SAINT (Boston Underworld Book 4)

by A. Zavarelli

  “Is this really the best time to discuss that?” I ask.

  “This bitch is fucking crazy,” Ethan tells me as if I don’t already know it. “You have to help me, man.”

  Scarlett stuffs the front of her shoe into his mouth, making him choke on it.

  “You like that?” she asks. “You like it rough, don’t you, Ethan? I remember you do.”

  I check the alley and it isn’t as secluded as Scarlett thinks it is and I’m worried that someone else will come stumbling into this mess at any moment. I’m edging towards her, and Scarlett doesn’t notice until I’m within five feet of her.

  “I said to stay the fuck back,” she growls. “I told you, Rory. My game, my rules. You didn’t play by my rules.”

  “You didn’t even tell me the rules,” I counter. “You didn’t tell me this was what ye were after tonight.”

  “He deserves it,” she says. “And so do you. You all fucking deserve it.”

  “I never meant to hurt ye,” I tell her. “It was a game, Scarlett. I’m sorry.”

  She laughs, and it’s dry. “As if you could hurt me.”

  She makes it sound as if it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard, but I can tell that it’s true. Even if she won’t admit it to herself.

  “Scarlett, if this bloke did something, then ye have my word, I will sort him out. But this isn’t the way. Not here, and not now.”

  “No,” she says. “It’s my call. My shot. I get to be the one to do it. You aren’t going to ride in here with your goddamn Irish brotherhood and take my glory.”

  Her hand is shaking even as she speaks, and I know Scarlett thinks she can handle anything. I also know she’s done a lot of fucked up shite. I watched her carve up the butcher when she had the chance and there was no hesitation on her part.

  But she isn’t a killer.

  Scarlett has never killed before. And I have no intentions of letting her start now.

  “Once ye do this, there’s no going back,” I tell her. “I’ll take him back to Boston. We’ll sort him out there. Anything ye want, Scarlett. I just need ye to be honest.”

  “Her name isn’t Scarlett,” Ethan spits as he yanks away from her shoe. “What a load of bull. If either of you lays another hand on me, my father…”

  Scarlett kicks him in the mouth and two of his teeth fly onto the cement as I lurch forward and grab her from behind. I’m struggling for the loaded gun in her hand, and she’s not letting go, and I don’t want to fucking hurt her… and fucking Ethan is making too much bloody noise.

  She has the hammer cocked already, and when she pulls the trigger, there’s nothing I can do. But it’s a snub nose revolver, and she didn’t count on the recoil and it’s obvious she’s never fired it before. It isn’t even bloody close to Ethan, but it’s still too loud and everyone in a three-block radius will have heard it.

  If they didn’t, now they will hear Ethan carrying on like a simpering child.

  Jesus fecking Christ.

  My hands are tied and there isn’t time for any other option. I reach down and yank the knife from Scarlett’s thigh and I plunge it into his fucking throat, slashing through the artery.

  Scarlett is watching in shock as his blood pools onto the concrete below so I turn her away and do what needs to be done. I take his wallet and his watch to make it look like a robbery, and then I stand up and retrieve the gun from Scarlett’s now limp hand. Her eyes are closed, and she’s trembling.

  She doesn’t speak or argue when I grab her with my free hand and zip up my jacket with the other.

  I drag her down the block and directly into the parking garage of the hotel and deposit her into the passenger seat, buckling her in before I walk to the other side.

  The drive back to Boston is long and quiet. I stop off at Slainte and give Conor a ring, instructing him to come out and grab the hotel key from me. It looks like Reaper will be making a trip to New York tonight.

  When we get back to my house, I lock Scarlett in from the inside and drag her into the bathroom with me. She’s not shaking anymore, but she’s still not speaking either. I plant her arse on the counter again and tear off my blood-soaked shirt.

  Before I can get to the shower, she stops me, reaching down into my jeans pocket and retrieving Charlotte’s card, tearing it into pieces.

