Wicked Charming (Wicked Ever After Book 1) Read online

  I let my lips turn up in a very deliberate smirk and watch her head drop as a flush rises up in her cheeks.

  That is fucking adorable. Celeste can still blush, even though she was naked and panting under my touch and coming around my fingers just last night.

  "Eyes forward, big guy," Wolf says easily, tugging me forward. I wasn’t aware I'd stopped. "Mal wants us."

  "Everyone seems to today," I grumble.

  He glances at me, and his lips twitch in amusement. "You still upset with Mama?"

  I don't respond.

  Wolf hasn't been forced into the family business because, for all that Mama loves him and he's my brother through and through, he's also not a Charming, despite the fact that his parents were more than happy to put some distance between them and their youngest, wildest son.

  Sometimes I wonder if any of us came through school with a healthy image of family.

  Beast might have.

  Mal and Beast are sitting in the back alcove, Mal quietly reading on his phone while Beast babbles about the new subs he's been training. The way Mal doesn't even look at him gives the impression that he's not listening, and I can hear that anxious thought bubbling in Beast's voice.

  Of the four of us, Beast is probably the most insecure. I think it must be hard to be a submissive in a group of guys like us.

  "You're taking the floor tonight, Wolf. No shows," Mal says.

  "Yes, sir," Wolf nods agreeably, dropping into the seat across from him, leaving me at Mal's right. He still hasn't looked away from his phone.

  "You were supposed to scene with Candy, Charming. What the hell happened?"

  "Celeste caught my eye," I say, shrugging

  It's a shitty excuse, and I know I won't actually get away with it.

  Mal's dark eyes come up slowly, and he's silent, watching me with the kind of cold calculation that terrified me in school and then terrified the men he served with in the Marines.

  Now those same eyes terrify the members of the Kingdom.

  I, however, just meet that icy stare with a quick smile. "You wanted to know if I could still scene. I can. Candy doesn't do anything for me. The problem, Mal, isn't me. It's the girls."

  "But not Celeste."

  I shrug, because I really don't want to admit to that.

  "You stopped to speak to her, in the bar."

  I straighten, frowning, and he lifts his phone, wiggling it a little. "Cameras, brother."

  Fucking creepy bastard.

  "Dude, you can't actually watch the tapes. People are being fucked on some of those," Beast groans, and I'm glad one of us has the balls to say it. Mal smirks at him, a tiny quirk of the lips, and then focuses on me.

  “Don’t kinkshame, Beast. Maybe Mal likes that kinda thing,” Wolf says, lazily, and Mal flips him off.

  Then his attention swings back to me. "Why?"

  I shrug. "I like her."

  That earns a blank stare from all of them, and I frown. "I do like the girls I fuck. It's not always just sex."

  "When was the last time it wasn't just sex?" Beast asks, eyes wide and wondering.

  I give him a dirty look and Wolf shifts. It pulls our attention to him. Wolf has always been able to do that without even speaking. But then, he’s more like his brother than he is truly comfortable with.

  Mal and Wolf might share blood and they might be close friends, but they both hate that they’re similar.

  “She could be your plus-one,” Wolf drawls.

  “Are you fucking stoned?” I demand, laughing. “You want me to take a fucking sub to face my father’s Board of directors. My Board of directors.”

  He shrugs. “You need someone for a few months. You like her.”

  “And she’s a bartender who has nothing in common with him,” Mal interjects, calmly, cutting off the thought that’s gathering in the back of my mind.

  She isn’t mine, not to keep, and she wouldn’t fit in my parent’s world.

  I don’t fit in my parent’s world.

  “You said last night that you want a girl you want to collar,” Mal says, effectively dismissing Celeste from the conversation.

  I give him a cautious kind of stare. There’s a devious note to Mal’s voice that makes me incredibly nervous.

  “I have an idea.”

  I end up in the Quiet Room. It's exactly that—a room of soft benches and lush beds, with softer music, and the whisper of skin sliding along skin and lips parting.

