Dukes of Madness: Chapter 22

While admiring her skin, I linger on the bruises. They’re yellowing now, old enough that I can’t make out the shape of my own fingertips. I still know where they came from, my fingers digging into flesh and bone as I slammed into her from behind. I know they shouldn’t get me hard, but they do. It’s the purple of it, the sense of tenderness. I put marks on peoples’ skin all the time, but it’s different when the mark is beneath it.

Her stomach ripples, caving as my fingertips glide from hip to hip. Sy’s been feeding her well and a part of me wants to tell her, See? She used to be scared of him, but he’ll take care of her, make her strong, transform her into the Duchess she was always meant to be. Nick will keep her safe and spry, because he’s never what he seems and always what we need.

But me…

What will I be?

That’s not something I usually consider, preferring the here and now, because tomorrow… I can’t predict that. I think about it for a long time as she sleeps beside me, Sy having already peeled himself from her bare skin to have his morning jog. My class starts in an hour, but for now, I let myself indulge in the sight of her in my bed, so soft and warm.

When her eyes flutter open, I’m still fixated on the bruises, thinking. Always thinking. That’s what she and Sy don’t get about the drugs. They let me consume it all. The thoughts become more of a library and less of a tornado when I’m on them. I can let every idea come and pass, tucking it carefully away just as the next arrives. I know it’s not good or healthy, but goddamn. How is it fair that they feed me three pills every day but tell me I can’t have the one I want?

“What time is it?” she croaks, head turning to search out a clock.

“I don’t have a clock in here,” I tell her. “Time is just a countdown to things I don’t want to do.” Everything fun happens spontaneously, without the need for measurement or devices. Temple propped on my fist, I press my thumb into the yellowing skin. “Did it hurt?” Her eyes are still swollen and red from the crying jag last night, and she gives me a bleary stare, blinking in confusion. “Did I hurt you?” I elaborate, shifting my gaze to the bruise on her hip. It’s almost directly over the tattoo I’d put there, seven points and their galaxy of decaying blood.

Her eyes follow mine, and she swallows. “Not like that.”

I don’t say I’m sorry because I’m not sure I am.

Instead, I bend down to press my lips to the yellowing spots, explaining, “You lied to me. I had to show you that you’re too close for that now. I warned you that night on the cliffs that it’d make you mine.” When I glance up, she’s staring at me, eyes wide and wary. “Not just my Duchess or my steady fuck. I let you in. You get that, don’t you? I opened my soul to you, Vinny. I know it’s ugly—maybe it doesn’t even mean anything to you, but—”

“It does,” she argues, frowning. Her fingers thread tentatively through my hair, my eyes fluttering closed at the sensation. “I’m just trying to take care of it,” she whispers, voice rough as gravel.

I push into her hand, luxuriating in the feel of her fingers against my scalp. “I want to tattoo you this week.” That’s what I’ve been thinking about all morning, even before Sy had woken up. I’ve been looking at all this skin and positively fucking itching to cover every inch of it. I haven’t felt something like this since Nicky got his first piece, and never in my life have I felt it with a girl. Not even Tate.

“Oh.” Her fingers pause in their lazy scritching, but only for a second. She knows I’m not asking permission, but she still gives it. “Okay.”

The swelling in my chest is almost too much to bear. It’s too complicated to call excitement, although it’s close. This itching, restless, impatient urge to get started is so strong that I can’t help but fidget, fingering the elastic of her underwear. Black lace. “What do you want?”

Her eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean?”

“For your tattoo.” My dick has been hard since she slid beneath my blankets, and I don’t think twice about rolling over her. “What do you want?”

Her thighs spread for me, letting me grind myself against her lacy panties. “I don’t know,” she says, frowning. “I never know.”

There’s a yellow ochre in her eyes that makes my hips still, a hollow depth of frost I saw in her last night that hasn’t departed quite yet. I try to chase it away with my lips, dipping down to kiss her. Her hands skate up my ribs, so soft that it tickles, but even though she opens her body to me—spreading her thighs for my hips, parting her lips for my tongue—it’s not enough.

“What happened last night, Vinny?”

The spark of lust in her eyes dims. I sweep her hair from her cheek and watch as she makes a choice. Tell me or not? “You were right,” she says, her whisper warm and damp against my lips. “Leticia’s dead.”

