Page 300 of Vile Boys

I forcefully open her fingers until she finally relinquishes the knife. “Why? Tell me why you would desecrate this goddamn perfect body of yours!”

“Ares …” Blaine mutters, but I ignore him.

Crystal sucks in a breath through her teeth. “You went through so much pain. I needed to know what it felt like. I needed to know what you went through for me.”

Oh God …

“You’ll carry my name for the rest of your life, so I want to carry yours.”

That’s the one.

The one and only thing that’s managed to knock the air from my lungs hard enough to make me feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.

Fuck.

I grip her face with both hands and kiss her so hard I don’t need the breath back that she stole from me. I’ve never fallen harder for anyone as hard as I have fallen for her, but I am smitten, completely and utterly in love with this woman who has taken my pain and made it her own.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I growl against her lips.

“I don’t regret it. Not for one second,” she says, her mouth arching up to meet mine in desperation for more, but I won’t let her have it. Not yet.

“You had one chance, little rose, one chance to escape us. And you chose to stay and mark yourself in my name,” I growl.

“She’s lost it,” Caleb says.

“No. I found myself.” She looks at both of us. “Because of you.”

My hand slowly drifts down her face and neck to the markings she left, my fingers dipping into the scratches she made in her own damn skin just to watch her shudder in place. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on more than anything in this entire fucking world to watch my woman bleedforme.

“Caleb. Grab the masks.”

“What? Why?”

“Do as I say,” I grit.

He reluctantly turns and does what I ask, pilfering through the contents of my cabinet until he finds the ones we used during the night we first claimed her together in the rose maze.

“What are you planning to do?” Blaine asks, tilting his head.

“You know what we’re going to do,” I respond.

A filthy smirk forms on Blaine’s face. “We?”

My hand slowly circles around Crystal’s throat, cutting off her oxygen. “You want me to show you how badly I want you to be mine forever? How badly I wished I could take your breath just so no one else would ever have the privilege of hearing your moans?”

She nods, and I lean in to whisper, “I’ve stolen all your innocent little petals, little rose. Now go find them in the dark corners of our wicked fantasy.”

I grasp the mask from Caleb’s hand and put it on, watching her eyes slowly widen in both excitement and fear.

Fear of all the ways I’ll make her beg for it.

I release her, and as she steps back, I point the knife at her chest.

“Run. Run as fast as you can. If I catch you … that name you were carving into your skin will be mine to finish.”

CRYSTAL

I stumble out of the room, glancing back at the boys who’ve all put on the same golden devil masks I remember from the first time Caleb and Ares chased me.

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