by Ace Gray
“Ladylove, I wanted to draw you,” he said, both soft and stern.
“I wanted to fuck you.” I made my voice a husky, sultry whine.
“Did I ask?”
His hand reached for my throat like a moth to a flame. It squeezed as if it had a life of its own. I gasped and my eyes fluttered, my body even shuddered beneath his grip. The edges of my vision started to tunnel, black fuzzing around my view of the gorgeous man in front of me. The small, short gasps my lungs were dragging in were rough against the tightening vise on my throat. Ringing slowly crescendoed in my ears.
With his free hand, Cole flicked one of the cranes still clinging to my flesh then studied me. My eyes were hooded and my lips were going dry, cracks already pulling at my skin. His eyes flashed with something brutal, but I kept my hands limp by my sides.
He stood, neither his hand nor his gaze wavering. Every hard inch of him seemed to blur as his muscles coiled, his outline was rough as midnight shadow. And when he used his grip on me to push me step by step back to the exposed brick wall of his loft, he went downright animalistic. My body hit with a thump and the grit from the stone dragged across my skin, raising red marks as Cole pushed and pulled on me.
“I said I wanted to draw you,” he snarled, thumping me against the wall once more.
Yes. I tried to say the word but the sound didn’t come.
“Stand here. Hands behind your back, legs barely crossed at the ankle, and neck up. I want you innocent but exposed. I want you desperate and aching for my touch.”
I already am. I wanted to moan, to cry out, as I shuffled to the position just as he asked. Polka dots colored my vision but I simply closed my eyes and pressed my hands against the wall behind me. My fingertips were losing sensation and made the wall feel smooth instead of gritty against my back.
When my knees started to quake, Cole finally dropped his hand from my neck. Air rushed into my lungs and the whole world flashed brightly like the fire roaring through my veins. My gasps were anything but ladylike, but Cole watched me hungrily like I was oozing sex, and he was gonna lick every little drip of lust from me.
His hand traced down the trail his eyes had raked across my body and shoved between my legs. He stroked me twice then bent to kiss the angry marks he’d left on my neck.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
This time I didn’t. I let him sketch me from the arm of the couch sporting his semi. I could only look out from under my long lashes with the way he wanted me posed, the way he wanted my neck open and vulnerable. Sweat beaded down my spine even where it was pressed against the cool brick.
Whether I was there for minutes or hours, I wasn’t sure. I was lost to the gentle scratches of the pencil and the warmth building in the room. The warmth that had nothing to do with the rising temperature. I barely noticed when the pencil stopped, but my whole world rocked wildly when Cole laid his hands on me.
They pulled my hips from the wall then ran down my legs. He gently uncrossed my ankles and pulled first one and then the other to his hips. My shoulders pressed against the wall hard enough that the bricks started to scrape again, but as Cole slid into me, I didn’t care.
The heat did that to us, to life. It suspended the world and let us live in a bubble where sweat was the only sheen shared between us. Mickey didn’t call. Cole barely tattooed. Each morning was the bliss of the blistering sunrise and each night was steeped in equal sin.
Horse’s silence and darkening features were the only clouds Chicago saw those days. He stayed with us a few nights but even when he touched Cole, he didn’t hold tight. Far too often I caught him staring at some unseen ghost.
“Hey,” I said tentatively when I caught him once again, this time hunched over the kitchen island intently focused on the condensation dripping down his beer bottle. Or rather, looking past it and into the void where specters haunted him. “I know that look. I remember it quite well.”
“The difference is I chose you two. I chose to let him walk away.” He sighed and hung his head. “You murdered to try and keep Cole.”
“There’s still time.” I leaned my head onto his bulky shoulder. “There’s always time. Until you’re the one in the cement pillar or Conrad’s six feet under, there’s time. Fight now. Go down swinging if you have to. No one understands that more than me.”
“Except maybe me.” Cole had reappeared, complete with take-out. He set the bags on the countertop then wove his body around mine, bending as I did to kiss Horse’s shoulder beside my head.