I push up to look at her. It’s strange. I’ve wanted so badly for Vinny to accept this, but now that I see it, I just want to erase the hopelessness in her eyes. “We don’t know for sure. She could still—”

She pushes me off.

Seriously.

She clenches her thighs and does this little bucking twist with her hips, and then jarringly, I’m flat on my back, watching her climb out of the bed.

The fuck?

“Can I show you something?” she asks, jamming her feet into the leg of her jeans.

I gape at her as she pulls my shirt over head, still thrown off balance. I might not be as big as Sy or anything, but goddamn. She totally just fucking manhandled me. My dick gives a confused little twitch. “Uh, okay.”

She waits, watching as I step into a pair of boxers, giving my dick a sad little squeeze before caging it up inside a pair of jeans. I’m not sure what I’m expecting when she drags me out of my room and to the door, down the flight of steps that leads to the party room, but watching her feel around the stone wall just inside the main stairwell isn’t it.

“What are you looking for?” I ask, shivering, wishing I’d thrown on a shirt, too.

Her gaze is distant but focused, fingertips searching all along the wall. “He said it’d be here,” she mutters, turning to the opposite wall and trying that. It’s not long before her fingers catch on something, her body kicking into motion as she pulls a stone free, and then the one beside it. This has to be some cranny Nick has found, probably relayed to him over beers in his parents’ basement, his dad or his pops telling stories of their glory days.

She pulls out a wad of frayed fabric and turns to me. “This is her,” she says, pulling back the fabric to reveal a skull.

Last year, my anatomy drawing class had a deal with the science department where we got to study their incoming shipment of specimens. It was my favorite class—the only one I had perfect attendance for. Skulls, yes, but also femurs and scapulas, metacarpals that hadn’t been assembled into the shape of a hand yet, organs in formaldehyde, animal fetuses and malformations. One of those drawings became the inspiration for a tattoo on my forearm; a two-headed bear cub. Sy and Nick. My perfect little fucking malformations.

I crouch down to get a better look, mouth parted in fascination. “How do you know?”

Lavinia just says, “I know,” and I get it. Strip away the skin and flesh, muscle and veins, and I bet I could place Nicky and Sy.

I reach out, hand hovering over a cheekbone, but don’t make contact. “She’s beautiful,” I breathe, eyes tracing the curves and dips, the angles and lines. I want to draw her, to match her up to the vision I’ve had in my head all this time. A beautiful dead girl.

When I look up into Vinny’s cold, gray eyes, I see a hurt there.

“It’s not the kind of hurt you can see…”

So I touch her instead, palm gliding up the back of her thigh. “Almost as beautiful as you,” I add, because it’s true.

I don’t want to draw Vinny. I want to draw on her—in her. I want to shape her into a piece of myself. Her expression falters, something falling away. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but it leaves her without that steel armor, a vulnerability to her gaze. I wonder if Nick realizes.

Pick Vinny over someone else, and you have her in the palm of your hand.

“Where did you find her?” I ask. If Leticia’s body was found, maybe there’s evidence, a way to track whoever was with us on the cliffs that night.

But Vinny’s face falls. “Remy…” She shakes her head, lips forming around words that never come. “Please don’t make me lie to you again.”

I feel my own face fall. “You can’t tell me.”

She reaches up to place the skull back inside the wall. “It’s not that I don’t want to, or that I don’t trust you. I just…” Sighing, she leans against the wall, arms crossed, shoulders curled to protect herself from a hurt she’s expecting me to give her. She looks so much smaller than she had mere seconds ago. “I just can’t.”

Intuitively, I know why. Whatever this information is, it’s dangerous. She’s protecting me. I stand, fixing her with a hard stare. “Does Nick know?”

She nods, biting her lip. “Yes.”

“And he’s got your back? He’s keeping you safe?”

The words make her flinch in a way I don’t understand, but she answers, “Yes,” with an intensity I’m not expecting. “Nick would do anything to keep me safe.” Lower, she repeats, “Anything.”

“Okay, then,” I decide, hemming her in against the wall, cradling her jaw. “I trust you.”

The kiss is slow and sweet, and even though the tower is roughly the temperature of a morgue freezer, it heats me from within, stirring my blood to life as I plunge my tongue into her mouth. Sy will be running up here soon, telling us to get ready, that we’ll be late for class, but I take my time, and Vinny…

She unfurls against me, uncrossing her arms to wind them around my waist, bringing me close. “The tattoo…” she whispers, brushing her mouth against mine. “I know what I want.”

