by Ace Gray
And then I saw it. The faint reflection of a bank sign on the curved surface of the statue. I knew exactly where we could draw out money. The fact that it was smack in the middle of some thirty-odd hotels didn’t hurt either. I picked up the pace even though Elle had to jog to keep up. We needed to get out of plain sight. Like now.
I blew out a deep breath when I saw it. I yanked open the glass doors and scanned the street around us as I shoved Elle into the entryway to use the fluorescent-lit ATM.
“Max it, Ladyface.” I blew out a deep breath as I kept fixed on the street rather than on her.
Even if Mickey was watching her accounts, waiting to see, he couldn’t get someone here fast enough. Or so I prayed. That didn’t stop me from sweeping my gaze up and down the street then back again.
“It’s only going to let me get a thousand bucks.”
“That’ll do. I’ll max mine and that’ll just have to work until we can get to my stash.” I turned and shot her a brief smile before returning to the street.
The sounds of the machine behind me made me jump and Elle didn’t miss my unease. Her shoulders started to inch up to her ears as she pulled the bills from the ATM.
“We’re good,” she said as she placed her hand on my shoulder.
I jumped and she tensed in response.
“We’re the furthest thing from good.” I shoved my hand into her hair and raked it down to cradle the back of her neck. My thumb pressed into her throat as I pulled her to me and kissed her. “But you trust me, right?”
She nodded just as wildly as before, as I stroked and down on her neck, pressing a little bit more firmly as I did.
“Give me your card.” I let go of her and held out my palm.
She wordlessly gave it to me then watched wide-eyed as I bent it down the middle. The plastic bent and warped turning from red to distressed white. I bent it back the other way then dropped it to the floor before smashing it like a cockroach. It splintered down the center just like I hoped. I picked up the two halves and pocketed one, tossing the one that said Elle La into the trash.
“Watch the street. If anything suspicious happens you tell me right away,” I commanded before I turned to pull out my thousand.
As soon as I had the money in hand, I did the same thing with my card, leaving Cole Ry in the bin next to hers.
Elle was gnawing on her lip when I turned and grabbed her hand and shoved out of the little glass box. I turned down the sidewalk, grateful that it wasn’t as well lit as the ATM had been. The fact that we were skirting a big beige brick building didn't hurt either.
We rounded the corner all too quick, we were exposed to the traffic of the city and the lights of a far more populated street. My stomach jumped up into my throat as I scanned the faces passing us. When one was a hotel valet everything inside me unwound.
“In here, Ladyface. Follow my lead.”
I took a few steadying breaths as we skirted the small circular drive.
“Welcome to the Fairmont Millennium Park sir, miss.” A doorman in a lightweight, short-sleeved uniform greeted us with a nod as we slipped into the revolving door.
The inside was glammed out with lush fabrics and low sultry lighting. I imagined having drinks with Elle in the sunken bar under different circumstances. In my fantasy, we were here celebrating something besides living through the night. I couldn’t get lost in it or jog down to shoot a little bit of whiskey. Instead, I pulled her toward the front desk.
The LED sculpture behind the front desk woman was hypnotic but I didn’t let myself relax. I kept scanning the room even as she started speaking.
“Welcome sir, do you have a reservation?” She smiled brightly like the world wasn’t falling to pieces outside.
“We don’t actually. Do you have anything?” I did what I could to keep the edge out of my voice.
“And your check out date?” she asked smiling up at me, polite as could be.
“Not tomorrow but the next day.” That would be enough time to figure out what Vinny meant but not lingering too long.
“For two nights, we have a park view, Signature Suite. It would be five hundred and twenty-nine dollars a night.”
“Perfect. We have another joining us too. Can I leave a key for him?”
I was going to risk a coded text to Horse and I prayed he’d figure it out. Prayed he was alive to figure it out. Leaving him at the Pier was enough to make me feel like a small part of my heart had been left bloody on the concrete.
“Certainly. We just need a credit card to hold.”
“I’d like to pay cash for the room,” I inadvertently snarled this time as my insides started to knot again.
“We still need a card to hold for incidentals.” Rather than cower, she got slightly more forceful.
It took everything I had not to reach across her modern mahogany desk and latch on to her throat. My fingers itched at the opportunity to make her bend to my will with a smash to the wood she stood behind. I was losing control of myself, morphing back into the savage Mickey had always wanted me to be.
That was what stilled me. That and the small little hand that curled around mine.
“I plan on putting that card to serious work tomorrow on Michigan Avenue,” Elle’s voice was perfectly calm, perfectly clear and oh-so-sweet when she interrupted. “If I give it to you, do you run it or do you just hold it in case? A girl’s gotta know how many pairs of shoes she can buy.”
“If you pay cash for the room upfront we don’t have to run the card unless something goes awry in the room.” The woman responded to Elle like the ray of sunshine she was and once again I found myself smiling despite it all.
“Well then here you are.” Elle counted out the cash from our new pile then dug in my back pocket for my wallet.
She flipped through and found my business card as if she knew it was there. My dimple hollowed out at how well she played this game, after all it was least likely to be on Mickey’s radar.
