SWNOVELS Dukes of Madness: Chapter 29
The fight with the LDZ pissant barely lasted three minutes.
It’s not like he didn’t have it coming, shoulder checking me on the way to my car with a sharp, muttered comment.
“…aren’t bowing to a house that’s run by some virgin fuck.”
“The fuck did you just say to me?” I asked, whirling on my heel to push him. I know what Nick and Remy think: that I’m just on edge, falling back into old habits, losing a grip on my control. But that’s not the truth of it. I could be on the top of the goddamn word and I wouldn’t have let something like that fly. Neither of them would have, either. But Nick and Remy aren’t carrying around this annoying fucking reputation. They’re allowed to get into skirmishes in the back parking lot, knuckles crashing against the LDZ’s jaw like a hammer. They’re allowed to let loose, to back up their threats with violence.
Why the hell can’t I?
The guy I scrummed with—Tucker—is standing over by the stereo equipment with his three LDZ buddies, laughing as he drinks our booze. That’s half of the reason I feel so buzzed tonight. It’s like the warrior equivalent to blue balls, only landing four hits before Nick and Remy hauled me off the guy.
But Lavinia…
She tastes sweet and bitter, like the cocktails the boys have been passing around to the girls, hoping to get them loose and willing. And it’s working. All night, all around me, people have been making out. In the corner by the staircase, barely cloaked in shadow, a senior DKS member has a cutslut by the hair as he fucks her face. There was a time I would have shut something like that down, but tonight, I let it fly, and people have noticed, taking advantage. Every flat surface is occupied by a couple, and if I let myself look long enough, I’m betting some of them are full-on fucking, struggling to be subtle about it as the guys push their dicks into the girls, hidden beneath skirts that look a lot like the one Lavinia is wearing.
I finally understand it.
The need for flesh, the heat of her tongue against mine, the frantic pulse of blood and life, the instinct to dig myself into her cunt…
Tonight, I’m not a victor.
I’m not leading a house.
I’m just a man.
Lavinia makes a small, startled sound as I reach down to palm her ass, lifting her skirt for maximum contact. But when I drag her toward the couch in the back, she follows, her lips never leaving mine, so she doesn’t mind. I’ve been searching for her all night, restless with the urge to feel her against me, just like I had yesterday, and I’m not disappointed. She stumbles along with me, her hands fisted into my shirt, and it just makes me more frenzied, fingers digging low into her ass cheeks.
Three recruits are lined up on the cushions, taking hits off a bong in the shape of a bear’s head. I pull away from Lavinia to jerk my head at them. “Beat it.” They scramble out of the way, one dropping a lighter. It bounces off the floor, and he moves to pick it up, but the look I give him is enough to make him forget it and back away slowly.
Sitting, I go to pull Lavinia into my lap, but she beats me to it, straddling me with an urgency that’s unexpected, but not unwelcome. I grab her hips and yank her up close, flexing my groin up into her.
“Hey,” she breathes, raking her teeth over her bottom lip. “What happened here?” Her fingertips are gentle against the scrape on my cheek.
I fist my hand in the back of her hair and say, “Don’t worry about it,” before dragging her mouth back to mine.
This.
This is what I’ve needed all damn day.
Her weight on my lap, the little sigh she makes into my mouth, the way she surges closer, her pussy grinding onto my dick. My blood feels so fucking full of it, like it’s been replaced by something atomic and rabid, and I throb with the need to do something. My inner ocean of calm is little more than a dried pond bed at this point, and I don’t fucking care anymore.
All the practice and handjobs and titty fucks in the world can’t keep me in check tonight. Especially not when she leans into me, pressing her tits against my chest to whisper, “Want to go upstairs?”
I flick my gaze to the corner as she sucks the skin below my ear, watching the LDZ guys. “I can’t wait that long.” Shoving my hand between us, I roughly push her panties aside and plunge my fingers into the damp heat. The second I feel how wet she is, slick and hot, a harsh rumble rises from my chest. “Neither can you.”
She gasps, rising up to give me room, but I also catch the way she looks over her shoulder at the room full of recruits, brothers, LDZ, and cutsluts. When she looks back, I see the hesitation tugging at her mouth. “Hey, just… take a deep breath,” she says, grinning with her cherry red lips, “then we’ll go upstairs, and I’ll take care of you.”
