Wicked Harmony

Chapter 36 | Iri

Chapter 36

Iri

I don’t miss the slight shift in Sin’s expression when I excuse myself from our makeshift party on the rooftop. Just like I didn’t miss the way the mood changed, from fully PG fun and games to something with a distinctly sensual undertone as the evening progressed.

While I’d love nothing more than to have taken that next step with Sin, to take her just the way I’ve been imagining whenever my mind wanders, I knew I couldn’t stick around.

Not when there’s something I have to deal with first.

Sin’s words from earlier repeat in a loop in my head.

She doesn’t want secrets between us. Hates them, in fact.

Weeks of being fed tidbits of information about her, and I feel like this is a pretty major part of Sin’s personality. Despite living in hiding for years, she clearly hated it. Hated the lies and the experience of never being able to show her true self.

I’ll bet living in a cult was no picnic either, especially if she was opposed to all the shit Orlog was involved in.

She doesn’t like underhanded dealings or people keeping things from her. And in the past, I’ve been guilty of both.

And while I told her the ways I’ve been trying to lure out Cedar Orlog over the past few weeks, I didn’t fill her in on everything. There are still a bunch of moving cogs, things I set in motion weeks back and haven’t heard about in far too long .

I’m done with keeping this shit to myself. Sin didn't throw me out the plane window when I told her about my failed catfishing attempts, so maybe she won’t flip her lid when she finds out I went one step further.

Not only did I hire the same tracker who helped me pin down her location to Willow Ridge to trace Cedar Orlog’s most recent location. I also employed Elara—Sin’s friend—to help him out.

Tricky thing is, I haven’t heard from either of them in a couple of days. Which could mean nothing, since they’ve been coming up empty so far on tracking Orlog down. But I’ve got another gut feeling that says that’s not the case.

I dial Josse, my tracker contact, as soon as the suite door clicks shut behind me. The line rings five or six times before he finally picks up and he sounds less than happy to hear from me.

“Boss.” He sounds out of breath and there’s a faint echo to his words, like he’s just stepped out of a tunnel or he’s in the bathroom.

I sure hope it’s the first one.

“Josse, what’s the latest? You haven’t given an update since last week.”

“Yeah, there’s a reason for that.” There’s the sound of faint rustling in the background. “We finally tracked the slippery sonofabitch down and then he immediately went on the move. We’ve been trailing him ever since, but he’s barely stopped for more than a couple of hours at a time.”

“Are you and Elara together?”

“Sure are, boss. She’s a live one, I’ll tell you.”

Don’t I fucking know it. Ever since she first got my cell number, she’s sent me no less than five texts and voicemails per day. Some are random musings and song ideas, but most are monologues on her dogs.

She’s apparently a superfan of the band, and yet doesn’t seem to give a shit that she’s spamming my phone with this stuff at all hours .

Still... Sin likes her and I kind of do too.

In a way, she kind of reminds me of my mother.

Which begs the question...

“Hey, Josse, you know what sort of demon Elara’s related to?”

He pauses, still wheezing. “Funnily enough, that hasn’t come up. Isn’t it, I dunno, rude to ask people that sort of shit?”

Maybe. “I’m just curious, is all,” I mutter back.

If she is part Chaos demon, there’s no way she’d care about me asking. From my experience, there’s not a lot they do care about, apart from family. My mom would tear the world in two if she thought I was in danger. Hell, she got close to opening a portal to another dimension when I didn’t get the part in a school play one time.

“So where did you track him down to?” I ask. “Any idea where he’s headed?”

Josse grunts. “That’s the reason for the radio silence from me, boss. He’s not in the country.”

My stomach clenches as Josse continues, “It explains why everyone on his tail has had so much trouble tracking him down.”

“So where is he?” My question is abrupt, but I can’t help it.

