Vivid Avowed (The Evelyn Maynard Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  “I want you.” He ran his thumb over my cheek, and I leaned into the touch. “Don’t ever doubt that. But I don’t want to do this if it’s not for the right reasons. I want you to want me too, and not just because the Light makes you.”

  “I do want you, you idiot,” I whispered back, but he just gave me a skeptical look.

  I rolled my eyes and swatted his hand away. “You can resist the pull of the Bond, have enough self-control to not fuck my brains out while the others are doing exactly that, but you don’t believe I can decide for myself whether or not I want to be with you? So, what—you’re not controlled by the Light but everyone else is? Give me a break.”

  He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then just sighed, defeated.

  “Fine,” I declared. “Then I’ll prove it to you.”

  I sank to my knees, keeping my gaze locked on his, and slowly but confidently reached for his pants.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, exasperated, as I started undoing the buttons on his jeans.

  “Showing you I can control myself.” I pushed down his pants, but before I could reach for the underwear, he wrapped his hands around my wrists.

  “Get up, Evelyn, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  I gritted my teeth. His assumption was patronizing and just plain mean, but I refused to allow my anger to rise. I had something to prove. I may not have been as experienced as him, but I’d been with enough guys to know how to give a blowjob.

  I stayed exactly where I was and stared him down. He’d stopped what I was doing, but he wasn’t leaving. That meant he didn’t actually want to. I was so close to breaking him.

  “Alec, remove your shirt, put your hands on the fucking tree, and shut up.” I didn’t let any frustration leak into my voice. He ground his teeth, his icy eyes glaring at me, his nostrils flared. Then he huffed, released my wrists, and did as he was told.

  His shirt joined mine on the ground, and I spared a moment to appreciate his amazing body—the tattoos, the scars, the V at his hips leading right where I needed to focus. As he lifted his head to the dark sky on another sigh, I grinned.

  He wasn’t leaving, and he was actually listening to me. He was trusting me.

  By the time his gaze returned to mine, I’d schooled my features into a neutral expression. I placed my hands on his hips, rubbing his hip bones with my thumbs to let him get used to my touch. Before I went any further, I checked in with my Light. The strain of it wasn’t unbearable, but it was definitely nudging me to Alec, wanting to bring him into the fold of our Bond. I locked it down tight. I closed the flow in and out of me and bolted that shit.

  Then I moved my fingers to the waistband of his briefs and pulled them down, freeing his erection.

  As I slowly stroked him up and down, I could feel that pressure building at the base of my spine again, the desire to take more, to demand more from him. But I did my best to lock that down too and focused on the silky-smooth feeling of him in my hand.

  I looked up at him. He was looking down, but he wasn’t watching my hand; he was watching me, his eyes boring into mine, the emotion swirling there incomprehensible. I kept eye contact as I leaned forward and took him into my mouth.

  His eyes narrowed, hooded; his lips parted on a sigh.

  I loved every fucking second of it. I loved watching Alec give in, let go of some of that fear and self-loathing and just feel good.

  It was my hands, my mouth making him feel good, making him let go.

  I took him deeper into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the tip as I pulled away. One hand stayed at the base of his cock, the other at his hip as I set a steady rhythm.

  He groaned, his breathing coming in pants. After a while his hips started making little involuntary jerks, and I knew he was close. But I refused to let him have any control.

  I released him from my mouth and squeezed his hip to get his attention. He looked down at me, a hint of surprise and a little fear in his gaze.

  “Don’t move,” I whispered, an inch away from his throbbing hardness. My eyes were challenging. “I am in control here. Understand?”

  He nodded and bit his bottom lip.

  I nearly groaned. I knew what it felt like to have those teeth biting my lip.

  Once again, I took him into my mouth. He sighed, the sound pure ecstasy. I heard light scraping as he tried to grip the bark.

  As Alec dug his nails into the tree, I dug mine into his hip, reminding him I was in charge. His breathing had become completely erratic, moans and groans escaping his mouth more and more often, eliciting my own sounds of pleasure.

