by Ace Gray
“I wouldn’t take your armor off just yet.” Horse’s voice changed, and my fingers clutched automatically into Elle. Just the shift in his voice told me we weren’t talking about Conrad anymore. I followed his line of sight and tensed, waiting for the little bell above my door to ring even though it wasn’t there anymore.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” The voice behind me had a decidedly thick Italian accent and a sneer that made my blood boil. “You look mighty comfortable with the girl you’re supposed to be keeping prisoner,” Vinny Giancomo said from behind.
“And just how is it that you’re so familiar with Irish business?” I formed each syllable with a deadly point as I turned.
“Cole, you’ve done my family more harm than good over the years. We want to believe she’s changed everything but we’d be fools not to keep watching.” He arched his eyebrow.
“What do you want Vinny?” Horse crossed his arms, flexing his barrel chest as he stepped in between Vinny and I.
“The ledger. I know Simone sent it to Elle. I know you lied to Mickey about chaining her to your bed.” He crossed his arms to mimic Horse’s, swagger obvious when he spread his legs into a wider, firmer stance.
“Watching us is one thing, having someone in that room is something else entirely,” I snarled and stepped around Horse.
“If The Butcher is playing both sides, you better fucking believe, we are too. Mickey should be. It’s only a matter of time until this wall between our families comes crumbling down.” His words weren’t threatening, just straightforward and matter of fact. “Now, about that ledger. I’m assuming she has it or there wouldn’t be this dual personality thing happening.”
“She doesn’t have it,” Horse said as he let his hands drop and stepped toward Vinny, coming shoulder to shoulder with me.
I summoned all the frost I’d been clinging to these past few months, willing my face into a deadened mask as I stepped away from Elle to follow Horse.
“And even if she did, we wouldn’t hand it over.” I looked him over in that detached way I’d become too comfortable with.
“I’m not asking, Cole. None of us are going to play nice when my sister’s life is on the line.”
I took another step toward him, close enough now that our elbows could brush. I studied him for a moment then lunged. My hand fisted in his shirt before he could react. I yanked him toward me, making his sturdy stance falter under sheer force.
“I’m not going to play at all when Elle’s is.” I didn’t care that spit spattered on his cheeks.
“Stop it,” Elle said as she laid her birdlike hand on my shoulder. “Stop it right now.” She slipped around Horse and stood next to Vinny where he was still rucked up in my hands. “Set him down, Cole.”
I did as she asked but refused to move from the space between them. She tapped on my shoulder and I simply shot her a look that said dream on.
“I have the ledger.” She didn’t take her eyes off me when she said it. I wondered if she saw the smoke pouring out of my ears. “But I’m not giving it to you. I’m not giving it to you or to Mickey or The Butcher.” She turned toward Vinny and cocked her head, her eyes sweeping over him. “That book is going to burn when I finish what my mom started.”
“But Giovanna…” Vinny shouted as he shoved up in her face.
“Will come home. Everyone in that ledger will if I have anything to say about it.” It was her turn to cross her arms. It didn’t puff her chest up the same way it did for Horse or I, but it reinforced the immovable little rock I knew she could be. “But that’s on me. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with it.”
“You trust these two with it, and I can tell you firsthand they don’t deserve your trust.” Vinny shoved his hands in his pockets and shot Elle a warning look, one I thought long and hard about strangling him for.
“They are my infinite patience and endless protection.” She didn’t pull her eyes from Vinny but her body slid closer to mine.
“You’re going to need both if you’re hanging onto that ledger.”
“Is that a threat?” Elle asked as she pinched her face; pride swelled infinitesimally in my chest. Fury was right beside it.
“And if it was?” Vinny quirked his eyebrow as he sized her up. Horse’s fists caught the smallest bit of my attention, flexing and unfurling at his sides.
“Then I don’t need either of them to make you pay.”
Elle’s ruthless words last night were hot as sin. What I’d done to her when I took her upstairs afterward lit sin on fire and let it burn. She was still sprawled out in bed, her hand loosely laced in mine as the sun lit the marks I’d left on her one by one.
