeans. His mouth drops to my ear, and he says something I can’t hear over the music. I don’t care what it is. He’s warm and he wants me. And I am going to pretend he doesn’t have some sort of fucked-up urge to kill everyone in the room or have any association to the Ravens.

Kynlee catches my eye from a few feet away. She’s dancing with some guy of her own, but she’s watching me with raised eyebrows and a grin that tells me to go for it.

Then her face changes. Her eyes shift to something behind me, and the grin drops.

I don’t have to turn around to know who’s there. My body knows before my brain does. The guy behind me is still grinding against me, still thinking he’s got a shot. He has no fucking idea what’s about to happen to him.

I keep dancing. I don’t turn around. If Axl wants to stand there and watch another man’s hands on me, he can suffer through it the way I’ve put up with his shit for years.

If he wants it, he’s going to have to take it.

A few seconds go by, and then the man is ripped off me so fast that I stumble forward and have to catch myself on the shoulder of someone dancing next to me. By the time I spin around, Axl has the guy by the front of his shirt with one fist. He doesn’t hit him. He just holds him there and leans in. Whatever he says makes the color drain from the guy’s face. The dude’s hands come up in surrender, and Axl shoves him backward into the crowd. The man lands on his ass in front of everyone.

Priest is behind him, chuckling like he always does when he watches whatever fucked-up shit Axl does. It makes me wonder what secrets Priest is hiding.

Axl turns to me. His jaw is set, and his blue eyes are narrowed and furious. His chest rises and falls, and he looks like he’s about to rip everyone in this room apart. He’s in jeans and a black t-shirt stretched across his muscular chest. The ink is visible on his forearms and up to his neck. He and Priest look like the deadliest men in the room, and the crowd has backed away to leave space around us.

If he expects me to cower or feel like I’ve done anything wrong, he’s going to be disappointed. I plant my heels and stare up at him. My pulse is pounding in my throat, and the pills are making it look like he’s swaying in front of me.

He moves closer and puts his lips to my ear. “You think you can ignore me? That you can grind my pussy on another man’s dick?”

Fuck him. But my traitorous body is doing that thing it always does when he’s close to me, and the pills are making it worse. His cologne takes over, and his breath is hot on my neck. I can feel the heat coming off his body even though he hasn’t touched me yet, and I want to cover myself in it. But I know better.

I put both hands on his chest and shove. He doesn’t move. He just stares back at me with an amused smirk.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” I have to scream it over the music, but I don’t care who hears me. “You don’t get to show up acting like you own me.”

His hand wraps around the back of my neck, and he pulls me into his chest. My face presses against the fabric of his shirt. I can feel his heart pounding as hard as mine. His grip tightens at my nape and his mouth is back at my ear.

“I do fucking own you. You want to tell me why my girl is out here acting like she doesn’t know who the fuck she belongs to?”

“I’m not your fucking girl.” I dig my nails into his shirt and push again. His arm tightens around my waist. “I’m not your anything until you carry me out of those woods, and if you manage to catch me, I’ll pity fuck you for the year because I have to.”

The drugs are making me feel invincible—like I can take on the world and these men who think that, because they have dicks, they get to control everything. A mental flash of Axl forcing me to my knees and fucking my mouth makes me sway into him. Fuck. I’m a complicated slut.

His hand slides from my neck to my jaw, gripping it hard so I can’t look away from him. His eyes drop to my mouth and then back up, and the smirk is gone. What’s left is something worse. He doesn’t find this amusing anymore.