Salt Kissed Love (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 1)

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  Iris feels good.

  Glancing at the phone, I see the screen filled with her damp, delicious pussy. The phone props between her thighs as she rubs her clit slow in circles for me. I cannot restrain myself from pumping my cock good and hard. I need to come—with her, in her, on her, and for her.

  “God damn, babe, this isn’t going to take long,” I regretfully say. I am so worked up from today, seeing her radiant face is enough to make the tip weep.

  Using the pre-spunk as lube, I move faster, bucking into my hand and matching her fast-paced circles. We are going to come together.

  Five thousand miles apart and she lets go, moaning and writhing on her hand like I am right there thrusting into her hot wetness. I cannot hold it any longer as I spew all over the floor.

  My hand drips with spunk as I flash the camera on my face and give her a devilish grin. She giggles and blushes. “That was nice.”

  “Ya, it was,” I agree solemnly. “I miss you so fuckin’ much, babe.”

  Her next question draws my emotions up like a puppet flying across the stage. “What are you going to do if they get me?”

  “I am going to take out every last son-of-a-bitch in this whole armada,” I warn, flexing my jaw. “I’ll do it with my fucking bare hands if I have to.”

  “That’s sweet,” she says nonchalantly. “But I more meant…Who will you be with in the end?”

  “The dirt in the cemetery,” I cackle sardonically.

  “You don’t want Emily?”

  “I want you,” I counter, showing a serious side.

  “That isn’t answering the question,” she reprimands, not holding back.

  I sigh. “I don’t really want to talk about this.”

  With her hands on her hips, she stomps about like a little girl. I think it; I don’t say it. “Just answer the fucking question, Lucas Salvatore.”

  Shouting louder than I should, I ask, “Do you really want me to be with Emily?”

  Nibbling on her fingers, Iris incites my fires that turn into a riot upon my soul. “If I fall from grace, I want you chasing butterflies.”

  Clearing my throat, I offer, “Then you have a free move—if you need to go, then do it.”

  SAL

  After bidding goodbye to Manon, Karissa, and the unforgettable G-Man—Ya, I washed the inside of his mouth with my tongue first—Ainsley and I board the plane with the splendid Madeline Grace. She is stationed consistently in Eastern Europe, predominantly in Germany and we rarely see one another.

  I watch over her sister, Pris, with my life.

  Because Mad saved mine.

  The animal left on a limo long before we finished our goodbyes. The door between our cabins is the only thing keeping my savage in check. I can taste her blood on my lips now.

  “What’s the plan, Mad?” I ask, pulling off my shirt and strapping a harness to my chest out of the tack box. I toss back on my henley and grab two guns—one small pistol on my hip and another semi-auto on my back. I hate not having a built-in arsenal strapped to my chest and it occurs to me that this is why I hate traveling. Shit gets complicated fast unless we travel private.

  “We are headed to command,” Madeline informs, “I will take Nina in.”

  I toss my phone and a pair of headphones to Ainsley. The girl is too damn pure to hear any of this crap. Cracking my knuckles, I inquire, “Tell me she won’t make it out.”

  “I wish I could,” she sighs.

  Quickly, I fire back, “Then let me kill her now.”

  “I can’t let you do that either,” Madeline says with a marked eye roll.

  We are less than a half hour from New York when I ask, “Can I question the bitch?”

  “Only if you are doing it quick cause we are about to land and you have to get home,” she cautions with a maternal finger point. I love Mad, I do. But fuck, she doesn’t get it sometimes. “Watch Ainsley for me.”

  “She seems to be causing quite the ruckus,” Madeline says with a smirk as Ainsley smiles, looking safe in the confines of music.

  Sliding open the door, I shut it behind me. I should kill her now. Slice her throat and call her done. Nothing good can come from keeping her alive. And to think I have had my dick in this woman. But that’s never an excuse to leave a bitch alive.

  It’s never stopped me before.

  “Nina Kasai…” I say, startling her awake. She looks terrible. Nothing like the athletic girl I once knew. She is bloated and her eyes are dark, which makes me wonder what the fuck she in injecting in those lines up her arms. It’s probably H, but fuck—these days, it could be anything.

