Avenged

by Jay Crownover

  All of it was worth it, because as soon as the girl was in Nassir’s hands, I was free. Well, as free as someone that was going to be spending the rest of their life in WITSEC and at Nassir’s beck and call could be. But I was free to introduce the me I was going to be from here on out to my girl and I couldn’t wait. I hoped she liked a guy in a snazzy suit, a guy that decided it was time to use his problem-solving skills for good instead of evil going forward.

  I slid my hand up the back of her leg and pressed myself into her soft center. Her eyes widened at the feel of my thick flesh against her and her mouth dropped open in a little gasp. I rubbed my nose along the line of her jaw and worked my hands underneath the slouchy sweater she was wearing. Her curls were cut shorter than they had been up at the cabin and I could feel the points of her hip bones and the edge of her ribs as I uncovered her skin. Her bra was a pale pink, made of lace and silk. It was pretty, but not as pretty as the full mounds and pointed tips it was covering up. I dragged my tongue along the lacy edge and curled my fingers around her waist.

  “I dreamed about you every night.” I slid a hand up her spine until my fingers touched the clasp on her bra. “I jerked off to memories of you in the shower every morning.” I popped the clasp open and sighed when I ended up with a handful of warm skin. The velvety point of her nipple stabbed eagerly into my palm and her eyes got heavy lidded and languid. “During the day, I would wonder what you were doing. I couldn’t stop worrying about you. Were you finally grieving for your sister? Did your shoulder heal right? Were you taking care of yourself? Were you waiting for me?” I bent my head and kissed the upper swell of each of her breasts, biting down on one so that my teeth left marks on her perfectly pale skin. I wanted to devour her. “I was consumed by you, obsessed. It made me feel crazy. I would’ve done anything to get back to you.” I licked up the line of her throat and stopped to nibble where her pulse was pounding under her skin. “When I was younger, all I wanted was power and respect. I wanted everyone to know I was someone, that I had made something of myself.”

  I pulled back and trailed my fingers over her breastbone and straight down the center of her body until I reached her belly button. I dipped a finger inside, which made her giggle until I curled it under the waistband of her jeans. “I want you more than any of that, Echo. I don’t care if a single soul on this planet knows who I am or the things I’m capable of doing, as long as you know. All I want is you, Pop-Tart.”

  She lifted her hips so I could get the denim down around her backside. I had to step back so I could pull the jeans down her long legs. My dick immediately missed the soft cradle it had been in and my blood went thick and hot at the sight of all her creamy skin. She really was the only thing I’d ever gotten exactly right in my life.

  “Well, I want you too, Benny…but I’m going to be honest and tell you that I want more than that.” She blinked up at me as she reached for my tie so she could pull me back toward her. The silk tightened around my throat and made me swallow hard.

  I put my hands on the counter next to her naked hips and leaned down so that my forehead touched hers. “If I can give it to you, I will.”

  “Oh…you can give it to me, all right.” She snickered at me and wiggled her eyebrows up and down comically, which made me laugh, something I hadn’t done much of before her. “But first, I want you to promise me that if we’re in this, we are in it for real. No hiding all the ugly bits and pieces, no pretending things are working if they’re not. I’ve lost so much of myself trying to hide from things that hurt me, Benny. I don’t want to hide anymore. I want to be wide awake for every second of this. The good, the bad, and the ugly…I want all of it and I want to know you want all of it as well.”

  I nudged her legs farther apart and slipped my thumb between her wet folds. She was slippery and all kinds of liquid heat against my fingertips.

  “Well, you’ve got me, so the bad is covered.” I swirled my fingers around her stiff little clit and then pushed them into her warm channel. Her entire body spasmed around the invasion and all her muscles tightened. “I have you, so the good is more than covered.” I bent so I could kiss her, sweet and slow, which was the opposite of the way I was stroking my fingers in and out of her body. She shifted on the counter in front of me, hips lifting as her hand fisted my tie in a death grip. “Neither one of us has anything very nice to look at in our pasts, so I think we have the ugly nailed down as well. We have it all covered, Echo, and whatever else comes our way, we’ll handle that as well.”

  She blinked up at me and I saw her sigh slow and steady as she moved on my hand. “Good, because between the two of us, I think we can handle anything.”

  I grunted in agreement. “Is it all right with you if I get on with handling you, Pop-Tart?” She was the only thing I wanted to take care of from here on out. She was the solution to every problem I’d ever personally faced.

  She let out a laugh that sent sparks off in my heart and nodded her head before tossing it back as I started to nibble on her neck. “Have at it, Nicholas.”

  I growled against her skin and sank my teeth in as a warning. “He’s the guy that I am when I walk out the door because I have to be. In here, with you, I’m Benny because I get to be.”

  She scraped the fingers of her free hand along the short hair at my temples and held my biting mouth to her. “Okay, Benny, do your worst.”

