Love In Brutal Devotion: (The Brutal Duet Book 2), page 6
It’s like she’s disappeared from my life.
I’ve no reason to be here without her.
She’s the reason I live.
November Thirteenth
I persuaded Cole to drive me the six hours to check on her.
The house is empty.
She’s gone.
It’s like she never existed.
December twelfth
Cole found me passed out with a bunch of pills and an empty bottle of whiskey. I don’t know what I was thinking.
That’s a lie.
I was thinking about her.
I ball my fists and let out a wail. He was in his own hell. While I was in mine, he was in his.
January First
I wonder if she watched the fireworks last night?
When a girl came over and touched my neck, I wanted to throw up.
I can’t be with anyone else but her.
I hate her for doing this to me, to us.
Making me fall in love with her then stealing my heart.
Destroying it.
February second
For my twentieth birthday, Cole and Lucas are on a mission to “Break me out of her spell.” We have a business plan to start our own fight club.
When we make enough money, I’m going to track her down.
I’m going to make her pay for hurting me like this.
This is where he hates me?
I hate her.
This huge hole gapes in the center of my heart. Growing bigger by the day.
Why did she do this? Blocked all contact. Discarded me so easily when my life is so consumed by her.
Didn’t she see how much she meant to me?
Aged Twenty-one.
June eleventh
I wonder if she still loves ketchup and mayo mixed together.
If her hair is still silky.
If when she kisses, she moans.
I wonder if she still thinks of me.
He still loves me. He never stopped thinking of me. Never stopped wanting me.
I turn to finally face him. Tears flow down his face with a look of vulnerability shining through them, but his eyes never stray from mine. “I love you, Thalia. Always have. Always will.”
Chapter
Ten
Tia
Jace peppers kisses down my face before gently suckling the skin on my neck into his mouth and tugging, no doubt marking me, but I can’t find it in me to care right now.
“You still taste and smell as good as I remember. Fuck, baby, does your pussy still taste good?”
He continues his descent. Lifting my top from over my head, he takes in my breasts. Pushing them together, he massages my nipples into peaks, making me moan at the sensation.
“Fuck, they grew nice and big.” He pushes them together, then stills when he notices the red mark left behind by Lucas.
He swallows deeply, making me freeze at what his reaction is going to be. He ducks his head, and relief floods me when he angles his mouth over the mark only to suck it harder, marking me further.
I can only imagine it’s his way of defeating them. His way of showing them I belong to him too. I push up into him, dragging my fingers through his hair and tugging it sharply when his teeth graze my nipple.
“Jesus, Jace. You feel so good. I need you.”
He leans back on his heels, tugs his shirt from over his head, and lowers his joggers.
“Do you let them fuck you without protection?” He tugs on his cock and pre-cum leaks in a sticky trail over his palm.
“I’m on the pill.” My voice is breathy as I watch in awe of his nakedness, taking in every inch of his tattooed body.
“I’m clean. I’ve only ever fucked my girl without a condom.” His chest rises as he fists himself harder. “Only ever fucked the one girl who has my heart without a condom.” I nod at his words.
“Slide your panties off and open your pussy for me.”
I work quickly, lowering my panties and throwing them to the floor. I sit up and watch as his eyes become heavy when I separate my slick folds, allowing him to see me open and exposed for him.
“Fuck, your juices are running out your hole, baby. I need to fuck it back in so bad.” His fist pumps faster, and his hips start to move.
An urge to have him inside me takes over, and just like the day he made love to me, my mouth runs away from me, gifting him with this filthy side of me reserved purely for Jace.
“I want to feel your cock inside me, Jace, stretching my pussy. I want to feel you pump your cum inside me.” I move one hand to my breast and tweak my sensitive nipple. “Please stretch me.”
“Fuck, baby. Fuck.” Jace moves quickly, falling on top of me, he surges inside. His open mouth finds mine as I take his thick cock all the way to the base, stretching me. I lie stunned until his tongue invades my mouth. Thrashing about like a wild animal, he groans when he pulls out and slams back in. I claw at his back; it’s hard and fast, messy and desperate. It’s passion, it’s everything.
“More,” I beg on a moan.
“Fuck yes. Beg me for my cum. Beg me like you beg them.”
I can’t help but flinch at his words, not because of anything other than the fact he’s been listening to us, but the hint of a jealous crack in his voice makes me clench tightly around him, eager to hold him inside me.
“Fuck, tell me you love it.”
I hold on to his tattooed body plowing roughly into my pussy while I squirm beneath him. “Oh fuck, Jace. I love you fucking me hard.”
He rears back, his eyes shining brightly as they roam over my body as though gobsmacked that it’s me below him.
“You’re like a fucking vision, Thalia.” He slams into me. “You’re all my fucking dreams come true.” Slam. “You’re it for me, baby.” Slam. “You’re it!”
I throw my head back and scream as I squeeze his cock, milking it for both our pleasures. He swells inside me, his hips still moving as my body flutters high on the adrenaline.
