Total pages in book: 181
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 181613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 908(@200wpm)___ 726(@250wpm)___ 605(@300wpm)
“No?” Apollo snorts, looking at his tied hands and feet. “You sure about that?”
But all I can focus on is the idea—no—the fact that he betrayed me. “You … You were going to try to stop me.”
“I helped you capture him,” Apollo responds.
“After I didn’t show up!” she yells. “Or you would have!”
Apollo shrugs. “I’m a man of my word.”
“Bullshit!” I yell, closing the gap. “What the fuck was the deal?”
Her blade swivels under his chin, her knees still weak from the destruction we caused.
“Aspen,” I growl. “Look at me!”
Finally, her eyes flick to meet my gaze, and fuck me, the fire in them is so goddamn blinding I nearly cave to my knees.
Her jaw clenches. “I gave him my body. Just like I just gave it to you. It. Meant. Nothing.”
My nose twitches and I lose all sense of control.
Nothing?
She was supposed to be mine.
Mine and mine alone.
Mine.
MINE.
“You fucked her?” My voice cracks as I home in on Apollo. “Without me?”
I storm at him, and Aspen retracts the knife, slicing through the ropes, right before I punch Apollo in the face.
“You fucking bastard!” I yell.
He takes it without fighting back.
“I didn’t fuck her. She sucked me off and I ate her out.”
He ate her out. Without my fucking permission. Without my fucking presence.
“I trusted you!” I punch him in the face so hard it makes his nose bleed.
“Not the fucking nose,” Apollo grunts.
Aspen grabs Grey and pulls him out of the chair. “Run!”
I briefly turn my head to watch her dart off, into the woods, out of my sight … out of my fucking life.
Maybe forever.
Finally.
I suck in a breath and scream. “FUCK!”
I don’t know if I’m screaming at him or at the world, but I’m so fucking done I don’t care anymore.
“You’re not the only one who craves something they shouldn’t fucking have,” he says, wiping the blood from his nose and lip. “You always thought you were the only one, and that’s your fucking weakness …” He snorts. “You don’t know the things I’d do for a woman like her.”
“Fuck you!” I yell, picking up her sliced-up dress and chucking it right at him. “Just fuck you!”
“I mean it. I’m smitten, man.”
“Why her?” I growl.
“You know why. She’s … so fucking fiery and perfect,” he says. “And you would never have gotten this far if it wasn’t for me.”
“Fuck you, I would’ve killed that fucker—”
“And then she would never have let you do what you just did,” he says.
My eyes narrow.
“He is the leverage we need,” he adds.
And I fucking hate that he’s right.
“Believe it or not, whether you like it or don’t … you need me.” He clears his throat. “And even though you just punched me—twice—I’m still willing to work this out as men.”
“Men …” I mutter, laughing as I turn around so that I don’t have to look at him. “We’re not fucking men … we’re monsters.”
“And monsters take whatever the fuck they desire,” he says. “They don’t care what anyone thinks of them because they don’t have a fucking heart.”
A heart.
That’s right.
That’s what I lost that night.
All that’s left of me is a faint shadow.
A monster, haunted by the idea—a figment—of a girl he once knew.
There’s a hole in this body … But this body doesn’t need a fucking heart to function. All it needs is the vicious, fucked-up sex to be invigorated and fueled for as long as it’ll last.
And God, I’ve never felt more alive than moments ago when I buried myself deep inside her and claimed that beautiful fucking body as mine.
“We both want the same thing,” Apollo says as he places a hand on my shoulder. “So let’s not fight over her. After all, sharing is caring.”
“Sharing is caring …” I parrot as my nails dig into my flesh. “And that motherfucker will learn to share.”
CHAPTER 38
Aspen
I close the door to my room and let it all fall off me.
The run back through the forest.
The looks from my peers when they saw me after I’d frantically knocked on the Beta Pi Sorority door.
Their stares when they saw my naked legs, the rest of my body covered in a thin blue shirt that Grey took off and hastily threw over my head when we were mid-way through the forest.
The way he looked at me when we finally got to safety.
I swallow away the lump in my throat as he still holds my hand after it all.
“I …” I can’t even say the words. Can’t begin to describe what we just did.
What I surrendered.
My soul.
All for a boy who … Lied to me.
But I also lied to him.
“Don’t,” he says, closing the gap. “Don’t say words you’re going to regret.”
Tears well up in my eyes. “But I made that deal, and I didn’t tell you.”
I’m not sad about letting those boys fuck with me.