Killer: A Dark College Romance (Hillcrest University Book 5) Read online

  “I know,” I whispered.

  Travis grabbed the hand that held onto his face, kissing the top of it gently. “You should stop worrying. Let me worry about everything, Ash. I’ll handle it all.” He would, I knew he would. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that if I wanted no part of this, Travis would handle it all, with his brothers’ help. He’d probably handle everything in my life if I told him to.

  “What would I do without you?” I murmured, pressing my forehead against his cheek. He still smelled of smoke, but beyond that, I could smell him. His skin, his natural scent. Something instinctive that just lured me in.

  One of his hands found its way to my neck, holding it firmly but not hard enough to choke. “I’d rather not think of that,” Travis said, moving his lips down to mine, swallowing up whatever else I was going to say.

  It was a ridiculous kind of easy for me to lose myself in Travis. In the way he held onto me so possessively, how he kissed me so urgently, so greedily, as if he could never quite have enough of me. A fire burned in my core any time those hands were on my body, no matter what they were doing.

  I’d thought once that I’d simply traded one psycho for another, and maybe that was the case, but you know what? Travis was my psycho. He was mine, and even though I was a bit ticked that he’d hidden Ray’s so-called presents from me, I wasn’t going to let him go. The future could fall away, our pasts could disappear and vanish into thin air, and I wouldn’t care. Nothing in the world could make me get off of him in this moment, nothing in the whole wide world.

  Though the night air was cold, though the gentle breeze made goosebumps rise on my flesh, I didn’t care. The fire that burned within me due to Travis’s touch would only grow. It was the beginning of December, and Hillcrest’s winters were mild.

  I broke apart our lip lock, moving to straddle him. It was early December, and the weather would only get colder. If it wasn’t for Travis, if the air around us wasn’t rank with his smoke, I doubted I’d be able to come out here pantless and shoeless. He made me warm all over, and I’d take the coldness that tingled along my toes as a happy exchange.

  As I went to move on his lap, my legs on either side of him, Travis kept a hand on my neck. He wasn’t the kind of guy who’d ever let me go. It both made me nervous and giddy. Travis wasn’t Ray. He wasn’t. Sometimes I had to remind myself that, and the nervousness went away.

  I breathed out through my mouth, my lips parted mere millimeters. My heart beat in my chest loudly, so fast and hard I wondered if Travis could hear it, could feel it with his hand on my neck. This sexy, tattooed one excited me like no other.

  With the hand on my neck, Travis pulled me in, our mouths colliding once again, this time harder, our kisses faster, hungrier. His tongue slipped into my mouth, and I tasted the smoke, breathed it into my lungs. The moment his teeth nicked my bottom lip, my hips started to move of their own accord, grinding against him, making him hard beneath me even though he wore pants.

  Not just pants. He had a shirt on, too. So many clothes. Too many layers. I wanted him to take it all off, but that was just wishful thinking.

  Travis eventually pulled his mouth off mine, his blue eyes glancing to the windows nearby. We could see Markus’s head on the couch. With another glance, he saw Lincoln through the glass on the French doors, the second man still in the kitchen, still probably complaining about food.

  “Should we take this upstairs?” Travis asked, his fingers loosening around my neck. It wasn’t like he could drag me by the throat upstairs…actually, he could, but I had standards.

  “I’m fine right here,” I whispered, running my hands up and down his chest. Such a strong, solid chest. He was muscled under all of those tattoos. “If they want to watch, let them watch. Right now, it’s only you and me.” That much, at least, was true. If there was an audience, I didn’t care. The only one on my mind right now was Travis.

  And Ray.

  And technically Declan.

  And, I guessed, by extension Will.

  And then there was Sawyer, who I shouldn’t be thinking about at all, not to mention the suicide note.

  So…long story short, my mind always raced. Still, that didn’t mean I couldn’t focus on the man at hand—or, rather, the hard dick under me.

