Xavier O’Brien
Page 17
I swallowed hard and allowed my eyes to move to where Ghost and Jake stood behind Xavier. Bile rose up in my throat at the smug expression on Jake’s face. This was all his doing. He sold me out to Xavier.
The bastard.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Xavier continued, forcing my eyes back to his menacing presence.
I shook my head and bit my tongue. He looked disappointed when I did. Like he expected me to put up a fight. But I knew I had done wrong. Knew that he’d make sure my punishment would fit the crime.
“Shame,” he murmured before sticking the knife in the back pocket of his jeans. Jeans that while they stretched across his assets nicely, were also splattered with blood. Once again I had to fight puking up my lunch.
With arms crossed against his large chest, Xavier watched me with a blank expression. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to decide the best way to kill me or if this was part of his game to freak me the fuck out.
For the record, it was working. I was completely freaking out. Adrenaline pumped at a fast pace through my veins, making my hands shake. My mouth was dry and my heart was pounding a fast and hard rhythm in my chest.
“I want to hear from your mouth why it is that you’re here today,” Xavier spoke just as I was about to scream out of frustration and fear. It was as if he knew I was edging closer and closer to my breaking point.
I glared at Jake for a moment before opening my mouth to speak. I closed it and then opened it again; unsure of what exactly I should say. Admitting all the things I had done was surely a quick way to get myself killed. Then again, if I was dead Xavier couldn’t torture me.
“I’m waiting,” he bit out impatiently.
I forced myself to sit back on my haunches and look Xavier in the face. If I was going to go, I was going to go with honor. No way in hell was I going to lie and hide. While I may have done wrong, I thought—at the time—that it needed to be done.
Aurora left this man, my brain reminded me. Ran off into hiding with Sophie. Clearly you weren’t too far off the mark.
“I conspired against you.” My voice croaked like a frog was in my throat. I cleared it and forged ahead with my confession. “I tried to break up you and Aurora. Time and again I did things behind your back to make you look bad. I tried to convince her to leave you for Marx and I told her stories about you and other women in hopes she’d leave you.”
His face registered surprise for a brief second before he wiped it clean. He took a step closer so that he loomed over me, a bigger than life presence meant to intimidate.
“Anything else?” He prodded, but unless he wanted specifics then I had nothing further to share.
“Then I guess it’s my turn,” he went on after I shook my head.
“You were broke and alone, struggling to support yourself and I gave you a job when no one else would. When your daughter needed an emergency appendectomy, I not only gave you time off with pay but I paid for her medical bills. I gave you a fucking home here, Candy. I trusted you and Aurora trusted you and this is how you repay us? By being a fucking rat?”
When he put it that way…
“I’m sorry,” I whispered feeling utterly ashamed for my behavior. “I thought I was helping Aurora, not hurting her. And I never sought out to slap you in the face for all you did for me. I just thought…” I trailed off, not wanting to be as big of a snake as Jake was to me. I would never sink that low.
“Honestly, I don’t give a shit what you thought,” Xavier bit out. “No one, but no one, fucks with what is mine.” He bent down so he was in my face and roared, “Do you hear me?”
I flinched as he brought his hand up like he was going to backhand me. But just as quickly as his arm rose, he lowered it. His hand gripped my jaw and he pushed on my head, straining my neck, when he said, “You’re not worth it.”
He stood quickly and pulled a gun from behind his back and leveled it at me. There was something dark and sinister in his gaze when his eyes met mine. It chilled me down to my very core. I used to think Xavier O’Brien was cruelly beautiful. Now I just thought he was cruel. I wouldn’t survive this day, but thank God Aurora got away from this monster when she did.
“You realize I have to kill you now,” he said with a small thread of remorse lacing his words as he pointed the gun to my forehead. I shook my head, convinced that in that moment I was losing my mind because there was no way in hell Xavier felt any sort of regret.
When the gun cocked, I knew I had to say something. For Aurora’s sake and for mine.
“You realize she will never forgive you for this? You might not care about taking another person’s life, but Aurora does. I’m her friend and sister. You kill me and you may as well kill yourself because there is no way in hell she’ll ever come back to you after she finds out what you did.”
Jake audibly scoffed behind Xavier. His beautiful face was twisted into a sneer of disgust and loathing. I hated him. Hated him for telling me he loved me and then for leaving me to the wolves.
“Aurora has nothing to do with this. She understands this life and knows what happens to rats. You have no idea what our private life is like or what I do or do not share with her.” He pressed the cold metal of the gun to my head. “Now beg for your damn life. I want to hear it. I want to hear you cry and scream how fucking sorry you are. I want to see you cry like the bitch you are.”
Tears pricked the back of my eyes and I squeezed them shut. The sight of Xavier standing over me like a fire-breathing dragon with flared nostrils and heaving chest permanently burning my retinas.
“Beg!” He screamed.
I shook my head again and kept my mouth shut. I was not about to beg. The end result would still be the same.
“Fine then. This is for Aurora,” he faintly whispered before a shot rang out. “And this is for being a fucking rat.” A second, third and fourth shot rang out and I found myself screaming.