I press my forehead against hers and hold her eye. “You’re my girl, right?” I ask softly. She nods. “Then this is part of it. Being seen. Being… together.”
Her eyes drop to my mouth and it’s hardly even a pause. “Okay.” She exhales, hips moving against mine. “You want it like—’
“Ride me, just like you did at the Baron’s party,” I demand, brushing back her hair so I can see her face. “I want to feel you.”
The look she gives me, heavy-lidded but simmering hot, tells me she’s feeling the same thing I am. Dark, awkward fumbling isn’t what either of us wants. We’re beyond that now. I knew it yesterday when I came into her folds, when she quivered against my tongue.
The hot, energized part of me wants nothing more than to take her upstairs, get us both naked, and find out what that even means. But the agitated, drunk part of me looks at that Tucker douchebag—at everyone in this fucking room—and just wants them to see what I see.
That Lavinia Lucia wants my dick.
It’s easy to let the music and shadowy corner swallow us. Lavinia shifts back, breathing just as eagerly as I am, and kisses me while reaching for my fly. Her face flushes with vivid splotches of pink that I follow to her jaw with my mouth, down to her neck. I shudder when she finally reaches into my pants to pull my cock free, her soft, cool skin against my hard, blistering flesh. I shouldn’t even be able to get harder, but the sensation of her palm wrapping around me makes it happen. The small tickle in the base of my cock, the pump of blood making me longer and harder.
We both look down at the same time, our foreheads pushed together as we watch a clear drop of precum bead on the tip of my dick. Reaching out, she rubs it with her thumb and then brings it to her lips.
She holds my gaze as she tastes it.
My jaw goes slack.
Smirking, she rises up and guides me under her panties, sighing when the tip brushes across her pussy. She likes how long I am, that I cover the length of her, tip to root, nudging at her ass crack, pressing against her clit. Mostly, I try to hold it together as I feel her slickness against me, my hands digging into her hips to steady her.
I wonder who got her wetter.
Me or Nick?
“You like that?” I ask, guiding her hips, making her pussy slide against me. When her eyes fall closed on a soft moan, I look over her shoulder, making note of everyone who’s watching. The bong-smoking recruits from before, all three of them, have their eyes glued to her ass, still covered by her skirt. I’d expected that much. Haley, the cutslut, is all the way across the room, but she’s watching.
One of the LDZ guys is, too.
Not Tucker, the one who called me a virgin, but his buddy, beer suspended halfway to his mouth, is openly gawking at us.
It feels good to know they’re all seeing me like this—claiming my girl.
Good, but not enough.
I slide my hands up her thighs, beneath her skirt, around to her ass, and we move. The rhythm we fall into is natural, her eyes so dark as she rides me, soft, blue hair falling around our faces like a veil. It’d be easy to get lost in it, to shoot off right here, right now, and I’m hot—so fucking hot—from the booze or the urges or her, but I hold it back to sweep her hair away, getting a peek at the eyes on us. A man and his woman.
Her hips roll against me as we trade frantic, obscene kisses. She knows to stay on her knees, giving me room, and I massage her ass, keeping her wide open for me. Thighs tensing, I brush my fingertip along her asshole, feeling the puckered ridge. She lets out this little hitched cry that makes me pant like a dog under the fever of knowing she likes something so dirty.
“Don’t stop.” Her nails dig into my biceps and her hips rock with purpose. “Don’t stop.” She slots us together, an attempt to build that final round of friction. She’s close, her mouth opened against mine as she gulps in my air, which is why she probably doesn’t hear when Ballsack yells out.
“Fuck yeah, Perilini, get it!”
There’s a round of shocked laughter, and then a chorus of cheers, but when I look up, the first pair of eyes I make contact with across the room are Nick’s.
He watches us for a moment, and then turns pointedly away, the knot in the back of his jaw tense.
The LDZ prick is watching us, though. Eyes narrowed, Tucker jabs his elbow into his friend’s side, saying something to him that I know must be as snide as the curl of his upper lip.
Teeth gnashing, I grab Lavinia by the hips and wrench her up—just a little, just enough to grab my dick and notch the head of it against her entrance.