“Funny thing is, we tracked him to Centralis. He’s only a couple of hours away from where you are right now. He met up with what looked to be some of his hangers-on yesterday. They all kept trying to kiss his hand, so I’m guessing they’re his ex-followers or—”

“—Devoted,” I correct.

“—whatever. We considered one of us trying to infiltrate their meetings to see what he had planned, but there were too few of them. It’d be too conspicuous.”

“No shit.” I snort, imagining Elara or Josse trying to go undercover. Josse is a six foot eight bear shifter who tracks like a dream and somehow goes unnoticed, but once you’re in a room with him, you can’t miss him.

“Have you still got both eyes and ears on Orlog?”

He lets out a weary sigh. “It was harder than it should have been, boss. Somehow, our first set of mics got disconnected, so we had to start over. The guy is squirrely, but he’s not saying anything useful. Nothing about your girl, either.”

“All right then. Keep me informed.”

We hang up and I have to take a second to pull myself together.

All my grand plans of finding and hog-tying Cedar Orlog and leaving him on a demon mobster’s doorstep are feeling pretty out of reach right now.

He’s here. A few thousand miles away from where he should be.

In bringing Sin on tour with us, we’ve inadvertently brought her closer to the guy she’s spent half a decade trying to stay well away from.

Good fucking going.

No good news to share with Sin, either. If I had his head in a box to present to her, or even a bit of good news, I’d feel better about knowing I need to come clean about spending weeks trying to track him.

Maybe I should find out if she has any asshole ex-boyfriends and might want their severed dick in a box instead.

I sit and stew, not realizing how much time has passed and that I’ve missed everyone having returned to the suite until there’s a tap on my door.

I’ve done nothing productive for the past couple of hours, alternating between scanning the latest bullshit stories about us and digging through anything I can find on Cedar Orlog.

“Yeah?” I call.

I’m surprised when the door opens slowly and Sin’s head pops inside. Her hair is still damp, and she smells like a decadent mixture of lust and satisfaction that has my cock perking up in my pants.

I shift in my seat and scout around for a cushion to hide my instant reaction to her.

“Hey, can I come in?” she asks softly.

I nod silently, not trusting myself to speak.

“You, er, left the party early, and I wanted to say thank you for the picnic. It was exactly what I needed.” She shoots me an uncertain smile and it makes something twist inside me. The way she’s standing is like she’s not all that sure I’ll want her in here, when that’s patently false.

I want her wherever I am. Always.

“You’re welcome.” I’m standing before I know it, hard dick and all. Stepping closer until I’m right in front of her, I brush my thumb over the soft skin of her neck.

So delicate.

So perfect.

I want to lick a stripe right there and taste the tang of salt on her skin.

Her breath stutters and it’s enough to bring me back to myself. I step back.

“There’s something I need you to know,” I tell her. Might as well get this over with right here and now.

“You said something earlier about not wanting there to be any secrets between us and I... I’ve been keeping something from you. I thought I was doing a good thing, but I understand now that you might not feel that way.”

She frowns, her expression growing wary.

Fuck. I feel like I’m babbling, and that’s not me at all. I’m normally cool and collected, organized. Right now I feel like my mind is a messy suitcase with all my thoughts piled on top of each other and I have no clue what I’m going to pull out first.

“Cedar Orlog,” I say, wincing internally as she pales at the name. “I’ve had eyes on him for a few weeks now. He seems to be on the move. I’m not sure what he’s planning or where he’s headed, but I have people following him. I, er, have Elara following him. ”

“How long exactly have you been keeping tabs on him?” Her eyes narrow and I know she won’t like this next part.

“Ever since you agreed to join us in the cabin.”

“So, every message Elara sent me over the past six weeks, she’s been working for you?” Her voice is quiet, but it tangles up my insides just the same as if she was screaming at me.

“That makes her sound like she was spying on you. She wasn’t, Sin. She’s just been trying to track Orlog down.” I shake my head, holding up my hands in supplication and feeling like a giant asshole. “I thought she could do with the work.”