“Anything,” I say, that gnarled excitement spurring to life.

Her eyes flutter open to meet mine. Once again, I see that flash of vulnerability, her whisper sounding far meeker than it deserves to. “Give me wings?”

I think about this, watching her hazy eyes. Nick calls her his Little Bird, but it doesn’t quite fit. Vinny isn’t made of feathers and small, breakable bones. She’s something more ephemeral than that. A shadow that expands and contracts.

I touch her lip. “Only if you promise not to fly away.”

She smiles against my finger, so open and sweet that I ache with it. “Cross my heart.”

The week gets so busy and bogged down with responsibilities that there isn’t room for much more than routine.

Sy always wakes first. Vinny goes jogging with him, and I don’t know what they talk about—if they even do at all—but after that night she came to us, bleeding her soul all over her cold cheeks, she and Sy have been back to normal. Bickering in the mornings. Ignoring one another in the afternoons. And at night…

At night she disappears into his room with him.

Whatever they’re doing, it can’t be too elaborate. She’s always flustered and impatient in the mornings, and Nicky and I always share a tragic look. Sy apparently knows how to get a girl horny, but he’s not making much headway with doing something about it.

On Friday morning, we watch this same song and dance—Vinny emerging from his bedroom short-tempered and irritable, while Sy strides out looking perfectly satisfied—and Nicky mutters, “What a fucking waste.” Solemnly, I nod back in agreement. The only one of the three of us with unfettered nightly access to her wet pussy is the guy who doesn’t even know what to do with it.

Whatever they’re doing, Sy is a fucking beast at Friday Night Fury, absolutely creaming this poor Psi Nu sucker in the ring. Nicky, Vinny, and I all watch from the side as he bobs and weaves, kicking the guy’s legs out from beneath him. They grapple a little, but Sy lands a sick uppercut in the third round that takes the Psi Nu right off his feet, a clean TKO.

Later, at the party, after Sy has gotten his victory tattoo, I watch from the couch as he and Vinny cross paths at the bar. It’s pretty packed tonight, so they shift past one another full-bodied, him reaching out to steady her by the hip. I’m not sure anyone is expecting it when he dips down to press a quick but no less sensual kiss to her lips, licking out to meet her tongue before smoothly gliding away. Vinny blushes and twists to watch his retreat, licking the taste of him from her mouth.

Yeah, she’s horny as hell.

Proud of my boy, though.

People whisper about it, and after that, both the DKS boys and the cutsluts watch them—Sy and Vinny—and I know what they’re all wondering. Has he fucked her with that firehose in his shorts, yet?

Nick and I share a long, knowing look, because we’re both aware they haven’t.

I don’t really get a chance to pay respect to my idea until Sunday.

It never comes perfectly formed. It starts more like a puzzle. Dozens of pieces scattered across the table, a hodgepodge of shapes and colors. I know whatever the chaos is will create a design, but it’s not until I have them all flipped over and sorted into little piles that it starts to make sense.

I pace outside the bathroom, listening to the sound of her inside. The faucet turning on and off. The rustle of the shower curtain. I spin the marker in my fingers, round, and round until this thing swelling in my chest bursts to life, propelling my fist to the wood.

Bang bang bang.

“Are you almost done?” I shout, voice too loud and clipped. I try the handle and the door actually gives. Vinny has on dark purple boy shorts, one arm threaded through the strap of her bra.

“Remy, what the hell?” She covers her chest, jaw dropped in outrage. “Shut the door!”

I barge into the steamy bathroom and grab her hips, driving her against the wall. Then I pluck the lacy bra from the crook of her arm and toss it aside, uncaring of the glare she shoots me. Her hands are still clamped over her tits, making them full and round, but no—not now. Using the marker—washable instead of my usual permanent—I start drawing the design on the flat plane of her chest.

“Is this some kind of break?” she asks, tone completely serious. “High? Low? What are we dealing with here?”

“Not a break,” I say, raising my eyes to hers. “A breakthrough.”

I push her out of the bathroom, through the living room, and into my bedroom. “Get on the table,” I demand, knowing my tone is too curt. This isn’t anger. It’s passion. Inspiration. An artist needs his muse.

She tries to look down at the design on her chest, but it’s out of her line of sight. “Not until you tell me what’s going on!”