After a few plinks of the keys the front desk woman gave us the keys and courteous directions to the elevator. I yanked Elle into my side as I pulled out my phone.
remember that time we did coke off a stripper’s tits? good times one block up.
I hoped he remembered the party in the apartment building one block down. It had been a hot, sweaty mess of bodies and cocaine but it was the first time I let him touch me without Mick around so I figured the evening was a little more clear to him than me. I hope that he’d know to ask for me at the desk.
I hoped that he was still breathing to do both.
The elevator dinged in front of us and Elle had to urge me into the elevator. I’d gotten momentarily lost on the Pier with Horse.
“Hello?” she questioned softly. “Earth to Cole?” She twisted to look up at me from under her long Bambi lashes.
“What if…?” I couldn’t formulate the rest of that sentence.
“What if tonight you forget about it?” she asked quietly as she wrapped herself around my front and rolled her hips suggestively against mine. “What if you forget about the outside world and just live and breathe me?”
I shuddered with need. If only she knew how I already did.
“Devour me,” she whispered as she raised up on tiptoes to bite my earlobe. “Consume me.” She drug her teeth down my neck then pressed her lips to the skin right above my collar. “Take my everything tonight. Until there’s nothing left of me.”
My body trembled beneath her again, and this time because I was worried that in the morning her words might actually prove true.
29.
Elle
I needed him. I needed Cole touching me to take away the panic, and kissing me to know that love still existed in this world. I needed him choking me to feel like I was still alive. He was the only thing that could.
Him.
Maybe Horse or Conrad could have helped but right now they just made a knot rise in my throat that I couldn’t swallow past. Cole would just have to swallow up the sadness
and fear for me.
He was somewhere else even though I’d all but begged him in the elevator and I couldn’t take it right now. He needed to be here with me. In me.
When our room number appeared, I shook my hand from his and whirled on him. He was so distracted I was able to shove him and actually get his muscled body to move. I used my full weight to slam him up against the door.
Cole was face first against the cream wood of the door, his hands splayed to catch himself from crashing into it. I let my hands skate up along his broad back and down his sculpted arms before I laced my fingers into his. I kissed his neck then down across his shoulders. The cotton of his shirt tickled my lips until they felt raw and on fire.
“What if they don’t…”
He slumped beneath me, his head banging against the door.
“You wanna go back?” My voice wavered at the thought.
Siobhan was every bit as awful as I’d imagined. It wasn’t her devil red hair, sharp pointy heels or sharper, cat shaped nails. It was the way hatred hung on her soulless features. If I hadn’t already forgiven Cole, I would have at first sight. She oozed evil out of every pore.
“We can’t.” He turned in my arms, keeping ahold of my fingertips. One of his arms folded down between us while the other wrapped around the back of my neck. He pulled me in and kissed me hard before he leaned his forehead to mine. “I’d crack if I lost Horse. Nothing would fill that space. But if I lost you, I’d shatter with no hope of ever putting myself back together.”
I shoved against him again, keeping our arms tangled up as they were. We crashed back against the door, this time so hard I thought it might splinter.
This time Cole was with me. He kissed me back, meeting my lips move for move, hungry to taste more. He took my tongue roughly and I moaned.
“Ladyface, you want it rough?” He breathed just before he bit down hard on my bottom lip.
Everything below my belly button clenched, desperate for the savage Cole could be. A ravaged body would match my ravaged soul.
“Yes.” I did my best to answer as I pulled away, not giving a damn that he was scraping so hard he might draw blood.
“Good.”
He broke away long enough to grab the key and unlock the door. He grabbed the handle and kicked the door open, propping it open with his toe as he turned back and grabbed me by the throat to yank me into the room. His hand clutched down on me and pulled.
I surrendered completely to him and he tossed me up against the wall like a little rag doll. I crashed into it the way he’d crashed into the door. The moment after, he was up against me as I’d been at him. His lips were a little more aggressive, mussing my hair before they found the curve of my neck. He kissed me then lapped at the spots before he bit down. I groaned and rolled against my spot on the wall.
He fisted his hand into my hair and yanked my head to the side. He bit down on the exposed part of my neck harder than he had before. His lips closed around his teeth and sucked, blood thundered in his mouth and it threatened to burst just like my soul.
Cole yanked harder on my hair and I thought he’d bring me to my knees. I started to fold but he shoved his hands between my thighs and kept me standing as he wormed his way between the tiny scrap of denim and up into me. He used his body to thud me up against the wall again as he started stroking me.
His hand shifted from my hair to my neck and he slowly drummed his fingers along my skin. The vibration made me tremble as it moved in time with the thrusts inside me.
“Squeeze,” I begged.
“Don’t you dare tell me what to do,” Cole snarled as his hand moved back in my hair and used his grip to shove me down to the carpet.
I didn’t even slow my body, I simply let him reign over me. He needed control as much as I needed to surrender it.
He shoved my face into the carpet then gently skated a single knuckle over my cheek and traced the spot he’d marked on my shoulder. I quivered beneath the tender touch and a slight ragged moan slipped from my lips.
