Chest heaving, Shane collapsed onto me. Though I could hardly breathe, I liked the feel of his weight, just as I liked the ache between my thighs. It proved that I could overcome my past. I could move on. Thomas Machiavelli no longer owned me.
Reaching up, Shane traced the edge of my lip with the pad of his thumb. “What’re you thinking?”
“A few things, actually.”
“One.”
“I think you broke my vagina.” My clit was still twitching every so often, as if it was goosing me every time I relaxed.
Rumbling with laughter, Shane withdrew himself from me. It was inevitable. Though, he was still erect. “Sorry. I’ll kiss it better when we get home.”
I turned to my side so that he could lie down beside me. Face to face, we stretched out the best we could in the cramped space of my passenger seat.
“Two?” he prompted.
“It’s moot now. You’re not crushing me anymore.”
“Nice.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I just said I couldn’t breathe.” My lips curled into a grin, even flashed a little teeth.
Conversely, Shane’s smile faded. He reached up, lifted a strand of hair from my temple and brushed it away from my face. “I want to make you happy, Emelia. You don’t smile enough.”
“You haven’t really had the chance.” Shivering, I inched closer, looking for warmth. Shane smiled and pulled me against his chest, his large hand sweeping up and down my back.
“Cold?”
“Freezing. How did I end up completely naked, while you’re still fully dressed?” I didn’t remember taking my shirt off, let alone my bra.
“Sheer necessity.” Lifting the front panel of his shirt, he pulled it over my shoulder and waist, though the amount it covered was a joke. I told myself it was the thought that counted. Not to mention, he was in such a hurry to answer my call, he’d run out of the house without a coat.
“We should go. I’m going to run out of gas.” Still, I made no motion to move. Though, for other reasons entirely. The effects of our lovemaking was growing slick between my thighs.
Shane, however, sat up to climb over me, to get into the driver’s seat. I grabbed a tuft of his shirt, stopping him.
“Shane.”
“What?”
“You can use the door.”
“If I open that door, you’ll freeze your ass off.”
“But you wouldn’t have to climb over me. I mean, the car’s so small. It would probably be a lot easier if you just went around.”
“It’s fine, Emelia.” Again, he motioned to rise.
“Please, I just…” I rolled my eyes, searching for an excuse. “I need a minute…alone…” Maybe he’d take the hint. No such luck. Curiously, he cocked his head to the side.
“For what?”
“To clean myself up.” God, there, I said it.
A smug smile swept across his face. His steely eyes flashed with satisfaction. “Leave it.”
“Shane!”
“Leave it. I like it there.” With one stretch of his long leg, he hurdled me and the center console, and dropped into the driver’s seat.
“Come on!”
Biting back a laugh, he turned to look at me. “Isn’t that the problem?” I scowled cantankerously, crossing my arms over my breasts. I wasn’t moving until I got a minute to freshen up.
“That was lame, really lame.”
“Better get dressed, Emelia. Someone might see you.” Pulling a fresh joint from behind his ear, he pinched it between his lips, and revved the engine.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Smirking, he turned the dial, sweeping the fog from my windshield.
Snatching my shirt from the headrest, I yanked it over my head, and not a moment too soon because Garrison’s pickup truck rumbled to a stop alongside us. I didn’t even have time to spare a curse over the indignity. “Merda!”
Lifting my purse from the floor, I sat it on my lap, hoping to hide my state of disarray. I felt like a fucking hussy, sitting in the car on the side of the road with Shane, after the man had just confessed that he’d essentially killed for me.
“Do you want to talk to him?” Shane asked. Garrison honked the horn and rolled down his passenger window. He leaned across the seat, staring down at us from above. Before I could answer, Shane began powering down his window.
“Can I speak to you for a moment?” Garrison asked. “Outside?”
“I’m fine, Garrison,” I assured. As fine as I could be, considering.
“I meant the drummer.” I looked from Garrison to Shane in confusion. Why could he possibly want to speak with Shane?
“Sure. Just give me a sec.” Garrison nodded in assent and pulled around us, as Shane leaned back in the seat and zipped his jeans.
