Page 38 of Of Heathens & Havoc

“Some things are worth fighting for,” Heath says, batting his eyes at Angel.

Saint gives us a grudging look, a frown creasing his brow. “Go,” he says after a pause. “And don’t go easy on the Sinners again if they fuck with you.”

Angel gives him a quick chin nod and then turns, leading me toward Father Salvatore’s class, since we missed my first class for the brawl.

“You’re not going to the nurse?” I ask, peeking up at Angel’s face. Blood rings his nostrils and is smeared on his chin, and his lower lip is split right in the center. His tongue darts out, checking on the split, and my pulse throbs.

I pull my gaze away, licking my lips and trying not to notice the flutter that goes through my belly as my mind replays the vision of his full lip with the slit oozing scarlet, his tongue dragging down over it, collecting the glistening droplet.

“Nah, I’m good,” Angel says. “You alright?”

“Fine,” I say, surprised that he’s asking. Guilt flares inside me at the knowledge that I put this boy behind bars too. He filled out first when the other guys were still scrawny pre-pubescent boys, but he was never violent, never even accidentlyhurt someone because he didn’t yet know his strength after his early growth spurt. He was always the one who would cuddle us during movies and smell our hair, like the big, sweet teddy bear he was.

Until he wasn’t.

I shiver at the knowledge that I’m being embraced by a murderer, a boy who turned on our friend and could turn on me just as easily. A boy who held open my legs last night so he could feast his eyes on my humiliation as I was violated by a stranger from his own inner circle.

“So… are the Hellhounds a gang?” I ask.

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Nah, it’s an organization here on campus. Don’t worry about it. We’re going to look out for you, M.”

Emm.My heart melts with a shiver of warmth at the nickname they used to use.

I want to punch my own face just to clear my head of these stupid fantasies.

“Like you did last night?” I demand, twisting around and ducking from under Angel’s arm. I plant my clogs on the ground and my fists on my hips, glaring up at him.

He stops walking and cocks a brow, looking impressed for half a second before the momentary glimmer disappears from his eyes. He tips his chin back and smirks down at me with that split lip that’s so damn distracting it’s going to send me straight to hell. “Is that what you want?” he asks, lowering his voice to a sultry purr that makes my thighs clench involuntarily.

“No,” I say, scowling up at him.

His smirk turns into a grin, and I’m sure he knows I’m lying, and he loves how easily he’s led me to sin. Blood beads on his lip when it stretches, making my stomach swoop sickeningly.

“You sure?” he murmurs, reaching up and stroking my cheek with his bloody knuckles. A tingle goes through me asthe breeze chills the wetness he left on my cheek, and his eyes light on the smear with heated lust. “Because having twelve men looking out for you might be safer than just three.”

I swallow hard, refusing to let my body’s shameful reaction send me running. “Three?” I ask. “You, Heath, and Saint?”

“That’s right,” he says, reaching out to toy with the buttons on my white shirt. “We’re going to look after you, take care of you. In every way.”

His pale eyes are hooded, and the heat burning in them makes my mouth go dry. “What does that mean?” I whisper.

“Whatever you want it to mean,” he says, stepping in closer, shifting so he’s standing over me, just a breath of charged space between us. “You want me to take care of that ache between your thighs, lil mama?”

“What?” I breathe, raising my hands to push him away. When my palms flatten on his chest, though, all I can feel is how hard his muscles are straining, like he’s holding back from pouncing, and how hard his heart is beating, even harder than mine. It sends me spiraling into confusion, and I meet his gaze, only to be lost in the beauty of his jade green gaze.

“You want me to take you back to your room and look after you?” he asks, his neck arching as he bends down, sliding a hand under the curtain of my hair and pushing it back so he can whisper against my ear. “Let me take care of your pleasure, Emm. I’ve been hard since I woke up, thinking about the way you smelled last night.”

My eyes widen with shock at his words, and my cheeks flush as his lips skim up the sensitive shell of my ear, sending a cascade of shivers through me. My fingers grip the front of his blazer, holding myself steady as my knees go weak.

“I don’t need you to sacrifice anything for me,” he whispers, sliding his hand around the back of my neck, his roughfinger on my bare skin sending another rush of tingling down to my toes, as if every cell in my body has transformed into a silver bell, each one chiming a clearyes.

“Let me go down on you,” he whispers. “The others don’t have to know.”

“Angel,” I breathe, pushing at his chest without conviction.

“Please,” he says, pulling back and giving me a smile so beguiling it must be straight from the devil himself. “I think I’ll die if I can’t taste you after last night.”

The most obscene image fills my mind, one I’m ashamed my imagination can conjure on its own. I’ve never watched dirty movies, never looked at porn, and yet, the images fill my mind automatically. I don’t even know how I know what he means, how I know what it would look like to see a man kneeling between my thighs, feasting on my flesh like a demon while I screamed for the torment to continue instead of end. I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to banish the intrusive thoughts.

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