by Ace Gray
“Dinner’s good,” she finally managed meekly.
“Dinner it is.” My voice was as choked off as hers.
I shoved the keys in the ignition and turned, bringing the rumble of the engine to life. A beautifully throaty moan came from the passenger seat. My eyes were drawn to her immediately, her knees were back pressing together, her body bowing up off the seat.
“Goddamn car,” she groaned as her tiny little fingers fluttered along the inner seam of her jeans.
“Goddamn fingers is more like it,” I growled.
She flattened her hand to the door and tried to settle back into the seat. Another one of her delectable sounds filled the car.
“Sorry,” she said, breathy at best. I wasn’t about to scold her, I was enjoying her little moves immensely when she corrected herself. “Shit. Just drive already.” She wiggled on the seat in time with her words.
“I can do that.” I laughed a low, husky chuckle. “I can always do you, too.”
“Date, Cole,” she panted. “Date.”
I couldn’t stop the smile or its twinge of pain. Nor could I stop myself from revving the engine as I pulled away.
“Cole!” she shrieked but laughter colored my name. It spurred me to spin out, tires squealing against pavement as we shot out of the neighborhood. “Behave,” she scolded as she playfully smacked me on the shoulder.
I captured her hand and kissed her fingertips before I bit down loosely on her middle finger. It made her giggle. Fucking giggle. That sound was a set of wings my heart could soar on. And that gave me an idea, dinner reservations be damned.
After a few blocks, I pulled up to an empty loading zone.
“If the police come up, you got my back?” I smiled as best I could over at her, remembering one of the first moments Elle hooked her talons into me, sweet-talking an officer while I picked up cake. Cake with frosting that had ended up all over her beautiful body. A body that still made me adjust my pants.
She bit her lip again and nodded, excitement dancing in her eyes again.
I jumped out of the car, missing her the moment she wasn’t beside me. But I had a mission. Once the deli take-out order was ready, I crunched up the brown paper bag and snatched red wine from the racks. I threw some extra cash at the counter when they happily handed over both blue and gold frosting speckled with sprinkles straight from the kitchen.
Elle reached for my thigh the moment I was settled in the car and I wrapped my big bear paw around her tiny hand, stroking her thumb until we pulled up to the hotel.
“Valet, sir?” A bellhop was at my door the minute I put the car in park.
“Yup.” I reached back, grabbed my bag of goodies and the thick flannel blanket from the back then quickly rounded the hood to snatch Elle’s hand back up.
“A fancy hotel?” The hesitancy was obvious in her voice.
“Shit. Ladylove, I didn’t even think.” The last time she’d been somewhere like this, she’d almost been raped. She’d definitely watched someone die. I leaned in and kissed behind her ear before whispering, “We’re not going in there anyway.” The moment the idle roar of the engine faded, I pulled her away from the entrance. “Parking near the lake is a bitch.”
She nodded but she wasn’t with me anymore. She was lost to that night, the darkness sat in the hollows of her face, making her the sad girl that had been walking into Mickey’s day after day before I’d caved.
“Hey,” I said softly as I pushed her up against the nearest wall and dropped the food. “Come back to me.” I searched her eyes for a moment then gently pulled her to my chest. I rubbed her for a minute then wrapped her in the blanket I’d brought. She still shivered against something unseen.
“Do you think I really can get back to you?” she whispered. “There’s been so much…So much blood. Sometimes I don’t think I can forgive myself.” Tears were thick in her voice. “Let alone you.”
I grabbed her face and cradled it in my hands, pulling it up toward mine.
“Don’t ever blame yourself,” I said a little too harshly. “Everyone was responsible for Siobhan except you.” I spat out her name like the rotting flesh I was thankful she’d become. “As for the rest of it, you survived. You broke but you survived. Remember how some things have to break to be beautiful? Give me all your pieces, Elle. I swear to God I’ll take care of them. Just let me try.” I was begging her by the end.