I had to force my hand out of hers, and even then, it roved over the hickeys, bite marks and angry claw gashes crisscrossing her back. Golden light caressed her unruly bright hair then my fingers as I explored. But I finally pushed away and walked over to the kitchen island, finding a few precious scraps of paper and started folding. I only managed three cranes before she started to stir, soft hums and skin against sheets filled my apartment as she turned over.
As quietly as I could manage, I slunk over to her and placed each little figure onto her chest. The last one teetered on her nipple and fell just as her eyes fluttered open.
“Cole,” she breathed as if the word were air itself.
My heart melted as she grabbed a crane between her delicate fingers and studied it. The lazy smile that spread across her face was brighter than the morning sunshine.
“If you fold a thousand, I hope you wish for something good.” She snaked her arm around my neck and pulled me down to her lips.
I let her pull me most of the way but I stopped just above her lips and whispered, “I’ll wish for you.”
She closed the small gap between us, kissing me roughly and letting her hands shove into my hair. I lay down onto her, letting my weight press into her. She just sighed and opened up beneath me, snaking her arms around my back and weaving her legs into the crook of mine. I kissed her, feasting on cherries, for as long as I could before my alarm blared through the quiet morning.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered beneath me.
“Have to.” I kissed beneath her ear and dragged my lips gently to her lips. “Never want to.”
I reached for one of the cranes laying haphazardly next to us and picked it up, only to place it on the tip of her nose. When she giggled, I cursed the stars, the sunrise, the very universe for taking me away from our bed.
“Come on, Ladylove.” I sat back and pulled her with me, the covers falling completely from her beautiful little body. I couldn’t help but swear.
“You’re staring,” she said softly.
“Fuck yeah I am.” I licked my lips and tried to shove the need pumping between my thighs aside.
“I thought we had to get going.” She shifted onto hands and knees then slid toward me. I couldn’t help but watch as her tits swayed with her movements. “It seems as though you wish for something else entirely.”
She bent lower toward my obvious erection and for a moment, I was sure her plump lips were going to wrap around me and suck. I wouldn’t be able to stop her mouth any more than I could stop watching her breasts but she only hovered above me as her hand reached between the sheets. When she slid back, she balanced the crane she’d grabbed on the tip of my cock.
I groaned loudly but it quickly turned into a husky laugh. She leaned forward, kissed my chest then spun off the bed, her giggle mixing and twisting with mine. My eyes darted between her rummaging through my closet and the bit of origami barely balancing on my skin. The longer I looked at either her or the crane, the harder I laughed. I couldn’t hold it in, and for the first time, my cheek didn’t ache as I did.
Elle’s big beautiful smile spread as she buttoned up one of my dress shirts, and it was like she knew. Like she saw straight through me and noticed there wasn’t a hint of pain tingeing my heart or soul.
“Get dressed, before I have my way with you.” Sh
e shoved her hands on her hips, splitting the V of the neck she’d left unbuttoned and putting her chest back on display.
I snatched the crane and set it on my bedside table before narrowing my gaze at her as I rose. I walked directly to her, not an ounce of hesitation or play on my face. My hand shot to her throat and seamlessly pressed her body back against the wall.
“I’ll say when, not you.” I squeezed on her delicate neck as I kissed her gasping bottom lip. “Not that I’d deny you…” Her breathing went more shallow and I let my nose trace along her jaw. “Anything for my everything,” I breathed the words in her ear. “But I have my way with you.”
Her eyes were wide, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes as she nodded. Still she didn’t fight me, she simply let me grip her tighter. The deep dark red I loved colored her beautiful face, and her breathing faded to whispered nothings. She was so beautiful when she let me hold her life in my hands. The gift was breathtaking.
When her eyes fluttered shut, I let go, but just enough for her to breathe, not enough for her to crumble. And I kissed her. So hard that I felt the reverberations curl my toes. Only when I finished ravaging her lips did she gasp wildly for air.
