Kiss the Villain

“We’re so toxic, it’s unhealthy but also right. Because we’re each other’s darkness and light.”

REVIEW

Would I read this again? Yes No Maybe

Spice Level Legend How spicy is this book?

Tropes	Trigger Warnings
Enemies to lovers, Student/Professor, Age Gap, Forbidden, Gay awakening, Morally grey MMCs	Consensual non-con, dub-con, self-harm, violence, mild homophobia, suicide, rape, child sexual assault, and domestic abuse. Kinks include degradation, mild consensual feminization, mild BDSM, and praise.

Spicy Chapters

2, 7, 9, 13, 18, 19, 25, 28, 37

SUMMARY

This book is in the Rina Kent Universe. Most of these books can be read as standalone. Check out the reading order page for the recommended reading order.

Characters

Glyn & Killian - FMC and MMC of God of Malice

Creighton & Annika - MMC and FMC of God of Pain

Jeremy and Cecily - MMC and FMC of God of Wrath

Landon and Mya - MMC and FMC of God of Ruin

Nikolai and Brandon - MMCs of God of Fury

Eli and Ava - MMC and FMC of God of War

Plot

Gareth Carson is the Golden Boy. He isn’t a little psychopath like his brother Killian. He keeps, or tries to keep, the Heathens in line. Niko usually refers to him as boring and uptight. But they would be shocked to know that he isn’t much different from them. He has just learned to hide it. Gareth always knew he was different, but when Killian started freaking out their parents, Gareth decided he was going to learn how to be normal, learn how to be the perfect son, and make his parents proud of him.

When Gareth was 15, his first girlfriend, Harper, told Gareth that her dad had been raping her from an early age, then she committed suicide. Gareth decided that her dad needed to pay. He broke into their house and killed him. At 15 years old. He called his grandfather, Alexander Carson, and he helped. Gareth hasn’t killed anyone since, but he’s wanted to. Just because he doesn’t hurt others, doesn’t mean he doesn’t hurt himself. Him and Bran would be really good friends if they weren’t on opposite sides.

During a Serpent's party, all masked, Gareth gets himself a secret invite in. He plans to ruin the leader, Yulian, reputation. Why? Because the Heathens and Serpents hate each other of course.

He roofies Yulian, and follows him upstairs. His plan is to put this lube all over Yulian’s back, that looks like cum, and then hold his own dick in his hand to make it look like he sprayed all over Yulians back. Why? Strictly because the Heathens and Serpents hate each other…literally no other reason. But he loses track of him, follows someone into a room. He realizes too late that it's not Yulian. But a super angry guy. This guy is mad that Gareth has roofied this guy and is going to rape him that he … sexually assaults Gareth. An eye for an eye I guess? He forces Gareth to give him head. To his great surprise, Gareth likes it. Not the sexual assault, per se, but the sucking dick.

Since they are all wearing masks, Gareth has no idea who this guy is, but he doesn’t have to wait long to find out. First day of the semester, his new criminal law professor walks in. Gareth thinks his eyes look familiar, and then he talks, and Gareth knows. This is the guy. Kayden Lockwood. Kayden recognizes Gareth too and calls him out in class often. Which pisses Gareth off because he’s the golden boy - the perfect student. He doesn’t get called out by teachers.

Gareth decides he must pay - for the fucking of his mouth and for humiliating him in class. He honestly seems more upset about the latter. He stalks Kayden for a week and then breaks into his apartment. He stabs him in the neck with a syringe but doesn’t inject all of it so it doesn’t have the full effect. Kayden ends up flipping the script and injecting the rest of it into Gareth.

I would call what happens next definitely dubious consent. At first, Gareth was like no stop and then he was like wait, why’d you stop?

Kayden gets himself an invite to the Heathens initiation from Yulian, who got it from somewhere. Kayden walks up to Cherry and Gareth. Cherry is all over Gareth, and we find out why Gareth helped her through initiation. He thought it would be entertaining for Cherry and Glyn to make it through just to fuck with Killian. Cherry being all over Gareth pisses Kayden off, which he doesn’t understand, why should he care who Gareth does? But he does. Gareth sees Kayden and sends Cherry off to the finish line.