  I chuckled and scissored my fingers around her clit. “No, Pop-Tart, you get my best…always.”

  I pulled the stiff, pink peak of her breast between my teeth and flicked my tongue over the pebbled skin. It made her shudder and had her legs lifting to wrap around my waist as she undulated against me. She was ready to ignite, her fuse lit from thousands of miles away just waiting for me to show up so she could blow. She was better than any dream I’d had, better than the memories that wound me up and set me off. The sounds she made, the way the blue in her eyes burned, the way she melted against me, the way she pulled me closer and pulled me in, I couldn’t get enough of it. It made it obvious I wasn’t ever going to spend a moment without her again.

  She released my tie so she could get her hands on the buckle of my belt. God, it was nice that she had full use of both her hands. It meant I didn’t have to let go of the hold I had on her to help her as she worked the zipper down and pulled my cock out. We both let out a sigh at the contact and I felt her pulse on the inside as her slickness coated my fingers. My dick twitched at her touch and I felt my balls tighten as pleasure settled at the base of my spine.

  It felt like it had been months since I’d had my hands on her. It felt like I needed to relearn every dip and curve of her body—and she was clearly relearning every line and ridge of mine as her fingers rolled over every single inch of my throbbing cock. It kicked in her hand, the tip getting just as wet and ready as the place between her legs where my fingers were still steadily fucking in and out of her. I used my thumb to circle her clit, to press down on it and tap as she worked herself into a frenzy, her hold on my erection tightening and sliding up and down in a desperate rhythm. My hips moved involuntarily into her as my heart tried to battle its way out of my chest. It would sacrifice itself for her no questions asked; I would sacrifice myself for her.

  I pulled my fingers out of her, dragging them across her thigh and leaving a wet trail as I did. I took a minute to dig a condom out of my wallet and handed it to her with the gruff order to get me covered. She barely had the latex rolled down to the base, her fingers tightening when I pushed into her welcoming heat. Her walls fluttered around my width and her warmth sank into all the places inside of me that were always cold and empty.

  She moaned as I swore. She pulled me closer, the silk tightening around my throat like a noose. She panted against my lips as I smashed them against hers, twisting my tongue around and swallowing down my name as she chanted it over and over again. I didn’t need to breathe because she was breathing for me. She exhaled all her pleasure and passion into me and it filled me up so much th
at the fact she was choking the life out of me with her hold on my tie barely registered.

  My hips bucked into hers, my hands holding her still on the counter as I pounded every lonely minute, every absent second away. I rode her hard and unforgiving. There wasn’t any room for anything other than the blinding need I had to be with her, to be a part of her. I was going to leave fingerprints on her hip and bite marks on her breasts. I was going to leave my heart in her hands and what was left of my soul wrapped around hers.

  I dropped my forehead to the center of her chest and chased a droplet of sweat that rolled by with my tongue. I curled my arm where her back was arched and wrapped my fist around where she was still holding onto my cock. I squeezed it tighter, telling her I was close, trying to hold off the inevitable finish so this moment would last as long as it possibly could.

  She rocked up into me, her head falling backward, her thighs holding my waist in a death grip. She locked around me like she was never going to let me go and then she let out a long wail and went molten all around me. The force of her pleasure ripped my own from the hold I had on it. We broke together, shattering all over one another, and when we picked the pieces up, there was no telling which ones belonged to me and which ones were hers. They were the pieces that made us. I needed hers and she needed mine in order to be complete.

  “I don’t know if my heart is any fonder because of our time apart. I mean, it was already as fond as it could be, but it sure as fuck made my dick harder.” I pushed up off of her and lowered my face to hers so I could kiss her smiling mouth.

  “I like you in the suit, Benny. You look good but maybe next time you can take it off, though I do like the tie. You can leave that on.” She used her hold on it to pull herself into a sitting position and then she slid down the front of my body so she could tug me in the direction of her bedroom. I’d found it when I picked the lock earlier and went looking for my watch. I couldn’t believe she’d left it under her pillow where anyone could walk off with it.

  If I had been her, in her shoes, I would have hocked the damn thing and moved to a better neighborhood. She was moving; she just didn’t know it yet.

  “Well, I got a new job so I have to dress the part.” I let her lead me like a puppy toward the bedroom, watching the sway of her ass and the dimples at the base of her spine like I hadn’t just been buried inside of her as deep as I could go.

  She looked over her shoulder at me and lifted an eyebrow. “You got a new job?”

  I nodded and reached out to wind one of her curls around my finger. “Yeah. Turns out I’m really good at getting into the places where the bad guys who pretend to be good guys do business. Those guys need problems solved even more than the guys who don’t bother to hide how bad they are.”

