Chaos by Sarah Bailey

Thirty One

Scarlett

What the fuck happened? What the actual fuck literally just happened between me and Drake? I lay there on my front with my legs dangling off the bed, tears running down my cheeks, feeling as though I couldn’t get any lower. My arms were trapped behind my back, making it impossible for me to go anywhere. Besides, how could I move after that? After he’d punished me.

A pitiful sob erupted from my lips. I didn’t think I could despise him any more than I already did, but I was wrong. He was right about us being toxic. I pushed him into showing me his emotions and he responded with nothing but brutality. Like his true nature was as dark and twisted as West’s. At least with West, he let it all hang out there for everyone to see. He wasn’t hiding anything. Drake was a solid wall of coldness, but underneath was an inferno waiting to burn you alive. And I had stoked the flames a little too much.

“Little lamb.”

Another sob fell from my mouth with his deep voice encompassing me. I could hear him move towards me, and his hands immediately went to the tie around my wrists.

“Pres,” I whimpered.

“Shh, I’ve got you, sweetness.”

He unknotted the tie, freeing me, and picked me up off the bed before sitting down with me in his lap. I lost it then, burying my face in his shirt and letting it all out. My muffled cries echoed around the room whilst Prescott held me to his chest and stroked my hair.

What the hell would I do without him? This man had become everything to me in such a short space of time. My heart was his. Irrevocably. West might have carved his brand into my skin, but Prescott had carved his name on my heart.

“Take me out of here, please. I don’t want to be here.”

He stood without saying anything and took me out of their playroom. I curled my arms around his neck and rested my head on his shoulder. A door opened behind Prescott. My eyes met West’s a moment later as he stepped out. His amber ones narrowed as he took us in. I couldn’t contain my tears or my choking breaths.

“What’s going on?”

Prescott paused on the way to his room.

“Drake and Scarlett had a fight.”

I was glad he did the talking. I was incapable of speech, of explaining what their friend had done to me.

He continued walking, but what I didn’t expect was for West to follow.

“A fight?”

“Mmm.”

Prescott opened his door, carrying me into his room. He didn’t close it behind him, striding over to his bathroom. He set me down on the sink counter, but I wouldn’t let go of him. West came with us and leant against the doorframe.

“Shh, little lamb, let me clean you up, okay?”

I shook my head, keeping my arms wrapped around his neck so he couldn’t go anywhere. My legs locked around his waist. If Prescott let me go, I would disintegrate. I was barely holding it together as it was.

“What the fuck happened?”

Prescott turned his head towards West.

“Can you get Francis to go after Drake?”

“Not until you tell me what the fuck this is about.”

Prescott kissed my hair and held me, stroking my back. I was still crying. I couldn’t stop.

“Just text him, please. I don’t know what went on in the playroom between her and Drake, okay?”

My eyes were on West even as I held Prescott to me. His eyes were narrowed whilst he pulled out his phone and fiddled with it before slipping it back in his pocket. Shoving off the door, he stepped towards us. His hand came up and buried in my hair, pulling me from Prescott’s neck. West stared down at me with an unreadable expression on his face. Then he pressed his forehead to mine. I let out another sob, wondering how and when things had changed between me and him. Had him marking me been a turning point? I had no fucking clue.

“What did Drake do, my little Scar?”

“He punished me,” I hiccupped.

“How and why?”

I didn’t know how to answer him. How to begin to explain the escalation between Drake and me until it reached boiling point. Until we clashed in a mess of unwanted feelings and emotions towards each other.

“My dad wants me to go to a game on Thursday and… and I didn’t like the fact he told me Frankie would go with me without even consulting him first. It got out of control and… and he… he…”

“He did what?”

My body shook with the memory of Drake pinning me to the bed, restraining my wrists and fucking me. I hated him for the way it made me feel. For how scared I was of him and how that fear made me wet. And most of all, I hated how he’d used sex as a way to punish me for fighting him. He used something so intimate rather than the pain of his palms or his belt. I would have infinitely preferred that to what he’d actually done to me.

