Just as he spoke the last word the scarlet blood from his busted lip dripped from his chin. The crimson bead seemed suspended in mid-air just like the orgasm inside my body. The drop splattered in the valley between my voluptuous breasts. The hot liquid scalded me. I gasped. Overwhelming bliss splintered across my body, tearing me into millions of pieces. The entire time I stared up into those dark eyes, utterly captivated by the vicious look in them.
Ecstasy’s clutch had barely loosened on my quaking body when Cole jerked out of me. I knew what he was going to do, and I was hungry for it. I sat up and slid off the desk like a limp noodle. On my knees I watched him jerk the condom off. Stepping forward he grabbed the back my head, sinking his fingers into my hair. He ran the other hand down his length once before a groan tore from his chest.
“Julia!” My name reverberated throughout the room just as thick ropes of hot semen shot out of his dick. I expected him to shoot it all into my mouth, but he squirted it onto my breasts, marking me with his seed. Each hot slash seemed to brand me, mixing with the blood that had trickled down my chest.
With a final groan he squeezed the end of his cock. A drop of cum clung to the tip. I leaned in to lick it away, desperate for a taste, but he jerked his hips back. A look at his face revealed his mask was back in place, an emotionless slate. A loud cheer of applause broke out around us, jolting me back to the present. People shouted. Women reached over the velvet ropes trying to brush their fingers against Cole’s hard body. Security guards pressed against the crowd, yelling at everyone to get back.
Cole punched his legs into his pants while I stayed there on the floor, my chest covered in his fluids. Pens and papers were scattered around me. He didn’t look back at me before disappearing into the crowd.
Five.
“It was okay? Just okay? Come on, Jewel.”
“Yes.” I wondered why I had answered the phone at all. I’d been avoiding everyone for the last week and a half since the Rapture X party and was pretty successful, but today I answered Vic’s phone call.
“That’s not what I heard,” he said.
I barked with laughter. “Oh, yeah, and who told you that? I haven’t even talked to anyone else.”
I ran my hand over the rim of my coffee cup and glanced down at the outdoor coffee shop table. I’d isolated myself all last week. The club was only open Thursday through Saturday so I hadn’t had to deal with anyone, not until I’d headed in to work on Friday night. By then my tumultuous emotions had rectified and grew into something more…anticipation.
“I heard from multiple people that he beat the shit out of three guys in the middle of the show, then came back and fucked you like you were the last woman on earth, while bleeding all over you. Sounds like a fucking movie, Jewel.”
“Whatever.” I dismissed it like those details didn’t matter, as though I hadn’t rehashed all of them over and over in my mind every free second I had. As if I hadn’t laid in bed with my hand between my thighs playing with my wet cunt until I came…over and over to the memory of Cole working his length in and out of me.
“So, he didn’t take on a horde of guys to defend your honor?”
“I don’t know why he did it, Vic. What difference does it make?”
“What difference does it make? Are you kidding? It makes all the difference in the world. This is a huge deal, I don’t see why you’re being so blasé about it.” Annoyance laced his voice.
“Oh my gosh, Vic. Shut up! It’s my job. It was just sex!” I half-shouted into the phone.
The man sitting at the table closest to me glanced in my direction, clearly uncomfortable. I melted down in my seat, hiding my face behind my laptop. The reason I was being so blasé about it was because I’d shown up last Friday night, my body wired, excited, ready to face Cole, the Ripper, on the dance floor. My pussy had dripped with anticipation all day long. I’d spent hours perfecting my hair, even my make-up before heading in…only to find that the schedule had changed. Cinna was paired with me again, and I wasn’t going to dance with the Ripper at all. He wasn’t even on the schedule or at the club at all as far as Patricia knew and Jimmy proved to be equally elusive in his knowledge of the newest edition.
“Have you heard from him?”
“No.” I hoped he couldn’t hear the disappointment in my voice.