“How?” She rolled her head against my chest.
“Let me show you the stars,” I said softly as I bent to kiss the tip of her nose. She looked up, the question plain on her face. “Come on.” I bent to pick up the food before finding her shoulder and pulling her in tight.
We circled the back of an apartment building to a service entry. I punched in a code I’d stolen years ago, keeping my grip on Elle as tight as I could manage as we snaked through the concrete bowels of the building. I only took my hands from soothing her shoulder when I had to lift the door then shove the grate aside for the service elevator. I clanged the doors back into place, pressed the roof buttons and we lurched forward on our slow ascent to the fifty-sixth floor.
“I don’t think we can see the stars in the city, Cole,” Elle said about halfway up, breaking the silence between us with a tentative sentence.
“The ones in the sky?” I smirked as I thought about it. “No. No, you can’t. But you trust me, right? I mean to some extent.”
She tried to choke back a smile. “I told you I did.”
When we made it to the roof, I dealt with the elevator and pushed her toward the utility access. I held it for her while I shoved a cinderblock I’d hauled up here years ago into the door. I looked up from placing the brick to find her on the rooftop bathed in the brilliant gold of sunset, dying sunlight cast on her face as her hair trailed behind her, whipping in the wind. It danced in the tassels of the blanket that hugged so tight around her. She closed her eyes and drank in a deep breath.
For a moment she seemed free.
I fished in my back pocket and found my phone. My fingers hesitated at the camera button. Her video was what got us in trouble in the first place. Sort of, anyway. Should I risk it?
No should’ves tonight. She’d said it herself.
So I lifted the camera up and snapped her pic. The lighting was beautiful, highlighting the gorgeous woman, but it couldn’t capture the pure essence of the moment. Of standing on top of the city, renegades for a few hours, safe for a little time, and head over heels.
“I couldn’t eat Italian food all those years. Or I guess I could have, but Mickey and his hate for all things Giancomo scared me.” Elle was still watching the sun cast bright rays as it sunk in the west but the way her faced darkened told me she was listening. “I couldn’t really leave the city, either.” My face crinkled too. “I used to dream of marinara.” Elle finally softened, turning the glimmering gold that the sunshine bathed her in.
“Admirable dream.” The corner of her mouth twisted up.
“Pizza? Not really.” I shrugged and laughed lightly. “But I also dreamt of seeing the stars.” She automatically scanned the sky above us. “Horse and I used to come up here together. When I got out, I kept thinking he’d meet me up here one night, that I’d have a chance to explain, but he never did.” Sadness crept into my voice. “So I started eating Italian and painting, but I saved it for up here.”
She turned her full attention back on me.
“No one ever saw my art but it seems right to share it with you.” For a moment, I couldn’t meet her penetrating stare, it stripped me further than my admission could. I rubbed the back of my neck with my free hand and turned away. “Meatball sandwiches…” I reached for her hand and walked her over to where Plexiglas shielded some electrical boxes from the elements. “And the night sky.”
13.
Elle
My breath caught in my throat as I reached up toward the dark swirls painted above me. The blanket fell off my shoulders but I didn’t notice the chill running through me the same way as before.
How could anything but warmth pulse through me with this in front of me.
“Cole,” I gasped.
“I always liked sailors that took on the forces of the universe with nothing more than the North Star to guide them. Back then it seemed so romantic.” His voice was as thick as the layers of paint swirling above my head.
Cole’s artwork was beautiful—both sketches and on skin—but this was different. This was more. So much more. Not since Van Gogh had the night sky been so altered and infinitely changed. Nor had it altered or infinitely changed me. Blue and black swirled with gold, creating patterns and textures that I’d never seen before. It reflected the dips and waves of my very soul.
“And what do you think of the sailors now?” I asked as my fingers danced on the sky that had obviously been painted and re-painted into a tumultuous and burning milky way.
