by Rebel Hart
A flurry of noises were coming out of us both and my eyes fell back into my head. She was still chilled from the ice, but her insides were searing hot, and the collection of sensations was better than anything I could think of. My hips gyrated and pushed forward to meet her throwing herself backwards, and a loud slap filled the room each time her skin hit mine.
And just like that I was tumbling over. My impulse to pull backwards was stifled by Mari kicking a leg up to lock me against her, and I remembered the kink that she’d mentioned last time we were together. I wasn’t the kind of guy to deny a woman something she really wanted, so I gripped her hips and humped into her harder and harder until my whole body seized and the only thing I could feel was myself emptying inside of her.
She whined out, “Yes,” as it happened, convincing me that it really was what she wanted, but what a risky game for us.
I prayed her birth control was as solid as she said it was.
I reached down and undid the tie on her blindfold, which she took as a sign to pull the ear plugs out. She looked back over her shoulder at me and I smiled and shook my head. “You are inhuman.”
“Me?!” she yelped. “I’m not the one who was just going to town with ice.”
“So you liked it then?”
In lieu of an actual response, she just moaned, “Ugh,” and collapsed against the bed.
I carefully pulled myself back out of her and dropped onto the bed next to her. “Let’s make a deal never to wait that long to do that again. It would have lasted much longer if it weren’t for you.”
She turned and looked at me, her green eyes shimmering in the sun setting outside the window. “Deal.”
14
Mari
I wasn’t sure exactly how or when, Bryce and I managed to curl up in his bed and fall asleep between the memory foam mattress and down blanket. Though I felt myself come to consciousness, I was so comfortable sandwiched between Bryce below me and the blanket above me that I didn’t want to open my eyes. The gentle rocking of him breathing in and out was so soothing that for once in my life I was more comforted by my reality than the places I escaped to in my dreams. It was strange for someone so wild and chaotic to feel like one of the only constant, immovable forces in my life.
I wasn’t sure what that meant about me.
Slowly, however, my brain started to roam, and I realized the full scope of what I was doing and where I was. After firmly telling myself not to after however many years, I’d had something akin to the relationship talk with a guy and then spent the night at his house.
Huge mistake.
What was I doing, in all honesty? Bryce was just supposed to be this complication in my life that I would be removing by any means necessary. Maybe his good looks and the chemistry between us played into my decision to have some fun with him first, but I’d officially reached a fork in the road, and I didn’t really want to go in either of the forward directions. It would have been my ultimate preference to just turn around and go backwards.
Beneath me, Bryce shifted, and I could hear him groaning himself awake. I tried to stay as frozen as I could, pretending I was still asleep. One of his arms left from where it was wrapped around me, and after a few seconds I heard him grumble, “Damn. Eleven.”
He must have checked his phone for the time. Was it really eleven already?
Maintaining my sleeping posture must have worked because Bryce wrapped his arms around me again and slowly, but carefully, rolled me off of him and to the side. Relief filled me as I realized he was getting out of bed and I’d have a few minutes to myself to arrange my thoughts, but then he dashed it. After a sweet kiss on the forehead, he lifted the blanket and snuggled it around me. It was the most anyone had ever cared about me. It was only making me more confused.
Finally, though, he did walk out of the room, leaving me alone, frustrated, and confused.
What was I doing? All of Bryce’s charm had melted off of me and I was forced to face what I was doing. I was playing an unbelievably dangerous game and I wasn’t quite sure of the way out.
For the next fifteen minutes, I sat in bed just trying to see if I could sort myself out. There was nothing about Bryce and my date and subsequent romp in the bedroom that was anything other than me enjoying a great guy. As unsafe as it was to admit that, it was irresponsible not to. There was a part of my brain screaming at me to recalibrate before I made a mistake I couldn’t come back from, but the other part of my brain was screaming, very loudly:
How?!
The smell of breakfast foods eventually started to fill the air, and my stomach rumbled. Sitting alone in Bryce’s bedroom, trying to keep my mind straight while being surrounded by the smell of him, wasn’t doing much for me, so I climbed out of bed, pulled my jeans and shirt on, stuffed my underwear in my purse, and walked out of the bedroom.
With the daylight swimming in, I was able to see just how incredible Bryce’s place really was. I felt inclined to wander around and explore, but that was a bad idea. I didn’t want to get any more comfortable in his place than I already was.
“Good morning,” he greeted as I walked out into the open layout of the living room and kitchen area. There was a dining room table separating them, and a laptop was open on top in front of one of the seats, so I wandered over and sat down in the opposite chair.
“Morning,” I grumbled out. “It smells good in here.”
“Yeah. Not making anything too fancy. Bacon, eggs, potatoes—fresh potatoes.” He stirred something in one of the pans with a spatula before walking over to where I was sitting. He braced one hand on the table in front of me and one on the back of my chair so he could lean down over me for a kiss. I was bothered by how immediately I responded to him, leaning up to meet him. “How did you sleep?”
“Honestly?” I said. “It’s the best sleep I’ve ever gotten.”
He nodded in agreement. “Me too.”