“What do you think he wants?” I asked.
“Probably to give me the ‘you hurt her—I hurt you’ speech.” Pulling the joint from between his lips, he tucked it back behind his ear, then pulled a pack of smokes from his pocket. He tapped one out and placed it between his lips. “He gave Tate pretty much the same.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Shane shrugged, unbothered. “I respect it.” Pressing a swift kiss to my lips, he got out of the car. Garrison met him at the tailgate, promptly punching him in the gut with his right fist. Shane bent at the waist, clutching his stomach. A second fist caught him across the left side of his face.
I grabbed my jeans from the floor and slid them on, forgoing underwear for the sake of Shane’s life. As I stumbled from the car, yanking my boots over my feet, I heard Garrison’s gravelly baritone.
“…kind of man are you—taking advantage of a woman when she’s vulnerable?”
Waiving an answer, he hit Shane again. Shane went down like a bag of rocks, sprawled out in the snow. The smaller part of my attention noticed Ashley Lemmings truck pull up. She jumped out, phone in hand. I knew I would regret ignoring her later, but I had to stop Garrison before he killed Shane, too.
“Stop it, Garrison!” I shouted, to little effect. “Stop it!”
“Get back in the car, Emelia,” Shane growled, grabbing Garrison’s foot as he swung his leg to kick him. Garrison collapsed, landing flat on his back. The fall knocked the wind out of him, but did little to diffuse the fight. Garrison wasn’t spent yet. Though, Shane was able to make it to his feet first. “Get back in the damn car before you get hurt!”
Bristling with rage and caked with snow, Garrison rolled to his side and rose to his feet. I could see it now. I was going to be the cause of Shane Richardson’s death and Garrison’s undoing. I was going to lose two good men in one fell swoop.
Contrary, I soon discovered that Shane was evenly weighted and equal in skill. He delivered a few sharp jabs to Garrison’s face before the man could manage to get his hands up and block them. Blood trickled down Garrison’s nose and chin.
“O.M.G.” Ashley purred, filming the episode. She tiptoed through the snow to stand at my side. “This is epic!”
“Are you filming this?” I asked. “For real?”
“Hell yeah!” Ashley confirmed. “This is going to TMZ!”
“You’re despicable.” Grabbing the thing from her hand, I dropped it to the ground and stomped on the screen with the heel of my boot, shattering it to pieces. Ashley let out a screech of umbrage and let her emotions get the best of her. She lunged at me, grasping a handful of my hair. Needless to say, I was caught off guard.
“You stupid bitch!” she shrieked. “That’s a brand new phone! I just got it for Christmas!”
I think she managed to uproot a few square inches of hair before I came to my senses and fought back. Unfortunately, she hadn’t lived with Tommy Machiavelli. I had learned quite a bit on how to defend myself over those five years. She didn’t stand a chance. I was used to fighting with a man, and she was a one hundred and twenty pound girl with half a brain. Still, I had no compunction hitting her.
Chapter 13
I
woke to the dissonant blare of the alarm clock, followed by the clink of a glass, the pattering of water and a muffled oath. “Emelia,” Shane croaked, half asleep.
“I’m not getting up.” If I didn’t get up, I could put it off a little longer. The goodbye I didn’t want to say. I had been putting it off for five years. Surely it could wait a little longer.
“Our flight’s in a few hours. We’ll have just enough time.”
“I don’t care.”
“Emelia.”
“Fuck off, Shane,” I said, because I could. He knew I didn’t mean it.
Rolling me to the side, Shane wedged himself beneath me, and then rolled to his back, taking me with him. I lay sprawled across his chest, my head resting on his shoulder. Gently, he began nudging himself into me, and I say slowly because I was well ridden. He’d kept me up most of the night, fucking me every way until Sunday. I pivoted my hips to accept him, though sucking a sharp breath through my teeth.
“Too sore?” he asked, with no intention of stopping. He splayed his hands on either side of my ass and arched his hips, slipping easily into me. “Fuck! Don’t answer that. Please. Don’t fuckin’ answer that.”
