Chaos by Sarah Bailey

Twenty Six

West

I stalked upstairs, not giving two fucks if Prescott wanted to satisfy Scarlett’s urges. He’d had more than enough time with her after his whole ‘I love you’ declaration. She probably thought I’d given up on fucking with her head. I was merely lulling her into a false sense of security. Psychological warfare happened to be one of the many ways I liked to mess with people. Everyone thought I was a violent piece of shit who couldn’t control himself. They were all fucking dumb and had no idea who they were dealing with.

I threw Prescott’s door open and walked in. Scarlett was tucked up in Prescott’s bed, her eyes glued to the TV. She looked over at me when she heard the door, her eyes going wide.

“West? Where’s Pres?”

I didn’t answer her, merely stalked over to his bed, ripped the covers from her body and plucked her up from where she was laying. Scarlett was unceremoniously tossed over my shoulder, making her let out a yelp. I carried her from the room, my arm pinned over the backs of her legs.

“What the fuck? Put me down!”

In response, I smacked her arse, earning another yelp from her lips. The verbal abuse I got for it wasn’t worth repeating as I took her into my bedroom. I locked the door before I tossed her on my bed. She scrambled into a sitting position, glaring at me as I walked over to my window and looked out across the city.

“What is wrong with you? You could have asked me to come with you.”

“Would you have?”

“No.”

I smiled and dug my hand in my pocket, extracting a joint and my lighter.

“Then you’ve answered your own question.”

Sticking the joint in my mouth, I lit it and breathed the smoke in, holding it in my lungs before I blew it out. I slid my lighter back in my pocket. It might be early to start smoking, but I didn’t care. It always took the edge off.

“What do you even want, West?”

I raised my hand and beckoned her over without looking back. It took a minute, but she joined me by the window, staring at me with a frown.

“I’m here. What do you want?”

Grabbing a hold of her hand, I slid the joint between her fingers. She looked at it with no small amount of suspicion.

“You want me to smoke this with you?”

“You need to relax, Scar. Not everything needs to be a battle between us.”

She didn’t take a toke.

“I don’t want to do drugs with you.”

I took the joint back from her, dragged the smoke in my mouth before grabbing hold of her face. My fingers squeezed her jaw, forcing her mouth open. She tried to get away, but I leant into her and breathed the smoke into her mouth, shutting it before she could do a thing. She choked on it for a moment before I released her. Scarlett shoved me away from her, spluttering as I grinned and took another drag.

“You’re a dick,” she ground out.

“If you’d just taken it without complaint, I wouldn’t have to make you.”

“I hate you.”

“I’m sure you do.”

She clenched her fists, clearly perturbed by my nonchalant tone. The woman could say whatever the fuck she wanted to me. I knew she liked it when I had my hand around her throat. When I touched her. When I fucked her. I was in half a mind to give it to her now. To make her come all over my dick. Prescott said she wanted it, so why the fuck not?

Sticking the joint between my lips, I grabbed a handful of her arse and tugged her against me. My other hand captured her wrists and held them behind her back. Then I took the joint from my mouth and held it between her lips instead.

“Breathe it in, Scar.”

“Fuck you.”

“We can do it the hard way again if you wish.”

Her glare made me tighten my hands around her wrists. She winced and did as I asked, sucking in the smoke. She choked again, but she held it for a moment and breathed it out into my face. I smiled at her.

“Good girl.”

“I don’t want to be your fucking good girl.”

Don’t you? Hmm, then I think I know what you want.

“You want to be a bad girl, then?”

“No!”

“Oh, Scar, it’s okay. I know you want it, you’re just too scared to admit it.”

She struggled against me. I laughed at her attempt to escape. Even if she wanted to run, there was nowhere for her to go. I would hunt her down and drag her back in here by her hair. And she would regret it because I would make her life hell for a few hours.

“If you keep that up, you’ll only get my dick hard.”

She stopped, the fire in her eyes mounting with every second.

“Let me go.”

“Smoke this with me and maybe I will.”

I made her take another toke, watching the smoke curl out of her mouth afterwards. Taking my own drag, I smiled at her and licked my lip.

“Is this something you do all the time?”

“Smoke weed? Sometimes.”

“And other stuff?”

I shrugged, adjusting my hold on her.

