CHAPTER EIGHT
Taking Tatum’s virginity may not have been part of the plan, but that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy every second of it. I tried to be tender and careful the way most guys would have been, but the instant I sank into her, that thin thread of humanity snapped and the monster broke loose.Tenderwasn’t in my nature. It hadn’t been since the first time my father laid his hands on me.
I gave Tatum a glimpse of who I was, and she welcomed me with open arms. She never pushed me off. She never asked me to stop. She opened up for me and let me take hermyway. The faces she made when she finally got used to me and let me push deep inside… God help me, those faces would make Aphrodite jealous. And when she cried… Fuck. When she cried, I damn near lost it. Then I saw my dick coated in blood—her blood—and I knew what sharks must feel like the moment they catch the scent of their prey. Instinct, animalistic and carnal, kicked in, and I had to stop myself from doing things to her that I would regret. It wasn’t enough for me to take her virginity, to steal all her firsts. I wanted to corrupt her, to ruin her. I wanted to make it so she would never crave gentle and sweet, that she would only want the kind of depravity I could give. I needed it like a dying man needed air.
Which is why I hauled her ass to the guest room as soon as she went to sleep. It was the only way to keep her safe… from me. I’d already done enough damage. The evidence was all over my sheets, my dick, and smeared between her creamy white thighs—at least until I wiped her clean. I loved that shit, but she didn’t need to wake up and see it.
Chandler was blowing up my phone before I was up long enough to take a piss this morning. He’d called to tell me Tatum’s brother was on his way to my house.
And he was furious.
Fuck him.
I could handle him, but the last thing I needed was Lincoln Huntington showing up and finding his sister here. There was already enough beef between our families.
“One day, I’ll have that motherfucker assassinated. Just wait,” my father would sometimes say.
The crazy thing was, I believed him. Dad had no limits, no boundaries. He’d already taken care of two of Huntington’s lobbyists because they were pushing bills that would affect our business. That thing most people had that separated right from wrong in their brains? It wasn’t in our gene pool. Huntington wouldn’t be the first politician to go down for pushing a Donahue too far and probably wouldn’t be the last. He was just too stupid to realize it. Or too arrogant to care.
So, I slid on a pair of gray joggers and a pink tee—no underwear because I planned on making Lincoln suck my dick if he started any shit. Which was another reason it was time for Tatum to leave. She didn’t need to witness what I’d do to her brother if he showed up here asking for a fight.
After I texted Chandler back, telling him to find out if Kyle had spiked Tatum’s drink and to fuck him up if he had, I dropped off her breakfast tray—complete with two Advil, a morning after pill, and a little reminder of who she belonged to. She was standing in the bathroom in nothing but my favorite T-shirt. Her hair was a mess. Her skin was still flushed, and there were fresh purple fingerprints on her thighs where my hands had been. She didn’t look afraid or regretful, the way I’d worried she would. She looked sated. She looked like a woman seeing herself for the first time. She looked fucking beautiful.
A weaker man would have walked into that bathroom and taken her again right then and there. I almost did. But I had to care more about protecting her from what was about to happen than satisfying my cravings, so I made myself walk out of that room then sent my dad’s butler to get her the fuck out of here.
It was a good thing, too because she hadn’t been gone ten minutes when Lincoln made one hell of an entrance. I was waiting at the door for him when he showed up, which gave me a front row seat to the shit show. He climbed out of his car, followed by one of his friends—a card-carrying member of the Beans-for-Balls Club.
Our front door was tucked away underneath a covered front porch with large, white stone columns. I leaned against the tall, wooden door with my hands in my pockets and legs crossed at the ankle. Lincoln’s stare met mine as he twirled a baseball bat in his hand like a baton. That was when I realized Tatum looked a lot like her older brother. I supposed I’d always known that. I’d just never paid attention until now. They had the same eyes and dark hair.
He flipped the bat, then raised it high and brought it down on the windshield of my car. Once. Then twice. The sound of shattering glass tore through the air. A thousand tiny veins spread over the tempered glass, making my windshield look like broken ice.
My mistake. I shouldn’t have left my car in the driveway when I got home last night.
I clenched my jaw and pushed off the door. Lincoln tossed the bat onto the concrete, then stood up tall and wiped the back of his hand over his forehead.
“Consider that your warning, Donahue. Stay the fuck away from Lyric.”
Lyric?What the fuck? I figured he was here because some needle dick told him I carried Tatum out of The Chamber last night.
I walked down the front steps and across the driveway. “The fuck are you talking about? The drugs finally make you lose your shit?”
He nodded his head toward the black-haired dude to his right and let out a laugh. “Nice try. Ethan saw her car pull into your driveway yesterday, asswipe.”
Why did he care what—or who—Lyric Matthews did?
I glanced at Ethan. “It sounds like Ethan needs to mind his fucking business.” I smirked because, fuck him.
Lincoln bared his teeth. “And don’t think I don’t know about my sister, about your little performance last night at The Chamber.”And there it was.He smirked. “One teenage girl wasn’t enough for you? You had to make my sister your whore too?”
The fuck did he just call her?
“You have five seconds to get the fuck off my driveway and go apologize to your sister.”
“Yeah? Or what?” He snarled and lunged at me.
Lincoln was a savage.
But I was a god.