  Hey, I’d kept myself away from these guys for too long. I’d gotten very familiar with self-love in the shower, and frankly that wasn’t nearly half as fun. I had some catching up to do, time to make up for.

  Ray might think he was going to win this, but he wasn’t. The only clear winner here was me.

  Chapter Two – Travis

  I didn’t exactly relish the thought of having Ash in plain view of two of my brothers, but with how hard my dick throbbed for her, I knew I probably wouldn’t make it up the stairs, let alone walk with such a hard-on.

  She was right, of course. Right now it was only her and I, me and she. Us, together, uniting as one in the way we were always meant to be. Ash was mine, even if I let others touch her. The way she looked at me, I could feel it in my bones. She didn’t look at everyone like that. There was no doubt in my mind that she was mine, and if she was happy with the others, then…I supposed I could suck it up.

  Deep down, though, a dark part of me also knew that she’d never be completely mine while Ray was still out there. Ray held power over her still, and that was something I had to quench. He thought he had the right to her, the right to her love, to her body, to her mind and soul—but those things could never belong to him, even if she’d known him first. They were mine. Everything of Ash’s was mine.

  I was going to kill Ray. Markus and Lincoln were going to help me, but I would be the one to do it, to end that miserable fool’s life. Even with him gone, it wouldn’t be the end of things, I knew, because the fucker had put Ash at the crime scene. The police were only going to be scared of Markus for so long; eventually they’d want to bring her in again for an official questioning. Hell, I was surprised they hadn’t already.

  Odds were they weren’t used to this type of crime here, but that’s the thing. Crime was everywhere. Everyone only heard about it in poor inner cities because of the lack of money involved. When cold, hard cash entered the equation, mouths zipped shut, eyes closed, and heads turned the other way. There was literally no problem money couldn’t solve.

  I moved the hand I held around Ash’s throat, cradling the back of her head, my fingers tangling in her hair. She’d recently re-dyed the pink ends, and they were once again bubblegum pink. Her stormy grey eyes were half-lidded slits, and with her mouth a little puckered and swollen from our previous embrace, she was the epitome of beauty.

  That, and because she wore nothing but a shirt.

  Declan’s shirt, from the look of it. My jealousy flared up a bit, but I pushed it aside when I noticed her hardened nipples poking at the fabric. I leaned forward, placing a kiss at the nape of her neck, causing her to shiver against me. She was probably cold, since it was so late in the year, but I would be more than glad to warm her up.

  As I nibbled her neck, I drew my hands to her sides, moving them underneath the shirt and hiking it up as they inched their way up to her breasts. Once my palms reached her chest, once I ran my fingers around her delicate, hard nipples, she let out the breathiest of sighs I’d ever heard. It was literal music to my ears, the best sound I’d ever heard.

  Her stomach was flat, and I could see the bottom of her ribs each time she inhaled. Even though society might say her body wasn’t perfect, she was perfect to me. Every part of her was flawless, and there was nothing I would change. Nothing at all.

  Did that make me a lovesick fool? Maybe.

  It was never like this with Sabrina. Sabrina was simply a way to pass the time. I never felt this strongly for her, which was terrible when you thought about it, considering the fact that me being with Sabrina meant us both going behind Declan’s back. I’d thought she was something that she wasn’t.

  What Sabrina was was weak. She was weak, but Ash was
strong.

  I never told Ash exactly what happened, why I knew for a fact Sabrina hadn’t committed suicide, but maybe I would. Maybe, sometime soon, after Ray was dealt with and out of the picture, I would tell her just what I saw and how I knew what I knew.

  Right now, though, it was like she said. Just me and her.

  I toyed with her nipples for a while, showering her throat with kisses. Groans left me every time she moved those hips against me, and when I looked down, I saw she wasn’t wearing anything else. Just the shirt, no panties. Nothing else to inhibit me getting to her. The only one with clothes who were inhibiting was me.

  Ash must’ve mentally decided it was too much, for even though my hands were on her breasts, she pulled back from me. I sent her a frown, because she knew I loathed it when I wasn’t in charge, but she only grinned back, going for the button on my pants.