When the noise stopped, my ears were ringing. My hands frantically patted my body searching for bullet holes. My mind finally caught up and I registered there was no pain.
If Xavier didn’t shoot me, then who…
My head shot up and I spied Jake lying in a pool of blood on the concrete. His eyes were open, staring unseeing at the ceiling. A small cry left my mouth and I quickly covered my mouth with my hands.
Xavier and Ghost turned to me with hard faces set like granite. I scrambled back a few feet, fully aware that I may have lived through that round of shots but I wasn’t likely to live through the next.
“You’re fired,” Xavier spoke through clenched teeth. His grip on his gun so tight that his knuckles were white. “I don’t ever want to see you around The Den or any of the girls here and that includes Aurora.”
“Jake,” I squawked still trying to get my composure straight.
“I know all about Jake,” he spat the words like they were poisonous. “The only reason why you’re still breathing is because you didn’t know who he really was. What he was capable of pulling behind everyone’s backs. Had you any clue, you’d be buried next to him.”
“And Aurora,” I whispered.
“And Aurora,” he confirmed my suspicions that my naiveté wasn’t the only reason I was still alive.
“You love her,” I continued whispering. “And you lost her.”
His eyes closed in pain for the briefest of seconds before he turned to Ghost and barked. “Take care of this mess.”
Without further ado, Xavier stormed from the room. The heavy metal door slammed shut in his wake.
My only thought was damn, the great Xavier O’Brien fell and he fell hard.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Xavier
Leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you.
Lies. It was all lies. She wouldn’t get back to him. She hadn’t yet. Still it didn’t stop Xavier from speaking after the tone. Just as it hadn’t any of the other times.
“I told you I would claw my way through hell for you�
��” he paused, trying to regroup his thoughts, “you were the one who left me.”
He took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling of his room in The Den. “I can’t do this without you, Aurora. I can’t keep pretending that everything is okay when it is so damn fucked up. You need to come home. We need to talk.”
He stopped again; fully aware he was probably repeating himself. When you left that many messages it was bound to happen.
Instead of speaking again, he hung up the phone and tossed it on the bed beside him. The darkness and silence enveloped him, wrapping around him like a silk blanket. It felt good and right as he sank further into it like it was a long-lost friend.
When Aurora came into his life, she shined so damn bright that he believed the darkness would never touch him again. Little did he know how wrong that thought really was.
Why had he gone and fallen in love with the young beauty? If he hadn’t, then he wouldn’t be experiencing the kind of pain he currently was. He knew she was a dangerous distraction. Every single fucking bad thing that had happened to them in their short time together only served to prove the point.
He was so fucking angry with her and even angrier with himself. The only thing that seemed to take the edge off the rage constantly brewing inside him was the fact that he finally put an end to the infestation of rot and disease within his circle at The Den.
Jake.
The fucking bastard was behind everything and if he hadn’t gotten loose lips with a bitch that knew how to use her mouth, they probably never would have known the depth of his deceit.
Even now, Xavier’s fingers flexed wishing he could go back and pull the trigger all over again.
The bastard hadn’t even seen it coming. But his latest recruit, Walker, had. Xavier smiled a sick, twisted grin when he remembered torturing the piss out of Walker. Getting him to confirm everything the whore had told Ghost.
No, Jake hadn’t seen it coming because he set Candy up to take his fall. Thought that she would take the bullet meant for him.
Foolish asshole.
Of course that cunt wasn’t exactly innocent in the matter, but Xavier knew she cared about Aurora and her safety. He wouldn’t at all be surprised by the bullshit Jake had fed her. And the fact that she didn’t turn him in, even as she lay on dirty concrete believing her time was up, said a lot about her character.
Xavier decided to leave her breathing as a reminder that Aurora needed to come first from now on. What she needed. What she wanted. And maybe somewhere deep inside Xavier, he left Candy breathing because he felt sorry for her. He knew how twisted love could make you, even if that love was shared with the wrong person.
Xavier was at a point when his frustration and anger were too bottled up and ready to blow. He needed to fight or fuck. It was what helped keep his sanity whenever he turned dark. Problem was, if he fought he’d probably kill some unsuspecting fool and if he fucked it wouldn’t be with the only woman he wanted to be balls deep in.
With a heavy sigh of frustration, Xavier rolled over and turned off the light. He stared at the ceiling until his eyes were too heavy with exhaustion to stay open any longer.
His last thought as sleep finally claimed him was maybe tomorrow would be the day he found salvation from the nightmare he was currently living in.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Xavier.” The whispered words caressed his skin like a soft touch. His balls tightened at the sound and he grunted, trying to stave off his orgasm.
“Aurora,” he groaned in response.
Her soft, silky hair teased his chest as she moved over him. Soft pants punctuated with sweet little moans filled the air.
“You feel so good.” The whimper that followed made his hips thrust harder, faster.
Her pussy was like fucking heaven. The slick glide of her skin on his. The tight sheath that seemed to suck him in deeper and deeper with each thrust.
