Twisted Affair: Dark Taboo Romance (Eddie and Heaven Book 1)

by V Vee

  We all got quiet as we thought it over. I palmed my forehead. “Duh, we could always look it up.”

  Parker snorted. “Yeah, but with the men we all ended up with, we’re supposed to know this kind of stuff off the top of our heads, right? I mean… I know Logan would have a heart attack if I called to tell him that I couldn’t remember something as basic as how many players there were on a basketball team.”

  Ava nodded. “Kynan too. Matter of fact, his big Irish ass would probably call Kyra and Andrew and sell me out.”

  I shook my head. “Well, Zander wouldn’t care. He’s not really into sports like that, so—” I trailed off when I saw the looks of incredulity that the girls were giving me.

  “What?”

  “Bitch, you know what. Zander is not your man. He’s your placeholder. Your security blanket.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Parker. I liked her and she was a friend, but she was dangerously close to crossing the line.

  Ava waved her hand. “Her words may be a little too blunt, but she’s not wrong, Hev.”

  I stared at my older sister—the traitor—in surprise.

  “What?”

  Ava took a deep breath and placed a hand on her rounded belly, nodding a thank you to the waiter who came and placed a plate of Dougnollis and chocolate croissants down in front of her. I waited for her to take a bite before she finished her statement, because I knew how my sister was when she was pregnant. There was absolutely nothing that could or would get in the middle of her and food when she was hungry. Not even her proving a point and being right.

  Which was definitely saying something.

  After she’d eaten two of the dougnollis: which were donuts filled with cannoli cream and pistachio—a specialty of the café’s—Ava fixed her unwavering gaze on my face.

  “When you and Zander got together it was because of Ashley.” She lifted her hand to stop me from responding when I opened my mouth. “You can try to deny it all you want, but we all know the truth. You were pregnant. Eddie had left. Cut off communication… or so you thought. And you—feeling hormonal, emotional, and abandoned—turned to the closest man who wouldn’t make you feel like a statistic. One who wouldn’t make you feel like dad’s first wife, the woman he left in order to be with mom and to start a whole new family with.”

  I swallowed and turned my head away as Ava’s words hit their mark.

  “Hey, Hev. Don’t feel bad. I had the same issues, especially with Kynan. The manwhore. Remember I got pregnant and took off to go and spend time with my ex, the hockey player?”

  I nodded. Kynan had been livid. He’d shown up at my place, his eyes wild, hair unkempt, clothes disarrayed. His jaw had been clenched as he practically pleaded with me to tell him where my sister had gone. He hadn’t wanted to go to his brother for the information. He was trying to not scare Ava. I had been so happy for them both when they returned to Baltimore… together.

  “So, that’s basically what you did. But instead of you turning to Zander for a shoulder to lean on—”

  “Or even a quick hookup,” Parker interjected.

  “—or that,” Ava acknowledged with a tilt of her head in Parker’s direction. “You let him turn it into a relationship. But you knew your heart was still Eddie’s. Knew you didn’t have it in your possession to try to give it to anyone else. Which is why you fell so easily back into his arms when he came back.” She took a sip of the water in front of her.

  “You need to work things out with Eddie. Not just for the sake of your own heart and mind… but for Ashley’s. That girl deserves to know who her real father is.

  “And Eddie deserves to know that he’s got a kid out there. A little girl he’s missed raising because he wanted to be an idiot.”

  And that’s what it was.

  Ashley.

  I could handle Eddie coming back into my life and turning it upside down, but what about my daughter?

  And even more than that, what would Zander do when he found out that I was seriously thinking about letting Eddie back into my world?

  Chapter 8

  Unboxed Gym

  Hunt Valley, MD

  Eddie

  “Come on, Eddie! Get those hands up!” Troy Harris, one of the trainers at the gym yelled at me as I sparred with another of the guys. Since that first night where Logan and I boxed each other, I’d been back almost every other night. Training. Sparring. Boxing. Working Out.