I didn’t plan on it. I welcomed the distraction.
Grinning, I rose to my knees, rolling my hips until he was deep within me. “I think I just did.”
“God, you’re so fucking wet.”
“For you.”
“For my cock?”
“For you, Shane.”
Reaching to his sides, he clutched a tuft of sheet in either hand. “Ride me, Emelia. I’m all yours. You decide the pace.”
“No fun.” I pouted. I liked Shane on top.
“Way fun. I get to look at you.” Lifting his hands, he palmed my breasts, ran his thumbs over the peaks. “You’re like a gypsy girl with that olive skin, and those dusky nipples…” Closing his eyes, he let his head drop against the mattress. “Damn. I’m ready to come.” Shane was always on the verge of coming. “Do you see what you do to me, beautiful?”
My throat was husky with sleep, and I laughed throatily, while I rose up on his cock and dropped slowly back down. Shane grasped my hips, slowing me even more.
“Slower, beautiful. Close your eyes. Feel it.” He began drumming out the beat on the footboard, and his fingers on my hips. I slowed my rhythm to match. “There, that’s it. Jesus Christ. Yes.”
My lips curled into a teasing grin. “I thought I decided the pace.”
“Just trying to savor this.”
Raising my hands up above my head, I let them fall. My head dropped forward, hair covering my face. As my hands reached my breasts, I caressed them, pinching my nipples and then kneading away the sting. Shane gasped, raising his hips up to meet me.
“I’d sell my soul to the fuckin’ devil to stay in you a little longer.”
Letting my head fall back, I arched my back, pivoted my hips, riding him like a gypsy girl. I felt like one, unfettered and free of my past. Whether we’d last a day, a week or a year, I didn’t care. For this moment alone, the risk was worth it. He made me feel alive.
Steadily, I began working up a sweat. Our poise soon faded away, overshadowed by the need for release. Shane’s hands tightened on my hips.
“Hold on, Emelia.”
Leaning forward, I placed my hands on his chest. Shane’s arm came around my lower back, bracing my hips. His legs rose, knees bent. Not altogether gently, he began truly thrusting. My nails dimpled his skin, torn between pleasure and pain.
“Come with me.”
I made a noise, half assent, half frustration. Every time my peak approached, just as quickly, it escaped me. Shane withdrew himself and rolled. I blinked dazedly. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m not finishing without you.” Dropping his head between my thighs, his tongue lashed out, flicking against my clit. My head fell back against the mattress, reveling in the sensation. What caught me off guard, he suckled it. I mean, completely pulled it between his lips, something I had never experienced before.
Without conscious thought, my hands threaded into his hair. I made noises I knew I would rue later, but had little control over at present. A wave of…unfathomable pressure and… pleasure burgeoned beneath his touch. I felt like I was coming undone. I would die if I didn’t come that very second.
And then I did. I came in a brilliant riot of spasms.
Shane lunged forward, stroking himself against me, but not entering. He was driving me crazy with the need to be filled. To have him pounding in me one more time. I arched my hips up, begging for his touch. Starving for him. Desperate.
“Fuck, Emelia! Fuck!” Throwing his head back, he jerked. His entire body seized, spreading warm lashes against my mound and thighs. I felt robbed. Empty.
When he worked out the last of his orgasm, his body went lax. I eyed the bead of cum on the end of his cock like a child deprived of candy.
Noting my expression, Shane collected the small pearl on the tip of his thumb and pressed it into my mouth. I swirled my tongue of his rough pad, watching his eyes glaze over. My lips curled into a devilish grin.
“What you do to me, Emelia, should be considered illegal.”
“I’m pretty sure in some states it is.” As Shane moved from between my thighs, he reached and handed me a towel. I frowned, wiping myself off. “I like it better when you come inside me.”
“I like it better when I’m not hurting you.” Dropping beside me, he propped his head up on his arm. “But I just can’t seem to leave you alone.”