“Your tattoo,” I explain, turning to the table. “I can finally see it. Crystal clear, like stars during an eclipse.” Shifting through the sheets of paper, sketches, drawings, a few colored, others black and white, I find a half-baked concept I’d started a few days ago. It’s been nagging at me ever since, but I had a real bitch of a paper due, and if I’m going to prove my dad wrong and remain a Duke, then I need to pay more mind to actually passing.

Eventually, I stand in front of her and run my hands down her arms, traveling past the bend of her elbow to where she cups her tits. Gently, I pry her fingers off, one by one, and rub my thumbs over her nipples, gently working them into hard peaks. It’s not necessary for the art or anything. I just like seeing her horny. “It’s been coming to me in pieces. Little flashes. Sometimes it’s like that. Marathon, not a sprint, that sort of thing.” I pause, eyes darting up to hers. “You’ll let me, right? You’ll let me give you your wings now?”

Her pupils expand, and she swallows, nodding her approval. “I’m ready.”

She lies back and I get my supplies together, pulling the sterile needles from the autoclave in the corner, picking through the bottles of ink. “This will take a few sessions,” I warn her. “And the location, it’s gonna hurt like a mother. Just let me know if it gets to be too much.”

She tilts her head to the side, watching me. “I have a pretty high pain threshold.”

I flash her a smirk. “You’re the Duchess. Of course you do.”

Once everything is together, I sit on my stool, snap on a pair of latex gloves, and roll over to her. It feels good to be back in the seat. Aside from Sy and Nicky’s victory tats, I haven’t had a good, solid session in a while. We’re eye to eye, and I grip her chin. Brushing my lips across hers, I taste the mint of toothpaste and smell her soapy skin, and I wish I would have fucked her first, hard and slow, loosening her up. But the image is burned into my head like a goddamn cattle prod. It won’t let me rest until I get it down.

I run my hand down her neck and start the prep, cleaning off the marker and disinfecting her skin. She shivers from the cool liquid, goosebumps rising, nipples tightening, but she stays still. It was the first thing I loved about her, how willing she was to lay on my table and let me have her skin. The template comes next, and I rub it on, getting it exactly where I want it.

Once it’s right, exactly right, the lines aligning with the vision in my head; I grab the gun, giving it a couple testing zaps. “Ready?” I ask, resting one hand on her belly.

“Yes.” Her eyes are wide and trusting.

The vibration fills the room, runs through my veins and thrums in my ears, and I push aside everything else and begin the slow, tedious cycle of inking and then wiping away the excess ink and blood. I can tell it hurts when her body tenses up, fingers curling, her breath caught.

“Too much?” I ask, pausing.

Her jaw is tense, but she grinds out, “No. It’s weird right? It hurts, but it also feels… enthralling?”

“Yeah, it’s the good kind of pain, right? Makes you feel alive.” I allow my eyes to slide down her body. “You wet?”

Her cheeks blush pink. “Um. A little?”

Not that I tell her, but my dick’s been hard since I put her on the table.

Slinging my hair back with a jerk of my neck, I bend back to the outline, ignoring the prickle of sweat on my neck. “Focus on how I’m gonna take care of that for you once I’m finished. Okay?”

She nods, mouth twitching as she stares up at the ceiling. “Okay.”

I lose track of time when I’m caught up in my art. It’s why I don’t usually do big pieces on anyone but Nicky, who can tolerate hours and hours in my chair without complaint. Others… I get so absorbed that I forget they need breaks, rest, a chance to feel something other than the nagging sting of it. It’s annoying, a shock to my brain to be yanked out of the act so suddenly. But Vinny’s design has carved itself into different phases in my mind, so I work slower than normal. Every part of it has to be perfect.

I’m not sure how long it takes, but I know that by the time I look up, reorienting myself to something that isn’t her skin, the light in the window has shifted.

“There,” I say, snapping off the gun. I eye the outline, the skin raised and raw. “I think that’s enough for now.”

I put down the tools and slide my hands under her body, lifting her off the table. Without question, I take her right to my bed, sitting on the foot of it. Grabbing the tube of ointment, I carefully spread a layer of the thick, shiny cream over the angry lines. She tips her head back, relief clear on her face as she winds down, and I spend a long moment staring at the long, soft column of her throat.

Before I’ve even finished capping the ointment, I’m pressing my tongue to it, licking a slow path to her chin. Her eyes fan open in the millisecond before I capture her mouth, kissing her like I’ve been thinking about for hours. “It’s sexier than I even thought.”