“Get downstairs and open the shop.” I smacked her lightly on her hip then let my hand dig into her perfect plump ass. “I’ll get dressed while you play house.”
“It takes two to play house,” she said, still gasping against the wall.
“Sometimes even three,” I whispered, my voice husky with a laugh, just before I kissed the corner of her mouth.
I jerked my chin toward the door and even with her chest still heaving, Elle rolled off the wall, slipped on my far too large flip-flops and headed downstairs. I stared after her for a brief and fleeting moment, hoping that I’d be following in the wake of the waves she made in my life for eternity.
When my smile pulled up at the thought, pain didn’t sear through my cheek. I didn’t take much time getting dressed, feeling the pull of my own tiny golden universe just downstairs. My shoelaces weren’t even tied as I clipped down the stairs just a few minutes later.
But then my heart stopped.
And if I were a weaker man I would have fallen to my knees, shoelaces be damned.
“Just what in the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I asked as my vision started to turn red.
“I don’t like how we left things last night. Neither does my grandfather.” Vinny didn’t turn from where he held Elle up against the front door of my shop. I wasn’t sure if the fact that he was holding her or that he was holding her by the throat made fury bubble more intensely inside me. “Hand it over.”
The intense and soothing calm was settling into my bones.
“I will kill you, Vinny,” I said as I moved so fast that he didn’t even react until my elbow crooked against his throat and my hands pressed together, ready to leverage my strength to snap his flimsy spine.
“You trust this with the ledger over us?” he asked as he ever so slowly released Elle.
“I wouldn’t trust any lesser man,” she shot back with venom in her voice as her hand stroked on her battered neck.
I couldn’t help my smile as I squeezed a little harder on Vinny’s neck, and despite everything, I shot her a look over his tense shoulder.
“Give it to me, Cole,” Vinny continued.
“You’re not in a position to make demands.” I made sure to whisper the words, honey sweet into his ear.
“Sure I am.” He laughed even though it would take one small snap to send him to the afterlife. “Because if I don’t come home, we go to The Butcher. With everything.”
His words were a sucker punch that I couldn’t completely absorb. My grip loosened before I even made a conscious choice.
“Hand it over,” he coaxed as he unceremoniously fell from my hands. His eyes never left Elle’s. “Hand it over now.”
“It’s not here. Not that it matters.” She shoved her hands on her hips and leaned in, barely coming to his chin.
“One week then,” he snarled. “And one week only.”
21.
Elle
“What do I do?” I only asked once Cole had tattooed for three hours after opening the shop. I hadn’t been able to manage before, the feel of another man’s fingers on my throat had been unsettling for far longer than the hold itself.
“You hide it. You hide it like it’s the fucking lost city of Atlantis. His threats be damned.” Cole didn’t look up from the computer he was standing over but he reached out seamlessly, as if he could sense where I was, and pulled me in.
When I nestled into his chest, his hands came to my hair, weaving and swirling it into a loose braid against my back.
“He’s not going to take it. I’m not going to let him close enough.” He bent and pressed his lips to the base of my neck. They trembled wildly against my skin, and his hands weren’t much better. “I can’t believe he had his hands on you. I should have killed him outright.”
“I wouldn’t have minded.” I couldn’t help the low, light chuckle, no matter how dark that made the colors of my soul.
“Such a wicked, savage monster.” Cole’s voice had warmed, his husky whisper of a laugh the mirror of my own. He kissed my neck again, letting his lips linger and brush against my neck. “My wicked, savage monster.”
I couldn’t help but purr as I rolled my head back and opened my neck to him. “That’s me,” I gasped.
“No,” he laughed. “That’s me. You’re my soul’s other half,” he said rough and low as he shifted again to kiss away the caress of Vinny’s hand. “Light to chase away the dark. Love personified.”
It was his words not his lips on my skin that made me groan.