  “Ah, Jesus,” I bitch. “That’s what ye want to bloody argue about right now? After everything that’s just happened?”

  She doesn’t reply. Instead, she reaches up to smear some of Ethan’s blood across my chest with her fingers.

  And for the briefest of moments, there is peace in her eyes.

  “What did he do to ye?” I ask.

  “I get it now,” she answers.

  “Get what?”

  “Jealousy,” she says. “That must be what this is. This feeling. I don’t like it.”

  “Christ, Scarlett.”

  I drag her body against mine and kiss her. I kiss the ever-loving fuck out of her. She’s the absolute worst thing for me and I can’t help it. I want her anyway.

  “I want you to fuck me,” she says, and it’s real this time. “While you’re covered in his blood.”

  Fourteen

  Scarlett

  I don’t want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again- F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Rory’s hands move to the zipper on the back of my dress, and only once he has it pulled down do I push him away.

  “I need to be in charge.”

  Rory doesn’t miss the high pitch of my voice.

  “Alright, sweetheart,” he tells me. “Whatever ye want.”

  “Take off your clothes,” I say. “And sit down in that chair.”

  He still doesn’t trust me and he’s still wondering if he should just ditch me already and I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t trust me either.

  But he does as I ask.

  He unbuttons his jeans and they drop to the floor. He’s wearing black boxer briefs and his body is hard like a beast and he has a v-cut the way that models do and a perfectly flat abdomen and it makes sense that so many women want him.

  He could do whatever he wants to me if he really had the inclination. He could throw me down on the bed and fuck me any which way he desired, no fucks given if I liked it or not.

  But Rory wants me to like it with him and it’s a fool’s hope but when he sits in the chair and spreads out his legs and gives me full access to his body, I want to like it with him too. I want to remember this night. I want to wash away Ethan’s blood with something else. Something better.

  It’s started.

  Ethan is really gone, and I didn’t do it but I am relieved and I am grateful to Rory and I want to show him how grateful I am.

  My fingers are jittery when I let my dress fall to the floor and kick it away from me. Rory’s hard for me already, his dick busting at the seams of his briefs when he gets a look at the red lace bra and thong set. But it’s the heels though. He loves me in heels and his eyes keep moving down my legs and I know he wants me to keep them on.

  So I do.

  I feel things, right now. Like this. In this room. With him.

  I don’t know exactly what these things are. But they are there, in my chest. In my stomach. In the blood rushing through my veins.

  I want him.

  And I don’t want anybody else to have him.

  My pulse is beating hard in my throat, and my body hungers to be on his. It’s foreign for me, to be so out of control.

  I’m always in control.

  Rory is threatening that. Taking it away from me.

  “Scarlett?” he asks. “Are ye alright?”

  I blink and give him a stiff nod. And then I slide my thong down over my hips and step out of it, kicking it away with my heels.

  I move towards him.

  His fingers curl over the arms of the chair, and he wants to touch, but he’s being good for me. His neck is tight and corded and his eyes are all over me. And I’m glad I’m not
the only one feeling so off kilter right now.

  “You are pure fucking torture,” he groans as I step between his muscular thighs. “Pure sin.”

  I grab onto his shoulders and move my knee up beside his hip before swinging my other up on the opposite side. Straddling him.

  My lace clad breasts are in his face, and his head dips forward, just a little, before I grab his hair and pull it closer.

  I want him to.

  I want him to do what he wants, but I also need to be in control.

  It’s confusing.

  “Touch me,” I murmur.

  He does. His hands slide up the back of my thighs to squeeze the flesh of my ass in his palms as his mouth latches directly onto my lace covered nipple.

  It scratches against my skin and he sucks it inside, and this is different and it’s good and it’s hot. He licks me through the thin barrier of the bra, eating at me and rubbing his face all over my tits. One of his hands is on my hip now, grinding me down onto his erection. He’s solid and already leaking come and so plump it has to hurt.