  There are other rooms, where you can go and get fucked, beaten, tied up and ridden, where Doms can publicly humiliate and subs can crawl across a dirty floor to kiss the tip of their Dom's boot.

  But the Quiet Room is about the quiet of intimacy, the hush of aftercare, the warmth of making love without the heat of fucking.

  I like it here. I like the ambiance and the way it doesn't assault the senses and pull my Dom instincts to the surface, the way I can hear myself think, even when the room is crowded and whispers spill like sibilant secrets.

  The thing is, it's not a bad idea.

  It could bring me a submissive who I could trot out in the real world, offer me the chance at a relationship that I still am not 100% sure is what I want—and it does what Mal needs it to. It gives me stability and prestige in the club.

  When we opened the Kingdom, the entire club knew us. We'd been working our way through the sex clubs in Atlanta for the better part of a year. The community knew who we were, even had a handle on which roles we liked.

  And they knew me.

  Finding a submissive was easy. Finding one I wanted, one I wanted to keep, that was a different story.

  For a long time, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want the mess that came with attachment. But somewhere down the line, it changed. I was tired of constantly bouncing between girls, of fighting to get the trust that was so essential in a scene. Sure, I could beat a girl and reduce her to begging, but there was no trust. There wasn't a connection that told me how far I could push and how well she would meet my demands.

  It was fun, but it wasn't fulfilling.

  “Fuck,” I muttered.

  "Generally, it's a lot more fun than you're making it seem," a teasing voice says, and I twist around.

  Celeste is standing there, her hair a mess of curls as she grins at me. Teasing and almost begging me to come out and join her fun.

  "You know damn well I can make it fun," I say, and she laughs, sliding onto the couch next to me. There's a sliver of space between us that I want to close, but I let her keep it. I want her trust more than I want the press of her sweet skin, at the moment.

  "You'll have to prove it to me," she says, serious.

  "Last night didn't?"

  She shrugs, and looks at me, eyes mischievous under the veil of blonde curls. "Last night just showed me you're really good at taking a girl apart. What happens when you lose the tools and tricks, and it's just you and her?"

  I lean across that fraction of space and murmur into her ear. "Would you like to find out?"

  She shudders, this delicious wave of motion that makes me ache to tug her close to me, into my lap and against my lips.

  What the hell was it about this girl?

  "Who are you?" I whisper, pulling away.

  I see the disappointment flash in her gaze, before she blinks it away and smiles at me, bright and false. "A bartender, Charm. Nothing more, and nothing less. I'm not special."

  I tap her chin, until her teeth close, and her eyes go wide, and her lips are warm and just barely parted against my finger. "Don't lie to me, pet. If you don't want to tell me the truth, tell me that. I'll respect your boundaries."

  "I didn't lie."

  I lean in now, unwilling to keep that gaping distance when I see just how honest she's being. "You," I whisper against her ear, my lips brushing it gently, "are fucking perfect. You could never be anything less than endlessly fascinating, unique perfection."

  When her eyes, wide and startled and a little afraid, find mine, I give her a small smile
, and hope like hell that she believes me.

  "Tell me why you're only taking night shifts? Why you're working here?"

  She bites her lip and shrugs. "The Kingdom is a good company to work for, sir. There's money to be made here."

  So, apparently she needs that. I don't know why, and that bothers me.

  "Why are you upset?" she asks, abruptly, swinging the conversation away from herself and her job situation.

  I shrug. "I'm being pressured to settle down."

  Something flickers in her face before it's gone and she flashes me another quick, fake smile. "And the playboy doesn't want to collar a girl. Not just one. Where's the fun in that?"

  "You're wrong," I say, looking away from her. Even without watching, I can feel the tension that wraps around her, the way it makes her go still and tense next to me.

  "I want a girl to collar. But any girl I bring home from the Kingdom will crash and burn when they meet the Board." I shrug. "I want something serious, but this doesn't fit the life my parents expect from me."

  Celeste frowns. "Sam, you aren't required to be with someone because your parents want you to be, and you can find a girl who fits your world, if you truly want to."