When he finally falls on top of me, his lips find mine, a tender kiss, a contrast to his frantic fucking.
“I love you, Thalia.”
“I love you too.”
He gently strokes the hair from my eyes. “We’re going to make this work, baby.” He swallows past a lump, and his face fills with uncertainty. I hold him tighter, already concerned he’s withdrawing. “I just . . . I can’t watch you fucking them.”
He spits the words out, and I nod in understanding, because truth be told, I couldn’t handle that if it was him. “I understand.”
“I know you love them, but—” He swallows hard. “Do you think you could love me the same way too?”
My lips tremble, and my heart breaks for him. How can he possibly think otherwise? “I’ve loved you every day from the moment I laid eyes on you, Jace. That never stopped, not once.”
“But . . .”
I shake my head, not wanting to go into the wheres and whys of how it all went wrong. How we went wrong.
“I love you. Is that enough for you?” I question him, holding my breath.
“It’s everything.” His body relaxes against me, and when his lips find mine and his cock begins to harden, I know I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else other than where I am right now.
Jace was right; this is a dream, and I ignore the fact that I hold nightmares set to haunt us both.
Jace
I take Tia’s hand in mine and lead her out of my bedroom. I’m not sure how this is going to work between us, but it will work, because I refuse to lose her.
After I fucked her hard, I made love to her, then we showered together, something I’ve only ever been able to dream about doing until now.
We’re going to have to come up with some damn schedule or something because now that I have her, I don’t want to spend a damn night away from her, and I can guaran-fucking-tee that Lucas and Cole will be feeling the same way.
But we need to make it work, for all our sakes.
Cole and Lucas are sitting at the dining table when we walk in. They stop talking and raise their heads, eyes locking on to our hands and then our faces. Cole breaks out into a huge smile and sits back smugly in his chair with his hands behind his head while Lucas scans over Tia as though checking she’s unharmed. I see the moment he realizes one of his marks on the side of her neck has now been expanded and is marked by me instead. Yes, motherfucker, how do you like that?
I smirk at him, and he rolls his eyes. “Nice to see you have your shit together.” He glares at me when I pull out a chair and lift Thalia onto my lap. “Finally,” he tacks on at the end, earning him a chuckle from Cole.
My nostrils flare in annoyance. How the fuck dare he after he was the one who ruined it all? “Well, if someone didn’t try and steal her from me in the first place . . .” Thalia elbows me in the ribs, and I stop before I fuck everything up.
“As much as I’d like to hang around you lovebirds today, I have training to do.” Cole stands and leans over the table to grab an apple. “What’s the plan with Harper tomorrow?”
My eyes narrow in confusion at what I’ve missed, but the way Thalia tenses on me, I know it’s something big.
Before I get to ask her, she opens her mouth and explains, “Harper’s my daughter.”
All the world stands still, as though we’re frozen. Because I think she just said she has a daughter.
Then, the room begins to spin. I’m vaguely aware that Thalia is standing above me and talking to me, but I can’t hear her. All I hear are her words from our earlier argument.
I also understand that it took me five fucking years to get there.
And now, it all makes sense. She has a daughter, and I’m a fucking father? My chest swells with pride as I snap out of my shock.
“I have a daughter?”
Her face pales, and she looks on the verge of passing out. Her body begins to shake, and when I stand, she backs away from me.
Lucas moves behind her, holding her up. What the fuck is happening?
“She’s not yours, brother.” Cole drags his hand awkwardly over his head, his words low and full of sympathy.
I startle at his words; anger floods my veins. She lied to me.
“You lied to me!” my voice bounces off the walls so loudly, the room becomes silent, apart from Thalia’s hiccuping sob. “You. Fucking. Lied. To. Me.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t, I swear, I didn’t.”
But I refuse to listen. “You bitch. You fucking bitch.”
Cole lunges at me, his fist cracking into my jaw. Lucas lets go of Thalia and steps between us, pushing me against the wall away from Cole. Our chests heave in fury at one another.
“I didn’t choose to sleep with anyone, Jace. I would never.” She squeezes her eyes shut, but the pain is written all over her face.
“What the fuck’s she talking about?” I dart my eyes over to Lucas. “Lucas!” I snap because nobody is telling me a damn thing.
Thalia’s eyes flare open with confidence, a stark contrast to only a few seconds ago. She steels her spine and says, “Martin forced himself on me.”
Time suspends at her words, and my body feels heavy as my stomach lurches. Please no.
“But she’s my daughter.” Thalia stabs her finger at her chest for emphasis. “Mine.”
I slide down the wall.
I didn’t protect her.
When I thought I was living in hell, she truly was, and I chose to ignore it.
Chapter
Eleven
Tia
I watch in tortured silence as Jace slides down the wall, his ass landing on the floor with a thud and his face contorting with a mixture of horror and devastation. He drops his head into his hands and rocks back and forth with choked sobs.
Memories assault me from every direction.
Five years ago . . .
I can’t stomach any breakfast this morning. Not when I know what’s about to happen. Not when my life is going to change into a living hell.