In all honesty I had expected to hear from him, but…I hadn’t. He didn’t show up at my apartment or anything. I’d expected him to try and set up a practice before last weekend, but of course we hadn’t performed together, so it didn’t matter anyway. Did he quit? Was it something I did? It was as if he had disappeared off the face of the earth. What did you expect? He was paid to fuck you. It didn’t mean any more to him than earning ten thousand bucks. He’s probably married happily with kids. The thought elicited a churning feeling in my gut.
“Seriously, you haven’t heard anything?” Victor asked.
I’d received a bouquet of yellow roses and a bottle of Obsidian wine on the Sunday after Rapture X, delivered to my front door, but there hadn’t been a card. The wine came from Obsidian Spirits one of the most high-end liquor stores in the world. They made their own special brand of every kind of liquor and it all came in obsidian glass mined from volcano ash. At first I was certain they were from him, who else would send me something like that? But I received nothing else, so that thought was quickly squashed. They were probably mistakenly sent to me.
“No, nothing. I don’t want to anyway. You know I don’t date other strippers.”
“Oh, here we go.”
“Ugh, don’t start, Vic.”
“Jewel, this guy rocks your world and you don’t even care? You don’t even want to know more about him?”
That was the problem. I did want to know more. After my performance with Cinna on Friday I’d asked everyone, all the dancers, waitresses, and bartenders. No one knew anything about him, in fact, I seemed to be the only one who even knew that his name was Cole. Everyone kept referring to him as the Ripper, and no one had seen him since he left me on my knees in the middle of Rapture X.
“You always rocked my world, Vic.”
“Duh. But I know this is different. I can feel it. Plus everyone says so.”
I chuckled in annoyance. “Since when do you listen to everyone?”
“Since you quit answering my phone calls over a week ago, Miss Thang.” I could just see him rolling his eyes on the other end. My heart clenched. Man, how I missed him. He acted super nosy over the phone, but I knew it was because he was unused to our separation just as I was. We’d lived together for more than two years, seeing each other every day to cold turkey. If Vic and Chris had still been here they would have kept my mind off all this. But they weren’t and I’d been trapped with my tumultuous thoughts.
“You’re over thinking things again, aren’t you?” Vic’s voice barely registered. My eyes had fixated on a tall muscular body gliding up the sidewalk opposite of me.
Cole.
He moved across the pavement like some sort of god, wearing low-slung jeans, a black v-neck sweater, and stylish high-top boots. His long hair was tied back revealing the exquisite perfection of his square jaw. Black sunglasses covered his eyes.
“Jewel?” Vic asked.
“Huh?” I jerked and darted my eyes away from him.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Uh, no. I mean, I don’t think so.” I glanced from my coffee cup to my purse and backpack.
Just grab your stuff and get out of here. Maybe he hasn’t seen you.
“What’s going on?” Vic sounded worried.
“Nothing.” I looped the long strap of my purse across my body and glanced up. The door to the coffee shop swung closed.
Yes! He didn’t see me!
“Obviously something is going on.”
“He’s here,” I whispered urgently into the phone, gripping the styrofoam cup in my hand.
“Huh? The Ripper guy is? He’s at the coffee house?”
�
�Yes!” I closed my laptop.
“You’re going to talk to him, right?”
“What? No way! I’m getting the fuck out of here.”
“Why?”
I glanced down at my lazy attire—a black Dallas Stars sweatshirt and yoga pants. My hair was twisted up in a messy knot on top of my head. I wore my glasses and no make-up since I’d been too lazy to shove contacts in my eyes. I looked like a straight-up mess. Part of me wanted to see the mysterious man who had taken my body like no one else had, but not this badly. I didn’t want to scare him off.
“I look like shit, Vic.”
“Are you wearing the sweatshirt? The hideous one I tried to throw away a hundred times?”
“Yes!”
“Get the hell out of there! I told you not to go out in public wearing that raggedy old thing.”
“Working on it.” I hung up the phone and unzipped my backpack.