  "Mal—Mal wants me to audition the unattached subs in the Kingdom."

  She gives me a sharp, disbelieving look and my lips twitch in agreement. It's one of the more ridiculous ideas Mal has had.

  Doesn't mean we won't all end up over dressed and wearing masks while Mal plays a frankly terrifying matchmaker.

  “She’s out there, Charm,” Celeste says, smiling and leaning against me. “A girl gorgeous and smart and submissive, who is going to adore sitting at your feet.”

  I glance down, at that riot of curls, and smile. “Do you think so?” I murmur.

  Her gaze, when it tips up, is lazy and hooded, and I stop fighting.

  I do what I’ve wanted since I saw her behind that damn bar.

  I kiss her.

  She makes a low, startled noise in the back of her throat, and leans into me, her teeth nipping sharp at my bottom lips before she tugs gently, and I growl, shove my hands into those damn curls that I can’t stop thinking about—Jesus fuck, they’re soft. She’s soft. I kiss her until I can’t breathe and her hands are fisted in my shirt, until I forget—again—that she isn't mine, that I can't keep her. I kiss her until my head spins and I forget that she works for me and that my family will never accept her. I kiss her until everything—my family, the club, her job, my friends—vanishes and there's only the wet glide of her tongue and the rough edge her teeth and the tiny press of her fingers on my shoulders and it's not enough.

  I kiss her until I know I should stop, and I don't.

  With every touch, with every tiny noise she makes and I swallow, I get a little deeper. I realize, when I pull away, finally pull away, and stare at her.

  I'm completely fucked.

  Chapter 6.

  It’s easy, to say, “we're going to find me a submissive”, but what Mal wants to do—gather the interested subs and audition them, for lack of better word—takes time.

  And a fuckton of planning.

  "We aren't doing this," I snap, dropping my hands to the table in a sharp slap, cutting through Beast arguing with Wolf about fucking color schemes. What the actual fuck.

  "Why not?" Mal demands, like I'm being unreasonable.

  Right.

  "I don't want to find a sub this way," I say, shortly.

  "You weren't doing anything to find one on your own," Mal points out, "and there is still the plus-one situation you haven't resolved."

  "We're not fucking auditioning the subs in the Kingdom. This isn't some goddamned bachelor ball to find me a girlfriend!"

  "No, it's a fucking bachelor ball to find you a submissive," Mal snaps, and his composure cracks, just enough to let me know that he's isn't screwing around.

  Mal doesn't curse at me. He doesn't curse at anyone, really. I blink and he sighs. "You can't pick a sub if you won't look at the subs you can pick from."

  I go quiet for a moment thinking of the last sub to twist in my ropes, and the way I wanted to take her back there, wanted to see her come apart under me again.

  "I don’t want a stranger," I stay instead,.

  It's been two days since I saw Celeste in the Quiet Room, two days since I agreed to this idiotic scheme to find me a submissive.

  It's a fucking event, all pomp and circumstance, and a chance to trot us all out in our black leather and parade like show horses for the club—a chance to remind the club that this was for them, but we’re the top of the food chain, and Mal tops us all.

  It was hierarchy, and power, like fucking everything in the club. Maybe that's what I was annoyed by.

  I got that Wolf and Beast were trying to help. That's what they did, and so did Mal, in his own twisted way, but it was a game to him. Everything was a game and about control, and sometimes I wish he'd just let the fucking scene end and let us know where the hell we stood.

  Instead, we are all left guessing and a little off balance.

  "You don't have to collar a girl that night," Mal says, mildly, watching me over the rim of his glass as I glared at the plans for the night in question.

  "Isn't that the point?"

  I sound bitter, and I don’t even care.

  "The point is for you to find a girl you want to keep," he says crisply, "If you want a girl to collar, this is how we do it."

  I shake my head and laugh. It sounds hollow and defeated, and I wonder that they don't call me on it. "It's fucked up, and you know it."

  "We have been for a very long time,” he answers, easily, waiting and watching me with calculating eyes, and I want to shut this down before it can get any more momentum.

