Page 42 of Judgment Day

“But you want to fuck him?”

God. Here I was, my dress hiked up around my waist—no panties—and my tits on full display. My chest was flayed open and heart was bleeding out, and all Lincoln had to do was mention it, and my pussy clenched with need. How fucked-up was I?

“And you want me to watch, like he just did,” he added when I didn’t answer.

“No, I don’t want you to watch.” I climbed up onto his lap, straddling him. “I just want—” I paused, searching for the words. “—I don’t know what I want. All I know is that when he was standing there, watching, I didn’t want himnotto watch. And I didn’t want you to stop, either. And for a second, I wondered what it might be like…” I let the rest of my thoughts linger unspoken.

“You can ask me for anything, Songbird,” he said with a sad conviction. “You want the world? I’ll give you the fucking world. But don’t ask me to share you.” His thumbs trailed over my cheekbones. “This place is fucked. This system… society—whatever it is that they call it—is fucked. It’s messing with your head. God knows it’s messed with mine.”

I pulled my hands from his hair and swallowed. Nothing was messing with my head. “He saved me, Linc. More than once. He found my dad and brought him to me. He gave me you when I thought I’d lost you. He gave me Tatum. He offered to let you kill him so that we could be free.”

Linc dropped his hands from my face. “He took you! Then he raped you. And then he left you alone.” His voice broke from all the emotion it held.

“He did that to save me.” I hated this wall that we were slowly building. I didn’t want this. I never planned this.Theydid this, and I should’ve hated them for it. Ididhate them for it, for taking a life I loved and flipping it upside down. It came without warning, a collision of fate and misfortune. But somewhere, in the mess and chaos, I found comfort.Because of Grey.“I don’t expect you to understand. But he’s not the man you think he is.”

“No, Lyric. He’s not the manyouthink he is.”

Silence stretched between us. Our chests heaved as we sat and stared, waiting, hoping, apologizing without words. After what felt like hours, Linc heaved a sigh and slowly shook his head.

“Jesus, why couldn’t you just want Leo? Fuck him instead?” he asked with a slight tilt of his lips. God, I loved that face.

I moved even closer to him, making my pussy hyperaware of the erection pressed against it.

“If you need this to get over your Stockholm Syndrome or whatever the fuck he did to you, then I’ll do it. Once.” He pushed up against me, the wool of his pants rough against the smoothness of my bare flesh but rubbing my clit in ways that made me shudder. “I’ll give you your closure. And that’s what this is, Songbird. It’s closure.” He gripped my hips. Hard. “Don’t think for one second that it won’t fucking gut me.”

His confession cut through me. Our eyes locked. There was pain there, but there was hurt in Grey’s earlier, too. As if reading my thoughts, Linc’s hold on my hips deepened, more possessive. My chest pounded at the thought of hurting him, of hurting either one of them. I was always open with Linc about what I wanted, what I liked. We were highly sexual, always had been. Our bodies spoke to each other when our mouths couldn’t find the words. He’d said I could have closure, but I wasn’t sure he knew what that might cost us all.

I circled my arms around his neck, a new, raw awareness settling in my gut. “I love you.” I needed him to know that. Above all things, I loved him.

“You fucking better.”

TWENTY FIVE

It was sin and salvation.

Watching her, wanting her, coaxing and guiding her was damning us both—damning us all. Then I heard my name spill from her lips, and it felt like I’d been saved. Like all the pain and torment had been washed away with a single word.

I should have felt remorseful for striking the match that was surely going to make us all burn.

I didn’t.

There was right and wrong, black and white, good and evil. Most people knew the difference. Not me.

I was, and always had been, Grey.

Oscar Wilde once said that conscience and cowardice are the same thing. Maybe that explained why I feared nothing. I had no conscience.

I had no doubt Lyric was in there now, reassuring Lincoln, comforting him, maybe even fucking him—just like she’d done after our altercation on the beach. Right after I’d told her she was better off with me. If she were mine, I’d have had her bent over the desk with tears in her eyes while I not-so-gently reminded her whose pussy that was while he watched from a corner with his dick in his hand.

She wasn’t mine, though. Not like that.

I gave my congratulations to Anniston, told Chandler and Leo goodbye, then went to find another way to release this pent-up aggression. I went to see Winston for Plan B.

* * *

Winston was stripped down to his underwear when I walked in, and I couldn’t help but wonder how long he’d been that way. Hopefully, it had been a while. Maddox simply smirked and shrugged when I opened the door. I made a mental note to give him a raise.

When I was in prison, we weren’t allowed to shave. Razor blades were weapons, both to other inmates and to ourselves. Once a week, they’d allowed us a visit to the in-house barber. He used one of those old-fashioned blades; the kind that would slice arteries and end lives with one wrong move.

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