“The tattoo?” She makes another futile attempt to look at her own chest.

“Seeing you marked.” I run my hand down her body, over her tits and down her belly. Fuck. This is all mine. Mine to mark. Mine to play with. Mine to dive inside.

Her chest rises and falls, every expansion and contraction seeming to make the tattoo’s wings move. “It’s not the first tattoo you’ve given me.”

“True, but it’s the only one you’ve wanted.” I think maybe that’s it. I didn’t give it to Vinny to prove that I own her. I gave it to her because she’s mine. There’s a difference, and it hit me full force that night on the cliff when I buried myself inside of her for the first time. I did warn her. There’s a reason I don’t tattoo other girls. Being that close to someone is dangerous. Wanting them for more than their body, wanting to see myself inked into them, is an invitation for misery, because Nicky, Sy, and I have this in common.

We don’t do things by halves.

We fuck like we fight, and we love like we die.

Vinny is a danger. A potential misery. Normal women leave or cheat or lie or just fucking die, but Royal women? They do all of that with an intensity that rivals the sun. I might not agree with his methods, but I understand Sy’s reservations with having a Duchess.

But something inside of me has latched on to something inside of her, and I’ve accepted it.

So I slide my hand under the tight shorts and feel the sticky heat of her arousal. My cock swells in reaction, and I climb over her, hooking my fingers into the edge of her panties and tugging them over her hips.

I know exactly what I want.

I toss the panties on the floor and spread her thighs apart, dropping my nose against her wet heat. “You smell so good, baby.”

“Remy, gross.” She squirms, but I clamp my hands down on her thighs to still her.

I argue, “No, it smells different,” and dart my tongue out to taste her. “Sharp like steel. Like adrenaline. You’ve been sitting on the edge of a knife for hours, just letting your body percolate and build.” I flatten my tongue against her pussy, tasting and taking and feeling her body shudder with it.

“Oh,” she breathes, falling back on the bed. “Oh, fuck.”

Humming, I slide my hand down to my cock, giving my balls a squeeze.

And then a heavy fist lands on my door, knocking.

“Come in,” I call, winking at Vinny before diving back in.

The door opens, and I hear, “Hey, man, do you have any of that ta—” Sy goes abruptly silent in the doorway. And then, “Fuck. Uh, sorry.” I look up and see his nose wrinkled in distaste.

I give Vinny’s clit a lingering kiss before giving Sy my full attention. “Why don’t you take over?”

Sy frowns. “Take over what?”

“Eating our Duchess’ pussy.”

Her knees clamp shut. “Remy!”

“That’s a hard pass,” Sy says, jaw tensing. He looks down at Vinny and adds, “No offense, I’m just not doing that, ever.”

I push her legs back open and inhale her scent. It’s changed a little. Cooled. Asshole. I kiss down her inner thighs, working her back into it. Between kisses, I say, “You’re missing out, bro.” I reach her pussy and kiss her clit. She squirms and her hand reaches out, fingers clawing into my hair. “She’s so good like this. Putty in my hands.” I smirk up at her from between her legs. “I wonder if that’s why he can’t do it. Not enough fighting?” I brush my knuckle over her opening. “Or maybe it’s because, in his fucked up mind, you’d be the winner.”

“It’s none of those things, asshole,” he says, hand reaching down to not-so-discreetly adjust his boner. “I’m just not putting my face down there. Or my mouth.”

While he talks, I give my girl what she needs, and her deep, airy moan fills the room. She yanks at my hair, pulling tight while I grind against her foot, dying for friction. But I can’t help but notice the lack of a door closing. Sy doesn’t leave, and a slow slide of my eyes reveals he’s still in the doorway. For a dude not into eating pussy, he sure seems to like watching me do it.

Which is pretty fucking bogus, if you ask me.

I look up at him. “If you want a show, go turn on some porn. Participants only, dude.

He hesitates, but then asks, “What does it taste like?”

I give him a look. There’s no way he hasn’t sucked the taste of her off his fingers before. “Trying to put that into words is like trying to explain string theory. Pussy tastes fucking amazing, and it’s never the same twice.” I gesture for him to come closer. Vinny sighs, eyes staring at the ceiling in frustration, and I give her clit a little caress with the pad of my thumb. “Be patient, Vin. My boy needs to learn how to properly eat a woman out. You’ll get your orgasm. Promise.”