  My lips were starting to go a little numb from the constant friction, but it wasn’t long before he released a guttural sound and came in my mouth. I swallowed it, gagging slightly as I wasn’t prepared, then stroked him gently and sat back on my heels.

  I rested my head against the tree and sighed. Above me, Alec was shaking lightly through the aftershock of his orgasm.

  I stood slowly and pressed a kiss to his chest, letting his trembling arms box me in. When my lips touched his skin, he dropped his arms and wrapped me in a hug.

  “Maybe you should sit before you fall down,” I whispered into his neck, smiling.

  “No.” He nuzzled into my hair. “I have a favor to return.”

  He dragged his rough hands down my sides, then cupped my ass over my jeans.

  I leaned away and put that serious look back on my face. “No. I don’t want that from you today.”

  His brow furrowed in clear confusion and hurt. I realized I’d echoed the cruel words he’d left me with in Tyler’s study, just after he’d driven me to the brink of ecstasy and not allowed me to return the favor.

  “I want everything from you, Alec.” I injected as much conviction into my voice as I could, saying the exact opposite of what he’d told me back then. “I want you in every way, and I don’t know why you think I don’t. But this is about me proving to you I have control. I have control over my Light and my desire. I’m aching for your touch. You have no idea how hard it is to say no, to remove your amazing hands from my body.” As I spoke, I grabbed his wrists and took his hands off my ass. “But I’m going to walk away now to prove to you I can. I have just as much self-control as you, Bond be damned.”

  For a few seconds, I took in the stunned yet hopeful expression on his face, then I kissed him on the lips once, grabbed my sweater, and pulled it back on as I walked away. I made my point and left him there, his dick hanging out, shocked but satisfied and, hopefully, convinced.

  The thumping bass from the house reminded me there was a party still in full swing, and I headed in search of my guys. I’d lit a spark with Alec that I hadn’t allowed to ignite fully, but the music was pulsing and so was my desire. Someone was getting lucky tonight . . . maybe a few someones.

  Three

  I was trying to finish my cereal before Ethan got back from his run. He loved feeding me, and it was always waffles this and poached eggs that. I loved it most of the time, but it was next to impossible to match the enthusiasm he had from the second he woke up. I needed coffee before I could even speak coherently. Sometimes, I just wanted to sit at the bench, eat my Wheaties, and drink my delicious latte.

  I’d put the TV on for background noise but soon remembered why we were all avoiding it—except for Tyler, of course. The four TVs in his office were always on, and he scrolled through news sites on his phone as much as he sent messages and emails. I wondered if it was this aspect of his nature—the desire for knowledge—that had determined his Variant ability or if it was his ability that made him crave knowledge more and more. It was a chicken-and-egg problem. According to evolutionary biology, eggs in general have been around for roughly 340 million years, whereas chickens evolved some fifty-eight thousand years ago. Science had solved that problem, but I didn’t know how to solve it in Tyler’s case.

  The news for the past month had been all about the events at the lab in Thailand. They were getting some of it
wrong and just plain making up the rest, but the Melior Group board had put a gag on any of their staff discussing the events, and they’d encouraged survivors and their families to stay quiet too. They wanted to avoid spreading panic about the kind of experiments that had happened down there, as well as prevent tensions between humans and Variants from escalating.

  I shoved another spoonful of cereal into my mouth and frowned at the TV. I hadn’t registered the channel when I turned it on, but the remote was so far away, in the living room, I didn’t have the energy to get up and change it.

  It was on a conservative human news network. They had a rotating stream of politicians and social commentators making wild assumptions and whipping up fear.

  “. . . and why won’t the mighty Melior Group comment on what exactly they found?” demanded a heavily made-up middle-aged woman in a blue pantsuit. The rest of the panel nodded in agreement. “Surely they’ve finished their investigation by now, but they won’t even tell us that much. How can we be sure it wasn’t actually them running these experiments—trying to make themselves stronger or inventing new abilities. I mean, this could be a real threat to national security, Tom.” Her face was nearly purple as she finished her tirade.

