Chapter 3: Claiming What's His

NYX.

“That’s my fucking dick,” I muttered under my breath, heat rising through my body so fast it made my vision blur at the edges. For some reason I was so fucking angry I could barely stand still. I was angry at the blonde’s soft moans still hanging in the air, angry at the way Roy’s hands looked gripping someone else’s hips, angry at myself for ever believing the way he watched me at dinner meant a single thing.

Roy’s head snapped toward the doorway the second my voice cut through the room. His hips stilled completely. The blonde beneath him froze, eyes going wide.

“Nyx, what the hell are you doing in here?” he demanded, voice low and sharp with warning.

I ignored him. My feet carried me forward before my brain could catch up, the tiny black skirt swishing against my thighs with every step. I stopped right beside the desk, close enough to smell the fluid in the air, and locked my eyes on the woman who still had his cock inside her.

“Get out,” I told her, the words coming out flat and cold. “Right now. Get your clothes and leave.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Roy growled, finally pulling out of her with a slick sound that made my stomach twist hard. He reached for the shirt that had been tossed over a nearby chair, but I didn’t look at him. I kept my gaze fixed on the blonde.

She scrambled off the desk like the floor was on fire, eyes wide and panicked, grabbing her dress and shoes in a frantic pile against her chest.

She bolted past me and out the open door, the sound of her bare feet slapping down the long hallway fading fast until there was nothing left but the two of us and the heavy silence.

The second she was gone I turned on him fully.

“How could you do that to me?” I demanded, voice shaking with the force of everything I was holding back.

Roy dragged a hand down his face, still half-hard, still naked from the waist down, still smelling like another woman’s body. “How could I do what, Nyx?”

“Don’t play ignorant with me,” I snapped, taking another step closer. “I know you wanted to fuck me at dinner. I saw the way you kept looking at my nipples through this stupid top. Don’t you dare stand there and pretend you felt nothing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he cut in, voice tight in the way that always meant he was lying.

“Oh really?” I laughed, the sound ugly and sharp in the quiet room. My hands went to the hem of the net top and yanked it over my head in one rough motion.

The tiny skirt followed a second later, pooling around my bare feet. I stood there completely naked under the harsh overhead light, hard nipples pointing straight at him, chest rising and falling too fast. “Tell me you don’t want to fuck me. Look at me and say it.”

Roy’s eyes flicked down my body once before he locked them firmly on the wall behind my left shoulder. “You’re delusional, Nyx. I could never do that to my best friend.”

“Forget about him,” I said, stepping even closer until I could feel the heat coming off his bare chest. “It’s just us both right now. You want to fuck me. Don’t you? Just admit it.”

He bent down without looking at me, picked up the discarded net top from the floor, and tossed it against my chest hard enough that I had to catch it or let it fall. “No, Nyx. I don’t want to fuck you.” His voice was cold and final. He still wouldn’t meet my eyes. “And next time I say don’t go somewhere, you better fucking obey me. This room is off-limits for a reason.”

He moved past me toward the door, grabbing his shorts off the chair on the way and yanking them up over his hips. “You’re just a kid. What could you possibly know about sex?”

The words hit the exact wrong place inside me.

Something in my chest cracked open so wide I felt lightheaded. Tears flooded my eyes so fast the entire room blurred into streaks of light and shadow.

I didn’t bother putting the clothes back on properly—I just yanked the net top over my head with shaking hands, put on the skirt and stumbled out of the room on bare feet. I bolted straight out the front door of the Stark mansion without looking back.

I walked, then started running, the cold pavement biting into my feet, until the lights of downtown blurred around me and the distant sound of traffic finally drowned out the memory of his voice.

I found a bar with a flickering sign and music loud enough to make thinking impossible. The place smelled like spilled beer. I climbed onto a sticky stool at the far end of the counter and slapped my hand down hard enough to make the bartender look up.

“Two whiskeys,” I told him, voice rough. “Whatever’s strongest. Don’t water them down.”

He poured without comment. I downed the first one in three burning swallows and chased it with the second before the heat even settled properly in my empty stomach.

The alcohol hit fast. My wolf was silent for once, shocked into complete stillness by the rejection, by the scent of another woman still clinging to the inside of my nose, by the way Roy had looked through me like I was nothing.

A guy two stools down turned toward me after the third drink arrived. Early thirties maybe, dark hair, easy smile, the kind of look that said he was used to women saying yes without much effort.

“Rough night?” he asked, nodding at the empty glasses lined up in front of me.

“You have no idea,” I said, already signaling the bartender for another round. “Buy me the next one and I’ll tell you about it.”

He did, then another after that. The whiskey stopped burning and started floating somewhere behind my eyes. My limbs felt loose and heavy.

“You’re too pretty to look this angry,” he said, leaning closer so I could hear him over the music. His knee brushed against mine under the counter. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Nyx,” I answered, and laughed like the name itself was funny. “And you’re not bad yourself. What’s yours?”

“Does it matter?” he asked, grinning in a way that showed he already knew the answer.

“Not really,” I said, and let him buy me one more, then another. The music got louder. His hand settled on the bare skin of my thigh just below the hem of the skirt.

By the time we left the bar the sidewalk tilted under my feet like a boat deck. His arm was solid around my waist, steadying me, guiding me toward a mid-range hotel two blocks over with a red vacancy sign. I didn’t argue, I didn’t think. I just wanted the sharp ache in my chest to shut up for five minutes, even if it meant letting a stranger put his hands on me.

The second the door clicked shut he was on me, mouth on my neck, hands shoving the net top up under my arms, fingers pinching my already hard nipples.

I fell backward onto the mattress hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. The ceiling spun in slow circles. My skirt was shoved up around my hips without ceremony. Cool air hit my bare pussy, I was still wet from earlier.

He unzipped his jeans with one hand. I heard the sharp tear of a condom wrapper. Then the blunt, thick head of his cock pressed against my entrance, not quite pushing inside yet, just resting there while he settled between my spread thighs.

I stared at the spinning ceiling, legs open, body too drunk to protest, mind too wrecked to care what happened next.

Maya was completely silent, everything was silent except the man’s uneven breathing and the distant sound of traffic outside the window.

Then the door ripped off the wall.