  She scowled at me but I held up my hands in surrender before she could lay into me about going back to my old ways. “I’ve got a new handler with the Marshals. He seems like a decent enough guy and he found you for me when I asked. I told him I would be happy to be an informant for him if he needed me to be. I’m not good at many things but I am good at knowing who has the power and the lengths they will go to keep it. I can get in places they can’t and I already have a sleazy, shitty history that those entitled money men will never question.”

  Her eyes got big but she didn’t protest when I tumbled her to the bed. She started tugging on my tie and working on the buttons on my shirt. “You’re going after the wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

  I nodded. “I am, but those wolves are more like house pets. They don’t stand a chance against a guy like me. I figure it won’t hurt to earn some karmic brownie points now that I have a reason to behave. I had a good run working for the bad guys; might as well see if I can make a difference working for the right side.”

  “It sounds dangerous, even for the Big Bad Wolf.” She pushed my shirt off my shoulders and let out a gasp when she saw the kaleidoscope of bruises on my side where my ribs were still healing.

  “Being under Novak’s thumb was dangerous. Getting locked up was dangerous. Making a deal with the devil was dangerous. Being stranded with no reason to live in the woods was dangerous. Selling out rich CEOs and crooked government officials is going to be a walk in the park. Besides, I have you to come home to and I promise I will do my best to never let you down.” I cupped her face in my hands and gave her a kiss that had every promise I intended to keep within it. “You’ve lost enough, Echo.”

  She nodded solemnly, and I noticed a sheen of moisture in her pretty eyes. “Good thing you’re hard to kill, Benny.”

  “I had a purpose for sticking around, Pop-Tart. I just didn’t know that reason was you until you came crashing into my life.” I kissed her and told her with one hundred percent honesty, “That was the best night of my life.”

  She made a choking sound and pulled me down by my neck so she could bury her face in the side of my throat. “It was the worst night of my life, but you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  That night she’d had vengeance in her heart and wanted to avenge her sister so that she didn’t have to deal with her grief and pain. I tried to show her that the best way to honor the memory of those she’s loved and lost was to live the best life she could. She deserved forgiveness for her past sins and she deserved acceptance and happiness moving forward. She deserved a man who would fight for her, and fight against her when she tried to run.

  I was going to give her the best life I could.

  Everything I used to take for myself, I was going to give to her.

  I was going to make my second chance count because I knew deep down into my bones that this was the one and only shot I was ever going to get at loving and being loved.

  Good thing I got it right on the first try.

  The End……….

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  Saints of Denver

  By Jay Crownover

  Coming June 21, 2017

  Click here to pre-order

  The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Marked Men books continues her delightfully sexy Saints of Denver series.

  Hudson Wheeler is a nice guy. Everyone knows it, including his fiancée who left him with a canceled wedding and a baby on the way. He’s tired of finishing last and is ready to start living in the moment with nights soaked in whiskey, fast cars, and even faster girls. He’s set to start living on the edge, but when he meets Poppy Cruz, her sad eyes in the most gorgeous face he’s ever seen hook him in right away. Wheeler can see Poppy’s pain and all he wants to do is take care of her and make her smile, whatever it takes.

  Poppy can’t remember a time when she didn’t see strangers as the enemy. After a lifetime of being hurt from the men who swore to protect her, Poppy’s determined to keep herself safe by keeping everyone else at arm’s length. Wheeler’s sexy grin and rough hands from hours restoring classic cars shouldn’t captivate her, but every time she’s with him, she can’t help being pulled closer to him. Though she’s terrified to trust again, Poppy soon realizes it might hurt even m
ore to shut Wheeler out—and the intense feelings pulsing through her are making it near impossible to resist him.

  The only thing Poppy is sure of is that her heart is in need of some serious repair, and the more time she spends with Wheeler, the more she’s convinced he’s the only man with the tools to fix it.

  * * * *

  Read on for a sneak peek at the poignant and powerful conclusion to the Saints of Denver series.

  Prologue

  I was the kind of guy that thought I had it all figured out. It came from having spent my entire childhood caught up in chaos and upheaval. When I was old enough to call my own shots and make my own way, I did it with a single-minded determination and unwavering dedication. I knew what I wanted. Every move I made, every step I took, moved me toward that perfectly planned future I had been dreaming of from the minute I realized I was all on my own. A realization that came far too early and was brutally reinforced every single time I was forced to bounce from one temporary home to the next.

  I clung to the idea that I would do everything differently. I would make decisions which would lead to a life that was easy, smooth, and as steady as a car with a new alignment and high-end shocks. I found the girl that was meant to be mine and clutched her in a death grip. I went out of my way to be whoever she needed me to be, to never give her any kind of reason to go. I made her the center of my entire world, not realizing she might feel trapped there as time went on. I was holding on so tight I never felt her trying to wiggle her way free.

  I started a business, bought a house, and made plans … so many plans. Plans that would be considered simple and boring to some, but they covered everything I wanted since the time I was four years old. They were the plans that would give me the life I’d been longing for since I the minute I was left on mine own.