“I think it’s a little more romantic to realize true North is a person, not a star.” He looked at me when he said it and his eyes all but lit on fire, burning with an intensity I’d only known one other time. The time he said he loved me. My knees wobbled a little.
I couldn’t hold his gaze, instead looking back up, my fingers couldn’t stop tracing the swirls.
“Have dinner with me?” He reached out and my hand reluctantly left the stunning constellations overhead. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hold him—If anything, I wanted to touch him more—but my heart missed the painting the moment my hand left it.
He bent down to collect the blanket I’d dropped and nestled it up to the edge of the building. I hesitated. I couldn’t bring myself to go to him. Part of me had no desire to leave the canopy of wonder overhead, part of me had no desire to stand that close to the edge of nothingness.
“You trust me with your life, right?” he said with his new twisted smirk.
“What happened to your dimple?” I asked, finally figuring out what had been missing.
“You’re trying to change the subject. Trust me or not?” His raspy, sexy voice was tinged with sadness.
I finally convinced myself to reach for him and he slowly pulled me over. He sat down first, let his feet dangle over the edge and my heart stopped. But carefully and oh-so-gently, he wrapped his hands around my hips and helped me sit at my turtle pace. I folded cross-legged a few inches away from the slight lip but made sure my shin pressed against him.
He twisted, bringing one foot back onto the solid ground of the roof, and smiled again. “My cheek didn’t heal right. My dimple’s been gone since…” He trailed off and twisted to look up at the beautiful painting above us rather than mother nature out in front. “I’ll find a new smile though. One that has the shape of you.”
My skin flushed as his eyes raked over me. The smile that pulled across his face did have a new and heartbreakingly beautiful shape to it.
He held out a sandwich wrapped in crisp white butcher paper with a big sharpie M on it and the warmth radiated into my fingertips. I peeled it back and dove in, letting the scrumptious marinara do for my insides what the package had done for my outside.
“So,” Cole asked as he finished chewing a big bite, “how’s it going?” His tone was so casual and our circumstances so anything but, that I burst out laughing, marinara sputtering across my cheeks. “That good, huh?”
I wiped the sauce from my face with the back of my hand. “Today’s shaping up to be a pretty good day.”
I went to lick the sauce from my skin but he snatched it and pulled it to his lips. His tongue pointed as he slowly lapped it up. Every inch of my skin tingled as he explored. Long after the sauce was gone his tongue skated across my skin, and I simply watched, bewitched by the way my body recognized him as a continuation of it.
It took every ounce of self-control I had to keep from launching myself at him, the edge of the world be damned. I was already free falling into him again anyway.
Don’t cave. Don’t fold. Make him woo you.
I repeated to myself as I took a giant breath.
Goddamn Elle, if this isn’t wooing you, what the hell qualifies?
The other part of my heart, the part that had always belonged to him, argued back. I shook my head to clear the riffraff then cleared my throat, still hoping to find some semblance of control.
“Where were you this week?”
“With Mickey,” he said softly.
The name was like a bucket of ice water splashing over me. Cole gave me back my hand, knowing the spell was broken too.
“I’ve been keeping him distracted the best way I know how.”
“Which is…?”
“Nothing that you want to hear about.” His face darkened and this time he turned away from me and the beautiful night sky above me, choosing to scan the city instead. I audibly gulped as I focused on my sandwich, the red sauce seemingly a little too vibrant, a little too morbid now. “But he’s not thinking about you, or about the plates, or about seeing your body again, and that I can live with,” he snarled and I got the sense he was trying to convince himself rather than me.
“Thank you,” I said as sincerely as I possibly could. “I don’t think I ever said thank you.”
“You never had to, Ladylove.”
That word was as molten as the sunset in front of us. We both turned to watch the sun slip behind the buildings beyond us and the sky flash brilliantly. Silence blanketed us again, only the hum of the city, blaring horns and distant ambulances cut into the breeze still dancing against the ends of my hair.
