by Ace Gray
“What’s up? Something else is going on.”
I sighed as I buried my face into his ribs. “There’s this guy.”
“What?!” he shrieked and shoved me to arm’s length. “You go to a funeral for the weekend and you meet someone, I’m on the market for months and not one guy! Ugh, life is not fair.” He stomped his foot then seamlessly started pulling me out of the airport again.
“Dead mom, remember?”
“Heaven above can have my mother if it means I get a big ole dick.” He sighed then crossed himself. I couldn’t help but giggle. “Girl, spill already!”
“I met him at the gate. He was flying back to Chicago too.”
“Love in the air. So Hollywood. Perfect. Continue.”
“I talked him into joining the mile high club with me.” Heat raced into my chest and cheeks even though Conrad and I had shared the most devilish details with each other over the years.
“Shut up!” He pulled me up short and shoved me to arm’s length again. “You had sex on the plane?”
“Yeah and why don’t you yell about it a little louder while we’re in the airport.” I rolled my eyes at him.
“Girl, you look like a Swiss milk maid, TSA wouldn’t dream of arresting you, you look too innocent.” Conrad rolled his eyes right back. “Now tell me more.”
“He’s gorgeous and really strong. He has these intense green eyes and tattoos everywhere.”
“And his dick?”
“Was fabulous. Just like his hands and his mouth.” I smiled genuinely as my mind flashed to his lips on mine, his lips on my skin, his dick… Well, just his dick period.
“He went down on you in an airplane bathroom? What I wouldn’t do for a blowie from a hot stranger somewhere public. You’re living every gay man’s fantasy.” He sighed dramatically and we started walking again.
“I went home with him. That’s where he went down on me.” I nudged his ribs. “Wait, that was actually the car. I went down on him at his place, then he choked me. A few times.”
Conrad made a screechy sound laced thick with jealousy then abruptly fell away from me. I turned to watch him finish his completely dramatic, completely staged fall straight to the ground. I tried not to giggle as I stood over him with my hands on my hips.
“Rhett? Rhett?” He did his best Southern Belle voice and let his hand drift limply toward me as he decided to come-to.
“Is he okay?” Someone asked from beside Conrad. I noticed a few of the people trying to exit baggage claim had stopped when he hit the floor. We were garnering stares from the rest.
“Besides general idiocy and being dropped as a child, he’s just fine.” I shook my head.
“Rhett? Is that you?” Conrad was committed to his act and I knew I had to play along.
“Come on Scarlett O’Whora. You’ve attracted more than the usual amount of attention.” I reached down for his one hand still wheeling in the imaginary wind but he wouldn’t let me catch it.
When I finally snatched it, Conrad grabbed me and yanked me to my knees beside him. He didn’t say anything for a minute while he fanned himself.
“He’s fine. He’s fine.” I reassured the new wave of people walking by.
“He sure is,” a deep, manly voice from the crowd answered.
Conrad shot up to sitting then scrambled after the random voice, leaving me kneeling on the floor.
“I should’ve just gotten a puppy,” I mumbled to myself as I rose and hauled my bag onto my shoulder.
“A puppy wouldn’t want to hear all about your orgasms.” Conrad was already back and kissed my temple.
“But a puppy may be interested that I fell in love.”
I didn’t even flinch when Conrad’s hand fell away and I heard the gasp and telltale thump all over again.
10.
Cole
I pressed play on the video for what was probably the hundredth time today. If I counted the whole week, it had to be close to ten thousand. Elle’s goofy wave made me smile each time but her signed eye heart you did different things to my insides.
Every emotion had come up while watching her and this time anger snarled in my chest. Pure fury that I couldn’t go after her, that I couldn’t have her, that Mickey had erased the taste and feel of her.
I replayed the night he’d made me prove my loyalty again. When Jimmy hadn’t delivered, Horse had shown up, his head hanging low. I didn’t fight him this time, the only consolation I had was that I got my friend back. But that night he’d been a silent, stoic friend.