At the sound of our voices, Fiend appeared. Tail thumping against the floor, she laid her chin on the edge of the mattress, whining in complaint over her eviction from her place at the foot of the bed. Shane wanted to evict them from the room altogether, but I suggested they stay in fear of the destruction they might wreak while out of our sight. Speaking of which, I wondered idly where Rake was hiding.
“Get lost,” Shane carped. “She’s mine.”
“She probably needs to go out.”
“Woof.” Fiend’s ears perked up.
“Out?” Shane repeated, and watched Fiend’s head cock to the side. “She totally knows what I just said! Did you teach her that?”
“Yes, that means that you get to let her out.”
“Why me?”
“Because you adopted them.”
“I adopted them for you.”
“Shane Richardson,” I chided. “Don’t think that I don’t know what you were up to when you adopted those puppies.”
“I don’t have a clue of what you’re talking about.”
“They were a complete suck up!” He heard me tell Jake to give Mattie a kitten. I had said that she wouldn’t be able to stay mad at him.
“We weren’t fighting when I adopted them.”
Oh. “You bought them to impress me.”
“You can’t be bought, Emelia,” said Shane, sliding from the bed. “Do you think I haven’t been paying attenti—mother fucker! Goddamn it! Son of a bitch!” Lifting his foot, he sat back down on the edge of the mattress. “Fucking shit! Whose shit is this?”
Rake, if I had to guess. Covering my mouth, I stifled a laugh.
“That’s not funny, Emelia! It’s between my fucking toes! I’ve got dog shit between my toes!”
I bellowed, holding my stomach.
“Is that how it is?” Shane chided. Raising his foot, he lifted it in my direction. I promptly rolled from the bed and snatched his t-shirt from the footboard as I left the room.
“Where are you going?”
“To let the dogs out.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Hope the dogs don’t have worms.”
“Worms?” he called after me. “You’re kidding, right?”
♫♪♫♪
Packed into the rental, we pulled into Holy Cross Cemetery. It was a tiny place dating back to the revolutionary war. I liked it because it was quaint and tranquil. It was a ways off the main road, where Giovanna could
rest in peace away from the noise of traffic. I liked it because no one ever came. I could spend hours there alone.
Shane slid opened the rear door and slid out. He offered his hand as I followed. “Watch your step. It’s icy.”
“You don’t have to come.”
“I know.” But he would anyway.
“I’d like to go alone.” I was going to be a mess. I cried. I always cried. I didn’t cry pretty.
“Tough shit,” said Marshall, circling the truck. In his hand, he held a bouquet of flowers. “I’m taking you.”
I glanced at Shane, who was watching attentively. “I think I’m in trouble.” Marshall hadn’t said two words to me since his arrival from the airport. He’d flown in with Derek and Coop’s parents on the private jet. He and Derek were escorting us to Nampa. Coop’s parents were only hitching a ride home.
“I’ll be here.” Pressing a quick kiss to the corner of my mouth, he climbed back into the truck, leaving me alone with Marshall and his menacing gaze.
“Where’re we headed?” Marshall inquired, offering me his arm. I wrapped my hand around the fold of his elbow.
“Just behind that mausoleum beside the large pine.” The structure and the trees provided a sheltered grove. In the spring, Lilies of the Valley covered the ground.
Marshall started us in the direction, following the long row of aged gravestones. They were pitted with age, and barely legible.
“You’re an asshole, Em,” said Marshall, getting right to the point. “Or should I call you Emelia?”
“Em; I don’t like to be called Emelia.” Letting my gaze fall to my feet, I followed the footsteps of a previous visitor. I guess others did come on occasion. They broke off at the next row of headstones, their shadows washed out by the glare of sunlight.
“I just don’t understand it. I thought we were friends.”
“We are.”
“I didn’t even know your real name!”
“I’m sorry.” God. I didn’t know what else to say. He was genuinely upset.
“Shane calls you Emelia.”
“Shane…”
“Oh, fuck you. Coop and I care about you too. You should’ve talked to us. Let us help you. That’s what friends do. They confide in each other.”
Breaking the Habit Page 14