Jace walks into my bedroom with his backpack over his shoulder, and I can’t so much as raise my head to greet him.
My heart is breaking, and I can’t let him see. Can’t let him feel the terror and heartbreak building inside me.
He drops his bag to the floor and kneels beside me. Using his fingers, he raises my chin to stare back into his stormy eyes, the same ones that made love to me last night and again this morning.
“I love you, baby.” His words give me strength but also fill my eyes with grateful tears. I nod at his words, unable to find my own to reassure him.
He clears his throat and digs into his jeans pocket. “Here, I have this for you.” He opens his palm to gift me with a small gold key attached to a thin necklace.
“What is it?”
“The key to my heart, what do you think?” He smirks at me, making me smack his arm playfully. “I’ll tell you what it is when you graduate. I just want you to know, I’ll be thinking of you always.”
“I love you,” I blurt the words out as he rises to his feet.
Jace smiles down at me like I’m his whole world, then steps away and walks out the door, taking the only happiness I have with him.
I can’t help the wail that leaves my lips as the car door slams outside.
And only when the familiar sickening feeling of being watched penetrates my mind do I let myself stop crying.
His tall body fills the door—my only escape from hell—as he steps further into the room, his shadow creeping alongside him.
“You’ve nobody to keep you safe now, Thalia. No hero to rescue you. You belong to me now, buttercup.” He licks his lips like a predator preparing to devour its prey, and I close my eyes and beg for time to run away with me.
Beg for my graduation so I can be free with Jace.
Beg for mercy.
Chapter
Twelve
Jace
I don’t even know how I ended up in bed next to her. Her soft lips flutter on each exhale as I watch her sleeping form in rapture.
She’s beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed before, and I’m so fucking lucky to claim her as mine, even if I have to share her with them.
My heart hammers, and nausea washes over me the moment I realize the girl I love and lost was hurt. No, not just hurt, brutalized. By the man who made it his mission to make every day in that house a living hell for me.
My mind wanders back in time, a time I’ve fought so damn hard to block out.
“You’re a little punk, you know that?!” Martin screams so close to my face spittle hits my cheek. “You’re going to stand against this wall and watch me eat dinner because pieces of shit like you don’t deserve food when they waste it.”
When I accidently dropped my plate with the meatloaf on it, Martin flew up from his chair like a madman.
My fists clench at my side. I hate him so damn much. “If Thalia hadn’t cleaned it up so quick, I’d have made you lick it off the floor like last week.” He grins at me manically, and I imagine pummeling his face until he’s bloody and unrecognizable.
I know Thalia cleaned it up quickly to save me the embarrassment. She always does that, trying to defend me, and in return, I try and protect her, from scum like him and his friends that come over to watch football and treat us like slaves.
I turn my head toward the dining table and Thalia flinches as he sits beside her. She hates him being so close. Even I know that, and I’m only eleven. How the hell has he not worked it out too?
My pulse races as flashback after flashback hit me, making it impossible for me to breathe quietly.
“You either chop the fucking wood, or I’ll make Thalia do it, and you know she whined like a little bitch over her hands the last time, don’t you?”
She didn’t whine, she was fucking brave, and I loved her for it. He wouldn’t let her use gloves, and he said he’d hit me in the stomach again if she didn’t carry on. But I took the choice away from her, pushing over the tin of paint on the porch with the tip of my toe. He went crazy.
I crept into her room when he was asleep and helped her pick the splinters of wood from her palms, and she lathered my back in lotion from the cane he used.
I lift the axe and slam it down hard, imagining I’m chopping the prick’s head off.
One day, Martin. One day.
All this time, I thought I was able to protect her from the worst of it, but clearly, it was a living hell for her too.
One I left her in.
I need to make him pay, and with those thoughts in my mind, I slide out of the sheets and make my way toward Lucas’s office.
I’m not shocked to find Cole in there too, and their heads turn when I walk in and fold my arms over my chest defensively.
“I need to know everything,” I say to Lucas, because clearly, the prick has been holding out on me. He knows a lot more than he admits, and by the way he jolts and pales, I know whatever he does know, I’m not going to like.
“You best sit down.” He points to the couch opposite Cole, and I drop down into it.
Lucas fumbles with some keys and unlocks a drawer. Pulling out a manila folder, he walks over to us. His eyes dart between mine and Cole’s, as though he’s unsure he’s doing the right thing.
“She doesn’t know I’m aware of what’s in here.” I nod in understanding, and Cole sits forward, both intrigued and nervous as his leg bounces up and down.
“When I first found her, I wasn’t aware she had a daughter.” Hearing him say it out loud makes me wince at the thought that she has a daughter without me. With him.
My veins pump hard beneath my flesh, making me want to tear my skin off and destroy the world. For her.
“When Cole mentioned her, I couldn’t understand why there was no information on them both. So, I dug deeper.” He refuses to look at us, instead staring at the wall. He’s struggling with his own demons of abuse too, and I have a sudden need to punish someone for their pain.
I swallow hard, knowing it’s going to hurt to hear what he’s about to say.