Horse sagged further, lying flat to the countertop but still staring at whatever reflection peered back from the bottle glass.
“Come on, we’re getting out of here. The heat is fucking with everyone.” Cole pushed up from us and went straight to the fridge, grabbing the rest of the beer. He slid on flip-flops and my stomach twisted at the pure amount of him on display in shorts and wide cut muscle tank. “Grab the food. I know where there’s a breeze.” He eyed the two of us expectantly.
I snatched the bag and seamlessly slid on my hightops as I went to wait with Cole. Horse tilted his head to watch us. When Cole quirked his eyebrows and jerked his head toward the door, Horse peeled himself up as if the weight of the world wanted to keep him pinned. He wove his hand around me and, perhaps it was just my imagination, but I had to work to keep him upright. I didn’t mind digging my hand into his wife-beater covered torso.
Cole wore his smirk far better the past few days, his dimple was coming back, if only hesitantly. Something still seemed pained in it, the way his scar pulled, but Cole didn’t seem to mind anymore. He wore it proudly as he slid into his front seat and as he drove across town.
“Here? I haven’t been here in years…” Horse’s voice trailed off with far more wonder than he’d had in days.
The skyscraper that held Cole’s beautiful night sky rose above us. My heart stuttered as I thought about the beautiful swirls that would soon be above my head. Cole’s insides on display did odd things to mine.
We valeted the car and Cole threw a substantial amount of cash at the driver to keep his mouth shut about us. Sandwiched between my men, both wearing their weathered and hard-won smiles, my heart felt lighter than it had in… I couldn’t remember.
One of these days Cole had created my universe. He’d painted beautiful stars and cast radiant sunshine. He’d swallowed up my minutes, hours, days, and not one seemed wasted.
As if he could read my thoughts, he shifted the box of beer to his other hand and wove his fingers into mine. Though his eyes were hidden behind Ray-Bans, I caught how they danced when they looked over at me. And when we made up to the roof and he jimmied the door then turned back to pull me through, I didn’t need to see through the dark tint to know his sparkle.
I wandered out in front of the boys, magnetically drawn to the overhang of the painting. The peaks and valleys of paint reached out and grabbed me just like last time. I stood, looking up in awe, letting the breeze high above the concrete jungle blow around me. The whirls of darkness waved and undulated above me. They danced with the yellow he painted on my soul.
Beauty and hope sparked in the sky above me. I knew the reason people wished on stars looking overhead. I knew Cole. His darkness had never been darkness at all. He had been the bright shining light amidst every deep dark color. And watching him laugh as he rolled out our blanket and clinked bottles with Horse, pure light radiated from his very soul.
I walked out from under the night sky and over to the brightness where the boys were. I grabbed one of the sweaty beers and snaked my arms around Cole’s stomach. As if he was always aware of my skin, as if he was attracted to it, his hand brushed along mine and clasped me in tight.
We walked awkwardly to where the food was and Horse poked fun as he settled in facing out toward Lake Michigan. Cole and I both laughed, the sound dancing on the wind. For a few moments, our worries blew from the steel building and out to the lapping waves.
I lay out on the blanket, making Cole�
�s thigh my pillow. We ate the Chinese in take-out containers, well Cole alternated between feeding me and himself, as we talked. Simple, easy conversation circled and swirled like the birds that occasionally dared to fly as high as us. Horse eventually sprawled out beside me on the blanket. His eyelids sagged and spun open a few times as he fought the spell of the thick, muggy heat.
“Do you dream in color?” Cole asked me, his voice heavy with the same sleep leaden tone.
“I think it used to be black and white, but you’ve colored in the lines,” I said with a purr as I turned over to get more comfortable in the late afternoon sun.
In a swift move, he lifted me only enough so he could slide beside me, cradling my head until it rested on his chiseled chest.
“Horse?” he asked but only soft, deep breathing answered him. He chuckled darkly and twisted to whisper in my ear. “I’ll darken in the colors, make them vibrant.” He nipped my ear as he spoke and shoved his hand beneath the waistband of my jean shorts.