  “What a moron,” I mumbled into my cup, taking another sip of my latte.

  “Who’s a moron?” Tyler came into the kitchen dressed in a white shirt with a tie, his hair the neatest I’d ever seen it.

  I pointed at the TV with my spoon. “Some nutbag.”

  He frowned, went over to the living area, and changed the channel to a breakfast show. “Don’t watch that crap, baby. We know the truth. That’s all that matters.”

  I huffed but couldn’t help smiling. He’d called me “baby.” I’d been having regular sex with him for weeks now, but I still had a massive crush. Any time he flirted or used a pet name, I got butterflies in my stomach.

  “Why are you all dressed up?” I asked.

  He was standing at the fridge, eating strawberry yogurt from the tub. “I have a meeting.” He looked at his watch. “And I’ll be late if I don’t get going.”

  He shoved three more giant spoonfuls into his mouth, gathered his messenger bag, kissed me on the lips (butterflies!), and ran off.

  I’d just stood up to put my bowl in the dishwasher when Ethan and Josh came into the kitchen. They were both freshly showered after their workout, Ethan’s hair slightly damp but Josh’s perfectly styled and parted on the side.

  “Hey, pumpkin tits!” Ethan grinned at me as Josh wrapped his arms around me from the back, nuzzling his nose into my hair. “Want some breakfast?”

  I absentmindedly rested my hands over Josh’s. “No thanks. I ate.”

  I didn’t throw a ridiculous nickname back at him—the TV had distracted me again. The cooking segment had given way to a news report. “Protests against Variant-run institutions and businesses have turned violent as tensions between human picketers and frustrated Variant business owners begin to boil over. In Los Angeles, a large group of protesters outside a Variant abilities training studio started breaking windows, and a fight broke out when the business owner—a Variant with a water ability—attempted to disperse the crowd by dousing them with water. Similar incidents have occurred in other cities the world over, with some of the worst violence seen in Moscow, where a riot erupted. The widespread violence resulted in several deaths and many injuries with . . .”

  I hardly registered Ethan’s protestations about me having fed myself. I waved him off, my full focus on the TV.

  Variant Valor were getting louder and more brazen in their discriminatory rhetoric, and more and more Variants were no longer ashamed to say they subscribed to the organization’s extremist views. Some had even set up local branches and held meetings. We’d been invited to more than one in Bradford Hills. Tyler and the administration at the Institute were doing all they could to shut it down, but there wasn’t much they could do about people meeting off campus.

  The Human Empowerment Network had taken on a life of its own. Melior Group investigations had all but confirmed that the HEN had been started by Variant Valor and Davis Damari himself to create more fear and unrest, making it easier to push the boundaries of what was acceptable in terms of controversial legislation and risky experiments and business ventures. Davis had no qualms about breaking the law when it came to his demented science experiments. He had enough power and influence to build an underground facility in Thailand without anyone knowing or questioning it.

  “It’s going to turn into World War III at this rate.” I groaned and rubbed my forehead as images of the riots in Russia flicked across the screen.

  Josh used his ability to press the power button on the remote. “Hey, look at me.” He turned me in his arms, and I looked into his kind green eyes. “The news always makes it seem worse than it is. They’re fearmongers. That’s exactly what Davis wants—more fear—but it doesn’t change the facts. There’s a whole private security firm, hundreds of highly trained operatives, working against him. All you have to worry about today is focusing on your lectures and your chemistry lab. OK?” He raised his eyebrows.

  I nodded and went to get ready for school, but the heavy feeling of dread still sat in the pit of my stomach. I focused instead on the weight of the books I stuffed into my bag and the hint of Josh’s cologne as I slipped on his Bradford Hills Institute hoodie.

  When I’d grabbed everything I needed, I went back downstairs, sitting on the bottom step to put my boots on. They were a cute black pair of ankle boots that went great with my skinny jeans.