  “Mmm,” she mumbles under the gag.

  I pull it off rough and wrap my forearm around her throat. “I swear to fucking heaven and hell, from the Gods above and Devils down below, if you say one wrong thing, you are through. Do you understand me, cunt?”

  “Yes,” she snivels, crying. “I didn’t do it.”

  “Bullshit!” I rebuke, raging with the sparks I cannot control. “We have you on video meeting with my sister. We have bank transactions and routing numbers,” I inform, parking my ass in a seat across from her and lighting up a smoke.

  “You shouldn’t smoke on a plane,” she scolds through drooping eyes. “It’s dangerous.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I lean forward and slap her cheek hard. “You don’t get to tell me if I should be smoking on the plane. And for your information the most dangerous thing on this plane right now is sitting right across from you. Give me one reason not to take you out now.”

  “Because Maria wasn’t supposed to be the target,” she says through a lamenting wail. “It was a missed hit.”

  Lunging my flesh onto hers, I growl, “Who was the target then?”

  “Your mother,” she whimpers as a few tears drop from her eyes.

  “If you are lying to me bitch, I swear I will bleed you dry,” I warn, thinking how easy it would be to slit her carotids. “Who hired you? And don’t say my sister cause I already know she is in way too fucking deep.”

  Releasing her, I pace around the small space, flexing my muscles and cracking my neck. I am so hurt.

  “I met with a man, I don’t know who he works for,” Nina explains, “I was only the runner.”

  “But you were going to kill Ainsley…” I say with a maniacal grin like a fucking insane man.

  “That was after the fact!” she wails.

  Pushing on, I don’t let up in my not so sane interrogation. “Then why the hell did you have a body bag?”

  “Gaby brought everything, but I didn’t know why I had the med kit or the bag until just a few days ago when Ainsley went on the market,” Nina cries, playing pitiful. “I had no idea about any of it.”

  “Bullshit, cunt,” I say, flicking my ashes on her arm. “Try again.”

  She cries an endless stream of incessant tears, which are grading harshly upon me. I grab her face and flick my lighter repeatedly, staring at her through the flame. I won’t hesitate to singe the bitch. “Who the fuck hired you before Juliet?”

  Her fearful eyes blink up at me as she responds, “Your father.”

  “My father?” I twist away, roughing her skin up. “Come on.”

  “I’m telling you the truth, Sir,” she mumbles through the overwhelming amount of snot and tears. “And I’ll be dead the second you let me go.”

  Okay, maybe she is telling the truth. Maybe we are actually getting somewhere besides doing loopty-loops. “Start at the beginning. You got one chance at redemption and this is it, so don’t fucking blow it.”

  “I was in college and a young woman approached me. She said I was a pretty girl and I could make a whole lotta money just by running reports back to them,” Nina recalls as her body shudders with deep breaths. “I was in so much debt from medical school, Sal.”

  I crack open my business phone and open the folder marked Famiglia that I rarely ever show anyone. Flipping through the pictures, I quickly find the lineup of my witches—or, sisters.r />
  “Which one?” I say, starting from the oldest—Stella, Catarina, Valeria and ending on Gabriella—moving the pictures.

  “The third one,” she says as I scroll back and show it to her again. “She said her name was Val. But the last one is Gaby and she met me in Dallas.”

  “What?”

  “Back in the fall, I went to Dallas and met with Gaby for the first time. That is when she made the offer to get me into H2. She said all I had to do is collect and deliver the money.”

  “So, you went from running intel to running money. And you agreed?” I ask with a deep sigh.

  “Of course, I did. They offered me one hundred g’s…”

  Leaning back in my chair, I stub the smoke out on my boot and lift my arms behind my head. “So, you’re saying one of my sisters put a hit on my mom and Maria took the shot because some asshole fucked up?”

  “Exactly,” she states carefully, “Maria’s car was in the shop and your mother was supposed to pick her up from work. She wasn’t feeling well so Catarina took your mother’s car early and left it in the parking lot. When Maria came out and got in the car, the guy just assumed it was your mom.”

