Love Like Cyanide - ch 20

alpha idol paranormal romance

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Chapter 20: Dante

This woman was going to shorten my life expectancy, I swore to fucking God. With her around, I felt like grey hair was in my near future. Either that, or a heart attack. But now that Natalie was as safe as she could be, which was still questionable with Valentine and I in the room and unreasonable amount of pheromones still thickening the air… I wanted to let myself relax. Easier said than done.

Even after getting to knock Valentine around a little, not nearly as much as he deserved for having Natalie be the sole recipient of his unnatural rut energy, I was still wound tighter than an old pocket watch. The adrenaline was still humming in my veins, and the urge to fight or fuck something was only getting stronger.

So help me, if being around these two hormonal twits sent me into my rut early…

I exhaled loudly, not wanting to even entertain the idea. I was a prince. I had better control than that. I was not just a slave to the chemical imperatives in my body. I had poise. I was a thinking, intelligent being…

On the other hand, the idea of having Natalie and Valentine at the same time had me taking a slurp of coffee to hide the fact that I was salivating just thinking about it.

This wasn’t sustainable, outside of this incident. We couldn’t just run off and go on a pheromone-fueled fuckfest for a week at a time, whenever the urges struck us. We were all adults. And we were more human than animal.

…Weren’t we?

A comfortable silence settled between the three of us, but the more I thought about… the more I felt like letting the beast off the leash might have been exactly what we all needed. When was the last time Valentine and I went to a Mord party and had the chance to just exist? No more masking, no more holding back.

Entirely too long.

And all seven of us going? Even longer, still. I made a mental note to myself that we were going on a group trip to one, next time we were on a break. We were long overdue.

We’d have to be more cautious and careful with Natalie, because she had no clue what she might be capable of handling, but blowing off steam before heading back to work in two days? One hundred percent worth it. And I knew just which match to strike to get that blaze going.

I casually dropped my arms, letting my hand settle on Valentine’s thigh beneath the table. As much I wanted to punch him in his stupid square jaw sometimes, Valentine worked his ass off to look good. To have the endurance to handle dancing on stage for hours without any breaks, while still having stable enough vocals that some people were convinced he lip synced. When he couldn’t sleep at night, I knew he went down to the gym to wear himself out.

Our bodies being to a certain standard was part of our job, but Valentine had always taken that miles beyond the bare minimum. He’d carved himself into something more awe-inspiring and gorgeous than anything the best classical sculptors could have imagined. I’d always been jealous of the way he could just pack on mass, then get shredded a few weeks later.

My normal taste in men skewed towards smaller, leaner guys than Valentine. But when I gave the thick muscles of his quads a slow, purposeful squeeze and I could feel his pulse quicken even through the material of his grey sweats, I was more than willing to give something new a try. Even though this wasn’t my first attempt to get my hands on Valentine.

Natalie being a point of contention was just another thing tossed onto the pile of arguments that had grown into a mountain between us. We’d been working together for seven years. That was longer than some marriages lasted. Of course there was some resentment that’d been fermenting, not quite sure if it would age into wine or vinegar.

After the first awards show where we took home multiple wins as a group, there was more than a fair amount of alcohol had by all of us. Well, most of us. As per usual, Valentine was more lucid than the combined power of the remaining functional brain cells the other six of us hadn’t managed to drown yet. He was always so put together, so carefully in control.

And damn, did he look good in that suit. It was a black number with grey pinstripes, and he didn’t have a shirt on beneath the jacket. Another norm for him. He’d always found subtle ways to show off without going too far or being overly lewd. Most folks would call that classy. I’d always found his humble nature frustrating as fuck.

His dark curls were artfully arranged, managing to look messy and perfect all at once. Thy stylist had given him smokey eye makeup, drawing out the warm hues in his deep brown eyes. A bright silver chain encircled his neck, tight but not quite a collar. A length of it dangled between his collarbones and down the center of his chest. It drew my attention to him, just like it was meant to.

That was before the media clusterfuck, and although some hints had been dropped in the confidence of other members, nobody knew for sure that I was bi. But I knew. And that night, I wanted Valentine. Needed him with such a burning ache in my bones that I felt like I’d burn to ash if I couldn’t have him.

We flirted a bit, like we always did. And my increasingly inebriated mind was becoming more and more certain that the chemistry between us was more than just friendliness or fan service.

The atmosphere of the after party around us was dim, warm with excitement and the sheer quantity of bodies milling around, and oppressively loud. We sat close together on a leather couch that had seen more asses than I cared to think about, the sides of our legs pressed against each other. That close to him, I was overwhelmed by the subtle scent that—at the time—I’d assumed was his cologne.

I found myself wondering how much more potent the aroma would be if I buried my face in his neck, worrying the skin with my teeth, leaving behind marks that the stylists would have to conceal for days to come, if not longer.