  “Has Tyler left already?” Lucian came out of the west wing corridor dressed in a suit and tie, a briefcase on his knees. “I thought we were heading in together.”

  He looked around and I followed his gaze. Plaster dust covered the marble floor of the foyer, and various piles of building material and tools littered one side of the wide space. Lucian had to navigate slowly around some timber to join me at the staircase, and I frowned at the offending wood. I would have to have a chat with the contractors about being mindful of their client.

  “He said something about having an important meeting and ran out about half an hour ago.” I shrugged.

  “Oh. Must’ve come up last minute.” Lucian shrugged too, not at all put out by the fact that his adopted nephew and righthand man had left him behind.

  Boots thudded down the stairs. I turned to see Alec jogging down, dressed in his Melior Group blacks but not armed. His ink was snaking out of the sleeves of the tight long-sleeved T-shirt and crawling up his neck. I wanted to tear the fabric away to see them fully, move my hands down his defined, scarred chest and undo his belt . . .

  “You’re going in with me and my team, Uncle Luce.” Alec’s deep voice drew me out of my lascivious thoughts, and I was glad I couldn’t blush. “Gabe had to rush in.”

  “Ready when you are.” Lucian smiled and started to wheel himself over to the garage door. “Have a good day, Evie.”

  “You too!” I yelled after him.

  Alec held a hand out, and I took it, letting him pull me up to standing. His jaw tightened as he watched Lucian navigate the new ramp down into the garage.

  His focus was on his uncle, but his hand was still wrapped around mine. We’d come so far from the days when he couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as me, but every step forward with Alec felt like a step up an impossibly steep incline, and the path was along a cliff with no railings. Shit could turn catastrophic at any moment.

  But the blowjob I’d given him at the party had made my point. We hadn’t talked about it, but I knew Alec needed to process things in his own silent way. Sometimes that took him a long time. Meanwhile, every time I laid eyes on him, I wanted to jump him and tear his clothes off. Part of that was the Light pushing me to even the connection to my Bondmates, but part of it was me.

  I just hoped I’d proven I could control that aspect of our connection. He was more affectionate, slowly thawing out. He was getting there. But w
ould he get there before my ovaries exploded?

  I gave his hand a squeeze. “He’ll be fine. He’s a strong man. He raised your stubborn ass, didn’t he?”

  Alec looked down at me and blinked in surprise, but his beautiful lips pulled up into a smirk. Rather than acknowledge my assumption about what he was thinking, he pressed those smirking lips against mine, pushing his tongue into my mouth.

  I couldn’t even remember what I was teasing him about.

  “Upstairs . . .” I whispered against his lips. I couldn’t even fully form the thought; I just wanted to get him into a locked room. He groaned and ran his teeth over the curve in my neck before placing a gentle kiss in the same spot.

  “Duty calls,” he growled. He gave my ass one last squeeze and stepped away.

  “And we’ll be late to class if we don’t get going.” Josh sounded amused as Ethan grabbed my bag off the bottom step, flashing me a wink and a dimple. When did they even come into the room?

  Alec kissed my forehead and disappeared into the garage. I took several deep breaths and made myself think about the chemistry lab I had that afternoon.

  Two silent agents drove us to campus in a blacked-out, bulletproof vehicle, another car following close behind. The bald man in the passenger seat was my security detail for the day. Since I often had Alec or Tyler with me, I didn’t have a regular guard, so when they were both busy, it was always someone different.

  I stared out the window at the trees swaying in the light wind and soft sunlight. All the snow had melted weeks ago, and despite the lingering chill, it would’ve been a nice day to walk. But our days of walking to campus were over. Being exposed outside of a safe zone—like the Institute, the mansion, or Charlie and Dot’s place—had been deemed too much of a security risk.

  Thinking about chemistry, the weather, and the constant threat on my life helped to distract me from Alec’s lips and body, and by the time we were pulling through the security checkpoint at the gates, the throbbing between my legs had almost completely stopped.