Bright pink started to dance with the vibrant yellows and I automatically imagined painting something with such living, breathing colors. I wondered if Cole saw them that way too.
“How did you get into art?” I asked before I took a massive bite of meatball.
“Tattoos.” He smiled over at me. “Every good criminal wants tattoos. So I started drawing what I wanted. I had a knack for it and the guy who did my first one offered me an apprenticeship. It didn’t interfere with the small shit I was doing at the time like boosting cars and dropping drugs.” He shook his head at his younger self. I couldn’t help but smile. “You?”
“I don’t even know. My mom said I drew before I could write. Even before I really spoke. I’d said my first words but I chose to draw things instead.”
“Did you always want to be an artist?” he asked, his face warm as he watched me answer.
“That or a princess.” I laughed at the memory of me traipsing around in a Belle ball gown at sixteen. Conrad and I had worn matching ones. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
“A pirate.”
“Some dreams do come true.” I nudged him playfully with my shoulder.
“They do indeed.” He reached up and ran his fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes and all but purred. “My princess,” he breathed.
“Don’t you dare call me that,” I murmured still lost to his touch.
“You’re right.” His husky laugh shot straight between my thighs. “Princesses are dainty things, content to be pampered, not made of the metal they wield. You’re undeniably an artist. A gifted one too.”
“Me?” I asked as I opened my eyes to find hastening twilight. “You’re the one that painted that…” I turned back toward the starry swirls and gasped.
I scrambled to my feet, totally disregarding the edge of the building, and shot back under the canopy.
“Cole!”
“It’ll get better. The darker it gets, the brighter they twinkle.”
As the pink gave way into purple and then to shades of night, the stars above did in fact twinkle. It wasn’t tiny lights and didn’t appear to be simple paint either. The texture itself seemed alive, both gaseous bulbs and fluid river. My fingertips explored the lines they had before, finding new and painstakingly beautiful places to glide.
“Are they real constellations?” My voice trembled with the utter awe.
“Sort of.” He rose and came flush against me. His fingers grazed up my arm and tangled in with mine. “This is Orion.”
He took my fingers and we traced the three stars where they splashed across the night sky.
“The hunter,” I whispered. “Like you.”
“Cancer.” We moved to another area and followed the upside-down Y. “Because my birthday is June twenty-seventh.”
“We just missed it.” Sadness clutched my heart.
“Next year.” He kissed the sensitive skin beneath my ear. “Pisces, for Horse.”
I smiled even though he couldn’t see.
“And the Little Dipper.” We crossed to a different corner.
“Because of Polaris.” I bit my lip. “A pirate would need the North Star.”
“Something to guide me to buried treasure,” he snarled in my ear as his hand slid under my jeans then traced along the line of my lace thong. Then he plunged between my thighs, his fingers hitting my mark almost immediately.
“Cole,” I groaned as I arched back into him.
He kissed along my neck then bit just above the neckline of my shirt. I moaned again and shoved my hips onto his hand. He danced in and out of me, teasing as his fingers twittered against me.
“Shiver me timbers,” he said it hot and breathy against my neck then added a snarl as he turned me.
His lips locked on mine, and his kisses moved in time with his fingers still stroking me. He nibbled on my lip then breathed deeply. It was his turn to groan. My hand slipped between us and went to stroke his erection.
“No.” He caught my hand. “I have something to show you.”
“I don’t want to see anything but stars,” I said all breathy, punctuated by feather-light kisses.
“Promise.”
His wicked finger circled my clit twice then he pulled his hand free. Then he walked away, leaving me to sway on my feet. He grabbed the blanket and the bag our sandwiches had been in only to tug both under the incredible night sky.
Cole flattened the blanket out, straightening the edges with his toe before closing the gap between us like a predator. He had a hand behind my back and the other behind my knee in less than a second, pulling me up around him. I locked my legs around his hips and clung to his shoulders just in time for him to kneel.