She freezes, chest heaving as she licks her lips. “What are you…?”
I give her ass a hard squeeze. “Just the tip, okay?”
Her eyes widen, darting side to side. “Here? Now?” She tries to wriggle away and I indulge in the feel of it. “Sy, I already told you I can’t—”
I yank her back, hissing, “I’ve never once asked you for anything, Lavinia. Never.”
She pauses, an unease falling over her features. It’s because she knows I’m telling the truth. All those nights of her hands on me, I never told her to. I never ordered her into my bed. How many days have I spent in class, daydreaming about her mouth on me? And I’ve never asked for it.
In a futile effort to hide the part of me that’s desperate to tear her apart, I cup the back of her neck, holding her close until our mouths are a whisper apart. “You can take just a little bit, right?” I move my hand, rubbing the head of my cock against her. “Just let me in that much. Please?”
The plea burns sour in my throat, but I give it freely, watching as she blushes even redder, whispering, “Just the tip?” Warring emotions cross her face. Fear, want, guilt. I tug at them all until she relents. “Fine, but—”
I grasp my cock. “Ready?”
Before she can answer, I’m already bearing up, wrapping my arm around her neck to press her down.
She gasps, loud and shocked, as the head of my cock breaks through, entering her.
Her lips move, but I don’t hear what she says, my ears so full with the rush of her around my cock. It’s so much hotter than I imagined, and tight. Fuck, she’s like a vice around me, and for the first time, I understand it. The Velvet Hideaway. That’s what her pussy is, smooth as velvet as I rock up into her.
I feel the resistance as she tenses up. “Th-that’s all I can take.”
My hips flex and release in a rhythm that’s older than me—primal, instinctual. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to. It’s as necessary as breathing, fucking the head of my cock into her tightness thoughtlessly, gaining another slow inch. “You can take a little more,” I whisper, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice. “Come on, baby. You’re so fucking wet, I can just…”
Her brows crush together and she winces, head shaking. “It’s too much—ah!” Her yelp is as sharp as the stab of my cock, forcing another inch into her.
She tries to ease herself upward, away from my cock, but my arm is as immovable as steel against her shoulders. It just gives me the room I need to glide out and push back inside, and even through the almost unbearable tightness, her cunt strangling the tip of my dick, it hits me. I look at her, breathless and awed as my hips move. “I’m fucking you.”
Her hand claws into my shirt, teeth clenched. “It hurts.”
“You’re taking it,” I argue, fucking in and out of her mindlessly, recklessly. It’s not even halfway in, but it’s sex. It’s wet and hot and so much slower than I want, but I’m fucking her, and that fact alone running through my head is almost enough to make me erupt.
Her head shakes, cheeks having lost their color. “I can’t, please, I’ll— I’ll use my hand.”
I’d know a fight anywhere, and right now Lavinia’s thighs are levering her up as my arm forces her down. I don’t even think about it. I fight back, and it’s just like the sex we’re having. Instinctual, fundamental, a force as vital as the blood buzzing through my veins. I grip her hard and shove up, jamming my way inside.
A cry rips from her throat, and she falls against me. I don’t know what the sting is at first, her teeth digging into my shoulder, but I know the pain, driving me harder and deeper, just like it always does. Maybe later, I’ll think of myself weak for giving in to the call to fight—the urge to fuck—but right now, I clutch her close and let it take me, too intent on getting inside, feeling her around me, making her mine.
“Sy,” she grinds out, trying to pull away. I hold her in place.
“I’m close—just,” I growl, pushing her down, “fucking chill.”
She’s so busy enduring it that she probably doesn’t even notice the air against her ass as I ruck her skirt up, spreading her wide.
“Holy fucking shit,” someone exclaims. “Dude, he’s nailing her!”
I don’t need to see the eyes on us when I feel the weight of them, only enhanced by the sting of her teeth sinking into my shoulder, hard and punishing, the same way I’m hurting her. I’m not sure which of these lights my body on fire, but I grunt and crush her close, feeling it spread through my limbs like an explosion.