He hadn’t needed to say anything.
The Maloney family was no family at all. It was a collection of depraved villains searching for ways to rain down destruction and make cash while doing it. Mayhem, cocaine and pussy had sounded great at fourteen, but now I knew better. Horse did too.
Mick gave two choices when it came to swearing in: murder or sexual deviancy. I’d watched both far too many times in that darkly lit room that doubled as the Devil’s playground. And for my second swearing in, I was given the choice of killing an Italian kid who’d stolen from Mickey or fucking Siobhan. For a good ten minutes, I thought about killing the kid. Pulling the trigger would be instantaneous, the guilt would hang like a thick chain on my neck far longer, but he wouldn’t be the last.
In the end, I couldn’t do it. He was maybe thirteen and balling where he was chained in front of Mickey’s throne. They’d beaten him into submission, blood dripped onto the denim of his jeans. I was a monster but that seemed like a new low.
I trudged over to Siobhan and reached for her dress.
“It’s not going to be that easy,” she said seductively just before she slapped me and lunged.
I wasn’t prepared and she clawed down my cheek and chest, making me stumble backward. A roar rumbled in my chest as I grounded myself. Siobhan and I stood across the small space, both breathing a little heavily. Her smirk matched Mickey’s and red started to edge my vision.
A drop of blood from where she’d broken skin with her talons dripped onto my lip just before I bolted for her. I trapped her and squeezed tightly but she fought like the wildcat she was. She bucked against me, letting her knees fly into my thighs. Her claws dug at any part of my body she could reach.
When she landed her knee straight to my groin, I automatically cried out and dropped her. I crumpled to my knees holding my crotch and groaned like a little kid. While I was down Siobhan walked over and brought the point of her fancy leather stiletto to my chin and lifted it.
“You went soft. Thank God Mick has me.” She spit on me, her venom landing across the cheek she’d drawn blood from, and I was grateful. It reminded me I wasn’t fighting a woman, I was fighting a poisonous rat. And I was going to have to fight dirty.
She kicked against my chest and I let it topple me back. As soon as she pressed her heel to my throat, I grabbed her and twisted her leg with all my might. She screamed loud as pops and cracks moved up her leg and she crashed to the floor.
It was my turn to smirk.
She tried to crawl away from me but I’d actually done damage. I watched her try and crawl away from me for a moment, only to reach out and grab her wounded ankle. I dragged her back across the floor to where I was still kneeling. She shrieked the whole time.
I flipped her on her front then straddled her, notching each of her wrists beneath my knees then reached for her hair. She flopped like a fish, still trying to fight, as I yanked hard on my fistful. She moaned loud and lustful into the dark room as I leaned forward so I could growl through gritted teeth in her ear.
“Mick and you deserve each other but don’t for one second think you’re better than me.”
She whimpered again, more sexual than pained.
I shoved her head down to the floor with far more force than was necessary, hearing another crunch of her slight bones beneath me, then leaned back. Her body finally stopped fighting beneath me and I shoved her skirt up. With a single, swift movement, I ripped her tiny lace panties away. She barely made a s
ound.
Even when I undid my belt and shoved myself unceremoniously into her, she stayed fairly quiet, dazed and defeated. She was so wet she was slippery and something about that made me all the more furious. I let my hands find her neck as I started hammering into her and I squeezed all the way around. She gurgled beneath me and I felt bile rise in my throat.
“More skin, Cole,” Mick yelled from his throne and everything inside me boiled.
But I listened. One hand left her neck and ripped off my shirt then shoved my pants down as far as I could reach. I likewise ripped on her dress.
“Good. Very good.” His cackle cut through the room before he started clapping a sinister slow clap.
I knew how it went. I finished or Siobhan fought me off. Those were always the rules. Considering she was barely breathing beneath me, I had to come to get this over with. As I thrust harder and harder, I pictured Elle. Her curves beneath that white cotton dress the first day I’d seen her. Cherry milkshakes and cream cheese frosting. Those delicate little fingers across my ink and wrapped around my dick.