“Until there’s nothing left of you, right?” There was a soft thump as his knees hit the carpet behind me.
“Own me,” I gasped. “Obliterate me. Make me feel like there’s absolute nothing left but our bodies as they burn.”
He didn’t answer me. He didn’t have to. His fingers shoved inside me and started to dance in the way only Cole’s ever could.
The friction threatened to burn a hole straight through my shorts. Or maybe just my insides. Maybe both. He worked hard on me. His fingers flying in and out, working my G-spot over. Thank merciful God I was down on the floor or I would have collapsed. As it was, I screamed as I clawed into the carpet.
How he’d found this spot inside of me or pulled this reaction from me, I wasn’t sure. But once again the outside world fell away. Nothing was left but the feeling of us together.
This orgasm wasn’t the kind of honeyed wave crashing over me. It was a frantic wrecking ball to the pit of my stomach. The newly discovered splash that came with it soaked the denim and Cole’s hand.
His hand fell away and my body stilled. Cole stood and left me in that pile on the floor. He plopped onto the couch in the small living room of the suite. His eyes narrowed as he stroked overtop of his fly.
My vision was hazy but the animalistic way he watched me wasn’t lost in the fuzz. I knew we weren’t remotely done. Limply, I moved to pull off my top. Cole watched intently and the more I trembled, the brighter his eyes flashed. I went to take my shorts off but he stopped me with a simple hand gesture. He crooked his finger, telling me to come over. I tried to stand but once again he stopped me.
“Crawl.” His voice was gruff and thick with lust.
I managed to get up on all fours and do just that. My body was Jell-O and when I slid between his legs I collapsed against his thigh.
“I’d crawl across broken glass.”
Cole collected me off the floor and draped me across the couch, one leg up and over his shoulder, the other hanging down to the floor. He bent between my knees and leaned right into the wet spot between my thighs. Just before he latched on to the fabric, he licked his lips. My body clenched and I thought about splashing all over him again.
“My little cherry,” he said and bit into the denim, pulling my shorts off with his teeth. “I’d crawl across worse.”
He ripped off his shirt and bent down to kiss between my breasts. His hand fumbled between my thighs as he twisted to flick my nipple with a pointed tongue. My body jerked wildly as his warm, wet tongue worked on me.
The clink of his belt made me jerk too.
A moment later it was doubled up across my throat. I stretched my neck out and a faint smile played on my lips as denim hit the ground. I caught a glimpse of a gloriously naked Cole and the deep, dark ink that wrapped his perfect thighs before my eyes fluttered shut.
Heaven. I was back in heaven.
He tightened the leather across my neck as my body bowed up to meet his. Cole drug his teeth up my body then bit down hard on the skin he’d kissed between my breasts. His perfect tip pressed teasingly into me, over and over. He hovered above me, one hand on either side of the belt, his grip growing stronger, my breathing going ragged.
Then he shoved into me, quick and hard and fast.
I tried to scream but it cut off when the haggard sound hit the belt. The breathy, trapped sound was becoming synonymous with pure pleasure. Being stuck inside myself was almost as delicious as Cole being stuck inside me. Over and over.
The pain I couldn’t swallow around was gone, it was replaced by want and need and surrender and Cole. Always Cole. Forever Cole. With my heartbeats and my dying breaths.
Cole.
I brought my fingertips up to trace down his beautiful cheek. Air wouldn’t seep into my lungs and the disconnected floating feeling was taking over, but the way everything inside me fluttered when I held his face in my hands made it all fall away.
“Cole.” It was more a shaky sound than an actual
word. “Cole.” I tried again but it faded into darkness. “Everything,” I said shakily.
His lips came down to mine but didn’t press down to kiss me. Instead he whispered, “Everything,” right back.
A wild crash rang through the room, followed by the reverberation of something that wasn’t my bones. The door had smashed open, threatening to destroy the wall and echoing down the hallway.
“Thank fucking God,” Horse bellowed. “You’re both okay.” He blew out a deep breath.
“Now that you’re here.” Cole’s voice almost broke and it made my heart hammer for him all the more.
“It’s gonna take more than Siobhan to keep me from you. From both of you.” He strode right over and looked down at me.
His fingers skated along my cheek then down to trace the leather crossing my neck. Cole’s strong, steady thrusts didn’t waver. Not even as Horse palmed up along Cole’s arm to the back of his neck. Horse’s chocolate eyes locked on Cole’s the same way they had on mine. But then he melted like the drizzle over some delicious treat.
He pulled Cole up to his lips and Horse’s big pout caressed and consumed Cole right over top of me. They worked against each other but more frantic than usual. Cole wasn’t humoring Horse, he wasn’t just letting him participate either, he was celebrating being able to kiss him.
I wanted the same kiss and my hands did what they could to scramble up to his chest. He pulled away from Cole and smiled down at me.
“Oh my little Fucktart. I’m glad to see you too. Really glad.”
He whipped off his shirt and fell to his knees. I was still gasping when he kissed me full on the mouth. When I couldn’t really kiss him back, he showered smaller butterfly kisses around my face.