I was almost embarrassed to be so weirdly possessive of him, when Valentine wasn’t even close to being mine. But I wanted him to be. I did the classic, clumsy move: draping my arm over his shoulders and leaning in close to his ear so he could hear me over the noise. That mistake was the final nail in the coffin, in my eyes.

“You need to be more cautious,” he’d said, eyes shifting my way for the barest of seconds before he went back to just observing the room, lounging in a way that you’d think he wasn’t paying attention. But if you knew anything about Valentine, you’d know that alert and on the ball was his middle name.

Don’t try to decipher how that’s a name. That’s not the point.

“Cautious of what? I’m pretty sure I could take you in a fight, if I had to.” I snarked back at him.

That made him laugh, and his hand settled on my thigh near my knee, giving a warning squish. “I doubt you’re willing to bet your life on that.”

“You’re right. There are things I’d rather do to that mouth of yours that have nothing to do with punching it.”

Valentine smirked, fixing me with that heated dark stare that melted fans into their socks. “You don’t know how rough I like it. But now’s not the time, and this isn’t the place. Tone it down, or people are going to start asking questions.”

Drunk me was highly offended, as sauced-up morons tended to be. “Fine,” I huffed, crossing my legs and arms, leaning slightly away from him.

“Besides,” he continued, and I turned my face towards him as he spoke. “You’re drunk enough that I wouldn’t, even if you gave me all the green lights in the known universe.”

I snorted, narrowing my eyes at him. “What the fuck do you even know, Valentine?”

“More than I like to let on,” he had answered with a tired sigh.

It’d been years since then, and I never would have dreamed we’d be back where we had almost been before. But here I was, with Natalie being an added bonus. I tried not to think too hard about how the rest of the afternoon was going to go. But now I couldn’t help feeling like I might have been one of the luckiest guys in the world.

“For a man whose hand keeps creeping dangerously close to my cock, you seem terribly distracted, Dante.”

Valentine’s voice dragged me from the memory and I gave him a wolfish grin, the slight rasp in his tone speeding my pulse. “Sorry, baby. Feeling neglected? Close isn’t what I was going for. I wasn’t honestly intending to tease…”

I wasn’t surprised that he was already hard when I slid my hand farther north to cover the enticing curve of his cock. His breath hitched and I took the lobe of his ear between my teeth, rolling it between them before kissing it gently to soothe the sting of the bite. I could see his pulse jumping in his neck and had to fight the urge to sink my teeth into his flesh.

The sudden violent thought startled me, and I realized that the only other time I’d had something like that flash through my brain was the night I spent with Natalie. I didn’t feel like I was actually endangering either of them, but it gave me pause. Enough air for my brain to bring me back into the zone of logic, even if it was only for a second or two.

I tilted my face away from him, fixing Natalie with my gaze. “Do you think we should…?”

He tried to speak, failed. Had to clear his throat, and it was deeper when he managed to drag out words. Having him that flustered already was doing things to my body and ego that I was almost ashamed to admit. Almost.

“I think we definitely should.”

We were both staring at her, now. Her nostrils flared like she could smell the change in the atmosphere. She wasn’t a prey animal, but having both of us look at her like we were about to eat her… I’d bet she felt like one.

“Come here, Natalie.” Valentine held his hand out to her, open and inviting. Giving her space to back out if she wasn’t down for this. To tell us to leave. That we were weird. That this was gross, or wrong.

She swallowed loudly, but only denied herself for a few seconds before the chair scraped against the linoleum and she walked over to us, fingertips trailing across the table. Insert something about her being little, but fierce. If I was in her shoes, I don’t know if I would have said yes.

But she perched on Valentine’s leg like it was a throne crafted just for her, and she gripped his chin in her slender fingers, turning his face up to meet hers as she kissed him deeply. Her eyes slitted open and her baby blues pinned me to the spot as she peered under thick lashes at me, flames in her gaze burning into my heart and soul. The intense heat in her eyes sent a rush of blood straight to my dick, and I was suddenly so hard I felt like I could cut glass with the tip.

Natalie rested her small hand on top of mine, slotting her fingers in between mine and slowly closing her fist so we were both gripping Valentine’s cock together. The movement dragged a deep groan from both of us, and her pleased little giggle into his lips at our reaction was going to be the death of me.

Author’s Notes: Hey, all! I’ve spent the time since the last update rewriting the entire thing word for word, with the tense switching to past and all that. Overall, 3700 words were added in! It should add some clarity and world-building to make the universe more complex.

I see this thing wrapping totally in 10 chapters or less! Finishing up and doing another line edit/revision pass for August is the goal. Cheer me on in the comments, and let me know what your favorite line was from this chapter!

Thanks for hanging in there with me!

~Miranda K. Darq

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