SWNOVELS Welcome to the Dark Side: Chapter 24
The air smelled like sweat and popcorn, sweet and salty on my tongue as I set my voice to the chant rising over the crowd.
Griffins, Griffins, Griffins!
It was the Winter Hoops tournament; the biggest sporting event at EBA and one of the biggest in the entire province so everyone and I mean everyone was there, even my absentee parents who held court in their own private section of the stands, and my so-called boyfriend, who was the star of the show.
I shook my pom-poms along with the rest of the squad when Reece knifed into the air to intercept the opposing team’s pass and sprinted down the court, the orange ball a blur of movement under his palm. When he reared up to slam-dunk in a version of athletic poetry that took my breath away with only three seconds left on the clock before halftime, the crowd erupted into ear-splitting wails and cheers of Reece, Reece, Reece!
We sports fans weren’t a creative bunch, but we had enthusiasm.
Reece clapped hands and backs with his teammates then turned toward the stands and I knew he was coming for me.
My palms sweat against my pompoms.
It had been a week since I’d lost my cherry to the Prez of The Fallen MC.
A week of spending each night with him in his bed in a cabin he built with his own bare hands. When he’d told me that, I’d made him take off his shirt in the cold late November air and chop wood for me. I’d goaded him into it by saying I didn’t believe he’d do such a menial task himself, but really, what girl didn’t want to see her man sweaty and bare-chested chopping wood?
The cabin was more than that though. It was a chapter in the life of Zeus that I’d never known about, one that my little girl self wouldn’t have understood no matter how precocious I’d been.
It seemed my man had shit parents. Not shit like Benjamin and Phillipa with their neglect and superficiality. Shit parents like a dad who drank himself silly, couldn’t hold down a job and stole money from his mother who, on her bad days, beat her own son because she was so far past the end of her rope.
The fact that someone had beat on little boy Z made my gut churn like a violent sea and if he hadn’t assured me that they were already dead, I would have used my newly acquired gun skills to hunt them down and use them for target practice.
His uncle Crux had takin’ him in as much as a terminal bachelor VP of an outlaw motorcycle club could take a kid in. Crux, it turns out, was Eugene’s dad, which explained the similarity in size and gruff handsomeness between Zeus and the bar owner. When Zeus was old enough to move out of his parents’ house, Crux had given him the supplies and told a teenage Zeus Garro that the only way to make something out of yourself was to do it with your own bare hands.
So, Zeus had built himself a house and then he’d prospected The Fallen MC just like his uncle.
No one but Eugene and Zeus knew about the little cabin, so even though it was rustic in the extreme, three rooms with a bathroom that was seriously lacking in amenities, I loved spending my nights there.
But between spending late nights and early mornings with Zeus at the cabin, my last week of ballet classes before I’d have to stop for chemo, hanging out with Sammy and Mute, and studying for end of term finals, I hadn’t had time to see Reece.
Which meant that I’d been an ex-virgin for a week and my boyfriend still didn’t know it.
“Fucking epic, right?” he asked me with a wide, boyish grin as he scooped me into his arms and pressed a self-congratulatory kiss on my lips.
“Epic,” I breathed, because through my guilt I also felt something dangerous hit my radar.
Surreptitiously, I looked around the crowded gym over my shoulder as shivers chased themselves across my skin.
“Babe, be ready for a wild after-party when I bring this home for the team,” Reece panted in my ear before squeezing my hip and taking off after his team into the change rooms for a team chat.
I watched him go but that feeling of wrongness remained and before Cassidy, my cheer captain, could rally us for the halftime show, I ducked away into the crowds of people going to the washroom and concession.
I scanned the bleachers, trying to discern a face amid the sea of green and yellow colours supporting EBA and the red and white on Entrance Public High School’s side but nothing jumped out at me.
What I did notice was Mr. Warren.
He was partially concealed by the side of the stands, but I recognized him because he was the only man I knew who wore bow ties. I moved closer, rounding the corner of the benches just enough to see him talking to Talia McCutcheon, his teacher’s assistant from last year who went to the local college now, and Lily Foster, the girl in the year below me that had shown up just as I was leaving his classroom last week.
Curiosity burned through me even as the saying curiosity killed the cat reverberated in my head.