“On occasion, I do E and LSD. The other three don’t like dealing with me when I’m out of my head, so you know, I keep it on the down-low.”

Didn’t matter to me if she knew about my drug use. I drank whisky and smoked weed more than I did pills. It was my way of keeping my need for violence at bay. And right now, even though we were smoking, I wanted to get violent with her. Very fucking violent.

Pulling Scarlett away from the window with me, I popped the joint in the ashtray on my bedside table. Then I ran my free hand down her throat, gripping it between my fingers and squeezing.

“How about you turn those sharp claws on me, Scar, hmm? If you hate me so much, show me.”

I let go of her wrists but kept my hand around her neck. The defiant look in her eyes made me want to push her further. Fuck how I wanted to make Scarlett snap. I shoved her back towards the window and pinned her neck against it.

“Go on, I know you want to hurt me.”

She wrapped her hand around my wrist and dug her nails into my skin. I cocked my head to the side and licked my lip.

“You can do better than that.”

Sliding her other hand under my t-shirt, she dug her nails into my chest and dragged them down towards my stomach. I let out a breath, feeling myself growing hard under her touch. Then I leant closer, getting right up in her face.

“Hurt me, Scar. Fucking hurt me.”

Her hand left my chest and she slapped me across my cheek. The sound rang through the room. It stung, but I loved it. I looked her up and down, running my teeth along my bottom lip.

“Again.”

The heat in her eyes made me want to rip her clothes from her body and fuck her senseless. Her hand came up and she slapped me. This time it was harder. She hissed at the impact as if it hurt her as much as it did me. I squeezed her neck. I wanted to bite it and leave marks on her skin. Wanted to remind her of who she belonged to and why she would never be free of me.

“That’s it. Let it out, Scar. I want you to hurt me.”

“I hate you,” she whispered, her nails digging harder into my skin.

“If you’re going to tell me you hate me, say it like you fucking mean it.”

Her eyes darkened.

“I hate you.”

The hand she’d slapped me with came up and gripped me by the throat.

“I. Hate. You. West.”

There you are, Scar. There’s my girl. Fuck, you’re magnificent.

Her fingers squeezed. I tore her away from the window and pressed her down on my bed instead. Her light brown hair fanned out across the black sheets. I was going to show her the real me. All the other times we’d fucked, it had been tame. It was time she saw my true nature. The feral beast lurking inside me.

My free hand slid into my pocket and I drew my knife from it, flipping it out. She watched me place it at the top of her t-shirt, right above her breasts.

“You’re about to hate me a whole lot more.”

I tore it down her t-shirt, slicing through the fabric. She stared at me with wide eyes as I exposed her breasts. I ran the point over the tip of her nipple before circling her areola with it. She trembled, her nipples hardening under my ministrations. My woman was terrified and it showed. Her breathing was heavy and her heart rate spiked under my fingers. But Scarlett had her legs spread for me as I leant over her. I pressed my knee into her pussy, rubbing the fabric of her shorts against it.

“You’re mine, Scar. All fucking mine. I’m going to make sure you never forget it.”

I leant closer and ran my nose up her cheek.

“Don’t move or it will hurt worse, you hear me? If you struggle and ruin it, you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

“What are you going to do?” she whispered, her voice shaking on the words.

I pulled back and smiled at her.

“Make sure everyone knows who you belong to.”

Releasing her neck, I placed my left hand on her breastbone, holding her there as I pressed the knife tip to her skin just below her collarbone.

“This is going to hurt,” I murmured. “But you can take it, Scar. You’re my girl.”

I dug the knife in, cutting through her skin and dragging it down to form a line. She let out a cry of pain, but she kept still other than her fingers curling around the covers. I was very precise with my cuts. I wanted it to look good on her, not some jacked-up jagged scar, but something beautiful. Pretty almost.

Scars for my stunning Scar.

Her eyes remained fixed on me the whole time. Tears ran down her face and small whimpers erupted from her mouth, but not once did she tell me to stop. She took the pain just like I knew she could.

When I was done, I watched the blood running down her chest, seeping from the word I’d carved into her skin.

War.

For once in my life, I wanted to live up to our name. The one we’d been given when we landed on the financial scene and caused a fucking huge stir. They’d branded us gods. And now I was embracing it.

I’d given her my mark.

She belonged to War.

And War was me.