by Ace Gray
I turned away from him and flopped down onto the mattress. Like a junkie, I sniffed in the smell of Cole, wanting that pure version of him back.
“This isn’t some Hollywood adaptation where the killer has a heart of gold and despite all the odds you ride off into the sunset like some modern fairy tale. This is the fourth-page news story about how Chicago’s murder rate is up seventy-six percent and still connected to organized crime.”
“And if I refuse to believe that?”
“Then you’re gonna confuse the angel of death with your fairy godmother.”
A key scraped against the lock just a moment before two burly bodies squeezed through. That they were both back, and Cole looked unharmed—well, not more than he already was—made my heart pitter-patter.
“Conrad, I’ll take my chances with either.” I shot him a look as I pushed up from the bed and rocketed over to them.
Cole dropped his arm from Horse’s shoulder and reached out just as I stopped short.
I couldn’t help but picture red hair cascading over his body as a body ground against him. The sound effects started again too. I stepped back and his hand dropped to his side. My eyes closed as I sucked in a deep breath, they stayed tightly closed as I blew it out, feeling my whole chest deflate.
When I finally opened my eyes, Cole stood in front of me, his hands shoved into his pockets, making his muscles flex across his chest. But his eyes betrayed his fragile insides. We stared at each other for a few moments, watching the rise and fall of our breaths, our hearts synching again as if they’d always meant to beat together.
“You,” Horse called to Conrad in a husky rasp, “grab your purse. We’re going out.”
Cole and I hadn’t stopped looking at each other. Emotion was percolating in the room, bubbling up every bit as much as it floated through, connecting us in a way I’d never felt before.
“Oh hell no. I’m staying here. She can’t be trusted,” Conrad shot back, his voice getting squeaky sharp again.
Horse walked over and grabbed Conrad by the arm. His hand barely closed around the muscles Conrad took such pride in, but when it did, he pulled.
“I don’t think you heard me correctly. You and I are going on a date.” Horse’s laugh colored his rich voice.
“I don’t…” Conrad stuttered. “I mean…but Elle.” His tanned skin had turned crimson red at Horse’s touch.
“Despite what you may think, Elle’s well taken care of. Real well. Aren’t ya, Fucktart?” I nodded as Horse hunted Conrad like he was weak and withering prey. “I thought so.” He arched his eyebrow. “The real question, is are you?”
Conrad’s mouth dropped open and gaped around once or twice before he managed a, “I guess not,” and let Horse pull him from the room.
The apartment door was heavy when it shut behind them, snapping into its frame with a deep boom. Or my nerves were so shot they amplified the sound.
I studied Cole as I had so many times since meeting him. He held himself gingerly and it was in such sharp contrast to the dips and grooves of his body, the savage brute I knew he could be. It was the man uncomfortable standing tall in front of me that was something to soften for.
“I don’t know how to get her out of my head when I look at you.” It wasn’t a good place to start but it was all I could think of.
“I don’t know how to get a future out of my head when I look at you,” he answered then bit his lip.
I blew out a giant deep breath. It was a sucker punch I hadn’t seen coming.
“How can you say that? It's like you want me gone. Want this gone.” I gestured between us.
“I don’t know how to make this better, Ladyface. This war doesn’t just go away in a week or two. It doesn’t end when Mick dies or even Siobhan. Otherwise, I’d kill them outright. So where does that leave us? We steal kisses between hellfire and brimstone?” His shoulders crept up to his ears and his eyes fell from me to the floor.
“Yeah. For eternity if it’s an option.” I sighed.
“You don’t belong down here with me.” His voice was shaky and unsure.
“You have to get over this fixation on heaven and hell, Cole.” I took a step closer to him. “Maybe they’re both real places. Maybe God exists, maybe Satan does too, but they're not your reality. Today, right here, right now, I’m real. We’re real.” I took another step toward him. “And real means you get everything. You let the light in with the dark.”
His eyes traced my face, studying inch after inch. The green started to burn as he stepped closer.
This time I let him.
There was barely room to breathe between us. My skin vibrated with need this close to him. Copper hair picked that moment to flip in front of my face. I went to step back, but Cole reached out and caught my wrist.
I gasped.
“You’re my light. I’ll be your dark.” His voice had gone husky.
“Doesn’t change things. I still need time.” I tried to break from his grasp.
“You asked me for a minute and I gave you about five hours longer than I needed.” He yanked on his hold and I crashed back into his body.
The all too familiar cry of his pain split the quiet of the apartment. But he didn’t let me go. He winced again when he wrapped around me.
“I can’t.” The sounds were too similar to this morning.
“You can.” He buried his face in my neck.
“I can hear her. I can hear you two together,” I whined.
“Let me erase it. Let me erase her,” he begged right back.
“Give me time.”
“No.” He backed me up against the door. “Give me you. Give me everything.”
“You already took it.” My words were choppy at best.
“You said I could have it.” He breathed the words against my lips.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Neither do I.”
He crashed against me with the full weight of his body. I thumped against the door and it reverberated the same way the slam had. His lips found mine, pushing, pulling until he started biting. His cries punctuated each of our kisses but he didn’t stop. It was like he couldn’t.