  Okay, fine. I’d give her this one.

  She didn’t tug my pants all the way down, just enough to get to my boxers, just enough to help my cock out and have it stand straight without anything trying to hold it down. “Don’t frown at me like that,” she whined, lifting herself as she moved closer, her eyes locking with mine. My hands had long fallen away from her breasts, now resting on her sides, my fingers digging into her skin so hard they’d bruise in the morning.

  I would frown if I wanted to frown, but I didn’t say that. I couldn’t say anything as I watched Ash grab the base of my shaft and guide herself down onto it. I let out a guttural moan, all sane thoughts vanishing the moment I felt how tight she was. It was like her body was made for me, fitting me perfectly. Tight but not too much so, wet and warm in all the ways that made me want to lose control.

  Ash set the pace because she was on top. Her hips rocked back and forth on me, dragging me in and out of her. It took everything in me to sit back and let her take the wheel, to let her ride me.

  Still, even though she was content to do it, I couldn’t just sit back and let her fuck me. No, because I was me and I needed absolute control, I soon wrapped an arm around her lower back, holding her against me, and got up, laying her down on the glass table not too far from where we sat. My ass got a nice chill from the coolness of the air, but I didn’t care.

  It also probably wasn’t the safest place to fuck her, on top of glass that could theoretically shatter from our thrusting, but again, didn’t care. Right now I had blinders on, and I wanted her. Needed her.

  You could not know true desire until you met someone like Ash.

  She could make even the best of men want to break. There was just something about her that drove me crazy, and I was here for it. I would always be here for it. I held her down on the table, moving my hips back and forth, relishing in the feeling of her tight core almost refusing to let my cock go. Like she didn’t want me to leave.

  Ash had taught me many things, but patience was not one of them. When I had her, I needed her, and I needed her right this second. Under the moonlight, with her yellow and pink hair splayed out on the glass below her, she was a sight to behold. I locked eyes with her, and right then and there I knew it was all over.

  What I really wanted to do was come inside of her, empty myself right in her core, but I knew better. Unless I had a condom on, that was something I could not do. If Ash got pregnant from me…I knew the family would try to claim the baby as their own.

  It’s what made my family so unbelievably large and widespread.

  When the pleasure became too much, I pulled out, emptying myself on Ash’s inner thighs. My shoulders rose and fell with ragged, heavy breaths, and I had to stand still for a while to regain myself.

  Ash was able to sit up, reaching for me. Her fingers grasped the collar of my shirt, bringing my mouth to hers, and for another moment, I allowed myself to get lost in her. It was almost too easy, how things were with her, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was what it was like for other people, for those who were normal.

  I’d heard love made people do strange, crazy things in its name, but I never truly believed it until now. For Ash, I was willing to destroy the world. For her, I would raze it all to the ground, if that’s what she wanted.

  When her lips left mine, she gave me a sly smile, and my heart increased its beating of its own accord. She made my body react, made my mind go in a thousand different directions. How else could I explain why I was content to let her be with other people while I was so obsessed? She was a bird that refused to be locked in a cage. She would not be constrained or restricted in any way.

  “I’m going to go wash up,” she said, slipping off the table. Ash tugged down the ends of the shirt, glancing at me with those beautiful, stormy grey eyes. To think, all this time, Ash had secrets; she’d hidden her past from me, from all of us effortlessly. She was a wily one, that was for sure. You never knew quite what you were going to get with her, and maybe that’s what was so entrancing about her.

  As I pulled up my pants and put myself away, I watched her go, walking back into the house, unabashedly moving past Lincoln, who’d decided on a late-night snack of a Pop-Tart. Markus, meanwhile, didn’t even glance up at her from his spot on the couch.

  If someone would’ve come to me from the future and told me that I’d be with a girl with pink-tipped hair and grey eyes that were the color of rainclouds, I would’ve laughed. If that same person would’ve gone on to say that Declan would be with her too, I would’ve gotten angry. And then, if that person would’ve said that girl also had feelings for other guys simultaneously, I would’ve walked away.