I’m doing this for you more than me.

“Take my spot,” I tell him, moving up the bed, sliding behind Vinny and cradling her against my chest. “Spread for him,” I order, cupping her tits and massaging them—taking care to stay clear of the fresh tattoo. Sy walks forward with the air of a man who’s inching into battle. Shoulders squared, face hard, a little flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He eyes her cunt like it’s a demon, but finally kneels before her.

Lavinia’s eyes are wide and wary, and right before Sy moves to dive into her pussy, I realize what’s going to happen. Anything I can do, he has to do better. He looks like he’s about to eat our girl alive.

I stop him. “Hey, go slow. Easy. There’s a lot of nerves down there, and they are not into going eight rounds with your tongue. I’ve got her warmed up for you, just… spar. Playfully.”

Since she’s progressively eked her knees together, I run my hands down her body and use my long arms to grab for her thighs, spreading them wide for him. I hold her open, and he stares at her pussy.

His face is still screwed up.

“Christ, you’re going to give her a complex. Vinny’s pussy is amazing. The sooner you realize that, the better you’ll be at mastering it.” With one hand, I reach between her legs and roll my fingers on her hot little nub. She exhales and tries to close her legs, but Sy’s hand snaps out and holds them wide. “That’s the spot,” I tell him. “Gentle.”

There’s another long moment before he sticks his tongue out, flat and awkward. Vinny tenses against me, but I kiss her side of her neck, lathing my tongue, distracting her until he makes contact.

He licks her pussy.

A shudder rolls up her spine. “Ah!” she gasps, back arching.

He looks up, eyebrows hiked to his hairline. “Was that right?”

Vinny nods, hips rising, and grunts out a, “Unnnnhunn.”

He grins.

“Suck on her clit,” I tell Sy. “She likes that. Don’t you, Vinny?” She nods, fingers curled in the bedspread and Sy, for once in his goddamn life, follows directions. “Fuck her with your tongue. She’s so good and wet, yeah? You do that to her, you know. You’ve been doing it all fucking week—making her strung tighter than a goddamn piano wire.”

Sy gets really excited when he hears about this, mouth opening wide to tongue her, which isn’t a surprise. For some reason, he’s always been on this kick that girls don’t want him. Sure, his dick is scary, but if he ever gave someone a chance to get used to the idea, he’d be a fucking sex god. Instead, he storms away at the smallest sign of hesitation. Insecure fuck.

He’s not storming away now, though. His eyebrows are a little furrowed, but the crevice between them isn’t disgust. He’s feeling his way around here, testing as his tongue makes a tight, sweeping arc around her clit.

The woman under me writhes from the attention, body twisting in pleasure as we both dote on her. Finally, she thrusts a hand in Sy’s hair, the other clutching my forearm so tight that her fingernails sting. My cock is ramrod straight, drilling into her back. Every move she makes gets it harder.

I turn to whisper into her temple, “You think you can come for him, beautiful? You feeling it?” She nods, face twisted into my arm. Her quick panting breaths heat my skin. I can see her toes just starting to curl as Sy knees up closer, tongue working her harder now, determined, pointed. Her hips rise and fall, legs trembling, and I fist a hand into her hair to keep her close, rumbling to Sy, “Let her come on your tongue, man.”

Sy’s tongue firms to a point over her clit, and I don’t even know what this fucker was worried about, because he flicks her into a complete mess of fricatives and bucking hips, her mouth opened wide around a keening cry.

The room fills with color, blindingly hot, as she comes hard against his mouth, her whole body lurching with the force of it. Sy makes a sound, deep and guttural, and plants both palms onto the mattress for leverage, forcing her to take it. Her hands are thrust in his hair, thighs clamped around his ears, and Christ. She’s basically fucking his face, her hips chasing the point of his tongue.

She settles into these little panted cries, her muscles seizing with every pass of his tongue.

I thumb her mouth and say, “Keep that open for your Duke, Vinny.”

I ease her back on the pillow, body limp and fluid. There’s a strand of hair plastered against her face and I gently brush it back as I tell Sy, “Come on, brother. It’s her turn to taste you.”

He shoots up, fingers clawing at his fly, and I’m not sure I like the look in his eye. It’s feral and barely controlled, polluted with an edge of menace. Exactly the kind of thing Vinny will fight against.

