Vic’s hands are hot as he grabs my pelvis in inked fingers, thrusting into me with deep, long strokes, sweat beading on the glorious lines of his chest and trailing down to the spot where our bodies are inextricably joined together.

“Oh, fuck, Bernie,” he groans, throwing his head back, a glorious dark king trapped between my thighs. I own him, just as he owns me. It’s a give-and-take sort of situation, neither of us really willing to accept that we’re equals just yet.

My fingers dig into the sheets beneath me as I writhe under his heavy body, my skin hot and electrified from days of nearly non-stop fucking. We’re too into each other, me and Vic. When we’re together, it’s hard to remember that the other Havoc Boys are in the hotel, too.

I throw my head back, biting my lower lip as a violent orgasm takes over me, making my body quiver and spasm with unadulterated pleasure. It feels so good, it must be sinful somehow. Nothing this wonderful comes without a hefty price.

Victor comes inside of me with a bestial growling of his own, pumping his hips so hard that he’s probably bruising me as he slams our bodies together. When he collapses beside me with a groan and a sigh, I can feel his hot cum between my legs.

He hates condoms. So do I. We’re going to get into serious trouble together.

There’s a pounding at the door that makes Victor scowl, but does quite the opposite to me. I smile and my heart flip-flops in my chest as I hear Hael call out from the hallway.

“Are you two seriously fucking again?” he asks as I sit up, my blond hair tangled and greasy from so much time spent in bed. I keep trying to shower, but I never make it as far as actually getting to wash my hair before Victor appears, hands soapy and hot as they slide over my breasts.

I shudder as he stands up and storms over to the door, buck naked, his dick still wet with my pleasure.

“What part of honeymoon do you not fucking understand?” he snarls, raking his fingers through his purple-dark hair. “What do you want, Hael?”

Hael raises a reddish-brown eyebrow and then sweeps into the room like he was invited, pushing past his naked bestie to examine the view from our upstairs patio. His sunglasses are pushed up into his red hair, his face open and inviting but also, drowning in cocky bullshit.

He leans his elbows on the banister and looks out at the view of the beach.

“You shouldn’t leave this door open while you’re screwing. Oscar and I could hear Bernadette screaming from our room.” Hael chuckles, like he thinks he’s so damn clever.

Victor scowls at him, but the expression doesn’t last long. Hard to be upset when you’ve just spent the morning having multiple orgasms.

“Did you hear what I just said: honeymoon.” Victor snatches one of the discarded hotel robes we put on last night and slips it over his sweat-soaked muscles. I swallow hard and shift in bed, forcing myself to sit up as he lights a cigarette and stares at me with crow-black eyes. The smirk that takes over his face is made all the more vicious by the fact that he’s just left the damn robe open, dick hanging out like it’s nothing. He doesn’t care if Hael sees him; he’s confident in what he has.

“Yeah, yeah, honeymoon,” Hael says dismissively, waving his hand around as he stands up and turns back around to saunter inside, taking the measure of the room with his honey-brown eyes. “See, the thing is: we’ve given you, like”—Hael checks his phone real quick—“three days to honeymoon.” He oozes this last word out and bats his eyelashes all pretty while Vic scowls in response. “Time’s up.”

“Time is up when I say it’s up,” Vic responds evenly, still casually smoking his cigarette, still with his dick hanging out of his robe. Hael doesn’t seem to care. What he does seem to care about is me.

His eyes rake my body, and even though I’m covered with the crisp white hotel sheets, I feel naked. I suck in a sharp breath and meet his heated gaze dead-on.

“I mean, Hael has a point,” I say, glancing back at Vic. He's watching the two of us with a perplexed sort of expression on his face, like he's sizing up a problem that needs to be dealt with. That scares me. Victor Channing is a man who doesn't like to share. And now, I'm his goddamn wife.

His wife.

I am Victor Channing's wife.

Or should I say, Victor Blackbird. I choke back a laugh and Hael smiles.

“Get the fuck out of my room,” Victor says, turning away to pour himself a glass of Scotch. Callum pinched the bottle from the bar downstairs and gave it to us as a gift the first night we were here. “We'll meet you guys downstairs in an hour.”

“An hour, huh?” Hael quips, giving me another assessing once-over. His gaze burns like fire as he sweeps it across me, and I know it's only a matter of time before he has to prove his point: stand up to Vic or fuck off. Because I can't fight this particular battle for him, or for Aaron, or … well, I don't know what Callum or Oscar are thinking. Oscar, especially. “Well, then, enjoy your tenth orgasm of the day, and we'll see you in a bit.”