  I knew Ash cared for Sawyer, in spite of it all, and Will…I knew she liked him, too.

  Declan, I was more okay with—though if I had a choice, I would keep her all to myself. That went without saying. But Will? I couldn’t say what it was, couldn’t say why, but there was something off about him, something I didn’t particularly care for. I’d known him for years in passing, because he was Declan’s older brother, older by two years. I’d seen him when Sawyer and I would go over Declan’s house growing up.

  No one ever came over my house, but that’s because my house was more like a…a workspace. You didn’t come to the house unless you worked for us or were one of us, and certain places were carefully monitored.

  But, anyways, there was something about Will that rubbed me the wrong way, something that called out to that inner darkness of mine…almost like Will had his own. Almost like he was hiding something, too.

  It could very well be that I was overreacting, but some part of me knew, deep down, that Will was not as tidy and clean as he pretended to be.

  Chapter Three – Ash

  The next day Markus got a call from the police. They wanted me in for questioning. Markus then sat me down and instructed me on what to say, how to act. A little lesson that would help me go far in life, he said, and as I listened to him, knowing he was right, of course—I’d have to talk to the police eventually, somehow get myself out of their field of suspects.

  We were in Markus’s fancy car, driving to the police station. I’d gone to my classes for the day, just as he instructed because he wanted to make them wait for me, so it was already early in the afternoon.

  I wore my typical getup, my high-top sneakers, a holey t-shirt paired with equally holey jeans—and my beanie, of course. I did throw on a light jacket, because the weather seemed to get chillier as the days went on. I knew this area didn’t often get snow, but if the winters were really bad, snow would come. Nature always found a way.

  Markus wore a dark suit. The whole shebang. Suit jacket, a black vest, nice and freshly-pressed pants of the same color, and a dark blue undershirt. Well, at least it wasn’t red. When he wore a red undershirt with that dark suit, he looked like the devil himself.

  A handsome, dangerous devil who I knew I couldn’t really trust. The only reason I was with him was because he was related to Travis; I would never be in a car with this man of my own freewill. Markus was…not the kind of man I liked. He was sin made into flesh, hazardous
to your health in more ways than one.

  No thanks to that. I had enough on my plate. God help whatever woman caught his eye.

  “Whatever you do,” Markus went on, “do not say anything that conflicts with what you already told them. They’re going to see if they can try to get you to slip up, confess to something you didn’t really do, which would then give them even more of a reason to keep an eye on you.” His eyes were a dark color, almost black as they darted to me, the same color as his hair. He was an insanely tall man, having both the stature and the musculature to back his intimidating presence up.

  I had to look away from him as I said, “I know.” Mentally I replayed everything the cops had asked me that night, what I’d told them in return. I’d been so shaken up, I’d told them all about Ray. Granted, I kept the fact that we’d dated to my chest, so at least there was that.

  A tiny bright side in this otherwise dark and dim reality of mine.

  “I’m going to be right next to you, so if you start to say too much, I’ll tell you to stop,” Markus went on, his hands on the wheel. He spoke like this was what he did all the time, that he dealt with cops on a daily basis. I had no idea whether or not that was true, but he obviously was groomed in all things involving criminal law and criminals themselves. And he was only in his twenties, from my best guess.

  What exactly did Travis’s family do? Were they hired killers? Like…like assassins? That felt like something out of a book or a TV show. People didn’t do that shit in real life, did they?

  “Cops will lean over the line to try to get you to confess, because they want the case closed,” he said, glancing at me with those black, soulless eyes. He was handsome, but insanely dangerous, and I already had more dicks than the average girl could handle, so no thanks to that. Not that I was seriously considering him. It wasn’t like every cute guy I passed I wanted to wrangle and add to my, uh, harem of sorts. “They’re just like every other company out there—it’s all about the numbers.”