Red hair was still a shroud behind my eyelids, her cries still echoed in my ears but my body couldn’t slow down any more than his could.
His weight started to press against me, harder and harder until I thought we might splinter the door and fall into the hallway. I had the feeling he’d fuck me there too.
When he thumped me up against the door a second time, using just his mouth, I cried out a ragged sound. It mingled with his and a new sound filled my ears. He shoved his hands between my legs and started stroking.
“It’s only you, Elle. Only ever fucking you,” he growled as he crooked his finger up onto my G-spot.
“I know. Every fiber of your body tells every single inch of mine...” my words trailed off into a moan.
“Hear that play on repeat.” He was stroking against me with strong, assertive strokes.
“I will.”
“No. Now. Hear it now,” he commanded. “Say it, scream it. So I can hear it too.” He was working faster, flicking me faster.
“I. Don’t. Know. What…” I couldn’t finish my choppy sentence.
“You do.” He bit down on my neck roughly and pulled. His cry tickled my skin where his teeth held me.
His hand was working so furiously inside me that my legs were going weak. It was a fast pump inside me and deep, wild strokes against the front wall of me. Something new, something insane was building inside of me. He bit harder on the skin between his teeth and I screamed.
For the first time in my life, a new and ridiculous orgasm consumed me. Heat pulled through my body and pure arousal splashed down onto his hand.
“Shit,” I swore as wetness spread down my legs and trickled onto the shiny tips of his hightops. “Oh God. That’s never happened before.” Red flushed across my cheeks and chest.
“That’s the fucking sexiest thin
g I’ve ever heard.” Cole dropped to his knees with the most agonized cry I’d ever heard, but it was cut short when he shoved his face between my legs.
He rubbed his scruffy cheeks against my thighs almost as if he was soaking up the slickness. His tongue followed, licking every square inch of flesh before darting inside me. I screamed as my hands grabbed for his hair.
The second I grabbed it, I remembered how disheveled it had been, the claw marks there; she had to have done the same. I dropped my grip, plastering my palms to the door behind me.
“Grab me, Ladyface,” he snarled, the sound muffled in my sex.
“No, she…”
He bit down on my clit mid-sentence and I screamed.
“You bring her up one more time and I’ll ruin you. I’ll make sure that you can’t remember your name, let alone what happened this morning.” He shoved his tongue into me again for a moment. “It’s just you and me. Just. Fucking. You. And. Me.” He roared each word up inside me.
His arm wormed his way up between my breasts and shoved me back against the door then balled in my dress. He used his fist to keep me pinned in place as he tongued me. His other hand crept up inside me.
“You’re gonna give in to me again, Elle.”
Cole rolled his face around on my skin then pointed his tongue to flick my clit in time with his destruction of my G-spot. My body started bucking against his face, my hands flew back to his hair.
“Grab it, Ladyface. Grab it and take it. Take me.” His voice was a perfect mix of pleasure and pain.
I latched on and he went wild. My whole body shook as he worked me over. I was trembling again and worse than before. I didn’t think that I could take another one of those orgasms.
“Stop,” I begged quietly, not really wanting him to.
“No. Not until it’s just you and me in here.” His words puffed warm against my clit.
Copper was still there, the haggard cries of this hellcat Siobhan too, but there was no question in my mind that Cole would erase it. Someday I wouldn’t remember anything but this, the way my body was about to go haywire all over again. The way I’d drip on his face this time instead of his shoes.
Shivers moved up my spine as he obliterated my G-spot. His hand shifted so he could fist my breast as he went wild. Then without warning his grip slipped and he yanked on my nipple.
“Fuck,” I screamed as I fell off the edge of orgasm.
Cole’s answering guttural cry was so beautifully turned on and tortured it coaxed the same absurd splash from me.
“You and me, Ladyface. Just us.” His open mouth was everywhere between my thighs as my body trembled.
He kissed every inch of slick skin he could reach, up one thigh and then down the other. He lavished a few French kisses on my quivering sex and that did me in.
I crumpled. I couldn’t have slowed myself if I tried as I crashed into his lap. He bellowed in agony but still collected me. We both breathed heavy and I let my head roll back to bang into the door behind me.
Cole bent in and kissed along my collarbone.
“For the record, Ladyface, heaven does exist,” he purred.
I tilted my head the slightest bit to see his shiny cheeks smiling for the first time in days.
“And it’s right fucking here.”
He roughly pushed his fingers right back into me.
26.
Cole
I couldn’t believe she’d let me take her. Well take advantage of every inch of her was more like it. I didn’t blame her for keeping her distance or for what she’d said, but I couldn’t help myself. After the day I’d had, I needed her more than food, air or water combined.
I needed her to forget about everything but being mine.
And I needed to make being mine worth it.
“Grab your purse, Ladyface, we’re going out.” I used Horse’s words, hoping for a laugh.
She was breathy but she fed me a giggle all the same. I ate it up like a dying man. And to some extent I was. My body was rotting away every single moment except for the ones she decided to breathe life into.
“Is it safe?” she asked as she tried to right herself. “ I mean I thought we weren’t supposed to leave the apartment?”