“Thirsty?”
I sucked in sharply at the sound of that voice that rumbled with promises of hard punishing sex. I didn’t dare look up, but stared at the tattoo-covered hand that held a white cup out to me. Them. That’s what was written across these knuckles in Old English lettering. I’d noticed over a week ago that his other hand said love.
“Them?” The question was out of my mouth before I could think twice about it. When he didn’t answer after a few heartbeats I glanced up at him. He looked even more handsome close up in the cold afternoon sun. Of course I knew he would. The sweater hugged his muscular form like a glove, adhering to his skin like it was desperate to touch him.
I know the feeling.
“Yes.” He sat the cup down in front of me and I realized that I hadn’t moved to take it from him. I had been holding my laptop awkwardly between the table and my backpack. He sat down across from me, holding his own cup. “Nice glasses.”
The reminder of my ugly predicament rushed to fore and I immediately shoved my laptop in.
“I’ve gotta go.” I stood quickly and banged my thigh against the side of the table. “Fuck!” I muttered under my breath.
Way to not look like a fucking idiot, Julia.
“I got them for my family.”
I was in mid-turn when he spoke.
“Huh?” I faced him, holding my backpack on one shoulder.
“The tattoo.” Cole held out his fist.
I glanced at the hand and then back to his face. His full lips were set in a blank line, the bottom one slightly puffy from where he’d been punched last week. His eyes remained covered by his sunglasses.
“Oh.” I stood there indecisively, part of me wanting to run, the other wanting to know more. My curiosity gave in. “But…that doesn’t make sense.” I eased back into my chair, assuring myself that I would only stay a moment and then leave.
He placed his other fist on the table, revealing love. Next to his other hand it read, love them.
“So, you got the tattoo to remind you to love them…your family?”
He nodded once. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember.”
I checked his face looking for a hint of a smile, something to tell me he was kidding, but I didn’t find it.
“It is,” I conceded, reminded of the many failed family relationships I’d had.
Several heartbeats passed, filled with unnerving silence between us. I tried to focus on the birds chattering overhead or the people passing by on the sidewalk, but found myself unable to pay attention to any of them. His eyes were devouring me. I was certain of it. I couldn’t see them, but they seemed to be swallowing me whole, burning my clothes away and engulfing my skin. I tensed, ready to leave.
“Do you go to school?”
“School?” I repeated, as if it was the first time I’d ever heard the word.
“Yeah.” He motioned to my backpack sitting next to my feet. “College?”
I wanted to answer yes, desperately so. I wanted to say that I almost had my bachelor’s degree in English, but I didn’t. I couldn’t say that, because it wasn’t true. I’d abandoned those dreams. “No.”
His brows rose. “I figured you would be, you’re young, about twenty-three, right?”
“Yes. But no school for me.”
“Why not?”
“Some things just don’t happen like you plan.”
He tilted his head. “Why not?”
“Well I—why do you even want to know anyway?” I ended in a huff. Who was he to ask me questions about my life?
“Just curious.”
“Well, what about you? You look young enough to be in school too.”
He couldn’t be much older than I. Maybe twenty-seven at the most.
A bark of laughter escaped his lips, revealing even, white teeth. The sight captivated me and had me wishing he wasn’t wearing the sunglasses. I imagined that his eyes crinkled in the corners, but I wanted to see for myself.
“Oh, no. I’m way too old for college.”
I frowned. “You can’t be that old.”
“Thirty-four.” The smile and all notion of his previous laughter left his face. He studied me intently, as if waiting for my reaction.
“Thirty-four? Really? That surprises me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You seem younger.”
“So they say.”
“So, how does it feel then?”
He moved forward leaning his elbows on the table. “How does what feel?”
“Being a thirty-four year old stripper?” I don’t know what induced me to say it. In my head it didn’t sound so bitchy, but it came out that way. Part of me wanted to clutch this man to me. The other…wanted to attack him. He’d taken control of me more than once. My precious control that I had over my body…he’d taken it like it was nothing. Like I’d never really had it to begin with and he only gave it back once I was boneless mush at his feet.