“So where is he?”

I pause, unease swirling in my gut as I clear my throat. “He’s, er, actually not too far from here. And he’s on the move.”

She pauses, blinking as my words sink in. “You think that it’s a coincidence that my face is splashed all over the internet and suddenly he’s in the same country, halfway across the world?”

It’s something that’s already crossed my mind. “I should have kept you out of the limelight. We never should have exposed you like this.”

But I was too focused on trying to fix things for my brothers. Too slow on the uptake to realize how important Sin is to us all.

“Iri,” she says my name so softly, I force myself to make eye contact with her, rather than staring at the floor like a coward. “You don’t need to beat yourself up. In the future, I’d like you to keep me in the loop about stuff that involves me, but I appreciate you taking care of me, just like you look after everyone else.”

My brain stalls. That is not what I was expecting her to say. I was expecting anger and for her to chew me out, sure. Not this softness.

“I have an idea,” she continues. “What if we could use the media being assholes and the stories online to our advantage?”

I frown, cocking my head to one side. “What are you suggesting? ”

“We lure him out, like you suggested when you were failing to catfish him. But instead of your weird alternative persona—Grock Masterdon—seriously?” She snorts. “We use something else to lure him out.”

My gut twists as I take in her expression. Her jaw is set and her eyes gleam with determination.

“Lay me out as bait and tip off your scary contacts when he inevitably shows,” she says.

I shake my head. “No. Hell no, Sin. That sounds... risky.”

She shrugs. “So? What’s he going to do to me, even if he gets to me? He can’t bundle me into a bag and force me back into The Path. I’d have all four of you watching out for me.”

At some point, she stepped closer without me noticing. Her feet are now touching the tips of mine and she reaches out to run her hand in circles on my chest, right over my pounding heart.

My voice is hoarse as I tell her, “I want to protect you, Sin. Not dangle you in front of a guy that exploited you for years.”

“Not everything is your decision, Iri.” Her tone lowers to a purr and I’m totally distracted from her words, once again, by my hardening dick. My knot pulses as my balls tighten with need.

Licking my lips with my eyes lasered in on her mouth, her pink lips part with my attention and I absorb the wave of lust rolling off her.

She cocks her head to one side. “Iri, why are you still holding back with me?”

Holding... back?

My brain stutters.

“Do you want to kiss me, Iri?”

I take a steadying breath, trying to modulate the turmoil of emotions going through me.

“I’m intense, Sin. I know myself. I’ve scared enough people off in my life to realize that I’m a lot to take. ”

“Is that the reason for the one small thing game? Getting to know each other in controlled doses?”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. But I guess she sees me even more clearly than I see myself.

The need to understand her, to know her, has been almost unbearable, and it was what I could come up with to dose myself in Sin, tiding me over until the next day.

“You might be right.”

There’s a half smile on her face, like she’s trying not to smile at me and is failing.

“Well, I want to know you too, Iri,” she says. “All of you.”

Her eyes glint as she wraps her arms around my neck and tugs me down until her lips are meeting mine in a hot, hard, needy kiss.

Fuck. The taste of her fills my mouth and I let out a guttural groan.

“Are you sure about this, Sin? This is a box I can’t put a lid on once we’ve pulled it off. I’m going to be—”

“Intense? Infuriating? Addicting?” She snorts. “I know. Give me all of it.”

The last part is said against my lips as she kisses me again and I just about lose myself to the feeling of her against me.

Fuuuuck. This is not at all how I expected tonight to go. Nor did I expect to find someone willing to accept all the scarred and off-putting parts of me.

I’m controlling, sometimes domineering. I don’t sleep or eat or drink like a regular person. I get obsessively focused on things in a way that scares most people.

But Sin seems to accept all of that without question. And it’s not just me she accepts, either. It’s all of us, and she fits with us without even having to try.

I never thought one person could take us all on.

