Athena
Iwake up the next morning still shaken. I slept in my own room last night—for once Dean didn’t insist on fucking me—and I’m glad because I can’t stop thinking about what happened in the locker room, and more importantly, what I saw.
I still can’t quite believe that I didn’t imagine it. But I couldn’t have—that web of crisscrossing scar tissue, some of the ridges thin like veins and others thick and raised, would have been impossible to come up with on my own. I would have had no reason to picture something like that on Cayde St. Vincent, of all people.
Someone beat the shit out of him. Not just once, either. And not with fists.Those marks were from something striking him, a belt maybe—I saw similar marks on a woman’s upper thighs once, a whore who liked to hang around the bikers’ clubhouse. But who would dare take a belt to Cayde?
More importantly, why?
The obvious answer is his father. It would explain a lot about Cayde, actually. But as much as I don’t care for Philip St. Vincent, it’s hard for me to picture the man who gave my mother and me a place to stay, beating his son with a belt.
He also is the reason you’re here at all. He had you drugged and gave you to three guys so that they could bully and torment you and force you to do all kinds of sick sexual things. Does that sound like the kind of guy who wouldn’t take a belt to his son?
The truth is that I don’t feel like I really know anyone anymore, except for maybe Mia. Even my mother had talked me into staying here, despite the fact that she could obviously see I wasn’t happy, even if she didn’t know just how bad it was.
I feel like I’m in a daze as I get dressed. Seeing Cayde like that yesterday left me genuinely shaken, not just because of my very visceral reaction to him pinning me up against the lockers, but the sight of those scars. I’d never envisioned Cayde’s naked back as anything but smooth and muscled, certainly not the web of scar tissue that I saw yesterday.
It had startled me so much that when he’d screamed at me to leave, I hadn’t even stopped to argue with him. I’d just left.
Neither Cayde nor Jaxon is in the dining room when I walk in. It’s just Dean, who looks up from his breakfast to give me that smooth, satisfied grin of his, running one hand through his dark hair as he leans back in his chair and appraises me with his lordly gaze.
“My pretty little pet,” he says. “You’re finally up. Come have some breakfast. It’s still warm.”
“I’m not yours,” I reply back automatically, walking towards the table.
“Oh, but you are. I won, remember? I took your virginity, no matter how much you and Cayde want to argue about it.”
“I know,” I snap back, reaching for a plate. “I was there, after all.”
“You certainly were.” Dean takes a bite of toast. “It’s a shame, really, that I only could do that once. You were so very tight, almost too tight for me to get in. It felt so fucking good. And the noises you made—”
“I get it. My virginity gave you a hard-on.” I roll my eyes. “Guess you’ll just have to stop fucking me then, now that it’s gone if that’s what really got you going.”
“You’ve got quite the mouth on you these days. Even more so than when you first came here.” Dean looks at me from across the table, tapping his fingers on the wood. “I thought I taught you plenty of lessons about what that mouth is for.”
I shrug. “Maybe I’m just a slow learner.”
His gaze darkens. “Athena, you should remember that you’re not safe just because the game is over. You still belong to me. And I can do whatever I please with you. You should remember that when you have the urge to use that smart mouth for something other than sucking my cock.”
“What about sucking Cayde’s cock?” I lick jam off of the butter knife, deliberately and slowly. “The game isn’t over, Dean. He said so yesterday, remember? You can’t win by default, according to him. I haven’t enthusiastically picked anyone after Jax turned me down. So it’s still raging on. Just like your dick right now, probably.”
Dean’s gaze heats. “Want to find out?”
“Not particularly.” I reach for the ketchup bottle, squeezing some over my scrambled eggs and enjoying the way Dean’s lip curls up in horror.
“That’s disgusting, Athena.”
“Guess you just can’t kiss me after. What a shame.”
“You know,” Dean says silkily, “I think this whole thing is a case of the lady protesting too much.”
“What do you mean?” I stab my eggs with my fork, watching him as he stands up slowly, circling around the table towards me.
“I think you like what we do to you,” he murmurs, coming to stand behind my chair. I feel him lift my hair off of my neck, his fingers trailing down the nape. “I think you liked having all three of us chasing you, tormenting you, teasing you, making you come in different ways. And now you want more. So you’re pitting us against each other.”
“No, I just don’t like being manipulated into handing a winning prize to someone when I didn’t even know there was a game being played,” I snap. Still, I can’t repress the shiver that runs through me at the feeling of his fingers on the back of my neck, trailing down the curve of my shoulder.
What if he’s right? What if deep down, I like having three men panting after me, hard and excited and sexually frustrated because of me, fighting over me? What if it’s me that wants to play the game?