It feels too fucking good, almost impossibly good, and I know I’m going to come from a single thrust or two. Maybe sooner. Cal adjusts his hips, the tight band of my ass squeezing the base of him so hard that he can barely move. Just that slight shift of his body throws me fully into my climax and a deep, primal groan breaks from my own throat as I sag under him, held up by his fingers inside of me and the rough press of my palms on the stone wall.

The orgasm is lightning fast, a brief overall flicker that makes my pussy clench and ripple around Cal’s fingers as he moans along with me.

“I can feel my own hand,” he whispers as I pant and shake and wonder how the hell I’m going to make it back to our apartment without collapsing into one of the fancy flower beds along the way. “I can pleasure my own dick with my fingers.” He hooks his fingers inside of me as if to prove a point, and I bite my lower lip so hard that I taste copper.

This is what I needed right here, a moment of grounding, of pleasure mixed with pain, of my dark avenger with his hoodies and his shorts, his tattoos and his scars, his rough voice and his too pretty mouth. He begins to move, and I’m struck yet again by how obvious it is that he’s a dancer. He fights like a dancer, kills like a dancer, fucks like a dancer.

Lifting onto my toes gives us both a slightly better angle as I tremble beneath him with my sweats bunched around my knees, and my pussy dripping around his fingers. He rocks his hips against me, rather than thrusting like he might in my cunt. It’s just perfect the way he does that, grinding pleasure into a part of me that’s rarely touched but is now suddenly desperate for more, more, more.

“I love you, Bernie,” Cal says, surprising me. He nips my ear, and I nearly collapse, my body so boneless and full of emotion and pleasure both that I’m basically sitting on his hand. “Maybe I don’t say it enough, but it’s true. It’s the only truth I adhere to. It guides me in all things.”

He starts to move the fingers of his left hand faster, the heel of his hand making my clit harden and thicken with the need to come. His hips continue to rock against me, but he isn’t moving them much, mostly he’s bringing us both toward a climax with his fingers. Teasing his own dick. Teasing my pussy. Making me see stars.

My second climax hits much harder, digs its nails much deeper, and I end up dragging my fingers along the stone wall until they bleed, a long, low groan slipping past my lips as my body contracts and throbs around Callum’s fingers. The feel of that, plus me rubbing my ass back against him drags out his own orgasm, and he sags against me, body shuddering. Callum spills himself inside of me and then tucks me close against him, panting hard.

For god only knows how long, we just stay where we are, frozen, gasping, the evening air prickling at our bare skin.

The sound of footsteps gets us both moving quickly, but I can’t stop the groan that slips from my throat as Callum very slowly slides out of me. Fortunately, the person that’s emerging around the corner isn’t a member of the GMP about to catch us with our literal pants down—it’s Oscar motherfucking Montauk.

“That was brilliant, really,” he drawls in that board, aristocratic tone of his.

“And you were watching, why?” I retort, yanking my sweats up but stumbling just enough that Cal has to catch me by the arm. My skin burns where he’s touching me, and I can’t help but shift my attention up to his face. His cheeks are slightly red, either from the cold or the exertion of a good fuck, I’m not sure but the effect on his pale skin is nothing short of glorious.

“It’s been longer than thirty minutes,” Oscar retorts back, and I remember the words Cal called out before we left through the door of the apartment. Oops. I straighten my tank top out as Callum takes my hand and we follow after Oscar after he turns on his heel to lead us away.

“Did you enjoy the show?” I ask, because I just can’t seem to help myself. Cal lets out a chuckle, meeting Oscar’s eyes when he glances back at us.

“Well, O, did you?” Callum challenges, but Oscar just gives us a tight-lipped smile and keeps walking. Cal and I exchange a look and catch up to him, breaking apart from each other with great remorse. But now that we’re flanking Oscar, it’s much easier to see the frantic beat of his pulse in the side of his tattooed neck.

When I glance down, I can see the firm approval of his enjoyment in the hard bulge at the front of his slacks. He notices me looking and reaches over to tap my chin, drawing my gaze back up to his beautiful face.

“Enough of that, Bernadette Blackbird,” he chastises, pausing outside the door of the staff apartment building to swipe our keycard. The staff always glare at us like blights on the perfection of their indefectible school; it’s even worse in here, since we’re invading their living space, too.

Nobody here understands how we got in, how we get to live in an apartment together, how we get away with all the shit we do. But that’s okay. It’s none of their fucking business, now is it?

A brunette woman with sharp frown lines cut into the lower half of her face sniffs derisively as we pass by, and I mime giving a blowjob, pointing at the two boys with me and then hooking a thumbs-up.

“Should be a fantastic night!” I call out, giving her a little wave before I bounce into the elevator and watch Oscar press the button for our floor. He still won’t look at me, so I get in his face instead, peering close at him until he finally turns his attention over to me. “Just admit it: you were watching us and getting off on it.”

“O has a problem with intimacy,” Cal says matter-of-factly, earning himself a glare made of gravestones and dead things.

“My father threw me into a shallow hole with my dead mother’s arms wrapped around my neck; I’m allowed to have issues, Callum Park.”

A ripple of violence and despair washes through me as I think about baby Oscar, with his blond hair dyed, lying in the dirt with bruises on his neck. Let’s just say, his father made a good choice by putting a gun to his own head and pulling the trigger. If he were still alive, well, I’d be plotting to kill him the way I’m plotting to kill Hael’s dad.

You know, when we’re not being followed by cops—even ones that are now just there for our protection.

Sara Young could be playing a game with me. I don’t think so, but I did underestimate the bitch before and I’m not going to do it again. We have to be exceedingly careful with every move we make. One wrong step could tip us from the precipice of freedom to the depths of a jail cell.

The elevator doors open, and we make our way to the apartment, knocking in a special pattern and then waiting for one of the others to verify that it’s us through the peephole. The sound of locks being removed is a familiar tune for someone from south Prescott. Click, slide, twist. Aaron eventually opens the door, welcoming us back in.

Victor and Hael are waiting in the living room, not even bothering to hide the fact that they’re staring at me.

“Look, I’m …” Well, saying I’m fine would be a lie. I’m not fine. Nothing about this is fine. My mother killed my fucking sister. She killed her for the crime of, what? Standing up for herself? Trying to fight off a sick, twisted sexual predator? And now that I’ve spoken to Pamela, I realize that she’s so keen on hurting me that she’ll even take the secrets of her hatred to the grave. She won’t tell me about my dad. She won’t even say how she committed her greatest sin.