Before walking away, Bryce kissed me on my forehead and my heart beat a little faster. This was all so… domestic. What the hell was going on?
My brain was working on an exit strategy. Should I just pack up and make a run for it? Should I at least eat breakfast first? Literally just leave while his back was turned? I couldn’t stay. If I stayed, that’d make me a girlfriend. I couldn’t be his girlfriend. I was trying to destroy his family. I’d probably have to kill him at some point. Girlfriends don’t do that stuff.
If I got any closer to being a partner to Bryce, everything was going to get destroyed.
“Um…”
“Coffee?” Bryce asked, loading stuff from the pans he was working over onto a plate.
“Hm?”
He walked over and set the plate down in front of me, with a warm smile. “Do you want some coffee? Or I have orange juice, good old-fashioned water. You tell me.”
I looked up into his eyes and my heart skipped another beat. My stomach twisted into a knot and I had to beat the urge to kiss him away with a mental stick. “I have to go.”
He furrowed his brow. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I have to go. This is… I can’t…” I backed out of the chair so I didn’t have to come face to face with him, and scurried over to my purse.
He ran around after me and grabbed my arm. “Hey. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“No. I’m… I have to go, Bryce.” I pulled free of his hold.
“Well, at least let me take you where you need to go,” he said.
“No. No thank you. I’ll get a car. I’ll be okay.” I was running around the apartment in a panic, trying to remember where the elevator was that brought us up. “I’ll, um… I’ll call you.”
“Mariana, what’s going on? Did I do something?”
“No. Yes. No!” It felt like my chest was about to collapse in on itself. “I’m sorry. I just have to go right now.”
I stabbed a finger against the button of the elevator, and then continued to spam press it, knowing it wouldn’t make the elevator come any faster, bu
t being perfectly okay with the illusion. I could feel Bryce’s gaze on me, but I didn’t dare turn around. If he gave me those puppy dog eyes again, I’d sacrifice everything just to stay here with him.
That wasn’t an option.
After what felt like hours, the elevator reached the top floor and opened and I climbed on. At the last second, I turned around and saw Bryce’s saddened expression just as the doors were closing on his face. The elevator started to move all on its own, and I sank down onto the floor and pressed my head between my knees.
What just happened, and why did I suddenly feel like crying?
“Oh no,” I hummed aloud to myself. “God dammit, Mariana.”
This was exactly why I didn’t let my true self leave the house.
15
Bryce
Being sure to give Mari the space she’d randomly and confusedly requested, I kept an eye on her until she’d gotten a car and listened through the app until I could confirm she’d made it home safely. The breakfast I’d made her was still sitting on a plate in front of the chair she’d chosen, though it was cold by now. I didn’t move it because, in all honesty, I was a little confused about what had just happened. Not just why she ran out so suddenly, but why it seemed to upset me so much. She was just someone I was toying with, so I shouldn’t care that she left.
Right?
But when I woke up with her on top of me, I felt a contentment I’d never felt before. Out of nowhere, I was doing all of these random, sweet things—kisses on the forehead, covering her up, making her breakfast—what was I, some sort of boyfriend?
We’d let things go too far. I was just supposed to be keeping the lines of communication open to give my mom some information she could use. She was still waiting for me to solve the issue with the MasCat deal and all I’d done was…
…develop feelings for Mariana Westun.
I had virtually no idea how I’d managed to pull this off. I was on my guard. I knew the risk that I could fall for her if I wasn’t careful. We’d kept a safe distance. I trusted myself to be able to sleep with her last night and not have it burst any flood gates.
Failure never felt so good.
“Fuck,” I huffed.
Standing up and walking over to the plate that had been left behind, I tried to push the good feelings out of my body. How happy it made me to wake up with her in my bed. How easily I fell into doing whatever I could at my disposal to make her happy. I’d never wanted to do the whole relationship thing before, but for a moment there, making her breakfast. Actually having someone else in my apartment. Walking over to her and kissing her with ease. It all felt so good.
Maybe I was beginning to get a little more of what Baylor was saying before now.
Just as I was dropping the plate into the sink, my phone rang. It was a welcome distraction from the confusing torrent inside my stomach, until I answered it and heard Baylor huffing and puffing like he’d just run a marathon. “Bryce.”
“Baylor. What’s wrong?”
“Where are you? Mom and Dad’s or your place?”
“My place.”
“I need you to come back me up. I’m having a little bit of trouble.”
I was already moving towards my bedroom as he spoke. “I’m on my way.”
Thanks to my mom’s neurotic paranoia and her affinity for technology, each member of my family knew where any other member was at all times. It was beyond shared locations; it was almost as if we had one another chipped. Along with the time and temperature outside, like any normal phone, our phones also always pointed to the other members of our family. It was for times such as this, when we needed to get to one another in a hurry.
Fortunately, Baylor wasn’t too far away from my penthouse, so after quickly getting dressed, I was able to make my way downstairs and run the length of the strip until I’d gotten to where he was. It was easy to tell which casino he was in, because there were people either walking fast or full-fledged running out. There was some light screaming, but mostly people weren’t panicking, just getting the sense that something was wrong and trying to get away from it. I glanced around, looking for security, but there were none to be seen.
