My voice broke and I could feel a veil of moisture slide over my eyes.
“Do you want the truth, or do you want me to lie to you?”
I sort of hated and loved how he liked to throw all our earlier conversations back in my face.
“Lie to me.” I whispered it and he yanked me against his chest and buried his nose in the top of my head. I felt his chest expand and fall against my cheek.
“Not one time. I didn’t think about you one single time this entire week. Is that what you want me to say? Will that make you realize this isn’t what you want and most definitely not what you need?”
What it did was fill that hollow part inside of me that had been gaping and yawning open since he had sent me off with Race. I let go of his wrists and reached up to wrap my arms as tightly as I could around his neck. I saw his Adam’s apple slide up and down in his throat in response.
“Take me somewhere?”
“What? You can’t leave, you’ll get in trouble. The babe with the black hair clearly hates my guts and she’ll turn you in for ditching the kids.”
I blinked at him. As much as I loved the kids and appreciated my job here at the home, the time I had with him was fleeting and precious and I wasn’t going to be foolish and squander it.
“Don’t care. I want to be with you.”
I did, so bad. I felt like I had a fever. My skin was too tight, my breath was coming in short, hard pants, and all I wanted to do was melt into his dark gaze. For a second, I thought he was going to argue, to once again try and push me away from him for my own good, but he didn’t. He ran his hand from the back of my neck to the curve of my ass and gave the rounded flesh a smart smack with the flat of his hand.
“All right, rule breaker, let’s go.”
He gave me a quick, one-armed hug and hauled me off to the Runner. I slid into the passenger seat just in time to see Reeve shaking her head at me in the reflection of the front window. I would regret it later. Right now all I had was this moment and this man who was so hard to hold on to.
We drove in silence for a solid ten minutes, leaving the city behind. I didn’t want to ruin the mood, didn’t want to make him question his choice to take me away, but my curiosity got the better of me and I had to know. “Where exactly are we going?”
I thought he would’ve just taken me to the apartment in the city since it was the closest to the group home, but he was winding the noisy car up into the mountains well past the Hill and a world away from the Point.
“I know this place. When I was younger and people still thought they could beat me in a street race, we used to come up here and let the cars run full-out. It’s quiet and the ride up there is quiet, peaceful even. I figure since neither one of us knows what life is going to look like in the next few days, I can give us one nice memory to take away from it all.”
I wanted to tell him how sad that was, how depressing it sounded, but I knew coming from him, he was telling me that I mattered. For him, that was as close to an admission that I mattered as much to him as he did to me as I was likely to get. I just kept my mouth shut, put a hand on his hard thigh, and let him take me up somewhere in the night.
The drive really was lovely. Well, what I could see of it as it raced by in a dark blur out the window. The trees were eerie shadows in the dark, and the rumble of the giant motor was almost enough to lure me to sleep. I had too much tension, too much desire coiling inside me, to fully relax. I wanted to tell him just to pull over to the side of the road and let me jump him, but he seemed focused on the final destination, and I wanted to let him have that.
He finally pulled to a stop twenty minutes later. The car rumbled to a stop and he turned to look at me in the deathly silent interior. He reached out and used a finger to push some of my curls out of my face. “Come on.”
He opened the door and I followed him out. I was glad I had his hoodie since this high up the night air was a little chilly. When I rounded the hood of the car and stopped next to where he was leaning, I felt the air rush out of my lungs. The view was amazing. The lights from the Point and the Hill twinkled like little stars that had been forced down from the sky. From up here, none of the ugliness that lurked down below could be seen. It was like this place was untouchable.
Bax put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to his side. I felt his lips brush across my forehead and I smelled the barest hint of the last cigarette he had smoked.
“Race and I used to come up here and get high. This bluff is the perfect spot to line two cars up and then race down the mountain. I won the title to more than one sweet ride up here.”
I put my arm around his lean waist and buried my nose in the crook of his neck.
“What about girls? Did you bring all of your conquests up here?” Jealousy was evident in my voice but I didn’t care. I hated the thought of him cuddled up with some random girl before that magnificent view, and I wasn’t scared for him to know it.
“Conquest implies I had to work at it. Back then it didn’t matter. Chicks were interchangeable, and the idea that I had to put any kind of effort into getting laid never even occurred to me. So no, Dovie, you are the only girl I’ve ever brought up here.”
He shifted me around so I was pressed up against the hood of the car. His hands were pressed on the cold metal on either side of my hips.
“When I finally finished this car, got the restoration done and got it back from Gus’s paint guy, I swore that I had never seen anything more beautiful. I thought the Runner was my reward, my trophy for being such a badass. I barely had her for a week when I ended up locked up.”
He leaned more fully into me, making me spread my legs so he could wedge himself between them. He put his hands on my ass and gave me a little boost so I was actually sitting on the hood with my legs wrapped around him.
“Are you going to try and tell me that changed when you saw me? That I was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen?”
He grinned down at me, his teeth flashing white in the dark. “No. I thought you were ordinary. I didn’t understand why Race was risking everything for you.”