Thanks to Gareth being very observant he also notices Jeremy cornering Cecily in the forest. Niko with Bran on his lap. And Vaughn, the other Heathen member we don’t really know yet, had Yulian slammed up against a tree with a chain around his throat. Yulian was laughing saying “Love it when you get rough”.

Kayden gives Gareth another sexual identity crisis in the woods that night.

The next day is when Niko starts asking everyone if they are sure they only like women. Niko knows he is bi but he’s asking because Bran is insisting that he’s straight. Gareth admits that there's only one guy that has made him question things.

Gareth goes back over to Kayden’s apartment with a taser and a knife. He tazes him and says it's his turn to play with him, but he doesn’t get far before the shock wears off and Kayden has him flipped and tied up. Kayden then disappears for two weeks. When he finally texts Gareth again, he says he’s been sick, out of the country, and he sends him a dick pic. Gareth notices a silk scarf in the background. Even though, he is totally straight, and absolutely does not care who Kayden is fucking, he rushes over to his apartment and lets himself in. He gets greeted by an older woman holding a gun to his face. It's Kaydens moms.

Gareth immediately befriends his moms because he’s like this is how I figure out all of Kayden’s secrets. And oh boy, does Kayden have secrets.

Gareth doesn’t find out until later in the book, but let’s go over all his secrets now.

Kayden Lockwood’s real name is Kayden Davenport. He is the second son of Harrod Davenport, one of the founders of Vencor. A secret society that basically runs whatever they want but known to the world as a “pioneers in imports and exports”. Kayden has a half brother, Grant. Grant’s mom killed herself to get away from Harrod, and Kayden’s mom, after a few years, took Kayden, and her girlfriend, and ran away. Harrod found them and threatened to kill his mom and her girlfriend but Kayden agreed to go away with him and learn the business. Kayden got married to Cassandra. But it wasn’t a marriage out of love but arranged by their fathers. They were best friends but nothing more. Cassandra was working on sealing a deal with a Senator on a government contract. The Senator (whos name is Baltimore) really wanted to fuck her but she said hm no thanks. He invited her to his vacation house to go over a new project, then he drugged her. She was brutally ganged raped and then murdered. Kayden has been spending the last few years hunting down every single one and killing them. When he got to the last name on the list, Alexander Carson, he decided that Alexander was old, he’d die soon, so where’s the fun in that? This is the last one, might as well have some fun. So he decided to become a professor at the school where Alexander Carson’s grandsons went. His plan was to kill Gareth and Killian, then Asher (their dad), and then Reina (their mom). He didn’t want to just kill Alexander physically, but emotionally….then physically. But plans got derailed when he met Gareth. For some reason, Gareth intrigued him. Then he became absolutely obsessed with him and his plan went to shit.

Over the next few months, Gareth finally gives up acting like he doesn’t want Kayden. They develop a very cute, but secret because professor/student, relationship. Kayden is thinking it's finally time to come clean to Gareth about his past, about his ex-wife. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get the chance to. Cassandra’s brother, Declan, who has been helping Kayden avenge her murder, finds out that Kayden has been hiding the last name from him. Declan gets Gareths phone number and sends him a bunch of texts telling him all about who Kayden really is. Along with his wedding video.

Remember how I said Gareth liked to indulge in self harm? Well, seeing Kayden looking real happy with his wife, doesn’t do great things for Gareth’s mental health. Gareth calls Kayden, Gareth is asking him questions, and Kayden can hear slashing in the background. He asks him what the noise is but Gareth doesn’t answer. Gareth hangs up and Kayden is racing home. But when he gets there, Gareth isn’t there. Just a whole lot of blood.

Gareth had gotten a call from Declan. Declan said he’d answer any questions about Kayden if they met. So he meets him. Declan obviously just wants to torture and kill Gareth so he abducts him. For 36 hours, Declan tortures him. Mentally when physically doesn’t get him the response he wants. He shows him videos of Kayden with Cassandra on repeat until Gareth is smashing his own head against the wall.