He salutes Vic on his way out, pulling the heavy door closed behind him.

“Smart-ass,” Victor murmurs, tossing back the rest of his Scotch and then pouring a glass for me. He hands it over, and I take it, our fingers brushing together in just such a way that I get butterflies.

Butterflies.

Over Victor motherfucking Channing.

They might be black butterflies, with wicked poison-tipped wings, but they still flutter, and I still flush, and the moment is just too intimate for me to deal with. I decide to switch back to witty repartee. Fighting with words, that I can handle.

Emotions are too fragile. They shatter like glass. They cut. They make you bleed.

I'd rather others bled instead.

A chill shoots through me as I think about Neil. What would it be like to be buried alive? I can hardly think of a worse punishment. No, no, that's not true. Having my body stolen from me, my rights, my freedom … What he did to Penelope was worse.

Hands-down.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Vic asks, lighting up yet another cigarette. And see, that worries me. Victor is nearly impossible to read, but he has a few giveaways: he rubs his chin when he's deep in thought … and he chain-smokes when he's nervous.

“We can't hide out in Newport forever,” I say, glancing over at the sliding doors that lead to the balcony. The ocean sparkles at the edge of the world, taunting me. Think of all you gave up by joining Havoc. Aaron was right: there will never be a 'normal' for you again. I sip my Scotch, and it burns on its way down. It's a good reminder that even when something tastes and feels good, it can also hurt.

Life never gives without taking something in return.

“We are not hiding out,” Victor tells me with all due seriousness. He sits down on the edge of the mattress, and it dips with his weight, drawing me toward him. I look back to find him studying me like I'm something new and shiny, something he desperately wants but is afraid to lose. “We're on our honeymoon.” He takes a drag on his cigarette and then shrugs his massive shoulders. “But also, we're here on business.”

“Yeah?” I ask, feeling my stomach tighten with nerves. Now that I've seen what Havoc does in the dark, I'm simultaneously intrigued and nervous as fuck. “I should've known. You boys like to double down, don't you?” He shrugs again, but his vagary bullshit isn't enough, not today, not after the month we just had. “Won't it look bad for your guys' cases, to take off after being arrested? I mean, the VGTF is a segment of the FBI, isn't it?”

Victor laughs, this deep, throaty, male laugh that just oozes confidence. I can practically feel it coating my skin, poisoning my blood with lust. He's everything I never wanted in a man, but everything I need. He balances out my dark side in the best possible way.

“Fuck the VGTF,” he says, examining the long train of ash at the end of his cigarette. “They don't have shit on us.” He lifts his head to look at me, his purple-dark hair falling across his forehead and making my heart spasm in my chest. He has no goddamn right to be so pretty, so smug, so rude, so good in bed. Ugh, fuck Victor Channing and the horse he rode in on. “They only came after us because Brittany started running her mouth.” He stabs his smoke out in the ashtray on the nightstand. To be honest, I didn't think Oregon had smoking rooms in hotels anymore. Color me surprised and elated.

Victor pauses for a long moment, staring at the oil painting on the wall across from him.

“Fucking Brittany,” he grinds out after a moment, clenching his teeth against her name. “I should castrate Hael to keep him in line. We don't have the resources to deal with a Fuller High brat and her angry Protestant cop-daddy.”

“There are already rumors circulating the Prescott High social media circuit. Everyone thinks you guys broke out of the station and are on the lam.” I down the rest of my drink as Victor laughs again.

“Oh, please,” he says, looking back at me with his ebon eyes. “We lawyered up and skipped the fuck out of there singing show tunes. Once Oscar's finished with Brittany's dad, he'll be facing charges for what he did to us.” Vic cocks his head to one side, like an animal who's just scented blood in the water. “The only factor we don't have under control here is Ms. Keating.”

I close my eyes against the Vice Principal's name, a sick feeling churning in my stomach.

Breonna Keating is still in the hospital, and she has yet to wake up. But when she does, she's going to tell a story about Neil Pence, and about me, and I need to figure out how to deal with that when the time comes. The thought of calling her a liar makes me sick.

I've decided that Ms. Keating is not human.

How can she be? She's too nice. She makes me question everything I know about the world.

“Leave her to me, okay?” I say, and Vic turns slowly to look at me, assessing, curiosity apparent in his dark gaze. It's hard for me to focus on it though because his dick is just sort of … there, hanging out and taunting me. I'm having trouble concentrating. Fuck me, I'm dick drunk, I think with a groan. “Don't look at me like that, Victor.”