“He fucked me to punish me… to hurt me for talking back to him,” I whispered, choking out the words because they fucking broke something inside me. “And I hate myself for it. No matter how much I want to hate him, I can’t. I fucking can’t. My heart won’t let me. It won’t let me hate any of you, and I don’t understand why.”

West said nothing, but I could see my words affected him by the way his eyes darkened. And I knew they affected Prescott, as his arms around me tightened. West pulled away and looked at Prescott over the top of my head. They shared a silent conversation between them for a long moment.

“Undress her,” West said before shoving off the counter and moving towards the shower.

My hands around Prescott’s neck loosened as he released me and straightened. West flipped the shower on before stepping out, his hands going to his t-shirt. I watched him strip out of his clothes. Prescott’s hands were at my blouse, unbuttoning it and tugging it off my shoulders. He unhooked my bra, chucking it away too. Then he helped me off the counter, unzipped my skirt and tugged it down my legs, leaving me bare.

I didn’t ask what was happening when West took my hand and pulled me into Prescott’s shower with him. The hot water streamed over us instantly. West turned me around and pressed my back against his chest. His body was warm and calmed the war raging inside me a fraction. My eyes went to Prescott who’d started to strip too. West rubbed my arms and pressed kisses to my shoulder. It didn’t take long for Prescott to join us, stepping up to my front and picking up my shower gel. West shifted back slightly whilst Prescott lathered up his hands. Then they were on me, dusting over my skin as he washed me.

The next thing I knew, West’s hands were in my hair, applying shampoo to it with a gentle touch as he massaged my wet strands. I didn’t know what to do or say. The two of them were taking care of me without having been asked. All of their touches were soft as if they knew I needed soothing.

As West tipped my head back to rinse it, Prescott’s hands curled around my face and he leant down to kiss me. His kisses were comforting. The whole experience was. And I ended up crying in his mouth. I knew Prescott could be caring, but I had no idea West was capable of such things until he washed my hair with such reverence. It made my chest ache. Nothing about this was sexual, despite the fact we were all naked in the hot water with our bodies pressed together.

“My little lamb,” Prescott whispered against my lips. “My precious little lamb.”

I curled my hands around his waist, his wet skin feeling soft against the pads of my fingertips. West’s hands roamed down my back, stroking along the wet strands of my hair. I sighed in Prescott’s mouth. Their touch was my healing balm.

West pulled me out of the stream of the water to apply conditioner to my hair next. I reached out and grabbed Prescott’s shower gel. He raised an eyebrow as I squirted it on my hands before rubbing them over his torso.

“Let me,” I murmured over the sound of the shower running.

He didn’t stop me from washing him in return. Being able to focus on his body helped stop my thoughts from running at a million miles an hour. My hands ran over his biceps and the taut muscles of his stomach. He watched me the entire time, his blue eyes full of emotion.

When I moved him to rinse off, he gripped my chin between his fingers, tipping my face up towards him.

“I love you, sweetness.”

Prescott didn’t leave me in any doubt of his feelings when we were alone, unlike certain other people in this household. I hadn’t expected him to say it in front of West. My heart swelled. I went up on my tiptoes and pressed my body to his, wrapping my arms around his neck.

“Me too,” I whispered into his skin.

Then I let him go and turned around. West pulled me to him and ran his fingers through my hair, tipping it back under the spray to rinse off the conditioner. My fingers itched to touch him. To wash him the way I had Prescott. Did I ask him if I could or did I just do it? The intimacy of the moment made me bold. My hand went to the gel again, and I lathered it up in my hands. I placed them against his chest. It reminded me of the night they’d given me drugs, and I’d wanted to touch him all over. If I was honest, I’d wanted to explore his body for longer than I cared to admit.

A low rumble erupted from West’s chest as I washed him. It vibrated through me, making me want to open up to him, even though I knew he was fucking crazy. His spirit was twisted, but something about it intoxicated me. His nature called to mine. Made me want to stay with him in the abyss, no matter how many times he hurt me.

His fingers went to my shoulder, stroking over the cuts he’d made. I hissed in response, making him smile at me in a maddening way. It hurt. He knew it. He didn’t care. And right then, I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to bleed out all over the place, to feel something other than the abject misery Drake had brought on.