  Preparing.

  I hadn’t had any run-ins with Zander since the day he’d shown up at my old place, but I knew that was only because he was planning something. Either he was going to try and take me unaware somewhere he had the advantage, or he was going to ambush me, maybe with the men who were in his father’s employ.

  Zander thought I didn’t know about the connections that he and his family had. I’d always known. The thing was, when we were “friends” in high school, it wasn’t a problem. He never used them against me. But now?

  Zander was worse than a jilted lover. He was a man who knew he’d stolen something, taken something that didn’t belong to him, and now the rightful owner was coming back to repossess it, and he had to do everything he could to maintain ownership.

  Shit. I was making Heaven sound an inanimate object. A non-human to be possessed like she was a piece of property.

  I sighed and tried to rid myself of the haze of fury that had clouded my mind. I didn’t feel that way about Heaven. I knew I didn’t. I loved her more than I loved anyone else. I didn’t work without her. When I was without her, I turned into a monster. A beast. A brute.

  I lost my humanity, my reasoning.

  I became driven purely by instinct.

  Heaven was my soul. My conscience. She breathed life into my spirit and made my heart beat.

  I wasn’t sure I was even alive without her.

  And that was why I needed her so much.

  There was no me without that woman.

  The burst of pain against my jaw snapped me out of my inner musings and I jerked my body, ducking and weaving the other jabs and swings in my direction. The guy I was boxing at that moment, Calvin, was a hockey player from the Sitka Assassins, in town to play the Bruins.

  He’d also told me that he was coming to bring his woman home.

  I understood the sentiment.

  We were both filled with frustration. Confusion. Anger. We were annoyed. Agitated. And no doubt we were both beyond horny.

  Those things together made for very dangerous and deadly men.

  Which was why I wasn’t too surprised that he was fighting so hard.

  I would be too if I could just get my mind off Heaven.

  Ducking another wild swing, I came up, my arms tucked close and I released short, quick, powerful jabs to Calvin’s torso. Over and over, until I finally brought my gloved right hand up in an uppercut, my left following with a hook shot.

  Calvin hit the ground… hard and I stood back to let Troy count. Once he’d declared Calvin down and out, and me the winner of our sparring, only then did I take a deep breath and let myself look around the gym. Which was a mistake. Because, leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest was Zander.

  Bitchass mother fucker.

  I smirked at him, taking in the sight of his casual “gym” wear.

  I strolled over to the ropes and leaned on the top one. I spit out my mouth guard and tilted my head to the side.

  “You come to get your ass handed to you again?” I taunted.

  Zander narrowed his eyes and pushed away from the wall.

  “I came to settle this once and for all,” he said, trying to sound brave, like he was a man.

  But between the two of us, we knew who had that BDE: Big Dick Energy. Hell, when I walked, my cock swung between my thighs, the print shown clearly in almost everything that I wore. I couldn’t help it. There was nothing containing the beast between my legs. But Zander?

  If it still looked like the little baby dick he had back in high school, then he wasn’
t just jealous of the connection that Heaven and I had, the bitch was mad because my cock was bigger. But, like, what did he want me to do about that? He needed to talk to his god about that one. Mine had blessed me, indeed.

  “Well come on then.” I snorted a laugh at him as he crawled up into the ring with me.

  I shook my head when let one of his lackeys tape up his hands and pull the gloves on.

  “I see you’re still letting other people do shit for you,” I taunted.

  Zander rose from the stool he’d been sitting on and gave me a small smile. “Yeah, instead of jacking off my dick like I used to do in high school, I let Heaven sit on it and get me off instead.”

  And had it not been for the men in that gym, those would have been his final words.

  A white-hot fury engulfed my entire being. Ripping the skin from my bones, exposing every nerve, before burning away all sensation and turning them into numb cells. The human was replaced by a monster. The one the Marines had trained, tested, broken and rebuilt into a super soldier. I wasn’t just the son of a blue-collar worker anymore. I was a Marine. I was a Steele.

