His chest expands and contracts with hard, angry breaths. “You want it rough? Fine.” He claws at his belt, the sounds of the buckle clinking, metal on metal, making my muscles tense. “But one way or another, this is your last night as a virgin. Start the recording.” He growls the last part to Lurker as his fingers pop his fly.
Unthinkingly, I drop my fist and the shard of glass with it, incredulous laughter bubbling up my throat. “You’re here for my virginity?” I don’t try to hold in my peal of laughter, even when it makes the three of them go rigid with the sheer volume of it. “Oh my god, are you people really this predictable?” That’s some premium goddamn Royal speak—just like the Kings and Counts I’ve spent my life around. But these men aren’t wearing rings, and real Royals don’t sneak around. They walk through the front door and take what they want. These men are renegades—assholes who know just enough to understand what’s valuable, but not wise enough to understand what a fa?ade it all is.
Virginity.
What a crock of shit.
“You realize virginity’s just an artificial construct, right?” I ask, feeling sore and belligerent. “It doesn’t mean anything! Pussies don’t have a fucking safety seal!”
Maniac just shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. It means something to them, so we’re going to take it.”
This makes me pause, chest heaving from adrenaline. “Them?” I take a guess. “The Kings?”
Maniac looks up from his sluggishly bleeding wound to say, “Of course, the Kings. We’re here to ruin their new toy.”
He probably means it to sound menacing. It’s not that it doesn’t. These three aren’t Royalty, but they know the inner workings of it. If anything, that makes them more dangerous. It means they aren’t following a clearly defined protocol. It means they could kill me. It means I can’t anticipate their next move. But it also means a way out.
I toss the shard of glass on the floor. “Fine.”
Creep freezes halfway through lowering his zipper. “Fine?”
Stiffly, I lay back on the bed, trying to will myself into accepting this. “Go ahead and fuck me. I’ll let you.”
There’s a long beat of silence, nothing but the distant sounds of Hideaway life penetrating the tension. Lurker breaks it by releasing a sharp scoff. “I fucking told you all these bitches were whores.”
“Nah, no.” Maniac is smarter, shaking his head. “It’s a trap. This is vintage cyanine tactics, you guys.”
Lurker hisses, “Would you shut the fuck up about the paint colors! I’m cramming your meds down your throat the second we get home, I swear to fucking god…”
“No trap,” I insist, letting my thighs fall apart. “If you plan on sending that video to the Kings, then go ahead. Show them how worthless I am.”
That may be the only thing that gets me out of this hell hole.
They glance at one another, two sets of matching blue eyes against a third pair of green. The guy with the phone holds it up and nods. “Do it.”
Still, Creep seems to take Maniac’s advice. He jerks his chin and says, “Does he need to hold you down?”
I swallow the lump in my throat, resenting the tremble in my thighs. “I won’t fight you.”
He stares at me like he’s waiting for a sign that I’m lying, and he’s smart to. But when I do nothing but lay there, resigned to my fate, he lowers his zipper the rest of the way.
And then he takes his cock out of his pants.
It’s too dark to make out more than the intimidating jut of it, thick and long, but I catch the cut of his hip bones too as he plants a knee on the foot of the bed. I wish I could say I felt nothing but utter revulsion. Oh, it’s there, but the sight of his cock, the adrenaline, the toned cut of his hips…it penetrates the fog of disgust in the fashion of a woman seeing an attractive man.
As promised, I don’t fight as he muscles his way up the bed to me, hands gripping my knees and pushing them apart to make space for his thighs. The denim of his jeans is scratchy against my bare skin, and it doesn’t matter that some deep, fundamental part of my libido is stretching itself awake. I’m so rigid that my bones ache.
Sitting back on his heels, his eyes ascend my naked body, climbing my legs, travelling over my thighs, pausing at the apex, locked on my pussy, and then rising to my stomach and breasts. It makes me stiffer, muscles aching with the tension of moving away from him without actually moving.