  I want to touch him too, so I reach down and cup him through the briefs, jacking him off through the cotton and tasting the skin of his throat.

  “Scarlett, fucking Christ,” he murmurs.

  His fingers tangle in my hair and he shoves my face deeper into the space of his neck. He likes my lips on him. He likes it when I suck on his throat and leave a mark too.

  My bra comes off at some point, and he pulls me against his chest. I like the way my nipples feel on his skin, rough and hot. And now his mouth is on my throat too. He drags his nose against my skin and then buries it in my hair, muffling his groans as I roll my hips over his cock.

  I reach around and claw at his back and tell him I want him inside of me.

  It isn’t a lie.

  I’m wet for him and I’ve only ever loathed the thought of this before.

  “Take my cock out,” he tells me.

  I reach inside of his briefs and unwrap him, and he’s bigger than I remember from watching him shower and his skin is all velvet.

  When I stroke him in my palm, he reaches down and stops me.

  “Condom?”

  His voice is strained, rough. And I like that.

  “Fuck me raw,” I tell him. “I want you to.”

  “I don’t do that,” he says, but already he’s doing it with me, because he’s sliding against me and soaking himself in my want for him.

  He groans again. But still doesn’t push inside and I’m impatient now.

  “What’s the hurry?” he asks.

  His eyes are searching mine for answers, and I don’t have any to give. Only that, my pulse is thumping harder now. And I’m afraid that I’m right.

  That this won’t bring me pleasure, but only pain. I reach forward and tap my fingers against his chest in time to his heartbeat while he watches me.

  “You make the line go away.”

  He doesn’t understand, but how could he?

  “Is that bad?”

  “Yes. It’s not what I want.”

  He kisses me on the lips, and I open my mouth for him. My body relaxes slightly, and one of his hands moves down to cup me before he drags his thumb over my clit.

  “I want you to come on my cock,” he says. “And then you can have what ye want.”

  I nod, and he slides up inside of me. Both of us are dead still and I’m full and it doesn’t hurt but I’m too stiff and Rory sees it.

  “Scarlett?” he whispers as he nibbles on my ear.

  “Yes?”

  “You won’t use me to punish yourself,” he says. “Whatever crazy notion you’ve got up in that head of yours, let it go now. Relax. You have the control to tell me to stop whenever ye want, sweetheart. And I will. But trust me a little, can ye?”

  I lean into him and rest against his chest. Where his skin is warm, and he smells like salt and citrus and ocean breezes. There’s still a scar on his bicep from where I stabbed him and I’ve left my mark on him and I like that.

  I touch it with my fingers and he touches me too.

  He’s playing with me now. Moving his fingers over me and whispering into my ear. He tells me I’m the most beautiful and hellish woman he’s ever seen. He loves my tits and my ass and that this pussy is his now.

  The line is cresting higher and higher. I’m at the peak of a rollercoaster. And I’m about to fall.

  The release is violent.

  I come on Rory’s cock just like he wanted and I’m squeezing him inside of me and he’s groaning with every contraction. My body has collapsed forward, and the sheer size of him swallows me whole when he wraps his arms around me.

  “Now I want ye to fuck me,” he says.

  This time, he leans back in the chair and spreads his legs wider.

  “Ball’s in your court. I’d love nothing more than to watch ye ride my cock like you wanted.”

  I grab his shoulders and use them for leverage as I do exactly what he said.

  I ride him.

  Slowly at first. It’s awkward and clumsy.

  I’m practiced at seduction. It’s an art I’ve perfected. But this, I’m a brand-new student. I’ve always been the one being fucked, the few times that it happened.

  Now I’m fucking him.

  And it feels good. The harder I go at him, the more he groans, and the better it feels for me too.

  There’s a reflection of us in the mirror across the room. My smaller body mounted on his massive frame that extends beyond the chair. His legs spread wide and his hands on the back of my heels, holding me in place.