Kayden finally finds Gareth and saves him. Declan gets away (for now). Kayden takes Gareth to a safe house in Chicago (since Declan took him to the States). Since Gareth has been missing for a few days, Kayden calls Alexander to tell him that he has Gareth, that he is safe, and he’ll be home soon.

When Gareth wakes up, he attempts to cut himself again, then proceeds to yell at Kayden and tell him he wants to erase him from his mind. He flips his shit and Kayden tries to apologize, to explain, but Gareth isn’t having it. Kayden has his bodyguards take Gareth to New York, to his parents house.

After a few days, Gareth comes clean to his dad about how he killed Harper's dad, and how he has been hiding his psychopathic tendencies so he didn’t disappoint him like Killian. Then he tells them about Kayden. Alexander gets all mad - not because Kayden is a dude - but because Kayden is 11 years older than Gareth. He also tells Gareth that Senator Baltimore was chief of police when Gareth killed Harper's dad. Alexander called in a favor and Baltimore covered it up, but kept some evidence as leverage. When Baltimore raped and killed Cassandra, Alexander knew about it. He was leaving the house as Cassandra was going in. Baltimore said that if Alexander said anything, he’d make sure that the evidence against Gareth went public.

Kayden may be leaving Gareth alone for a few days but he isn’t far. He has his bodyguard, Simone, follow Gareth and keep an eye on him. Gareth resents it at first but honestly, it's the best thing, because Simone tells Gareth everything and anything he wants to know about Kayden. One day, Simone is gone, she texts Gareth and tells him that they got Declan. Gareth is safe now….

However there is one pesky little problem left. Remember Kayden’s half brother Grant? And Vencor? Well Vencor is stuck in the early 1950s when it comes to homosexuality. No one is allowed to be openly gay that is in the business. Well, Declan outed Kayden to Grant. Now Kayden has to be on the run from Grant, but Grant doesn’t know who Gareth is, so Gareth is still safe.

Gareth finds out from Simone and insists on being taken to see Kayden. They make up but then Grant has to ruin everything and show up. Kayden makes his second in command tech guy, Jethro, take Gareth and run. Gareth at first refuses but Kayden promises he just needs to grab Simone and they’ll be right behind them. But…he’s lying.

He confronts Grant and he is stalling for time hoping Jethro can get Gareth far enough away and to his parents and their mafia connections. But Gareth comes back, Grant points the gun at him, but Kayden jumps in front of it. After six hours in surgery, Kayden pulls through.

Three months later in the epilogue - Kayden and Gareth are having family dinner with all of Gareth's family. Kind of awkward because Alexander really dislikes him. And Kill is being… well Kill. They also have Niko and Bran over and that might honestly be my favorite part of the whole book.

Six months after that in epilogue number 2, Gareth and Kayden go see Kayden’s nephew (Grant’s son) Kane play in a hockey game. Kayden gets all jealous of his nephew because Gareth bought his jersey and is so animated talking about hockey. Later on, Kayden walks them by this house that Gareth happened to mention liking and said, oh hey I bought this for us. And then Kayden asks him to marry him.

Side note - couldn’t figure out where to add all this into the summary but while Gareth was going through his identity crisis he gets on Reddit and is like “I’m not gay, but I can’t stop thinking about my superior - Help!” and one of his responses is from this guy named QuietRage. They talk a lot on Reddit and Gareth realizes that he is talking to Vaughn. During one of their chats QuietRage said that he had this girlfriend for years until he found her cheating with this dude and now he can’t stop thinking about the guy - not the girl. Which Gareth found out in the beginning of the book that Vaughn’s long time girlfriend cheated on him with Yulian. Vaughn and Gareth continued chatting as if they don’t know who each other is until Kayden gets shot. Gareth calls Vaughn to ask Vaughn for more Mafia protection other than what he can get from Niko’s mom. Gareth said I’m assuming you know we’ve been talking on Reddit and Vaughn was like dude why’d you have to ruin it.

Also - Kayden rescues this wittle baby kitten and Gareth is like terrified of it and it's so damn funny. But then he ends up loving it and it's just so adorable. He names her Moka.