She was everywhere I could fit her. In every sense, in every memory. She filled the room, not Mickey Maloney’s underlings, not Horse, not his motherfucking laugh. Just Elle.
My balls tightened, my thighs bunched and that feeling she gave me in the pit of my stomach told me a second before I was going to fill Siobhan. I pulled out, dropped a hand from her neck and stroked myself a few times before calling Elle’s name as cum squirted all over Siobhan’s stomach.
The laugh that Mickey let loose had haunted my dreams for the past week. The fact that I couldn’t remember how Elle felt around my dick, but could feel Siobhan, had left my walls with a few holes in them. They were nothing compared to the gaping one left in my heart.
Neither video Elle had sent me could bring her back. Nor could they bring me back to her. I was drifting.
Horse’s knock echoed through my apartment, more a threat to break down the door than a request to let him in. I tried to shake off the filth of the memories covering me as I got up to answer the door.
“Hey,” I said gruffly.
“You’re still up here? Thought you’d be tattooing by now.” Horse cocked his head as he studied me.
“I canceled some appointments this week.” I walked away from him and crash landed back into bed with a bounce.
“This still about Elle?”
I grunted rather than answered.
“I could kiss it and make it all better.” Horse wiggled his eyebrows from where he leaned against my kitchen island.
“You’re disgusting, you know that?” I rolled my eyes whether he could see or not.
“What can I say? I got a taste watching the other night, and now I’m just hungry.”
“Don’t fucking talk about that night!” I shouted as I sprung off the bed and sprinted across the room. I balled my fist into his shirt and cocked my fist back ready to take him down for reminding me of what I’d done.
Horse barely moved, simply reaching up and wrapping his hand around mine.
“Sorry, man. Really I am.” His whole face shifted, sincerity taking over completely. I dropped my fist to my side but didn’t let go of his shirt. Fury still pumped through my veins but I knew it was directed at myself, not Horse.
“Have you talked to her?” he asked quietly, and I knew he was trying to calm me down with the mention of Elle.
“No.” I dropped his shirt with a little shove and circled the island to grab a beer from the fridge. I popped the bottle top with the switchblade laying on the counter and relished the first swig of crisp bubbles dancing on my tongue. “She’s called a few times but I can’t bring myself to answer. She can’t be tangled up with me, with him. She needs to forget I exist.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes and I knew that meant Horse understood. Maybe even agreed. He helped himself to a beer but otherwise didn’t interrupt my brooding.
“You ever think what it would be like for both of us to have her?” He sucked in a deep breath, no doubt worried I was going to fly off the handle again. And I was possessive enough that I didn’t blame him. But I’d gotten a taste of something the other night with Siobhan, something I didn’t entirely loathe—our old and utterly savage ways.
“Yeah, Horse. Just every other fucking fantasy or so.”
He blew out a deep breath that turned into a soft chuckle.
“Good. For a second I felt bad about it.”
“In an alternate universe she’d be mine and I’d share her from time to time.” I chugged my beer to help erase the fact that would never happen.
“Cheers to alternate universes then.” Horse audibly glugged his beer then all but slammed his bottle to the countertop. “All right, Cupcake, we’ve got business to attend to.”
“Figured,” I mumbled and went over to put on shoes. I tried to push the image of an Elle sandwich from my mind by cleaning the scuffs off my Chuck Taylors.
I grabbed my jacket and wordlessly followed Horse out of the apartment. We walked in sync down to the car and I slid in so naturally, it was like we’d been apart for just a few hours, not a few years. Horse fired up the engine and brought the car to life, the familiarity of it all was oddly soothing.
After all, I was in now. Deep. As deep as I’d been in Siobhan. Whether I liked it or not, whether I wanted to forget it or not, my reality was the Maloney family. I was alive, Elle was safe and Horse was back. Those things couldn’t be considered all bad.
“So where are we going?” I asked when we idled at a red light.