My body seizes, and she tenses over me, bracing herself. I come so hard that my vision goes white. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know everyone is seeing it, my cock pulsating as it pumps her full of my cum. In the valley between mindfulness and the complete fucking chaos that is finishing inside of a girl, I forgive them. Everyone. Nick, for chasing pussy so hard. Remy for falling in love with the art of it. The guys in the frat for rarely thinking of anything else.
It all makes sense to me now.
Pussy is fucking transcendent.
I’m not as deep as I want to be, only halfway in, and it’s still so tight that it’s a miracle I have any circulation at all, but it’s a religious experience. My thighs quiver with the force of it, jaw clenched on a hiss as my cock surges itself to exhaustion.
“Fuck,” I breathe, landing against the back of the couch, muscles going limp.
I win.
“I told you to stop,” she spits. It’s not a surprise when she shoves off of me, my spent cock slipping out of her as she backs away on wobbly legs.
“Wait,” I say, voice lazy and slurred, but she punches out when I reach for her, knocking my hand away.
The escape isn’t a surprise.
The look on her face is.
“You want to be a normal guy so badly?” Her eyes are wide and wet, bottom lip quivering. “Well, congratulations. You’re just like the rest of them, Simon.”
Even in the shadows, I see the shimmer of cum as it drips down her inner thigh.
I refuse to look at her, instead tucking myself back into my jeans.
My hand comes away with a smear of blood.
Staring numbly at it, I argue, “You’re always saying you can take me,” but it’s pointless.
She’s already slipping into the crowd of people, most having the good sense to turn away, as if they didn’t just watch her getting fucked.
Most have that sense.
Tucker doesn’t.
He lifts a shoulder in a shrug, and then his drink, the gesture clear and readable.
My mistake.
It’s supposed to inflate this feeling in my chest—a feeling I’m not embarrassed to admit that I love: Victory. It’s not that it isn’t there, because it is.
The pride is just lost inside this strange hollowness.
I know more than anyone that sometimes you walk away from a win broken down and battered. Bleeding or with a limp. The best victory comes after a hard fight, and Lavinia and I have been going the rounds for weeks now. There was no way she wasn’t going to feel a little pain, but she’s tough. That’s why it had to be her. She’s proven that to me, time and time again. No, she challenged me. She knew what she was getting when she agreed—and she did agree.
I have nothing to feel bad about.
Nothing.
Standing, I zip up, not caring when a few cutsluts glance my way, eyes curious. Enough people saw me fucking my girl—actually fucking her—that the gossip will start to filter through the crowd and all the rumors and whispers about my ability to satisfy a woman, about being a man, will be put to rest for good.
I’ve just gestured to a recruit to go get me a beer when my brother parts the people like Moses cutting through the Red Sea. I plaster a drunk—hollow—grin on my face, knowing if anyone understands how momentous the occasion is, it’s him. Nick lost his virginity when he was fifteen, in the backseat of some skank’s car. He spoke about it for hours that night, laying back in his bed, bouncing a baseball up and down, both our dicks getting hard as he relayed it, beat by beat. The whole time, I kept thinking that it wasn’t right. I’m a year older. I should have been the one teaching him.
Burning with jealousy, I still gave him a high-five.
There are no high-fives tonight.
He storms up to me and slams his hands into my chest, knocking me back violently.
“What the fuck did you do?” he shouts, loud enough to draw more attention our way.
“Can you be a little more specific?” I ask, not willing to let him take away the buzz I’m supposed to be feeling. “It’s been a long week.”
The recruit shows up with my beer, and I reach for it. Nick snatches the bottle, liquid sloshing on the floor. “The Duchess just ran upstairs.” His voice lowers, dripping with venom. “With blood running down her legs. I repeat: What the fuck did you do?”
I see the dark glint in his eye. He knows exactly what I did, and instead of coming over here with the celebratory drink I’m owed, he’s being a petty, jealous ass. Like always.
“Nothing you haven’t,” I reply, pushing past him, “but at least I got permission first.”
He grabs me by the shoulder and spins me back to face him. The muscle in the back of his jaw tics and mine does the same. We’re brothers here, through and through, each of us measuring the other up, and I understand exactly what this is. We’re one second from a Nick Bruin meltdown because I got my dick in his precious pussy before he could get his back in.
I wait for him to throw the first swing, the anticipation sparking over my skin like static, but even Nick knows we can’t hash this out in front of guests.