Still, I stalked closer.
It was too loud in the echo filled gymnasium to hear what the three of them were saying but both girls were curved on either side of Mr. Warren like brackets, listening quietly and so attentive.
I didn’t have the first clue what they could all be talking about.
Mr. Warren reached out to take Talia’s hands in his, pulling her close so that her body obscured my view. After a few seconds, she moved away with a deep blush on her pretty face and quickly fiddled with her purse before ducking her head and taking off into the crowd.
Lily lingered, looking pale and terrifyingly excited. Mr. Warren took his time with her, drawing her closer and closer until he was curled around her but not touching. She had her lime green backpack close to her chest like she didn’t want him to get closer and I was this close to interfering when she took off into the crowd.
Mr. Warren stood there for a minute, little smile of satisfaction on his face, his hands in his pockets and his weight on his heels. He looked like a man about to declare checkmate on his opponent and it sent a ripple of alarm down my spine.
I wondered if that was the man who had me seeing warning flares everywhere I turned.
Then I felt a hand on my arm and knew before the rough, wide fingers had even closed around me that the real danger had arrived.
Without turning me to face him, Zeus led me with a hand at my back and the other on my arm deep into the shadows Mr. Warren had just absented. Instead of stopping there though, he pushed me deeper, into the small gap between the metal siding of the bleachers and the wall of the gym. We entered the dark space and the noises of the court immediately receded.
Zeus had me flipped around and pressed against a pole before my eyes could adjust to the dark.
“You still seein’ that motherfucker?” he asked me in a voice that was lower than a rumble and so controlled, I knew I was in trouble.
“Erm, technically, I don’t know if we were ever dating in the first place,” I tried to explain. “The logistics of modern dating are kind of complicated.”
“You fuckin’ with me, little girl? You playin’ with a grown man for sport to learn a few things ’fore you go back to limp-ass teenage dick?”
“Zeus,” I called to him through the fury and pressed a hand against his AC/DC tee-covered chest, right where I knew his scar would be. “I didn’t break up with him because every spare moment this week I’ve spent with you and when I wasn’t with you, I was so busy getting everything done so that I could be with you that I did not have time to see him. Chill, Z.”
His body turned to stone beneath my hand. “You think a man sees his woman kissin’ another man, he needs to chill? I’ll remember that next time I got bitches hittin’ on me at the clubhouse, yeah?”
“Okay, that’s fair,” I admitted, because the idea of any of those women touching Zeus made me manic with violence.
“You’re damn right it is. Come to see my girls cheer and instead, I see H.R. wearin’ her uniform but suckin’ face with her trash boyfriend behind the gym. Then I come in ’ere thinking, at least my good girl will cheer me up, wearin’ that pretty little outfit, and doin’ the splits in a way that’ll remind me how I had ’er doin’ them naked around my cock just this mornin’, and instead I see her suckin’ face with another trash boyfriend. You see the fuckin’ theme here?”
“I see it, definitely,” I agreed solemnly but then pressed up on my tiptoes to take his chin between my teeth in a gentle nip. “I’m sorry.”
He stared hard at me for a minute and then nodded. “Right. Turn around, bend over and hold on to your fuckin’ ankles.”
I blinked at him because even though my body was already growing wet, my brain took longer to understand. “Excuse me?”
He leaned into me with a soft sneer and said, “Bend over and hold on to your fuckin’ ankles. I’m gonna fuck you in this cheerleader getup like I planned to do later tonight, only I’m gonna do it here so when you go back out and break up with that kid, you’ll have my cum inside you.”
A shiver ripped through my body so hard it unbalanced. God, he was almost too hot to handle.
Good thing I was always up for a challenge.
I glared at him even as I spun away and reached down easily to grab my ankles over my frilly edge white socks. Immediately, his hand was on my ass, kneading it under his callused fingers, palming the whole cheek as easily as a basketball. I was wearing full-bottom cheerleading panties, too thick to rip off easily, so instead he shucked them off me and the fabric disappeared into his pocket. Then he flipped my skirt up and ran his thumbs down the seam of my ass, spreading me open so he could see all the way from my asshole to the slippery slit of my sex.
