Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

52

THERON

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the tension that erupted between Nyx and Atlas.

In another setting, I absolutely would have pushed the line just to see what I could get them to do to each other. I wasn’t interested in joining, but I sure as hell liked to watch and orchestrate the pleasure between them.

But not here.

Not here where Vetticus could capitalize on their connection and use it against them. Not here, where our pleasure was only a facade, another way for him to control us.

Nyx pulled out of Red and helped her stand up. Atlas pushed her hair out of her face with a small smile. She looked up at the two of them with a glazed look of pleasure and a little bit of awe in her eyes.

“That was really hot,”

she said breathlessly.

Nyx flashed her a quick grin and winked.

“Go to Preacher,”

I told her.

Preacher had his arm thrown over the back of the couch where he had watched the entire thing. He was already hard and stroked his cock slowly.

“You three put on quite a show,”

he said as Red approached him. He pulled her onto his lap and with his hands on her hips, brought her down on top of him. He groaned softly as he slid inside her, not seeming to care that Nyx's come filled her.

“They got you nice and wet for me.”

He dipped two fingers into her pussy and brought them back to her ass, swirling her and Nyx together.

“Ever been taken there, sweetheart?” He asked.

She nodded. “A few times—I—I didn’t like it,”

she said quietly, her forehead creased in concern.

“I’ll be gentle,”

he said although his eyes held a dark sinful look as he rubbed his fingers between her ass cheeks and pushed them forward. She whined softly in protest. “Just relax, I’ll make it feel good.”

She leaned forward into his chest, hands gripping the back of the couch near his head in a death grip. Nervous energy was etched all over her face but it slowly gave way to pleasure as she moved up and down on Preacher’s cock. Preacher buried his two fingers all the way in her ass and slowly moved them in and out in time with her riding his cock. Red started panting and grinding her hips against him, speeding her movements up as she chased her pleasure. I had a perfect view of Red’s ass and I watched Preacher slide his fingers out and gather some of her wetness then he pushed three fingers in. She stopped and squirmed on his lap.

“No—”

she gasped. “It’s too much.”

“Keep going,”

Preacher said firmly.

His free hand found her clit, and after a few strokes she moved her hips again. Her breathing became erratic, and she made whimpering noises that made Kane curse softly under his breath from where he sat nearby in an armchair.

“You going to come for me?”

Preacher murmured. He looked up at her flushed face as his fingers stretched her ass. A gasp escaped her lips, and she nodded. “I need your words.”

“Yes, please—I’m going to come,”

she whined. He teased her clit and a moment later, she shattered on his lap, gasping and crying out as the waves of pleasure crashed over her. She coated Preacher’s cock with her come and her movements slowed as she hummed in satisfaction. But Preacher wasn’t done. He lifted her off of him and stood up.

“Hands and knees on the couch. Facing them,”

he demanded.

She obeyed, briefly meeting my eyes with a nervous look. She knew what was coming as Preacher positioned himself behind her. I couldn’t see what he was doing but from the look on Red’s face, he was slowly working his way into her ass. She hissed and tried to move away.

“Push back, beautiful—relax for me.”

He pushed forward more, and she whimpered but didn’t protest.

“Fuck, you’re so tight.”

He gave a solid thrust that made her curse and whimper but his hand came around and played with her clit and as soon as she relaxed, he pushed forward and his hips sat against her ass.

“Such a needy ass, gripping me so tight,”

he panted.

He moved slowly at first to let her adjust.

“Your pussy likes it too,”

he rumbled. He must have his fingers inside her because her lips parted and her eyes shut and a look of rapture crossed her face. “There we go.”

He picked up the pace and he brought both hands to grip her hips, driving into her hard enough to provide us all with a view of her breasts bouncing. Red gripped the arm of the couch in a death grip but it was pleasure that was overwhelming her now and soft moans escaped her until she couldn’t take it and pressed her face into the cushion.

