The Dark Elite (The Dark Elite 1)

I feel like I’m outside of myself, like whatever rational mind I have left is observing all of this from the outside.

Whatever is in charge of my body right now is anything but rational. It’s pure animal instinct, the basest of human desires.

The need to feel. To beat back pain with pleasure.

I tilt my head up, letting Zaid kiss and lick his way up my neck and throat.

It’s not enough, so I wrap my legs around him, rolling my hips against his hardness. My breasts strain against the thin shirt I’m wearing, my nipples going taut. I want the full weight of his toned chest against mine, his hands on my breasts, his mouth on my skin. I don’t care if it pulls my stitches. In fact, a reckless part of me hopes it does. Hopes I bleed out in Zaid’s arms, my life flaring like a spark before winking out.

His tongue swirls against the column of my throat, dipping lower as his teeth scrape my collarbone. I grip his head, pressing him into me, weaving my hands through his soft hair as an inarticulate groan falls from my lips. My clit pulses with every suck and nip of his tongue and teeth, jealous of his attention.

His chuckle reverberates through my entire body as he palms my breast, letting his thumb roll in delicate circles across my peaked nipple. My panties are already soaked. I can feel them sticking to my skin, wet with my arousal.

No. This is so fucking wrong. I need to… escape.

But there’s never been a simple escape from Zaid’s touch. He was an addiction when I was sixteen, and now I’m like a druggie falling off the wagon—tossing away six years of sobriety for a momentary high.

Nothing that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours has made sense. It all feels like a fucked up dream.

And this is no different.

Zaid grunts against my skin as he reaches for the zipper of my borrowed jeans, yanking it down and rubbing against my wet panties before slipping a hand all the way down to the heat of my core.

Madness tears through me. Pure insanity.

I buck against his touch, and when he pulls his hand out of my pants to slide his own zipper down, I make no move to stop him. He braces himself on one arm above me, staring down at me with eyes that look almost black. Devilish.

My chest is rising and falling fast, my nipples hard buds beneath the fabric of my shirt, and when his gaze moves down my body, he groans.

“Oh, Jesus…”

He drops his head, his lips claiming mine again as his tongue slides into my mouth with demanding strokes—

“What the fuck?”

The furious shout tears through the almost dream-state I’ve ended up in, and my heart freezes in my chest before taking off like a panicked rabbit. I wrench my mouth away from Zaid’s as we both turn our heads.

The door slams shut behind Hale as he storms into the room.

My blood turns to water, and I can feel the color draining from my cheeks.

The look on his face is pure fury.

6

Grace

“What in the actual fuck is going on in here?”

The words are barely out of Hale’s mouth before he grabs Zaid by the shoulder, throwing him off the bed. The blond man lands hard on the floor with a grunt, and Hale rounds on him. He doesn’t even seem to have noticed that my wrists have been untied—or if he has, he doesn’t care.

Relief and terror clash inside me as I watch Zaid scramble to his feet.

What the fuck did I just do? What would I have done if we weren’t interrupted?

Things were never supposed to go that far. I had hoped to remind Zaid of the friendship we used to have, of the feelings that once existed between us—but those weren’t the feelings I was trying to reignite.

The craving.