“Oh, Ladylove,” he hummed and kissed me again, his hands moving down my body and up under my shirt dress.
He slid under my ass and his fingers curled in as he lifted. The desk was cool against my thighs when he set me down. My goosebumps only lasted a moment, chased away by his big, beautiful body when it lay down along mine. His hands started playing with the exposed skin between my legs.
“We should go get your things.” His lips stroked on my collarbone. “You may want underwear one of these days.” His fingers did the same but much, much lower.
I groaned. “I wouldn’t wear them anyway.”
“Goddamn, Ladylove.”
The barely-there sound of the shop door opening mingled with Cole’s heavy breaths. Neither of us bothered looking up.
“I’d say I’d come back, but appointments are hard as fuck to come by these days, Cole. You’ve been busy.” Cole’s fingers didn’t stop wandering between my legs, but his breathing no longer puffed against my skin.
“What can I say?” He was talking to his client, unconcerned with enjoying my body.
“I’ll wait if I can watch.”
Cole laughed and, though he hid it well, it was tight and forced. There was a fine line we both walked between enjoying hungry eyes on us and wanting to keep everything that whirled between us private. Cole’s hand fell away and I pushed up kissing his neck where it was framed by his collar, visitor be damned.
“My savior,” I whispered. “My soul personified.” And without another word, even a faint kiss, I slipped around him and went back to my desk. I seamlessly picked back up the metal plate I’d been working on.
Cole started talking, but his hand brushed down my spine. The whisper of his fingertips told me everything I needed to hear.
I lost myself to my work after that, the buzz of the tattoo gun was soothing when it hummed behind me. The whirr of my tiny engraving tool intertwined with Cole’s after a while, for a few blissful hours, our world was in harmony. Our world. And when the buzz of Cole’s gun stopped and his client went on his way, he slid his stool beside me.
My eyes flitted to him, but his weren’t waiting. Instead, they were fixed on my hands, my work. He was evaluating but not judging, watching not rushing. The urge to watch him as he studied me was almost overwhelm
ing, but I returned to my plate. His thighs slid to either side of me and gently squeezed. I tried not to react as his hands mimicked his thighs and found a way to caress me. His chin came to rest on my shoulder but all the while, he said nothing, made no move to stop me.
When I finally finished with my tool, I set it down and blew off the plate in my hand. I barely had a moment to inspect it before Cole took it from me.
“Will it ever cease to amaze me? What you can do with your hands?” He bent down tighter around me and kissed me once gently on my neck. “How can I ever dare to call myself an artist with you around?”
I smiled to myself, reaching up for his arm where it wrapped around my chest. I held my other arm up in front of his face, blatantly putting my tattoo on display.
“I think you manage just fine,” I said softly.
He leaned us forward and kissed along the ink on my forearm. When he reached my wrist, he shifted his grip, palming my chest.
“Always with the fucking groping.”
I could tell Horse was rolling his eyes from the tone of his voice.
“Stop popping in uninvited,” Cole kissed along the ridge of my shoulder, “and you’ll stop catching me pawing at her.” He bit down and I groaned. “Maybe.”
“So now I’m uninvited?” Horse snarled.
“You’re in a delightful mood today,” Cole said simply as he nuzzled against my cheek. “I take it you and Conrad didn’t kiss and make up last night.”
“No, Cupcake. We did not.” He shot daggers at the both of us and I couldn’t help that my face fell. His softened right after. “Kinda hard to make up with someone you can’t find.”
“Oh, shit…” Cole unwound from me and stood to pat Horse’s hulking shoulder. “I’m sorry. We’ll all go find him.”
“We can’t. We have a job.” Horse shot downright pitiful eyes in Cole’s direction.
“I’ll find him.” I stood and circled to Horse. I rose onto my tiptoes to hug him, luckily he bent down a little so I could reach around his thick neck.
“Thanks, Fucktart. Don’t go out there though, okay? Promise me?” His strong arms folded around my waist and he used his grip to squeeze and lift me.
