Page 57 of Dreadful

“So fucking wet.” A rough exhale against my jaw. “For me.”

I shove my hand between us, pop the button on his jeans, drag the zipper down far enough. He’s already there, hot and hard against my palm, and when I wrap my fist around his cock, he groans low into my throat and rocks forward like he can’t help it.

He looks at me. His eyes are blown wide, and he’s never looked more out of control. It makes me feel dangerous—reckless.

I shift my hips. He pulls his fingers free and lifts me higher, and then I guide him in, and he buries himself to the hilt in one brutal, unsparing thrust—the stretch of him a bright, breathless burn. My forehead drops against his. His exhale shudders out against my mouth.

I dig my heels into the back of his thighs, and he moves. Every thrust drives me harder into the wall, the drywall rough and unyielding against my shoulder blades, and the pain is just another frequency underneath everything else—the heat, the pressure, the specific weight of him between my thighs. I sink my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and tilt his head to the angle I want.

The cut along his throat is still bleeding. I can feel it tracking slow and warm across my knuckles where my hand is fisted in his collar, and I don’t let go. The smell of him is everywhere—gunpowder and copper and sweat and underneath all of it something that is just Bishop, something I would know in the dark. I press my face into his jaw and breathe it in like I’m allowed to.

He makes a low, involuntary sound when I drag the ends of my teeth against his jawline. Like some kind of switch, he somehow fucks me harder, stealing my gasp and replacing it with his tongue.

His stubble drags across my cheekbone as he turns his head. His mouth finds my ear, my jaw, the corner of my mouth—not quite a kiss, not quite anything with a name—and his exhales are ragged and uneven and completely undone. I bite down on his lower lip, copper flooding my tongue, and the groan that comes out of him moves through my whole chest like a struck bell.

My orgasm hurtles me off the edge without warning—a sudden, seizing clench that steals the sound right out of me, my whole body pulling taut around him. He kisses me through it, swallowing my moans with every expert swipe of his tongue.

He pulls back a few inches to look at me, his gaze fixed on my face with an intensity that should scare me instead of soothe.

I clench my core around him just to watch that expression on his face. It haunts me in my dreams when I let it. He comes with a whimpering sort of grunt, euphoria softening his features. I take a snapshot of it and tuck it into the box with his name on it in the dark recess of my mind.

He drops his face to my neck as she slowly pumps inside of me still, teeth pressed to my collarbone, one hand around my throat, and the other underneath my ass.

His chest against mine. Both of us breathing. Outside, something drips steadily through the shattered window, and the night air moves across the sheen of sweat coating my body.

Reality crashes in as the frenzy burns itself out, and I close my eyes and try to catch my breath. What felt like hours was probably only minutes, and if I wasn’t flying so high right now, I’d probably tease him about it.

His thumb strokes over my pulse point with such soft sweeps, and that tiny, traitorous seed of hope starts to sprout.

It’s such a dangerous thing, hope. Especially for a girl like me to have.

I open my eyes and find his gaze already fixed on my face, like he’s trying to memorize the sweep of my lashes, the blood smeared near my temple, the way my mouth looks. Something fragile fractures behind my ribs.

I fucking knew it.

“Bishop,” I murmur absently, tugging on the strands of hair still tucked between my fingers.

The clarity is so sharp it steals my breath.

This is the start of everything. It’s the way its meant to be. With me and all the Calloway brothers.

I lean in and brush my mouth against his, but he doesn’t reciprocate. Pulling back, I watch as his expression changes. Emotion shutters behind his eyes. The warmth bleeds out, replaced by something cold and cutting. A mask slams into place.

“Congratulations, sweetheart.” The words are quiet, almost conversational, but his mouth doesn’t soften. One corner lifts, but it’s not a smile.

I blink. My stomach plummets. “What?”

He withdraws slowly, his body leaving mine inch by deliberate inch. I feel the loss like a cold draft. His dick is still hard as he slides out of me, and the sensation is so intimate it makes my throat tighten. Once my feet touch the floor, he takes one step back. The distance feels wider than the room.

“Do they give out awards when you fuck an entire family?”

Goosebumps break out across my skin. The leftover heat in my veins curdles into something sour and heavy. For one suspended second, my mind is blank—just static and the aftershock of pleasure still humming in my limbs.

My legs are trembling. My pulse hasn’t caught up—it’s still hammering from the fight, from his hands on me, from coming so hard. My body is several steps behind whatever cruel game this is.

Bishop tilts his head slightly. “That was your goal, wasn’t it?”

Fuck you. The words dissolve somewhere between my chest and my throat. And to my absolute horror, the back of my eyes feel hot.