“Chill,” I whisper, hoping she doesn’t hear over the rush of her pulse in her ears. “She’s a sure thing. Just give it to her.”

He knows what I mean—I can tell by the way he takes a deep, measuring breath. For him—for this moment—giving is better than taking. When I slide out from beneath her, it’s because I know Sy will be good to her. Giving in to his impulses is easy, and he never takes the easy way out of anything. We trade places, passing at the corner of my bed, and I have my shirt off and my dick out before I even kneel on the mattress between her knees. Sy is just as worked up, so it’s no shock when he has his monster out just as quickly, standing near the edge by her head.

She already looks wiped out, which is just how I want her when I spread her thighs, slot the head of my dick up against her slick entrance, and slide inside. It’s a slow thing, nothing like the last two times we fucked. This one is for Sy’s benefit just as much as ours, and I can feel his wide eyes on the point where we meet, my dick disappearing into her wet hole.

Vinny arches her back, hand shooting out to grab a hold of something, anything, and finding Sy’s hand. “Remy,” she pants, head digging back into the pillow. “Oh, fuck—oh, god—”

Sy grasps her hand and watches in fascination, mouth parted. “Is she… tight?”

“Fuck yes,” I grunt, my balls already drawn high. I’ve been dying to be inside her all week, and I barely allow my hips to retreat before driving my dick back into her.

Sy’s eyes are heavy, dropped into slits as he leans forward and palms her thigh, spreading her for a better look. “She’s fucking soaked.”

“You did that.” It probably stings a little to know my dick is enjoying the fruits of his labor, but Sy doesn’t show it.

He just grips his cock and tugs at the head, straightening to loom over her. “Look at me,” he says, voice wrecked as he jerks his cock.

Vinny’s eyes flutter open, but she sees his cock before anything else, his hand gliding up and down the shaft. Before she can protest, I lever myself down, grinding myself into her clit, balls deep. The glazed ecstasy returns to her eyes and she strains up, just a hair, to flick her tongue out, licking at what I know from experience is the most sensitive part of a man’s cock.

Sy doesn’t come.

My thrusts stutter, but I keep at it, surging into her as Sy holds fast, staring intently at her plush lips. Without even a second of hesitation, he dips down to rub the head of his cock against the crease of her mouth, and it’s so fucking hot.

She instantly closes her mouth around it.

“That’s it,” I grunt, punching my hips into her. “You’re gonna make us come, Vinny. Think you can take us both, baby?”

She’s so drunk off her orgasm, she’d probably agree to anything, but the way her cheeks hollow with a hard, deliberate suck, make me think she’s doing it because she just wants to.

Sy growls, a ragged, raw sound ripping from his chest, and I know when his thighs tense, muscles flexing, that he’s about to spill on her tongue. So I grab her hips, tilt them up, and slam into her one last time, allowing the ripple of liquid hot pleasure to course through me.

Sy’s gasp is preceded by his hand wedging beneath her head, holding her still with a fistful of hair as his cock begins to pulsate, jerking wildly between her lips. My own cock twitches along as if we’re synchronized, my cock emptying into her with long, violent jerks that make stars explode behind my eyelids.

Her throat bobs with a hard swallow, taking every drop Sy had to give her, and I hear a rumble come from Sy’s chest as he backs away, the head of his dick flopping from her mouth.

“Such a good, patient, willing girl,” I tell her, bending over her to press a kiss to her red cheek. When I pull out to collapse beside her, I leave enough room for Sy in the bed. To my surprise he takes it, flopping onto his back, forearm thrown over his eyes. Her eyes flutter shut, and soon she’s asleep between us.

After a few minutes, Sy finally recovers, eyes dropping to her body. His fingers reach out for the tattoo, ghosting over the outline. “A butterfly?” he asks quietly.

“Not exactly,” I answer, although Vinny could own a butterfly. Metamorphosis, change, rebirth and all that shit. But this one was inspired by the sight of her holding Leticia’s skull. Vinny wants wings, but she’s not a bird. She’s nocturnal, celestial, an omen of death, for some. I explain, “It’s a death’s-head moth,” and even though he raises a questioning eyebrow, I leave it at that.

No one knows better than Sy that victory tattoos are personal, a depiction of who we are at different phases in our lives. Lavinia may think she’s ready for wings, ready for rebirth, but before she can fully transform, she’ll have to go through something else first. Grief.