  Flaring up, I know the fire inside of me ignites and burns hotter than before. With a drilling echo, I send the message loud and clear, “A botched hit almost cost my cousin her life…”

  “I know. I know what I have done is terrible and I know they are going to get me, Sal. And I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry. If I would have known how bad it was going to get I never would have agreed to any of it,” she pleads. “Please.”

  Kicking back in the chair, I rock without reason or rhythm. “My family is the fucking mob, what did you think they were going to do? Invite you over for brisket and bbq?”

  “I didn’t know,” Nina begs.

  “It’s too late now.”

  Her tears suddenly cease as she knows her winning is no longer an option. “You’re not going to help me?”

  I shake my head. “No, I am not going to fuckin help you.”

  “Please…I really do not want to die from their hands,” she bargains at the end of her rope. She has nothing left and I know that because Dale told me all of this earlier.

  “Right or left handed?”

  Her breathing erratic, she panics. “Right, why?”

  Taking out my knife, I slit through the rope on her right hand. I unlatch the small pistol at my waist band, empty the chamber except for one, and set it on the table.

  “Then make the choice. I cannot save you. You made choices before. Choices you knew would hurt me and those I love. Make the right choice now.”

  She grovels, “I am sorry!”

  “So am I,” I reply, trying to stay uninvolved. “So am I.”

  I am trained for this.

  But fuck if it ain’t hard some days.

  Making my way back to the door, I feel our rapid descent. It won’t be long now. Casting a glance over my shoulder, the gun still sets on the table.

  “Sal…”

  “Ya?”

  She sees into my wildfire, raging and cauterizing everything in its wake. “When I get to the other side, should I tell Kaci something for you?”

  “Ya,” I mumble, grabbing the rails as the plane lands. “Tell her to fuck off.”

  Closing the door behind me, I move carefully to grab my things as Madeline asks, “How did that go?”

  “Worse than you could ever possibly imagine,” I say, grabbing my sunglasses out of my duffel and grabbing my pony’s hand as we wait for the stairs to come down.

  “Hold your ears,” I whisper to Ainsley, pulling out one of the earplugs. I drop the shades over my eyes and we begin the descent down the stairs. I latch my arm under hers as her hands hold tight over her ears.

  The gun shot rings out.

  And the choice is made.

  “I’m going to need a fucking jet like now!” I snap at the crew. “Yes, Sir. We’ve got one taxiing in now, Agent Raniero.”

  “Salvatore!” Madeline screams from the top of the staircase as I keep walking and lift my middle finger high in the air. “You’re a fucking outlaw!”

  I raise both middle fingers and keep striding on. “Don’t fuck with what’s mine, Mad.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A Slight Misalignment

  SAL

  “WHAT EXACTLY WERE YOU thinking?” Dale asks as we put the finishing touches on his dungeon man cave.

  Heading to the fridge, I grab the last two beers in the case and hand him one. We’ve already done several rounds of Jim Beam in our goal of getting completely shit-faced. After Serene find out about my stunt on the plane with Nina, she sticks big D on my tail as soon as I land in Texas. She reprimands, “Do not let Sal out of your sight, Dale!”

  “I knew that girl wasn’t nothing but trouble last year,” I spout off to Dale. “Nothing good was going to come from her staying alive.”

  “You’re playing God,” he warns, taking a seat on a barstool. “You cannot just go running around and leaving guns everywhere.”

  “I am not,” I argue, leaning across the bar and lighting up a smoke. “I did what was necessary.”

  “Necessary?” Dale sarcastically implies as he cocks a brow. “Really, Raniero?”

  “Ya, necessary by my justice.”

  Moving closer, he gets in my face and says the one thing I don’t need to hear. “That bitch coulda killed your ass, Kid. Don’t do anything that stupid ever again!”

  I shrug it off with a mumble, “It wasn’t stupid.”