A tight smile spread across his face, not revealing any teeth. “I think the better question is, how does it feel to fuck one?”
Blistering arousal shuddered through my body. My fingers started aching and I glanced down to see that I was digging them into the table.
“Who the fuck are you?” I snapped.
The man at the table next to us must’ve heard me because he quickly got up and hurried away. A few passersby glanced in our direction.
Cole reached up and jerked off his sunglasses. His dark blue gaze bore into mine. “Does it matter?”
His answer took me aback. I hadn’t known what he would say, but that wasn’t at all what I expected.
“Obviously it matters.”
“It didn’t matter last Friday night, or Saturday.”
“That’s my job. Sometimes I have to do things I don’t want to. That’s life.”
He leaned in farther sliding his hands across the table. “You didn’t want to do it, Julia?” His voice lowered nearing a whisper. “You didn’t want me to string you up on that pole and rub that little pussy?” A rush of arousal soaked my panties. “You didn’t want to put my big, fat cock in your mouth?” Cole leaned in closer. His gaze holding mine so utterly that everything else seemed to melt away. “You didn’t like it when I laid you on that desk and fucked you into next week?”
My nipples pressed painfully against my bra.
His gaze flicked to my lips and I realized I was biting down on them.
“You didn’t want those things?”
“The body is just a tool with base needs.” I tried to convince myself it was all my body’s fault.
“Admit that you wanted it.” Cole’s voice rattled with some new emotion. The sound made something click inside of me and let me push through the lust that covered me like a wet blanket.
“You’re an asshole.” I stood and jerked my backpack off the ground.
What the hell is going on with me?
There’d been lots of times in my life where I had made horrible decisions and bad choices, but I had made them. No one else forced me to do anything nor had I ever allowed anyone to make th
ose decisions for me. I accepted them because they were mine. But here I was around Cole for the third time and for the third time I already felt the grip on my control loosening and for who? A man I knew nothing about. Pathetic.
I turned on my heel and headed away from the table. It was the opposite direction of my loft, which was three blocks the other way, but I didn’t care. There was no way in hell I was going to walk past him. Nope, I would just suck it up and take the long way. I’d made it about ten steps when I heard the pounding of feet behind me.
“Julia.”
I didn’t turn to look at him, not even when he got in pace next to me. “Just leave me alone.”
“No, please—” He touched my shoulder. Warmth seeped through my sweatshirt and into my skin. I stared daggers at the point of connection. He dropped it away immediately. “I just…look, I’m sorry.”
A lady with a group of children pressed past us causing us to step closer to the coffee shop wall.
The sincerity in his voice had me glancing up. He ran a hand over his jaw, over the trimmed couple day’s growth of a beard that made him seem so rugged. The gesture appeared nervous. His gaze focused on the ground by my boat shoes.
“You’re sorry?” I wanted to ask why, but for some weird reason I feared the answer.
“Yes.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Look I…” He looked into my eyes. The expression there was nothing I had ever seen before. It was raw, vulnerable. “I want to take you on a date.”
“What?” A bubble of laughter built in my throat at the absurdity of it all.
Here I stood in the middle of a busy sidewalk with a man I hardly knew. A man who brought me to orgasm without even knowing his name, a man who fucked me so hard that I nearly forgot my own. This same man wanted to take me on a date?
He wanted to wine and dine me? But why?
He’d already gotten the good stuff, and he’d been paid for it.
“Why?”
He furrowed his brow. “Because I want to.”
“That can’t be it—wait, you feel bad, don’t you?” The idea hit me like a rock.
“What? Bad? No.”
“Sure, whatever. Look, the sex was fine. We both got paid for it. It’s over now. You don’t have to take me on date or something to make yourself feel better.”
Drowning in Rapture: Rapture, Book One Page 5