  And no one fucked with a Steele man’s woman.

  I didn’t wait for the bell to ring. I didn’t wait for permission. I went on the offense as soon as that last word left Zander’s lips. I’d delivered five punches to his face and torso before he’d even realized what was going on. I wasn’t breathing hard. I was barely sweating.

  I gave into the growling, raging monster within, and what that monster wanted was blood.

  Zander’s blood.

  With every hit…

  With every connection of my gloved fists and Zander’s flesh…

  I felt vindicated.

  I felt as if I were regaining a piece of myself I wasn’t even aware that I’d lost upon discovering that he and Heaven were engaged.

  And then, because this was real life and not a movie, where I could just hit and hit and hit until Zander went down, conceded defeat and promised to leave Heaven’s life forever, I stumbled a bit in my footing, which was all the opening that bastard needed.

  Before I could regain my equilibrium, Zander was delivering blow after blow to my face. My arms. My stomach. It hurt. I’m not going to lie and say it didn’t. But more than that, it pissed me off. I was the hero of this story. Not him. I was the one who was supposed to dominate in the ring. To make him regret ever looking twice at my woman, much less dating her and proposing to her. But now…

  Now Zander felt as if he were right. He smirked and laughed as he threw jabs and hooks, all of them connecting. When my body collided with the floor of the ring, I heard the gasps and groans from the regulars of the gym. No one had been able to best me since I’d started there. As a matter of fact, Troy had been talking about training me to go pro. And yet, here was this slender guy, who just looked as if he spent the bulk of his life looking down on people like me, and getting others to do everything for him, who was wiling out on me.

  That just would not do.

  And because I fully believe that my mother is always looking out for me, the tables turned, and it all happened because Zander felt the need to open his big ass mouth.

  “After I kick… your ass… I’m going to go home… grab Heaven… then I’m going to pump my cock all up in that fat pussy… I’m going to remind her of why… she let you go… and why she’s with me… And I’m going to take pictures… to send them to you…”

  And that was all the incentive that I needed.

  I let out a roar and threw myself at him. The gasps, words of concern, and shouts from the other patrons of the gym was drowned out by the sound of my blood pumping in my ears, by the sound of my fists connecting with Zander’s face, arms, head, over and over again. I was no longer fight this punk ass.

  I was going to kill this mother fucker. And I was going to enjoy it.

  Chapter 9

  The Johns Hopkins Hospital

  Baltimore, Maryland

  Heaven

  I ran into the hospital, out of breath and feeling guilty as hell that I sat in my apartment for over an hour before finally deciding to come down.

  Zander and Eddie had been fighting at the gym. A gym I hadn’t even known Zander was a part of.

  Apparently, Zander had almost bested Eddie, but then Eddie had turned around and beat Zander almost to death. It was only the testimony of the other people in the gym, who said it wasn’t malicious, that it was an accident that kept Eddie from being arrested.

  That and apparently Ava had asked for a favor from her brother-in-law.

  I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that.

  I walked up to the nurse’s desk and waited to be acknowledged but something caught my eye.

  Turning my head, I saw Eddie standing in the doorway to a hospital room and anger flooded my system. I marched over to him and poked him in the sternum.

  “What the fuck are you doing her? Come to see if he makes it? Come to check out your handiwork?” I pushed him into the room and slammed the door shut behind me.

  “You almost killed him, Eddie! What the fuck were you thinking?”

  I pushed him again. And again. Until I’d shoved him onto the bed. He smirked at me and wrapped his hands around my waist.

  “You know, if you wanted me, you didn’t have to pretend you were mad. You could have just asked for me to fuck you.”

  I shook my head. “Eddie, I’m serious.”