“You feel amazing,” he echoed.
He wanted to come so bad, yet at the same time he wanted this to last forever.
Taking one of her nipples in his mouth, he sucked. Flicking his tongue along the tightened bud, he clamped his teeth on it and tugged just the way she liked. Her head fell back and a loud moan passed her lips.
Hips grinding down his cock, he gripped her tighter and bounced her on him faster. The friction was sublime and he growled low and deep.
“Do that again.” She gasped when he switched gears and pinched her clit, so he kept at it, his fingers going along with the rhythmic pounds of his dick in her sweet cunt.
He missed this. Missed being with her so damn bad. How he lived without her was beyond him. The dark had been unimaginable.
The vibrations of the ring nestled at the base of his cock sent shivers up his spine. His balls tightened and drew up, aching for release. Her cunt tightened on him. Her orgasm imminent. Sitting up, he rolled her underneath him. His hands pinning hers over her head, he pounded into her furiously. His cock painfully hard and ready to explode.
His eyes bored into hers, hoping she’d see how much he loved her. How much he needed her. How fucking sorry he was for all the misassumptions he had made about her and them.
“Take whatever you need from me,” she murmured against his mouth.
“Shit,” he grunted. He couldn’t stop. Couldn’t get enough. The sensations were overwhelming him.
“I missed you,” she whimpered as her orgasm finally hit. Her back bowing and her muscles milking him for all he was worth.
His rhythm faltered and even in the haze of her own release, she put her lips to his ear and whispered, “Come in me. Make me yours again.”
That was all the permission he needed. With a cry of sweet anguish, his cock exploded. Jets of cum flying everywhere. It went on for several minutes. His toes curled, his body taut, his cock throbbing, his groans of satisfaction the only sounds filling the room.
With a curse he stopped the vibrations of the cock ring and sank into the mattress. Regulating his breathing, his arm flew over his eyes. His other hand slumped to the mattress.
Overwhelming sadness took up shop inside him—replacing the unbelievable pleasure that had just been coursing through every cell of his body.
Once the self-loathing kicked in, he sat up and gingerly removed the masturbation sleeve and cock ring from his softening dick. They were both toys that Aurora had procured. Toys the two of them had both enjoyed a time or two before…
He stopped his train of thought.
It was bad enough that his imagination was all he had those days. He was forced to use it in order to take the edge off from not having her. His hand wasn’t cutting it. It left him unsatisfied and empty inside. This wasn’t much better but at least it felt like her. Or as close to her as he was going to get.
Christ, he was pathetic.
Grabbing his phone from the nightstand, he hit the familiar button. The one he’d pressed so many times in the last few weeks, he was surprised the touch screen hadn’t worn out in that spot.
Voicemail immediately picked up and he braced himself to hear the soft cadence of her voice as she told him to leave a message. A message he knew she had no plans of returning, for she still hadn’t returned the hundreds he’d left before now.
“Don’t give up on me, Aurora.” He spoke faintly into the phone. “Not yet.”
He breathed deep, sucking in the emotion threatening to vomit out of him. He still had a small shred of dignity left in him. He wasn’t ready to be that pathetic.
“Please,” he tried again once he composed himself. “I’ve gotten my shit together. I know I fucked up and I’m ready to show you how sorry I am.”
Another deep breath and he murmured, “I love you both and I miss you. Please come home.”
Disconnecting the call, his phone hit the floor with a thud. With his head in his hands, Xavier O’Brien once again sat in silence waiting for a new day to come and he hoped like hell it would be the day Aurora James walked back into his life.
/> Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Aurora, I’m lost without you. Come home baby. Please. Do you want to hear me beg? Is that what it’s going to take? Because I will.” Xavier gripped the phone tighter in his fist and let out a shaky breath. “Fuck, sweetheart. You’re everything to me.”
How did things get so fucked up? He was fucking Xavier O’Brien, yet he sat there like a pussy begging for the only person to ever truly mean something to him, aside from his family, to come home.
She’s never coming home, he though dejectedly.
Disconnecting the phone so she wouldn’t have to hear any more of his breathing, Xavier threw himself back on the bed in his room at The Den.
“Fuck,” he shouted at the top of his lungs. His pathetic voice echoed back into his ears.
Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow he’d try again and maybe this time she’d answer.
Chapter Thirty
The cell door shut and the lock clicked, signaling the fate of the occupant inside. Kevin Swanson stared at the two imposing figures as their faces came out of the shadows and into the light.
“Who the fuck are you?” He bit out.
He was sick and tired of big shots in prison. Sick and tired of having to watch his back. And definitely sick and tired of macho men trying to make him their bitch. He hadn’t spelled all that out in his letters to Aurora, but Xavier could read between the lines.
Kevin Swanson wasn’t made for this kind of life.
Then again, most men weren’t.
“I’m your worst nightmare,” Xavier told him. He drew the metal chair from the desk into the corner and took in the man who thought he could take what wasn’t his. He had the same blond hair and blue eyes of Sophie. The rest of her was all Aurora.