  “You left a loaded gun in the hands of a woman with bone to pick. She could have easily shot you!” D yells angrily. “You don’t get to have a death wish. You have too much going for you.”

  “Ya, right,” I say, brushing his words off in my own ignorant bliss.

  There are a few things you gotta know about D. One, he is fucking huge. Like a mammoth fucking bull. He’s like seven feet tall—ok, not really, but I am a rather short guy—and solid fucking muscle. He is not the kind of man you want to meet in a dark alley or anywhere else, so when he smacks my shoulder—it fucking hurts.

  And not in a good way.

  Before I know it, both his hands grip around my biceps, holding my drunk rump steady. I cannot move. I cannot wrestle and win against this man—sober, drunk, or otherwise. Heaven knows we have sparred enough and half the time, he lets me win cause he loves my dumbass.

  His whiskey tinged breath hits my nose and I wonder if I smell that rank. Probably.

  “You do not get to check out, Raniero. Just because Kaci died doesn’t mean you get to play kamikaze,” he says as spit and slobber splatter on my face. “The past is gone, you have to let it go. And at some point, you have to stop being a dumb motherfucker or I am going to lose you.”

  “Nina never would have shot me,” I bark back, not wanting to hear his drivel. “Besides, I had a vest.”

  Shaking my body without care, I have become the rag doll on this man’s mission. His goal is clear and defined. Save Raniero. It’d be great except Raniero doesn’t want to be saved.

  “You are talking bullshit, Kid,” he says, pushing me away. “It’s not just you anymore. You have Iris to think about…”

  My eyes flash up to his and I am met with the sudden realization. All of the pain and the passion the past comes barreling at me in a solid jolt to my soul. Nothing makes sense in my mind. The conflict of Juliet versus Boston does not matter. My inner angst between my Dominant side and my spiritual side does not matter. The only thing that does matter is Iris.

  D is right.

  And I hate it when he is fucking right.

  “They won’t let me see her anymore,” I mutter in a state of shock. “That’s why they sent me to England. Now, it’s my fucking birthday.”

  “Bullshit,” Dale presses on, dialing his phone. “Stop sulking.”

  An hour and a half later, Dale, Amber, and I make our way into 6911 High Drupe Road—my house. I am pissed and angry. It doesn’t m
ake any sense that I cannot even come to my own fucking house anymore. All because I can’t keep it in check with the girl I love. Serene and Jack want to protect her and I from doing anything stupid.

  The aroma smacks my senses and I am overwhelmed with emotion at the sight of my girl in nothing but an apron. She is so damn beautiful with her hair drifting off her shoulders. And her pretty porcelain skin beckoning me. Her jewels beckon me. And I am reckless and wild and going to get her killed. I cannot do this.

  “Master…Happy Birthday…”

  Catching Iris in my arms, I draw in a breath of her hair—she smells like sunshine and light, blinding my eyes in darkness. The emotions are too much. I am too close to the edge, too close to where I was with my wife, and I cannot do that to her.

  Sex is sex.

  Love is love.

  And god dammit if Iris-fucking-Kettles doesn’t fuck the equation up. Everything about her goes against the math. She rewrites the mathematical statement twisting it into some bizarre language I cannot compute, some program I come accept. It is foreign. Her canon crosses over my mental landscape, leaving my connections sizzling in my brain. My head hurts as I spin and deposit her safely back to the ground.

  I loved my wife. And I realize her prescription for me has always been this, but I cannot do this.

  Iris attacks the rubric, questions the theorems, and answers the creed. I know what Kaci wanted, but she never bothered to hand over the blueprints on how acceptance could turn into action. It’s so much easier to just get lost in the sex, but I am too vulnerable as I head outside.

  Amber follows my ass because she is custom built for me. I fucking crafted that bitch, reassembled her bits and pieces and tinkered with her until she could run on her own.

  She may be D’s girl.

  But I am her Master.

  Amber is mine.

  And Iris is nothing more that Kaci Hope’s dream. Her Mistress Pixie is dead.

  The spark singes through my system as I realize—we are both the same—two submissive with one Dominant, a psychotic little eccentric bitch.