He cupped the entirety of me in his big palm. “This is mine now. My cunt to eat, fuck and play with. Mine to take whenever I want.”
“Yes,” I hissed as two of his fingers slid inside me and hooked against my walls, curling and rubbing slow but hard in a way that had my legs shaking.
“This is for me, little girl. I’m fuckin’ you as a reminder and I don’t want you gettin’ off on it. You hear me?”
Oh God, I barely could through the roar of blood in my ears. I could vaguely make out the dance music as my fellow cheerleaders flexed their bodies for the halftime show. I loved the contrast, loved knowing that I was flexing my body, holding it open in a private halftime show for only one man.
A sharp crack rent the air a second before pain radiated through my ass.
“Lou,” he growled. “No comin’, you understand?”
His fingers played in the shallows of my wet pussy, dipping one inside then two and three, but never deep like I wanted. I was squirming from foot to foot, my face hot from shame and arousal.
“Yes,” I croaked because I knew he wouldn’t fuck me until I agreed and I needed him inside.
I listened to the soft clack of his belt unfastening and the metallic gasp of his zipper. As soon as his hands returned to my hips, I was thrusting back against him.
“So eager for my cock,” he growled before slamming balls-deep inside me.
I cried out, my shout merging with the cheers of the crowd as the teams returned to the court to warm up for the second half. My pussy convulsed around him, struggling and failing to accommodate his girth without pain. I loved the harsh bite of hurt, the way the head of his cock knocked against my cervix. He dragged himself slowly out of my tight pussy, even tighter because I was folded in half, and then gripped my hips hard as he slammed back into me.
A whimper escaped me as I struggled to hold on to my ankles, as I struggled not to come.
“Let me hear you, Lou. Maybe someone above us will notice you moanin’ and beggin’ for me to fuck you. Maybe they’ll get excited and come down here to try and find the source of those sexy-as-fuck moans. Maybe they’ll catch you bent double, takin’ my cock in your sweet teen pussy.”
“Fuck,” I cursed as his next thrust jolted me forward.
“My good girl is so fuckin’ dirty. Gettin’ off on the idea of being found out,” Zeus continued to taunt me with his rough voice, the sound of it like an extra pair of hands stroking all over my burning flesh.
I groaned loudly for him as he drilled me harder and harder, the loud slap of our skin and the heavy sound of my breath the only clear sounds in the muffled, dark space under the bleachers.
I jolted like I’d been electrocuted when one of Zeus’s thumbs slid into the crease of my ass and swirled my wetness around the pleated entrance of my asshole. Pleasure spiraled tight in my lower belly, drawing all my muscles up like a powerful magnet so that I felt my center of gravity in my cunt, my body drawn tight all around it
“Zeus, I, please, fuck,” I muttered.
“Wanna come?” he grunted, his thumb pushing hard at my asshole so it popped just inside and burned. “Does my dirty cheerleader wanna come all over my cock?”
“Fuck, yes, you fuckin bastard,” I cursed him through gritted teeth, then let go of my ankles, placed my hands flat on the floor and spread my legs even wider so he could fuck me harder and I could—finally—fuck back.
His chuckle was a deep, dark thing, wicked and prideful. “I let you come, Lou, you go out there and don’t leave this gym without finishin’ things with that fuck.”
“Yes, yes, okay. Just please,” I whimpered as the thumb in my ass rotated and he lowered his stance slightly so he could fuck up into me at an angle that had his cock raking against that sensitive spot inside me. “Please, you fuck, let me come.”
He laughed again, carted me up so I was only balanced on the floor by the tips of my toes and the arm now banded around my waist, and he said, “Come, then, Lou.”
I did, exploding at the joints and seams of my body so that I felt pleasure even from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. I came so long I could feel my body unraveling like a ball of yarn, loosening from that tension of preclimax to the loosening of ecstasy. My breathy gasps and curses disappeared under the crushing sound of the supporters in the stands coming to their feet and cheering as the buzzer sounded for the second half of the game to begin.
Zeus finished silently, the kick of his cock in my cunt and the tightening of his hands on my hips the only indication of his release.
I preferred it when he roared.
He stroked his thumbs up the inside crease of my ass then palmed each cheek and gave them a rough squeeze. “Love this ass.”