Well, that was a bit of an ego diffuser, but there was no escaping the heat burning down at me from his gaze.
“And then you opened your mouth. All that love, all that loyalty, all the innocence, even though life had kicked you around time and time again, and all I wanted to do was let some of that sweetness and light touch me. I’ve never had very clean hands, but the first time I touched you, that first gasp out of that perfect mouth, the first time I thrust into you, God, Dovie, you made me feel like I was the king in a land of second chances.”
I was stunned. He wasn’t much of a talker in the best of times, but man, when he put his mind into it, he had a way with words that was incomparable. I wanted to tell him how I felt about him, to give him some kind of reason to think before throwing himself to the wolves, but my heart was in my throat and no words were getting around it. Besides, he was unzipping the front of the hoodie and using one of his hands to push me farther back so I was laid out on the hood of his prized possession. I shivered more at the look in his eyes than at the night air popping across my skin as he yanked open the buttons on my flannel shirt. His progress was stopped by the hook of my bra digging into my back, but he maneuvered me enough that he could get it open and loose enough to shove out of his way.
The contrast between the brisk air touching my naked skin and the heat inside the suction of his mouth was enough to make me gasp. I dug my hands into his scalp and arched my back up off the metal under me. I muttered his name as he dragged wet kisses across my chest and treated my other breast to the same treatment he had lavished on the first one. I wound a hand around the back of his neck and held him to me like I was never going to let him go. When he finally lifted his head after sucking and licking and biting all of me that was exposed, I yanked him down to my mouth for a kiss that left no doubt how I felt about him.
Every single bit of fear, love, panic, passion, une
ase, and everything else he always churned up inside me tasted bitter and sweet as I begged him with my lips and tongue to let this matter enough for him to make better decisions. I pulled desperately at his long-sleeved T-shirt until his naked chest was pressed against my own, his heart telling mine a story as they thundered against each other.
He was so beautiful, dark and wild, just like the night around us. He kissed me on the side of the neck then sank his teeth into the soft skin of my earlobe and chuckled into my ear.
“Normally I think it’s pretty cute you dress like a dude, but in the current circumstance, I think I would be willing to sacrifice my left nut for you to be in a short-ass skirt.”
He trailed his strong fingers over the quivering skin of my belly and stopped to slide the button on my jeans out of the loop. He kissed my shoulder and used his arms to lever himself up and off of me so he could take a step back. His eyes trailed over me and I saw his breath shudder out of his lungs. He gave his head a shake.
“I didn’t think there was anything in the world that could make this car better. I was so wrong.”
He was going to make me cry. “Shane . . .”
He hooked his thumbs under the edge of my jeans and my panties and yanked them down my legs at the same time. Being that exposed to the air suddenly made me shiver, but he was only gone as long as it took him to shove his pants down around his hips and cover himself in latex.
“I think my greatest fantasy just became you in nothing but my hoodie. Copper-Top, you are the prettiest thing I have ever seen.”
I wanted to be his fantasy. I wanted to be his reason for him to get past the fatalistic attitude that seemed to be his default. I wanted him to want me enough to let Bax take a backseat once in a while so I could enjoy everything Shane brought to the table. He lifted one of my legs up and wrapped it around his uninjured side while I curled both my hands up around his broad shoulders. I loved the feel of his muscles as my hands moved across his back, I loved the way his eyes blazed all his intensity and determination into mine. When he first slid into me and my body reacted by clasping down on him, hard, it was him who let out the first gasp.
My skin pebbled up, but not because I was cold anymore. I was on fire, everywhere we touched, all the places on the inside where he dragged and pulled on sensitive flesh, I felt like I was going to combust. He kissed me again, used his tongue to mimic the motion his hips were making below. The double stimulation was a lot, my body was already primed, my heart already open, and when he took my hand and put it between us, it only took the simplest touch, the lightest pressure from my own fingers to push me over the edge. I called his name into his mouth and felt him increase the leisurely pace he had initially set.
He put a knee on the bumper of the car and I felt him lean fully into me. I dug my fingers into the bunched cords of his neck and held on as he thrust and pounded into me like he was trying to imprint me forever onto the paint job of his car. He sealed his mouth over mine and groaned into my mouth as he reached the point of no return and released himself into the night and my welcoming body. There had never been a moment in my life when I had felt such rightness and such peace. I hugged him to me and rubbed my cheek against his prickly one.
We stayed like that for a long time, until the chill of the metal from the car made me start to shiver against him. He groaned as he pulled out of me and helped me situate myself since it took more work than him just pulling his pants back up. He pulled me back to the edge of the hood and zipped the front of his sweatshirt back up. Then he bent down and kissed the corner of my mouth.
It made me want to cry because even though he didn’t say it, I could feel it in him again. That was Bax letting Shane kiss me good-bye.