“There’s Italian rumblings. I think they’re trying to edge in again.”
“Are you serious?” I couldn’t mask my shock.
“As a fucking heart attack, man.” For the first time in ages, fear trickled into Horse’s voice.
The death and destruction that had blanketed every facet of our life last time this happened descended in darkness. It had almost cost Horse his life and it had forced me to find a way to get mine back. Almost everyone attached to either the Maloneys or the Giancomos had been left hanging to life or freedom by the thinnest nail.
“I thought we’d come to an understanding?”
“So did Mick.”
Those words were like a boulder. If Mick hadn’t seen this coming, heads were going to roll and blood would spatter the walls in no time. The street around us seemed to run red with it.
“So today’s surveillance?” It was wishful thinking but I asked anyway.
“We’re questioning a guy.” Horse’s knuckles turned white when he adjusted his grip on the steering wheel.
I didn’t have an answer. Questioning was as good as saying a beat down in the Maloney book. The idea of fists, bruises and broken bones made my stomach lurch, but why it made an enforcer like Horse a little squeamish was beyond me.
We pulled up to a nondescript bakery with cannoli’s in the window. Horse blew out a heavy sigh after the engine went silent.
“You have my back right?” he asked, his eyes unable to meet mine.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” My brows knit together as I looked over.
“I know you have my back but…how do I put this…in there? Do you have my back when things go sideways? When we have to do what Mick wants?” He was the most serious he’d been since tromping back into my life.
“Fuck Mick,” I grumbled.
“Yeah, we get it, Cole. He’s horrible and terrible and a goddamned monster. But he owns you. He owns me. And unless you wanna go to war, you’ve gotta accept it.”
A minute ago I had, I’d looked at the positive and let this sort of shit slide off my back. I had to keep that up. I had no other choice.
“I said fuck Mick, not fuck you. I have your back and I’ll do what we gotta do.”
“Good. In that case, reach under the seat,” Horse commanded as he slid out of the driver’s seat.
I didn’t need to pat around to guess what was down there. I reached, my muscle memory guiding me more
than anything, and my hand found cold steel. The hash-marked grip of the gun was as familiar as the motion. Without looking, I knew this was the Glock I’d slid across that disgusting wood floor the day I’d walked out.
In one swift movement, I pushed out of the car and shoved it in the back of my waistband. I fell into step behind Horse as we walked into the bakery. The man behind the counter was helping a little old lady but his voice faltered when Horse filled the doorway. He picked back up with his description of desserts as we settled into the back of the room.
The moment the Italian grandma shuffled out, the tension amplified.
“I think you’re closed,” Horse said gruffly and the man wordlessly slithered from behind the counter and flipped the open sign then clicked the lock.
He hung his head as he came to stand in front of us and I had to check my empathy. I shoved it deep in the space that Elle and everything else that used to be light in my life occupied.
“What do you know about the Giancomos buying up warehouses right on the fringe of Maloney territory? How do they know which buildings they can buy without an immediate hit,” Horse growled matching his imposing stature rather than his gooey insides.
His tone told me everything. The man whose chin trembled in front of me was going to die.
“Don’t lie to us either. We know you know,” Horse continued.
And like clockwork that’s when the scrambling began. The I don’t knows and the I’m not mixed up in that, sometimes even the not sure what you’re talking abouts. This guy did it well, spinning wheels and tales as quickly as his motormouth would allow.
Reading Horse as well as I always had, I knew what was coming a split second before it did. His fist crunched into the man’s face with all the force of a Mack truck. His jaw crunched and twisted as blood shot from his lips. One punch from Horse was enough to level him to his knees.
Horse jerked his chin toward the puddle of a human and I knew what he wanted me to do. I stepped behind the man and grabbed his collar, extending his torso so it was a wide open target. He barely waited for me to stretch the whimpering baker out before two Hulk fists pummeled into his stomach. He wheezed and tried to curl onto himself and out of my hands. I adjusted my grip so I had him by the throat.