  I know better. I shrug instead and push to my feet. “Do what you want, Mal. You will anyway.”

  His eyes narrow, and I know I’ll catch hell for that comment later, but right now I don’t give a flying fuck. I shove out of the office.

  It’s early enough in the day that the club is quiet. Lunch service is still being served and the music is a low background noise instead of the mainstay. The bar where Celeste usually works is quiet and empty, and I swallow my disappointment.

  It’s been two days since I saw her and kissed her, and I shouldn’t miss her because I don’t get to keep this girl.

  I know I don’t.

  But I want to see her mischievous smile and those curls she can’t control and the tart bite of her voice as she talks back.

  Maddy glides by, sending me a sultry smile, and I catch her elbow. “Have you seen Celeste?”

  “Damn, Charm. I thought the rumors were full of shit.”

  I flush, but smile pleasantly while I tuck my hands in my pockets. “You gonna comment from the peanut gallery, or are you going to tell me what I want to know?”

  A tiny frown curls her lips. “She’s not working until later tonight.” I nod and start to turn away, but she continues speaking. “Charm? You should be careful. Cora doesn’t like it when other people play with her toys.”

  I watch her sashay away, a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach, her words replaying in my mind as I remember the first time I saw Celeste, and the way Cora had watched her, the glare she gave me when Celeste left her to come to me.

  “Dude,” Beast says, softly. “You ok, Charm?”

  “No,” I snarl, and he sighs.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so. C’mon, brother. Let’s go.”

  He drags me outside and sits me on a bench, keeping a hand on my shoulder as he eyes me, until I growl and shake it off. “Quit staring at me like I’m fucking breakable, Beast,” I snap, and Beast laughs.

  “Quit looking like you are,” he shoots back.

  I smile, tight and furious. “Last I checked, I wasn’t the breakable one here.”

  Beast smirks, all cocky self-assurance. “You like it when I break, sweetheart.” I snort and he gives me a considering look. “You need a cigarette or a willing bo
dy?”

  “You aren’t the body I want,” I say, honestly.

  “Fair enough,” he nods, and hands me a lit cigarette.

  I glare at him, but take it and smoke, thinking rapidly. “Is—Celeste. What do you know about her?”

  Beast shrugs. “She’s a good girl. Bit bratty, so no one has tried to collar her, but she’s quiet, good at her job, and a good submissive when she isn’t talking back and fighting.”

  I smile. “I like it when she fights.”

  Beast stares at me. “Holy fuck.”

  I blink at him, bewildered.

  He’s got this big smile on his face, all sappy and excited. “You fucking like her.”

  “Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

  He laughs, bright and loud. “Because you don't like people, Charm. You like control and you like sex, but you don't like people.”

  “I have to like people to fuck them,” I say dryly.

  “No you don't. I don't like half the people I sleep with.”

  I smile at Beast. “That's because you're a slut.”

  He flashes me a grin that’s all unrepentant acknowledgement.

  Sometimes I wish we could all be as fucking happy as Beast. Shit doesn’t touch him. It rolls off his back, off him, with a quick ease that left me all kinds of jealous. He doesn’t get caught up in his head and worried if he’s doing things right. He just gives up control and let’s the Domme holding his leash pull him where she wants him to go.

  The idea is as unsettling as it is intriguing.

  "Why are we having a sub audition if you want her?" Beast asks, and I shrug. When Mal has an idea, the best course of action is to let him play it out.

  "She's a bartender, Beast. My father would never accept her. Neither would Mal, for that matter."

  While Mal was really good about not caring who or what or how his friends and family fucked, he did care about appearances. It came from too many years listening to his parents, or paying attention to what the general populace thought. It wasn't fair, and I could ignore it, if I really wanted.

  But there was always my father.

  He wouldn't ever accept a girl who served drinks at a sex club as a partner for his son.

  Which, that was fine. I didn't want a partner. I wanted a girl I could have fun with, a girl I could form a real Dom/sub relationship with, but I wasn't looking to settle down and have babies.