Preacher looked down and pulled her ass apart to watch as he drove in and out of her. He growled in pleasure and a few thrusts later his hips stuttered and he threw his head back as he came. He slowed his movements and looked back down, admiring the way his cock looked as he dragged his come in and out of her ass.

“Beautiful,”

he muttered. He gave her a quick spank as he withdrew for the final time. He grabbed her hair and pulled her up to look at him. She looked dazed, and he ran his knuckles over her cheek.

“Such a good girl for me,”

he said. “I told you I could make it feel good.”

Her face transformed into glowing pleasure as she basked in his praise. She got off the couch, and took a few steps towards me but I shook my head and nodded at Kane.

“Show the newcomer what victory feels like,” I said.

Kane didn’t waste any time. He’d apparently watched as much foreplay as he could stand because he grabbed her and forced her to her knees. He pressed his cock against her lips. He was rough and Red quickly had tears and spit running down her face. He held his cock down her throat until she choked and scrambled for air, then he pulled back just enough to let her gasp in a breath before doing it again. Her eyes fluttered, and she almost passed out but he somehow took her right to the edge without her going over. It didn’t take long after that and after a few more thrusts; he pulled out and came all over her face. She took it without complaint and when he was done. He smeared his come from her cheek to her mouth.

“Clean it up,”

he rasped. She sucked his fingers clean, and he repeated the process until his come was gone from her face.

“I think I enjoy winning,”

he said loudly to the room.

Red looked exhausted as she made her way over to me, and to be honest I wasn’t really in the mood. My entire body hurt—pretty much everything except my dick. I growled as she climbed onto my lap, wincing as she brushed my side.

“Easy, beautiful.”

She rocked her hips, rubbing her wet pussy along my cock.

“I’m glad you won,”

she whispered.

I sighed and leaned my head back.

“Losing is bad for our health it would seem,”

I said quietly.

“Mine too,”

she whispered.

“You’re going to have to get me hard again,”

I said to her. She nodded and slid down my body until her tongue swept over my length from base to tip. She took me between her lips and I closed my eyes, sinking into the pleasure. It didn’t take long, and I grabbed her hair and pulled her up to me again.

I ran my hands up her thighs and lifted her hips. She grabbed my cock and eased her way onto me until she was sitting with me fully inside her. I ran my hands up her back and into her hair. My hand gripped hard and yanked her forward, bringing my lips near her ear.

“Did you like getting your pussy and ass filled by my men, Red?”

She looked through her lashes at me.

“Yes, sir.”

She leaned forward, and I let her, dropping my hand from her hair. She dragged her lips along my neck and nipped my ear. “Let me take care of you now.”

My approval rumbled in my chest as I closed my eyes and turned my mind off to everything but the pleasure she was eliciting.

At first it was weird having Kane with us.

After so long of it just being the four of us, I had to get used to there being someone else on our team. He didn’t quite fit in with us but we included him as best we could. Nyx thought he was amusing. Atlas was always staring at him trying to get a true read on him and Preacher was just annoyed.

But despite his quirks, Kane was just a man who’d seen too much and somewhere along the way, his mental state had decayed into who he was today. Erratic, unpredictable, but skilled in combat, tracking and sharpshooting. He hadn’t put any of us in danger in the field and he’d followed orders. As long as he continued doing that, I didn’t give a shit how weird he was.

A few weeks after the last game, Nyx and I were walking around the dirt track. Atlas was lounging in the grass nearby, Preacher was working out and Kane was standing in the middle of the lawn looking out into the forest.

“What do you think he’s doing?”

Nyx muttered. “He’s been doing that for almost thirty minutes now.”

“He’s a strange one,”

I admitted. “But he took care of business out there and he made it back so I guess I can’t really fault him for a few strange behaviors.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how long he lasts,”

Nyx said. “What are we going to do about Kai’s team? I don’t like the idea of him turning the other teams against us.”

“I don’t see how the other teams would want that,”

I mused. “There still can only be one winner…why would they let Kai win?”

“That’s true,”

Nyx shrugged. “Have you thought any more about the escape plan?”