West traced the word war with his fingertip, reminding me I belonged to him. And for some crazy fucked up reason, I wanted it to be true. I needed to be his.

“You’re an addiction, Scar. One none of us can escape,” he murmured as he leant closer. “My curse and my addiction.”

He nibbled my jaw before biting down on my earlobe, making me arch into his body.

“I’ll never be free of you.”

His words had a deeper meaning I didn’t understand. The soft agony in his voice made me ache. My hands curled around his back, running up his skin to keep him close to me.

If I was his curse, he was mine too. All of them were. I was bound by my word to my father to destroy them, and yet, I didn’t want to hurt them.

“Don’t leave me tonight,” I whispered. “Please.”

West didn’t respond. He pulled out of my embrace and finished rinsing the conditioner from my hair. Then he turned off the shower and pushed me towards Prescott, who took me out of the shower and bundled me up in a soft towel. I let him dry me off and seat me on the sink counter. My eyes roamed over the two men drying their bodies in front of me before they both pulled underwear on. The way they were so casual about being nude together, like it was no big deal, made me smile. Even if they hadn’t shared me in bed, it was clear they had a very close-knit friendship with each other. It didn’t stop their volatility, but I’d come to realise it was their nature.

Prescott picked up my hairdryer I’d left on his counter yesterday morning. I didn’t stop him from helping me dry my hair. He’d watched me do it enough times now. Then he picked up my toothbrush, squirting toothpaste on it before handing it to me. When I was done brushing my teeth, he plucked me off the counter and carried me into the bedroom. West followed, pulling back the covers when we reached the bed. Prescott laid me down in the middle, giving me a smile as he stroked my hair back from my face.

“You should get some sleep, sweetness.”

“Are you coming to bed?”

He nodded.

“Give me a few minutes, okay?”

Prescott didn’t wait for my response, pulling the covers over my naked body and tucking me in. He turned on one of the bedside lamps before clapping to turn out the main lights.

“I’m going to check on the others,” he murmured to West as he passed by him to grab his dressing gown.

Prescott shrugged it on and disappeared from the room. West stood watching me for a long moment. He stepped towards the bed, knelt on the end and crawled over me, planting one of his hands by my head whilst the other he laid between my breasts.

“Do you love Pres?”

There was no emotion in his eyes, but his question made me tense underneath him. If I lied to West, I didn’t think it would go well for me. And after the shit with Drake, I didn’t want to cause any further problems.

“Yes.”

West licked his bottom lip and shook his head a little before he smiled. His hand left my chest. He curled it around the covers next to me and pulled them back. He flopped down beside me, tugging them over himself before he cupped one of my breasts in a possessive manner and buried his face in my neck. I didn’t know what to make of his reaction, nor the fact he’d laid down next to me.

“What are you doing?” I whispered, even as my fingers entwined with his on my chest.

“Staying like you asked me to.”

For a moment I was absolutely stumped. What would Prescott say when he came back and found West in his bed with me?

“Is Pres going to be okay with that?”

“Don’t care either way.”

I couldn’t help smiling.

Typical West, not giving a shit what other people think.

“West?”

“Mmm?”

“Are you ever going to kiss me?”

His breath dusted across my neck.

“No.”

I wanted to ask him what his aversion to kissing was. West clearly had demons I wasn’t privy to, but it struck me as odd when the others did it.

“What about if I kissed you?”

West’s whole body tensed at my words. His fingers tightened around my breast, squeezing my fingers between his.

“Stop pressing the issue, Scar. It’s non-negotiable. I don’t kiss. Deal with it.”

I didn’t get to respond as Prescott came back into the room, shutting the door behind him. He didn’t comment as he went back into the bathroom. A few minutes later, he came out with two piles of clothes in his hands. He set them on his armchair before getting into bed on the other side to me from West. He turned out the light and pressed a kiss to my forehead before curling an arm around my waist and laying his head next to mine.

“I told you to get some sleep, little lamb.”

His fingers stroked my skin, encouraging me to drift off. Clearly, he wasn’t perturbed by West being in his bed. I allowed myself to relax against the two of them. And I fell asleep wondering if Drake was okay after what happened between us, even though I shouldn’t give a shit about him at all.