I groaned as my hips started grinding against him all on their own. And somehow Cole was right. The world splashed and exploded, slave to his hands, his demanding exploration. Colors of the oncoming sunset and the hastening night lit up, even when they only shone behind my eyelids. I gasped and cried out, each call a brilliant shade itself, blending with the husky sounds tumbling from his lips.
“I love you,” I gasped in between each word.
He nibbled on my ear and stroked deep inside me, making me arch off the blanket beneath us.
“I’m leaving.” Horse surprised us both from the other side of the blanket. I actually yelped.
“Don’t. You know you’re welcome to watch. Your fingers can twine with mine.” Cole wiggled his finger inside me, making the denim of my shorts dance as if it was an exclamation point for Horse.
“No,” Horse said with a small puff of laughter. “I’m leaving to find him. I need to feel his chest beneath mine, his hands on me. I need to hear his breathy laugh and whiny pout. I need this.” He gestured to the both of us entangled as we were. “I need to fight.”
“Finally,” Cole and I breathed out the word in hazy unison.
24.
Cole
“I figured it out,” Elle shrieked from the couch, then shot up and tiptoed through three days’ worth of counterfeit bill pages covering our floor. “I know where they are Cole.”
I had to wipe the sleep from my eyes and the sweat from my brow. “What’s up, Ladylove?” I stretched and slid out from between the sheets only to nestle into her lap on the couch. “What did you figure out?”
“The ledger. I know where they are.” She shoved the leather-bound book in my face. “We can get them. You can tell Vinny where Giovanna is. This can be over.”
I sat up, suddenly more awake than I’d been a moment before and took the leather book from her. The scratches and scribbles made zero sense to me but the paper balancing on her thigh did. Elle’s small and loopy handwriting followed the same pattern as the book just with entirely different words.
“Tenancingo? That city seems to pop up frequently.”
“I was researching it and that city always pops up. It’s the major city for trafficking other nationalities into the US or around Mexico.” There was an undeniable snarl in her voice, layered in with her natural sugar. “I think Mickey’s trading.”
“What?” My brow creased as I looked over to study my little scholar. “What do you mean?”
“I think he’s bringing in South and Central American slaves, for labor, for sex, for fuck if I know, and giving them American girls in return.” She shuddered beside me. “God, knowing Mickey he’s rewarding his people with girls already trained. The things he makes us do…”
My stomach heaved. The things I’d seen young girls do, the things I’d done to them, were foul and degrading but never forced. They got a choice—we all got a choice—to face Mickey’s ruin or face his rapture. Even if his whims were just two different types of death, the choice was always ours. But if what Elle was saying was true, he was taking even that tiny luxury away.
“Maybe they’re even for personal use. In exchanged for unwavering loyalty,” she said as she looked up at me no doubt recalling Mickey’s demand that I give him my life either through obedience or covered in blood.
“That’s…” likely, probable, fucking disgusting. I blew out a deep breath and reached for one of the sheets of bills on the floor. Deftly, the same way I’d folded all nine hundred eighty-seven other cranes, I started folding a large piece of origami. “We’ll get them back. You tell me what to do, where to go… Anything for my everything.” I blew out a breath and handed over the crane.
She tilted her head and smiled a breathtaking smile. “Something so dirty made beautiful.”
The curve of her neck called to me, to my lips, and they raked across her skin. I didn’t even kiss her, just caressed and bit to taste the cherry flesh covering the soul more precious than all the twenty dollar bills scattered around our apartment.
“Cole,” her whine was breathy beneath my lips.
“Fine, Ladyface,” I said with a chuckle, knowing she wanted to resist but couldn’t really fend me off. “We starting our quest now?” I let my lips keep sweeping across her skin.
“Please.” Her same whine rang out as she rolled her neck against me in the most natural rhythm.
“Anything for my everything,” I breathed again and pulled away.
