Page 21 of Dukes of Peril

“Do not,” Sy says for the third time, “puke in my car.”

Remy swallows thickly, giving a clumsy thumbs-up. “S’all good. Car rides are a fucking blast.”

“They’re all there,” Nick says, the light of his phone going dark. He lifts his hips to tuck it into his pocket, giving me a glimpse of skin above his waistband. “Hope you’re all ready to face down forty sober, half-asleep DKS.”

“I hope you are,” Sy says. There’s a push pull going on between them. I buy into the fact they want to get on the same page, but saying it and doing it are two different things. Sy throws out a dozen questions, including; What do we tell the members? How much can they know? How do we keep this from escalating? I’m not sure they’ve totally figured it out by the time Sy parks the car under the shadow of the clock tower—hands frustratingly in place.

I never thought I’d call a dark, damp, beer-soaked room ‘home’, but walking through the tower doors, that’s exactly what it feels like. Even when the entirety of DKS stands, watching the four of us filter through, I’m still filled with a strange sense of relief. It’s as if finally, for the first time in two days, I can actually relax. Let my muscles uncoil. Stop listening for sounds outside the doorway.

I’m safe here.

Sure, this is the room where Remy coaxed me into blowing him in front of the group and Sy possibly irreparably mangled my pussy, but it’s also where I got to hold the tattoo gun on a pledge, and where Nick revealed my kiss print on his neck.

It’s a room of definable moments, some good, others shitty, but I understand it for what it is now. DKS is a pack, this is their den, and my role as Duchess makes me one of them.

Thisishome.

The energy that meets us is full of anxious agitation. Pledges bright-eyed and hard-jawed. Members who are already halfway to loading guns, dressed for a scuffle, a couple in the back even wearing brass knuckles. These are fighters who are ready to fight. They need direction and a leader willing to point the way, which is why they gravitate toward Sy the instant he crosses the threshold, peppering him with questions and demanding answers.

“Who should we hit first?” one of them asks. Another speaks over him, demanding, “We shouldn’t wait for tonight, we should strike now.” A third guy busts through to say, “We should call Mama B.”

Sy absorbs it casually, like it doesn’t even bother him, but it makes my gut clench in nervousness. It’s an intensity I don’t quite expect, along with the wary glances a lot of them are casting Remy’s way. He drags through the door, sunglasses firmly attached even though it’s a windowless room. Nick, being Nick, simply avoids the entire scene, sweeping out an arm and catching me smoothly around the waist, stride never breaking.

Wordlessly, he leads me to the back of the room, among the bar lights and sofas, and drops his duffel bag, kicking it beneath a pool table.

“I guess we might be here a while,” I say, glancing over my shoulder at the mass of bodies.

Two strong hands grip my waist, effortlessly lifting me up to perch on the edge of the pool table. Nick wedges his way between my legs, shoving my knees apart to make space for him. “Who knows with Sy, you know he likes to yammer.” He tilts his head. “Why? Thinking about how long it’ll be before I take you upstairs and get balls deep in you again?”

My cheeks burn. He’s giving me thatlook, blue eyes caressing down my body as his palm skates up my thigh, and it’s like I’m the only person in the room. Like he wants to devour me.

And sweet Jesus, I want to let him.

Maybe it’s the craziness of the past two days. Maybe it’s that Nick’s desire for me is so easy to get lost in, just like a really good, long book. Maybe it’s that the longer I’m immersed in his rough touches and starved kisses, the longer I can avoid looking at the men closest to him and wondering where we stand. Hell, maybe it’s just because it feels so fucking good. To be wanted so intensely. To be touched so powerfully. To look at Nick’s hard, tattooed body and know that it’s mine to take pleasure from, because he’d let me.

But most of all, it’s the way he looks at me–before, during, and after. Nick might stop fucking me, but his eyes never do.

Yes, I want to have sex with Nick.

All day.

All night.

Suddenly, it’s all I want to do, as if my libido is punishing me for years spent rejecting his advances. I’m paying some serious back-taxes on my lust for Pretty Nick Bruin.

But I can’t get lost, and for once in my life, I don’t want to escape. So I say, “Nick, I’m hungry.” He leers, pressing his growing hardness into my center, and I roll my eyes. “Forfood. We skipped breakfast.”

Remy tumbles into a leather chair nearby, groaning loudly and palming his shoulder. It’s still tender and I’m pretty sure he needs to get it looked at, but I avoid bringing it up until something can actually be done. Sy says this is the worst he’s ever been. Remy’s had ups and downs before, but the severity of this bender, plus the Scratch, kicked it up a notch. He spent most of last night and this morning caught in a cycle of puking his guts out and sleeping heavily. The combination palls him with a gaunt eeriness, but with his lanky frame and harsh, modelesque features, it doesn’t detract from his looks, it just makes him appear more dangerous.

“He shouldn’t have come,” Nick says, reaching between my legs and touching me there, firm and insistent. “He looks like shit.”

“He wanted to,” I reply, trying futilely to close my legs. “Which… is good. It means he’s still invested. Cutting him out would be the worst thing to do.” Yeah, reading those psychology books is the gift that keeps on giving.

“We need to look strong,” Nick mutters, fingers tracing down the crease of my leggings, hovering right against my hole.

I squirm just as much with discomfort as pleasure. No one except Remy is really paying attention to us at the moment, but they could. “Nick, not now.” When I go to wrest his hand away, he’s as immovable as iron, leaning in to plant a long, sucking kiss into the skin below my jaw. “Nick.”

He makes a low rumbling sound. “Fuck, I miss being inside you.”

---