  He’s watching us too, in the reflection. And his eyes are on me. Only me.

  He pulls on my hair and forces me to arch my back so he can taste my nipples again.

  At some point, one of his hands moves between my thighs again. And I come for him, again. It’s not any less violent and Rory can’t fucking stand it.

  He grabs my hips and stills me, holding me in place as he thrusts up from below, as deep as he can get. His head tips back and his lips part and he empties himself with a deep groan.

  His warmth spreads inside of me. Filling me up.

  And I like it. I like to imagine that warmth destroying all the bad of my past. Obliterating any other who has been inside of me this way.

  Neither of us moves, even as he softens inside of me.

  Rory kisses me again, and then eventually carries me to the bed. I’m too tired to fight it, but then he spoons me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Cuddling,” he murmurs into my back.

  “But… that’s…”

  Words have literally failed me.

  I feel his smile against my skin. “Get used to it, sweetheart,” he says. “Ye’re going to get a whole lot weirder with me.”

  Fifteen

  Rory

  She tries to sneak off on me in the morning, so I grab her by the wrist and yank her back into bed, trapping her with my arm.

  “Uggg,” she groans. “Get off me. I’ve had about enough of this cuddling bullshit.”

  I kiss her throat, and she softens against me.

  “How do ye take your eggs?”

  She’s quiet for a moment, and then, “what the hell kind of question is that?”

  “Seems like the sort of thing ye should ask a woman the morning after. Before ye have another go at her.”

  “Gee, you’re so thoughtful,” she muses. “Asking how I take my eggs while you’re still covered in Ethan’s blood.”

  Her words provoke me, and it’s exactly her intention because she’s scared and she wants to run from me and whatever she’s feeling right now.

  “This isn’t a bleeding joke, Scarlett,” I tell her. “And we are going to talk about it, too.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she argues.

  I take a deep breath. And then another.

  “I have no problem sorting out a bloke for ye. All ye ever had to do was ask. But there’s a time and a place.
And that wasn’t it.”

  “It’s no big deal,” she snaps. “The news reports said it was a robbery gone wrong.”

  Her phone is on the nightstand, and she must have retrieved it at some point during the night. The thought of her waking up in the middle of the night and then coming back to me when she had the choice to leave… it makes me feel something.

  I yank her into my chest and drag my lips along the soft skin of her neck. Breathing in the fading scent of her perfume and even some of me where I rubbed off on her. I like that too.

  “The news reports said it was a robbery gone wrong because we got lucky. That isn’t the way we do things, Scarlett. You almost fucked us both last night.”

  “Well then you can just fuck off.” She tries to pull away again. “If you’re so goddamn worried about catching heat.”

  I pin her to the bed and bear my weight down on her, forcing her to look at me.

  She’s doing that thing again. Breathing fast. Her fingers dig into my biceps as her eyes squeeze shut.

  “Scarlett.”

  She doesn’t reply.

  “It’s me, baby doll. You have nothing to be scared of with me.”

  “Get off me.”

  Her voice is soft like a child’s and broken like nothing I’ve heard from her before. And I am a fuckwit of the highest order. I sit up and pull her with me.

  I give her enough distance to breathe, but not enough to let her run out on me again.

  After a few moments, it’s like it never even happened.

  “You’re either with me, or against me,” she says. “It’s the only way.”

  “I’m always on your side, sweetheart,” I assure her. “But I need to understand what’s happening here.”

  She looks at me, and it’s obvious that she’s hanging on by a thread. Whatever is going on, it’s slowly unraveling what little sanity she has left. There is so much rage inside of her. So much hurt. And I want to take it away for her, but she won’t let me.

  “Is someone threatening you? Was that prick threatening you?”

  “They’re all a threat,” she says. “They all need to go. Because it’s either them or me. And it’s never going to be me.”