“I think we need to make a move soon,”

I said. “I don’t want to wait until morale drops to a point where we can't execute at the highest level. I’m afraid Vetticus is just going to chip away at us until we’re so far gone there’s nothing left to save.”

“I’ve had that thought too,”

Nyx said quietly. He opened his mouth to say something but stopped.

“Spit it out, Nyx,” I said.

“What happens if we lose again?”

“You’re not getting taken,”

I said flatly.

“You can’t know that—”

“Yes. I can,”

I turned to him and stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Because he’s going to take me instead.”

“What? No—T,”

Nyx protested. “I—I can handle it—”

I held up my hand to stop him.

“I’m not doing this because I think you can’t handle it—”

“I mean, I kind of lost it for a minute,”

Nyx interrupted. “I’d understand if you thought that way.”

I stepped closer to him, my jaw clenched in anger. “It means you’re still human. I want you to keep that part of yourself for as long as you can,”

I said fervently. “I see your shadows, I see who you become out there, we’re all a little fucked up like that—but you also still have a heart in there, Nyx. It’s black, and it’s a little beat up,”

I gave him a smile. “But it still works.”

“And yours doesn’t?”

“I don’t know,”

I said honestly. “But it can only be me. I don’t want Atlas going either, because I fear what will happen if he’s subjected to that trauma again.”

“He told you?”

I nodded. “After you told me what happened to you, he shared his story with me. It can only be me.”

“But—”

“I’m not backing down on this, Nyx,”

I said firmly.

“But what happens if you break?”

He asked. “We need you, T.”

“No, it has to be me because I’m already broken,”

I said. I hesitated to tell him everything. I’d said I wasn’t going to talk about my family in this place, but I needed him to understand. “His men shot and raped my wife—and then slit my son’s throat—in front of me.”

Nyx was silent.

“He was referencing my daughter that time in the showers with Yuri,”

I continued. “I’d sent her into the woods to hide. But apparently he got to her too.”

Nyx pressed his lips together and instead of offering pity or an apology—he knew me better than that—he settled his gaze on the mansion.

“He has a lot to atone for,”

he said coldly.

“He does. So let me deal with him.”

I was being honest; I didn’t think Nyx was weak. I thought he was stronger than all of us for actually allowing himself to feel and work through what happened instead of shoving it aside. I firmly believed the only reason he was able to come back to us for the next game was because he sat with his feelings and talked to Atlas and eventually me.

I couldn’t do that. I didn’t talk.

I boxed it up and shoved it into a corner and operated in the gray because I didn’t want to feel anything—good or bad.

Did my heart work? At one point I’d thought I knew what love was but the longer I was here and the longer I sank into my plans for revenge, the more it seemed to get farther and farther out of reach. Maybe, in a selfish way, I wanted Nyx and Atlas to keep their humanity so they could be my anchor, otherwise I was afraid one day I’d wake up and discover there was nothing left of me.

Not even the broken pieces.

“How’d you get your name, Preacher?”

Kane asked.

We were inside for the night and Preacher was laying on the couch lost in thought. “You don’t ever say anything religious or nothin’,”

Kane continued.

Nyx hid a smile at Kane’s blunt and personal question. Kane had a habit of not filtering his thoughts. He’d asked Atlas why he wore his hair in a bun when it was more practical to just shave it all off. Atlas had looked at Kane’s bald head and raised his eyebrows before shaking his head and walking off, refusing to humor him.

“I’m not religious anymore,”

Preacher said.

Kane just looked confused. Preacher sighed and sat up.

“I used to pray before every job. Made a point to include any of the team who wanted in on it. It was just a ritual I had going on.”

Preacher saw all of us invested in his answer. He tilted his chin up and ran his fingers along the scar on his throat.

“Problem is—I didn’t see God when I was close to death,”

he looked at Kane. “I saw the devil.”

“Why’d you choose that name here then? You could have been anything,”

Kane said.

Preacher shrugged. “It was my old call sign.”