“Get non-members out of here,” he barks at the recruit, who hasn’t moved. The command snaps him into action and three DKS round them up, Tucker included, and guide them toward the door. The LDZ brothers don’t fight or argue. They understand just as well as we do that family business—house business—is private.
After they’re gone, Nick bends down to tighten his shoelaces, muscles tight and coiled, and I laugh, the sound just as empty as this pit in my chest.
“Okay then,” I say, making a show of rolling up my sleeves. I guess I’m ending this night with two victories. One for losing my virginity, and one for beating the shit out of my brother.
Nick prepares by scanning the crowd gathering around us, gaze locking onto someone by the bar. “Verity,” he says, voice clipped as he jerks his chin. “Go upstairs and check on Lavinia.” Her eyes skip from him to me, but she doesn’t ask questions, just nods and vanishes up the stairs.
The hum of Remy’s gun goes still and a second later, he ambles over and looks between us, brows pulled tightly together. “Come on; don’t be bringing this red shit around here. Not tonight. I don’t have the energy for it.” But then he glances around. “Where’s Vinny?”
“Upstairs,” Nick answers, eyes never leaving mine.
His eyes look toward the ceiling. “The fuck is going on?”
I raise my chin, giving a cold smirk. “You see, Nicky here thinks he’s going to beat my ass for being a little too rough with the Duchess. Apparently, he’s the only one who gets to do that.”
“Too rough?” Remy looks at me, dread filling his eyes. “What did you do?”
“I fucked her,” I say, but even though I still feel that whisper of pride, I feel the hollowness of it more. “She asked for it—I didn’t force her.” Even as I say it, I know I’m skirting a line, but they wouldn’t get it. It was hot, and she was wet, and she let me in, and my body took over. Flustered, I add, “It’s nothing a little Advil and an ice pack won’t—”
Crack!
Nick’s fist slams into my jaw. The crowd behind him pinches tighter, shocked voices merged with the music. I taste blood and spit it on the floor, turning to fix him with a slow, lethal glare. “Little brother,” I warn, “think about what you’re doing.”
Perilini vs. Bruin is a matchup of the century. The kind of fight people would pay big money to watch—not because of the sportsmanship, but because for once, the true victor would be declared. The rightful leader of this group of misfits.
“I told her this would happen,” he seethes, fists still balled at his sides. Louder, he barks, “I fucking knew you’d do this! I gave her to you—both of you—and you sat up there and fed me some bullshit about how you’d be better at taking care of her.” He shakes his head, laughing darkly. “Almost twenty-two years old, and you still don’t know how to untangle your hard-on from your fists.”
“That’s one mighty glass house you’re living in,” I say, the wave building. “We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t spent the last two years running wild, selling your soul and skills to South Side. If you hadn’t stolen a King’s daughter out from under his nose and killed, maimed, and decapitated your way under her skin.” I take a step closer, feeling all the emotions of the last few days—maybe longer—bubbling to the surface. “If it weren’t for you and your own goddamn impulse control issues, we wouldn’t be on probation—much less at risk of losing the whole goddamn frat!”
“Don’t try to turn that shit around on me,” he says, eyes flashing. “I did what no one else had the balls to do.”
Wildly, I gesture to the crowd. “You admitted it yourself! You don’t give a shit about DKS. All you want is her pussy, and now you’re throwing a tantrum because she gave it to me instead.” The tide in me feels like it’s been rocked by an earthquake, the ocean floor shifting under my feet. All these months of holding us together—the club, the Dukes, Lavinia—have dragged me in deeper by the undertow. “Without me, you wouldn’t have a home, a family, protection… and you sure as fuck wouldn’t have her. Don’t forget,” I hiss, jabbing a finger into his chest, “I’m the one who saved her.”
Nick’s fiery gaze follows my finger, and I know what he’s thinking. If I were someone else, he’d cut it off and give it to her as a present. Instead, he sends me a dark, empty grin. “So you think you’re the hero here? After what you just did?” Head shaking, he looks me up and down, lip curling. “Yeah, I fucked her, but at least I saw it for what it was. Look at you flexing, like cramming that thing into someone who can’t even fight you off is worth being proud of. You’re no hero, big brother.” He looks me in the eye, showing his teeth. “You’re a fucking loser.”