But Sin is perfect .

Ours.

My gut twinges with the rightness of that word.

Yeah, it took far too long for it to sink into my thick skull.

Without breaking contact with her mouth, I bend and lift her up and she wraps her legs around me. Then I’ve got her pressed up against the door and I’m devouring her mouth, grinding my pelvis against the heat of her pussy.

I can smell her arousal. And I’m absorbing her lust at a rate that’s going to keep me fed for days.

Shit. If we go further, I won’t last long. I’m about two seconds away from coming in my pants.

Then Sin pushes my chest, and I let her down without argument.

Right. Maybe it’s a good idea to take a step back, take a breath. We can—

—she drops to her knees in front of me and I stare down at her, wordlessly gaping like a fish.

“What are you doing?” My voice is a barely audible rasp as I try to pull her back to her feet. She shakes her head, her fingers determinedly undoing with my button and fly and my cock jumps wildly.

“No. Sin. Let me taste you. I want to bury my face between your thighs and taste your sweet cunt.”

She ignores me completely, freeing my dick from his confines and letting out a little moan that has pre-cum beading at the head.

“You’re going to let me take care of you for once. Let me, Iri. Let go.”

“Sin,” I groan her name, tossing my head back as she slicks up the head of my cock with her tight fist.

Then her fingers trail down until she’s massaging part of my knot—the bulbous appendage just at the base of my cock, which grows whenever I’m turned on, ready to lock me together with my mate as I flood her sweet cunt with cum. Right now, it’s rapidly growing harder with her attention on my dick .

“I’ve never been knotted before,” she tells me softly, causing more pre-cum to dribble out of my throbbing cock.

“We don’t have to,” I mutter, surprised I can string a sentence together while she’s working her hand up and down my shaft and simultaneously massaging my knot. “You’re tiny compared to me. Wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

“Huh.” She cocks her head to one side before slipping the head of my cock into her mouth and giving a hard suck that has my knees shaking. “Cal said something similar when he was fucking me. I can take all of him, though.”

Trust Sin to take our words as a challenge. Even if she struggled with taking us, I bet she’d practice like mad or train herself to take us both.

That’s why I love this woman. She’s determined. Somehow both soft and tough as hell.

Fucking made for all of us.

She lowers herself over my cock, taking me into her hot, wet mouth as far as she can while flicking her tongue around my shaft. Normally, I’m drawn to taking control in the bedroom, but this time, I’m more than happy for Sin to take the reins.

“You are a goddess,” I mutter, staring down at her in awe. She licks up and down my cock, using her hand to jerk off the parts she can’t fit into her mouth.

It’s heaven.

And then she slowly takes another inch and I can feel the head of my cock hitting the back of her throat as she swallows around me.

She speeds up, slipping her hand down and pulling up her dress to reveal her bare pussy. She then massages her clit and I absorb another huge shot of lust and pleasure rolling off her.

Letting out a little groan that has vibrations traveling through my cock, she increases her speed and I suck in a sharp breath. Clutching the door behind me, I cling on as my legs shake violently .

Then she squeezes my knot hard and I come like a fucking freight train. My balls empty as my knot pulses, growing impossibly thick and hard.

Sin swallows it all, licking her lips and panting slightly as she gazes up at me.

“You are glorious,” I tell her.

Or at least, I think that’s what I say. My tongue isn’t working and I feel like I might collapse any second.

I have the presence of mind to help her to her feet and pull her into my chest, drawing her scent into my lungs like it’s all I need to breathe.

“Maybe someday you can knot my mouth.”

That seals it. I think I might actually be dead, but if it feels like this with Sin pressed up against me, I’m all right with that.

“So, we’re in agreement then?” she says lightly. “We’ll use me as bait.”

“Mmmph.” It’s all I can manage to say, but Sin seems to take it as acquiescence.

“Great.” She presses a gentle kiss over my heart.

What the hell did I just agree to?