He paused for a moment before continuing. “I don’t want to forget who I am in here. God has forsaken me—but I can’t abandon myself. We have to compartmentalize, but at what point do we lose ourselves and become what Vetticus wants us to become?”

He shook his head sadly. “I may have killed and done some terrible shit—and I may even go to hell for it—but I’ll be damned if I lose myself enough to forget everything he took from me.”

Silence fell as we all digested what he’d said. Then Kane ruined it. “So how’d you get the scar?”

Preacher looked at him in resigned amusement and shook his head.

“A serial cop killer broke into my house,”

he said. “Came up behind me and—”

he ran his fingers across his scar again.

“Jesus,”

Nyx muttered.

“They say when you get close to the end you see lights and tunnels—angels—that sort of shit—”

He shook his head. “I saw nothing but fire, and shadows that looked an awful lot like demons.”

He rubbed his neck like he could still feel his life blood bleeding out over his hands.

“I woke up in the hospital. I guess the guy had dragged me into the nearby wetlands and left me to die. It’s a miracle anyone even found me. According to the medics, I died on the way to the hospital—was out for over five minutes. I couldn’t talk for months afterwards but I’m alive. Haven’t prayed since.”

“You don’t think it was God who gave you that miracle?”

Kane asked.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,”

Preacher said. “But I do know, when I was on the verge of death and when I died, there wasn’t anyone welcoming me home, just dragging me further into hell. My faith felt real foolish after that. Why would I continue to pray to someone who’s just going to abandon me in the end?”

“You don’t believe in forgiveness?”

“God supposedly loves sinners, right? Yet the true villains go to hell. What’s the difference between me and someone who’s evil? We’re both doing it consciously, so should I still ask for forgiveness? How can I ask for forgiveness when I know I’ll have to sin again tomorrow? And sure, maybe you could argue that I don’t enjoy it or whatever like a truly evil person—but maybe I’m just lying to myself about that too.”

He shook his head. “Anyway, now that I know I’m most likely not going to heaven, I just don’t see the point.”

Kane fell silent with the rest of us while we all thought about what Preacher said.

“How’d you get your scar, Kane?”

Preacher asked.

Kane relaxed back on the couch.

“I was captured while on a job,”

he said. “Tortured for information.”

“Where did you serve?”

Nyx asked.

Kane yawned and stretched out on his bed. “I was GGK.”

My eyebrows shot up, and Nyx whistled low in appreciation. From the look on everyone’s faces, Kane was making a lot more sense to them. GGK was an elite commando unit of the Malaysian Army. They faced some of the toughest training out of any unit in the world.

“They of course didn’t get anything from me but they did ruin my good looks,” he joked.

“I’ve seen a video where you guys do live firing target practice with each other,”

Atlas said.

“Have to trust the man standin’ next to you,”

he said easily. “Or in this case, across from you. I will say, your balls shrivel up real quick when you have to put that paddle between your legs for the first time though, but you get used to it.”

Atlas chuckled and shook his head with a look on his face as though all his questions had just been answered.

“I commend you guys for that,”

he said. “The US would never.”

“Eh, you guys are capable though,”

Kane said, waving his hand. “You especially.”

He pointed to Atlas.

“Talk about performing under pressure,”

Nyx remarked.

Before anyone else could respond, the lights turned off, plunging us into darkness and signaling the unspoken agreement of it being time to call it a night. I settled back and now that the mystery of Kane was solved, my mind traveled back to what Preacher had talked about.

What made us different from evil men? Evil was knowing you were doing something bad or hurting others and doing it anyway. Wasn’t that what we all did day after day?

The belief of the devil implied the existence of God because like the paradox of life, there is no good without evil. There is no light without the darkness.

There is no life without death.

Maybe that was our purpose—to be the dark that allowed the light. To be the evil, so there could exist the good. To go to hell, so that others could go to heaven.

It was all too philosophical and as I drifted off to sleep; I agreed with Preacher—I didn’t know what to believe anymore and I wondered if that made me smart, or nothing more than a damn fool.