“I have something special in mind.” I went to push her to standing but the hot poker in my back dug in and twisted.
“Don’t hurt yourself.” Elle’s voice was soft and protective all at once. It was all the salve I’d ever need on my wounds.
I smiled as she carefully lifted off my lap and adjusted her dress. The fabric between her tits wouldn’t lay flat after I’d handled it so roughly. My dimple hollowed out at the thought that someone might guess what I’d done to her. Or at least let their imagination roam.
She stood over me expectantly and gave me a look when she offered her hand. Normally, I’d push her away and stand up just to show that I could do it on my own but I didn’t mind if she saw me vulnerable. Matter of fact, her seeing all of me, even my deeply hidden sides, was becoming more and more important. I gladly took her hand, as grateful for her help as I was to have her skin against mine and let her haul me up to standing. Only one pitiful moan dripped from my lips.
“Got your wallet?” I asked as I gingerly patted my pockets for my own and keys.
“I thought this was a date. Isn’t the gentleman supposed to pay?” She scrunched her nose up into the most adorable button.
“You know damn well I’m no gentleman.” I arched my eyebrow before I added, “And that I’ll take damn good care of you.” I wiggled my eyebrow as I reached toward her upper thigh.
She went to block me with both hands as her knees knocked together. I tried to bob and weave around her but I was just too damn slow. She batted at my hands then giggled loud enough to fill the loft.
It was the sound, not the sudden movement, that made me groan as my whole stomach clenched and my balls tightened. I leaned in to kiss her and she let me, finally opening up like the perfect little sunflower she was. She wandered around my mouth the same way I leisurely strolled through hers until her tongue went to trace my lips.
“You taste different,” she said as she smiled against my lips.
“I taste like you,” I purred.
“You gonna clean up?” she asked as she leaned back in, this time snatching my lip and nibbling.
I let her take her time, digging into my flesh while massaging my lip with the tip of her tongue. When she finally let me free, she arched her eyebrow expectantly.
“Nope,” I popped my P.
She bit her lip almost as hard as she’d bit mine.
“Come on.”
I grabbed her hand and swung open the door. Both made me wince, but I’d made the decision I was taking her out. For tonight, I was going to be nothing more than a man on a date with a bewitching little bird.
She was patient with me as I took the stairs slowly, her hand squeezed on mine each time I sucked in a deep breath. As soon as we got to the car she broke away from me to head to the passenger side. I caught her by the wrist and pulled her back into the side of my body. Together we rounded the hood of the Charger then I bent away from her to grab the door.
“Told you I’d take care of you.” I bent to kiss the tip of her nose as she slid into the leather seat.
My eyes stayed fixed on her as I slowly moved back around the car. She watched me equally intent but a smile played on her lips. I blew out a deep breath and thanked my lucky stars she was back with me. That she was with me at all. When she reached for my hand across the stick shift, I had to keep from smiling like a giddy little kid.
Elle didn’t hold her wide smile back. It lit up the darkest corners of my soul and threatened to liquefy my insides. I was addicted to that feeling.
“Where are we going?” she asked and the sunshine was obvious in her voice.
“Trust me?” I looked over at her unable to hold back my smile any longer.
“Way more than I should.” She rolled her eyes but then her smile got
even wider.
We snaked our way through the neighborhood, trendy shops giving way to dark warehouses and chained parking lots. The city lights got fewer and farther apart here, making it seem more like I was taking her to a back alley to die rather than a restaurant for dinner and drinks.
I’d pictured the way her eyes would light up at Fulton Market Kitchen the moment I saw her bent over the sketching table. The pop art canvasing the restaurant was a bigger draw than their food or drinks. Sculptures jumped out of the wall, sprang up from the floor and dripped down from the ceiling like live raindrops ricocheting in zero gravity. It was a visual playground second to only the dips and curves of Elle’s body itself.
We pulled up and I tossed my keys to the valet before I collected her from shotgun. I pulled her to my side and, when the guy eyed her more than my car, I wrapped around her. She giggled as she nuzzled into my shoulder.
“My eyes only see you,” she murmured against my skin then pressed her lips to the ink coating my neck.
“Liar,” I barely breathed the word as shivers ran up and down my spine. “You saw him checking you out.”
“Yeah and it made me even more sure.”
I wanted to shove her up against the wall. There in the long, dark hallway where everyone and anyone could see as they walked in or out of the restaurant. I would shove her by the throat up against the velvety walls and take what was mine. I wanted to taste her as much as I wanted people to see what I got to feast on.
But I settled on kissing the top of her head where she was still tucked beneath my chin. Whether it killed me or not, whether my dick had other things to say, I was taking this girl on a date. She deserved that much.
I pulled her a little way up the hall before she swore under her breath. She broke away from my side and wandered wide-eyed into the room. The exhibit they were featuring was a delicate gauzy thing that reminded me of Elle and the way her white cotton dress would blow in the breeze on a hot summer day. Wood hung in various directions, some trapping the scraps of fabric while still others seemed to meld and flow to and from each other.
“It’s a gallery?” she asked as her fingers skated over the patchwork and velvet furniture in front of us.