CHAPTER 15
Bax
DOVIE DIDN’T SAY A word when I took her back down the mountain to the group home. I made the drive last longer than it normally would and simply enjoyed the quiet and the feel of her hand on my thigh. The gnawing need to hurt something, or, more accurately, to let something hurt me, had faded to a dull throb in the back of my neck. I still didn’t want her to be part of this life, didn’t want her to look at me and see things I would never be able to be, even if she made me want to. At least this was a proper good-bye, and while she still looked sad and disappointed, she also seemed to have a quiet kind of understanding settled around her. She wasn’t pushing or asking me for things I couldn’t deliver on.
When I pulled up in front of the house, the first rays of dawn were just starting to crack on the horizon. She turned in the seat and I thought she was going to ask me not to leave her, tell me that we could figure things out between us, but she didn’t. She just leaned across the space separating us and pressed her lips softly against the star forever dancing on my temple. It made my breath lock so hard in my throat, I thought I was going to suffocate.
“Take care of yourself, Bax. It would break my heart if something happened to you that was avoidable.”
The warning was clear. I was my own worst enemy and she knew it. There was plenty in this life that could end up destroying me, and she was finally seeing that instead of passing it by. I was actively seeking it out.
The door closed with a soft thud and I watched her until she disappeared inside the house. I tossed my head back against the headrest and squeezed my eyes shut. There was no air and there was no light. I called Race and told him I was taking off and let him know that he was going to have to either convince her to come home for Saturday night or watch her himself. There was no way I could do it and not go to her, not put my hands on her again. Plus I had the fight Nassir set up, and there was no way I could be in two places at once.
Race sounded sleepy but told me he would make sure she was safe, and I had no choice but to believe him. I called Titus, who was even less thrilled with the crack-of-dawn wake-up call than Race had been, and told him he better have something figured out no later than Monday or I was taking matters into my own hands. I was feeling reckless, untethered from everything, and in the very dangerous mood to make some shit go down. He yawned at me and told me to chill out. He said he had some people working on it and he should have an answer for me by Monday. I hung up on him and forced myself to go to the bungalow at the base of the Hill.
I couldn’t stand not knowing why Novak was ambivalent about the tape and had let Race go without as much as a scratch. I hated waiting on the razor’s edge for the other shoe to drop. I wanted to know what Novak was planning, what his next move would be. I wanted to go after him and throw everything on the table and see which one of us came out the victor. I was worried that he was going to get tired of the cat and mouse, of dangling the carrot, and the threat, right in front of my face and make a move before I could strike first. Even with Dovie hidden away and safe with Race, I had to admit I was terrified that Novak would find her before I took him out, and even though I was still pissed at both Race and Titus, I had to admit that I had some serious concerns Novak would go after them just to show me that he could. My baser instincts were screaming for blood and vengeance and they were all I could hear. The noise seemed so much louder than it ever had before, now that I really might have things . . . and people to lose.
The apartment in the city just didn’t feel right when I was there alone. This place didn’t feel right either, but it didn’t make my skin crawl. When I stripped and lay down on the bed Dovie had made the last time she was here, my mind quieted down enough that I managed to fall into a shallow and fitful sleep. My dreams were full of sad green eyes, the endless sight of iron bars and blood, the smell of gasoline, and a hollow ache that felt like it was going to swallow me up. I woke up in the early afternoon covered in sweat and shaking. I had always lived a fairly unpredictable life, never gave much thought about what it would mean for me to see the next day, and now that it was almost a certainty that I wouldn’t see it, I was starting to have regrets.
I regretted my mom was never going to be more than a drunk and never see this house I had bought for h
er. I regretted ever dragging Race into the darkness. Our friendship had started out based on violence, and it was going to end in violence, and that sucked. I regretted hating my brother for so long. Granted, I was never going to forgive him for arresting me that night, but I could see more clearly now that we were all the products of the choices we made, and for him, putting me in jail was the bad choice, but it was the only one he could make. Titus wasn’t my enemy, but he wasn’t on my side either, because my side was losing, and he saw it.
Then there was Dovie. I should be drowning in regret where she was concerned. I should be beating myself up for ever touching her, for pushing her into giving in to me. I should feel bad for turning her life upside down when I never had any intention of sticking around to help her when everything was over. My soul should be shredding from touching something so pure, so lovely, and knowing I left black smudges all over it. I didn’t feel that way, though. When I thought about her, all I could feel was light. The short time she had been a part of my life had given me room to breathe. She did more to set me free than walking out of those prison gates ever had. If someone as sweet, as careful with herself as Dovie, could see something inside me worth caring about, then there wasn’t only blackness. She was right; I was more than the sum of my parts.
I wished this knowledge could change the path that was already laid out before me. Just like my destiny had always looked like my options were very clear to me—jail because I would kill Novak, or the morgue because Novak was going to kill me. I hated that now there were so many moving parts and so many other lives at stake. But no one was going to get caught in the cross fire if I could help it. This was a showdown that had been brewing for far longer than I think anyone could really understand. I didn’t have a plan, any rhyme or reason to how it should go down. All I knew was that I needed to face off with the bastard and only one of us was going to make it out of the confrontation alive.
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