“I’ve noticed.” I tried to stand up and felt the blood rush painfully to my head.
Zeus caught me in his arms before I could lose my balance and fall over but it took me a second to reorient myself against his chest before I could look up at him with a smile.
He was frowning. “You okay?”
“Well, my man just thoroughly fucked me to make a point so I’d say I’m fan-fucking-tastic,” I said with an enormous grin.
He stared at me for a moment before he was satisfied then hauled me up tight against his barrel chest and said, “Come ’ere.”
“I’m here,” I told him the obvious, but I pressed my curves even tighter against his hard planes and put a hand in his hair, the other on the steep ledge of his bearded jaw.
“Yeah, but haven’t kissed my girl yet today. Want you to wear my kiss on your lips so even though I can’t have you by my side like I want, every time I look over at ya in your sweet cheerleader skirt shakin’ those pom-poms, I’ll know it was me who put the red on your mouth.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “So kiss me, then.”
He did.
His mouth closed over mine like the gateway to hell, flooding me with flames and smoke, incinerating my insides until everything but my heart crumbled to ash and all I had left was a pulse that beat just for him.
When he was done—and he took his time—my legs were boneless and the inside of my mouth felt seared with the taste and feel of him.
He dropped me down to the ground so my breasts slid against his hard chest and made me shiver. Then with a face more tender than I’d ever seen and strangely handsome on such stern, rugged features, he dipped down to run a ringed finger over my swollen mouth.
“Prettiest mouth I ever saw but even prettier marked from my kiss.”
I clutched at his forearms and blinked up at him, dazzled by the reality that the six-foot-five god of a man was just as dazzled by me.
I startled out of my dreaminess when one of his hands glided up my inner thigh and dabbled in the wet mess between my thighs, smearing his cum across my entire sex.
“My cheerleader filled with cum and swollen from my kisses,” Zeus rumbled with male satisfaction.
I hit his chest. “You are such a caveman.”
His hand came out from under my skirt and he brought his wet thumb to his mouth to suck off our juices. “Not a caveman, little girl. A biker, and lucky for you too, ’cause another kind of man wouldn’ta just fucked a teenage girl at her high school basketball game and made ’er fuckin’ day.”
I rolled my eyes as I tagged my panties from his pocket and stepped into them. “Oh, yeah, lucky me. Every little girl grows up dreaming about their very own biker, not Prince Charming or a CEO.”
“You did.”
I landed against the wall of his chest with a thump as he pulled me off-balance and glared up at him to find the creases I loved beside his smiling eyes. I ran a finger lightly over the tanned fan of wrinkles and said softly, “I did.”
“Now go out there do your pom-pom thing then break up with the douchebag. I’ll pick you up tonight from ballet at seven, yeah?”
“Bossy.” I shook my head at him, but my heart wasn’t in it. “But fine.”
He nodded, tucked himself back in his pants and buckled up then grabbed my hand to lead me back out the slim divide under the bleachers and into the light.
I blinked rapidly a few times to adjust to the bright yellow light of the gym so it took me a minute to notice Mute standing sentry just to the side of the bleachers, his thick arms crossed over his thick chest and his face as inscrutable as those soldiers outside Buckingham Palace.
I blushed fiercely and kicked Zeus’s foot as I hissed, “Z, you couldn’t have warned me that fucking Mute was, like, aware of what we were doing down there?”
He looked over his shoulder at me and laughed. “Think Mute knows about what happens between a girl looks like you and a man acts like me, Lou.”
I turned to Mute to say, “Sorry, Mute.”
His flat mouth twitched slightly as he shot me a sidelong look. “’S cool.”
Zeus pinched my ass to draw my attention to him and said, “Later, little girl. Remember why I let you come. Make sure you do it ’fore you leave here today.”
Mute cleared his throat to hide his laughter.
I glared at Z, flipped him the bird and slipped back into a line of people walking into the stands so I could rejoin my cheerleading squad. When one of the girls asked me where I’d gone, I’d told them I was feeling dizzy and needed a moment (which after that orgasm Zeus gave me, I did) and when one of my old angel friends told me she loved the shade of my new lipstick, I told her it was called Monster Red.