Probably because they were paid not to be. It meant whoever Baylor was tangled up with, this was probably their turf, and security was letting them handle whatever was going on inside.
That was why he needed backup.
To be safe, I lifted my gun out of the back of my pants and held it low to my side. I poked around, keeping my eye out for Baylor, when I noticed a larger concentration of people walking away from a single place. I slipped past them and walked around a batch of the slot machines and saw Baylor standing with his gun out and lifted. To my extreme dissatisfaction, he was facing off against two people.
TJ and Marcos Westun.
“Hey there, gentlemen,” I said calmly as I approached. “What do we got going on here?”
TJ didn’t have a gun out, but Marcos did, pointed straight at Baylor, and the look on his face was that he wasn’t going to play around a whole lot. I got the sense that there wasn’t going to be a whole lot of talking going on. If I couldn’t de-escalate what was going on, we’d be getting into a shootout with Mari’s brothers, right here, right now.
“A couple of rats are exercising power out of territory,” Baylor growled.
“He’s right, boys,” I said. “We’re about a mile short of where your jurisdiction begins.”
“I guess you don’t have the most up to date information,” TJ said. “As of yesterday the Westuns gained some territory.” He locked eyes with me and smiled widely. “While both the Misterro brothers were distracted, we were able to make some moves without issue.”
Baylor looked sideways at me. “I was working yesterday, where were you?”
Mari asking me if we could cut our date short and head back to my place mid-afternoon skidded across my brain. It was a setup, honestly?
Marcos chuckled. “Oh. They’re really out of touch. Your brother didn’t tell you? He took my sister back to his place in the afternoon for a little… R&R. They were in there until, what, eleven or so this morning?” My skin started to sizzle with frustration. She was in communication with them constantly. It was all to keep me off of the streets while her brothers pushed forward. “And we know all about your little tech game. Don’t have to hardwire, but you do have to come back every few weeks and reinstall it, right?” He cocked his gun. “Well you won’t be reinstalling anything on our turf. You can leave, or we’ll make you leave.”
Baylor postured, taking a step forward and cocking his own gun. “You and I both know, two-on-two, we’ve got the upper hand. Maybe you’ll get one of us, but we’ll get both of you. This isn’t a mistake you wanna make.”
“Baylor, let’s just go.”
His head shot back in my direction. “What?”
“If this is their turf, there’s nothing we can do. We don’t want a repeat of Colorado,” I said. “Tread carefully.”
“Now’s not the time to tread carefully. They—”
In a split second, I saw Marcos’ smirk grow a little, and I knew he was going to take the opportunity he’d been presented with. He fired his gun, and I only just barely managed to jump at Baylor and knock him down to the ground behind a set of machines before he got hit. He fought me off, hissing a line of obscenities before popping up between a couple of the machines and firing at the brothers. I ducked around and fired as well as people all around the casino started to scream and run.
“Come on. Security said they’d only hold off for no shots fired, we gotta go,” I heard TJ grumble.
I ducked around, but just barely managed to slide back out of the way as Marcos fired at me before he turned around and they started off into the fray. Baylor tried to jump up to go after them, but I grabbed his coat and held him down.
“Let me go!”
“Stop!” I barked. “They said security is coming. We have to get back to my place, now. Is there a way out of here?�
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Though he was leering at me like he wanted to fire his gun at me next, he nodded in a direction and moved away from where we were ducked, keeping his head low. I followed him out of the casino and into the lower lobby of a hotel, where we hopped an escalator up, and then exited out onto the street. We both stashed our guns and tried not to look so haggard as we sifted into the throngs of people walking in front of the hotel, some of whom were already peeking around the corner and trying to get a shot of the commotion coming from the lower entrance below. My heart stayed pounding until we were on the elevator headed up to my penthouse, when I finally felt like I could take a breath and relax.
I stepped off the elevator first and turned around to talk to Baylor, but was met with his fist against my face. It took me so off guard that I flew backwards, slamming into a shelf I had set up in the hallway and knocking all of the trinkets to the floor. My bubbling rage was stilted only by my total shock.
Baylor had never hit me before.
“Get up!” he screamed.
The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth and my temper desperately wanted to jump up and hit him back, but I took a deep breath and stayed down to try and calm the situation. “Baylor.”
“Get. Up.”
Swallowing hard, I slowly got to my feet, but kept a hand out to keep Baylor at bay. “Just calm down, and we can talk about this.”
“Talk about what? How you turned on our family?” He tried to march towards me, but I took a step back. That only made things worse, as Baylor pulled his gun back out and pointed it at me. “How could you betray us? After everything—”
One thing I knew about my brother was that, when it came to family, he was weak. He pulled his gun, but I didn’t fear that he’d fire it at all. I flew towards him in a single bound and slammed my fist against his face, sending him crashing into the elevator doors behind him, and crumpling to the ground. His gun clattered to the floor and I grabbed it and set it off to the side.