But then my phone chimed, shattering the peaceful warmth between us. I stood and felt her eyes glued to my back as I stalked across the apartment for my cell. My smile, my dimple tugged on the corner of my lip at the blaze running rampant over my skin. Not even Mickey’s name on the screen could ruin it. My princess, my prize had given her dark knight a quest, a purpose, one I’d fulfill if it cost me everything.
After I let blood flow for Mickey.
“I have to go, Ladylove.” I stared at the phone for a moment, memorizing the details he’d sent to me.
The small, soft creak of the floorboards beneath her slight little steps was the only warning I had before she kissed between my shoulder blades.
“Be careful.” She snaked her arms around me and laid her cheek to the plane of my back. “Don’t come home with blood on your hands.”
I turned in her arms so that I could stare into her beautiful doe eyes. “Don’t go anywhere on me.”
“I’m only going with you.” She went to nuzzle into my chest but I couldn’t keep my lips from her, from stealing her very breath. I threaded my fingers into her hair and pulled. Her neck opened to me but more importantly, when she gasped, her lips, the very breath of her life became mine.
I took them. I took them like they were the only thing that could feed my soul. I let my tongue wander around the seam of her lips and trace the swell of her big bottom pout. I sucked on her lips then kissed them gently. She wasn’t finished, turning the simple kiss into complex fireworks as she kissed and kissed and kissed me again. Her tongue that traveled against mine, her thriving off my deep and gasping breaths.
Only when my heart raced in jagged zigzags against my rib cage did she pull away. Her hand stayed clutched to the bare skin above my jackknife beats. She smiled shyly at me and it was enough to steamroll my insides. Wordlessly, I stepped away from her, my eyes fixed on hers where they swirled and danced.
As I slid into my suit, I had to blow out deep breaths. I couldn’t tell if they fanned or cooled the flame still lapping at my lips. My holster clung to my shoulders as I shoved a knife into my boot and tucked brass knuckles into my jacket pocket. It was mere months ago that I hadn’t carried them but it felt like a different lifetime. One obscured and tarnished by both time and the watery world that existed before Elle snapped it into focus.
When I turned from my closet, she was waiting, her teeth holding tight to her plump lip. The way it trembled spoke volumes as her steady hands adjusted my blazer buttons. When she tugged on my jacket again, she cleared her throat.
“I’m coming home, Ladylove.” I leaned down and let my lips graze her forehead. “We’ll make those calls together.”
The engine snarled beneath me, seemingly more raucous and angry than usual. It felt empty without the hulking man that belonged in the passenger seat. Or the delicate bird that had taken ownership of the back. Alone, I still wasn’t sure my soul was enough to fill an empty space.
Elle, Ladylove, Elle.
She steeled me. Even the ghost of her slithered in and snapped to my bones, giving me life I didn’t know I needed and the strength I had to have to fight. I blew out a deep breath and drove to the address Mickey had texted me.
I let my jacket fly behind me, whipping like a cape in the wind as I unwound from the front seat. I knew damn well I looked like the angel of death as I stalked up the front steps of the appointed brownstone. I relished it. The sooner I collected this body and delivered it to The Butcher, the sooner I could wash my hands of this life, of Mickey. I could run to Mexico, fly in the face of this business—the ledger gave me legs to stand on. The Feds would kill for it. The Italians too maybe. The slimeballs could rain hell down on each other for all I cared. As long as Elle was happy and I held her when I slept at night, any answer worked for me.
With her name on my lips and eyes watching over my soul, I kicked down the door in a single swift move and let myself in. Darkness filled the room, thick and inky in its completeness. I scanned the house for any hint of life, of light, besides what filtered in from the streetlights behind me. There was nothing.
I pulled out my cell phone and clicked on the flashlight, keeping it low as I started to scan the place. Foot by quiet foot, I searched the right side of the first floor. Nothing creaked. Nothing breathed. But the whisper of fate tingled against my ear. Instinct had me tugging at my gun, leveling it outstretched in front of me. The light from my camera shone like a beam out from beneath the barrel.