  “I am too.” He stood up and looked down at me. “You are mine, Heaven. We belong together. You know that. I know that. Hell, even fucking Zander knows that. It’s why he keeps testing my patience. You would be doing us all a favor if you would just break things off with him and come back to me.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not that simple…”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Eddie, you don’t understand.”

  “Do you love him?”

  I blinked at him. “W-what?”

  He stepped so close to me we were passing air back and forth to each other.

  “Do. You. Love. Him?”

  “I-I-I— “

  Eddie nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” And with that he took my mouth harshly with his own and damn…

  It felt amazing.

  All thoughts of putting a halt to things were shoved out of my head when Eddie picked me up and walked me over to the dresser against the wall.

  He grabbed my wrists in one of his hands and held them above my head, pressing them above my head.

  “Do you still have it?”

  I played stupid. There was only one thing he could be talking about.

  “Have what?”

  “You know what, Heaven. The tattoo. Our tattoo.”

  “No.”

  Grabbing my hair, he tugged my head back and nibbled on my chin.

  “Liar.”

  Reaching down, Eddie lifted one of my legs and placed it over his shoulder, before leaning forward and putting his mouth against my leaking pussy, right through the fabric of my thin shorts. He hummed as he rubbed his lips and nose over my most intimate place as if he were smelling the most delicious fragrance. Once he reached up to tug my shorts and panties down, I shivered and lowered my hands to his head, burying my fingers in his hair.

  “God, I missed you,” Eddie murmured.

  I trembled at the small pinch of pain as Eddie bit gently on the inside of my thigh.

  I watched as he rose smoothly and crossed over to lock us in the room.

  I stood and pulled down my shorts, shoving them down, stopping with my hands on my underwear when I heard Eddie’s growl. I lifted my eyebrows in surprise at him and glanced down.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Mine,” he told me.

  I smirked at him. “What’s yours? This?” I reached a hand down to my panty covered pussy and rubbed at the damp fabric, biting my lower lip as lust zinged its way through my limbs. Eddie groaned and the sound empowered me. Reaching down, I slipped a hand into my thong, runni
ng a finger through the damp curls of my sex to my plump nub. I caressed it lightly, before strumming it with a stronger more determined touch.

  Eddie strode towards me, but I held up a hand.

  “Stay,” I commanded him, pleased when he stopped mere feet away from me. I tilted my head back as I slid a finger down through my wet lips to my opening, pushing one finger deep into my silken walls. The pleasure I felt, knowing Eddie’s eyes were on me was so intense, I tilted my head back and gasped out his name.

  “You are killing me, gorgeous,” Eddie groaned.

  I smiled. “I don’t want you to die, baby,” I said. “I just want you to stay with me forever and never leave me again.”

  Pulling my fingers from my wet pussy, I lifted them to my mouth, and flicked the tips with my tongue. Eddie let out a harsh groan and I opened my eyes to look at him. His blue eyes were trained on me, his long black lashes framing his passion-filled gaze. His bare chest rose and fell, a light sheen of sweat glistening on his hard pecs. I slowly dragged my tongue over my bottom lip, quirking my eyebrow when I saw Eddie’s eyes following the movement.

  “Mmm,” I hummed. “I taste really good, baby.”

  Eddie growled. “Gimme.” His body seemed to be trembling with barely restrained control. I could see the veins in his forearms displayed prominently as Eddie clenched his fists, a pink flush moving over his collarbone and up his neck.

  “You want some?” I asked him as I held my fingers out in his direction. I gasped as Eddie rushed forward to take my glistening fingers in his mouth, sucking them deep. Swirling his tongue over each digit. I reached up and gripped the back of Eddie’s head, tangling my slender fingers in his hair.

  When Eddie slid his mouth off my fingers with a wet suck, I tugged on his thick locks, watching his eyes darkened with lust as he took direction from me and kneeled. Releasing his head, I slid my hands into my thong.

  “May I?” Eddie questioned with a gesture towards my now drenched underwear.