The tidal wave unleashes, wild and out of control. I lunge for him, but a wall of wiry, ink covered muscle wedges between us, shoving me back.
“No!” Remy shouts, and behind the white-hot rage, I feel the hands of my frat brothers cinched around my arms and shoulders. “We’re not fucking doing this. This is exactly what he wants—you know that, right?” Bodily, Remy pushes me away from Nick, jabbing two fingers into his temple. “He gets in your head and fucks with everything! Yellow and red make bronze. Open your goddamn eyes!”
Shoving him off, I stare at my friend, his eyes dilated and crazed. “Oh, this is rich. You’re two walking fucking disasters. Remy won’t stop snorting Viper junk long enough to understand what’s even happening, and you,” I say to Nick, still hungry to feel his bones beneath my knuckles, “you’re still sneaking around behind our backs—don’t deny it. You think we haven’t noticed all of these excursions you’ve been taking her on? Face it,” I snap, “Neither of you can function without a minder!”
“Oh, and that’s you, right?” Nick asks, eyes belligerent. “Maybe you can get down from your cross long enough to realize no one wants you minding them!”
I can feel where the punch would go—right here. I’d lay into him. Remy would mix in with it, maybe some of the frat brothers, maybe even some of the cutsluts. It’d be ugly and bloody and beautiful, and I can’t even feel the urge to get it started. I look at them, these men who are supposed to be my brothers, my family, in blood and spirit, and I don’t feel it. The threads that used to hold us together aren’t there anymore.
And I’m sick of pretending they are.
“Well, I quit,” I say, turning to the stairs. “I’m done.”
Fuck this.
No, fuck them.
I shrug off the recruits and push past Remy and my brother, leaving them both behind. I get to the stairwell and jog up to the third floor, pushing through the door and into the dark silence. Remy and I got the party started before the sun even set, so none of the lights are on up here, casting the cavernous space in nothing but the eerie glow of the skyline seeping through the clock face.
I give myself a second to breathe—to think.
And then I hear the voices.
Looking toward the bathroom, I see a slice of light. The door is cracked barely an inch. The whisper is quiet and faint, and the closer I get to the door, I realize it’s Verity.
Turning my ear to the crack, I hear her saying, “…won’t need stitches, but we should clean it.” The voice is soft and hesitant and so careful that it makes my fists clench.
There’s a long sniffle, and then Lavinia’s garbled reply, “I’ll do it.”
Without thinking, I push the door open. Lavinia’s on the toilet, knees open, and Verity is wiping the blood away from the soft skin of her inner thighs. I watch, frozen, as Lavinia takes the rag, face stained with tears. Wordlessly, she gathers up her blue hair and twists it, holding it with one hand as she ducks her head, pushing the rag beneath her skirt.
When she pulls it back, it’s red.
My mouth parts with my punched exhale, and Verity whirls around, spotting me.
Her face transforms into something I’ve never seen on her before—twisted and fierce—the face of a woman who could have been a Duchess but wasn’t.
“Get out,” she barks, barreling toward the door. “Get the fuck out!”
She shoves the heel of her palm into the door, slamming it in my face.
It’s quiet after that. No voices. I can’t even hear the party happening downstairs. Maybe they all cleared out. Maybe I’ve just gone deaf and I can’t hear anything besides the sound of my own brain, whirring through a slideshow of Lavinia’s thighs.
I wander to my bedroom, that wisp of pride I’d felt before evaporated into something sharp and acrid. When I flip on the light, the bundle of fluff on my bed squirms into a stretch, Archie’s eyes opening to peer at me in the doorway. Dragging a palm down my face, I’m hit with this red-hot yearning to turn back the clock. To start the night over again. To put myself in a place where I know she’s going to crawl into this bed with me tonight. To know that when I wake up, I’ll find her curled against me, skin to skin.
But none of that will happen.
It only takes me a few minutes to dump all my clothes into the same duffle I’d brought them in. My laptop, my phone, my shoes, my books.
Before I leave, I reach down to touch Archie, his head bumping up into my palm with a purr. And then I place the journal on the pillow, her pillow, and I walk out the door, leaving my wake of destruction behind.