by C. M. Owens
All I want to do is stay here in this fucking room for as long as time allows while she’s clawing me to pieces and writhing against me. Her lips break off, and she makes a garbled, strangled sound as her back bows off the bed, only pressing her closer.
My hand stabs into her hair, and my lips seek hers again, hungrily drinking her in just as fire licks through me. I’m the one forced to break the kiss when I’m worried I’ll bite her fucking lip just because of the extreme pleasure that follows.
A raw groan is torn free before my entire body shakes, as I pulse inside her. My hand slides up and grips her ass, and I give two lazy thrusts to draw it out, even though it’s so sensitive it feels like I’m going to explode again from too much contact.
Fuck, it feels like I’m that much closer every time she wraps her arms around me like she’s doing now, holding me to her as I pant for air. I collapse partially on her and partially on the bed, not giving a damn about anything but holding her to me.
“I probably should have held off on the shower until after sex,” she murmurs, running her lips over my shoulder.
A small grin tugs at one corner of my lips as my eyelids grow heavy.
“If you’d been this fucking hot when we were kids, my hormonal dick would have stayed raw,” I tell her.
She snorts out a surprise laugh, as my blinks last longer and longer.
“If you’d been this romantic when we were kids, I’d have stayed in bed even more than we did,” she volleys.
I feel her smile against my shoulder, and I loosely drape myself around her, holding her to me as I blink one last time, ignoring the fury of the storm.
This day is catching up with me. I knew better than to take my eyes off her.
She’ll be lucky if I ever let her out of my sight again.
Chapter 30
KARA
Rush is still asleep when I finish in the bathroom, and I watch as he hugs the pillow to him, nuzzling it. I turn and head back out to the living room, finding only Sarah there.
“Tornado warnings are popping up everywhere,” she informs me, flipping off the TV as she glances over at me.
Her bright smile is gone and her eyes are flat. She’s seriously hard to read.
“Axle finally reached Drex, who said they had a few issues that resulted in more gunfire exchange, but no casualties. All’s good,” she concludes tightly, glancing out the window.
I lean down to stack a plate with some of the cheese from her party cheese plate that looks to be mostly untouched.
“Finally, a guest who can appreciate my hospitality,” she adds on a tired sigh and a small smile.
She seems more...genuine right now.
I think.
It’s hard to discern what ‘genuine’ means around her.
“Where are—”
“Axle and Maya are already passed out in the room next to yours, since the roads are closed and the storms are getting rougher. No one’s going anywhere tonight. Drake is showering in my room, but Snake can never find out,” she says, answering my question without even letting me finish asking it.
“So...you and Snake? That seems complicated,” I state, going for broke with the most obvious thing I know about her.
She snorts and groans before scrubbing her face with both of her hands.
As her hands fall back down to her lap, she stares back out the window, a distant look in her eyes.
“He was the first person to ever try to protect me, and we were so in love it was sickening. Now he won’t even stand in the same room with me. Complicated is an understatement,” she murmurs.
I really want to ask what happened, but it seems...unwise to ask a psychotic assassin about her love life drama.
“And he built a motherfucking sex club where he spends most of his time just to piss me off. He’s definitely good at that since the breakup,” she grumbles. “He knows I’ll slice some girl to pieces if he touches someone else, though.”
She says that last part so seriously that I worry she’s being honest.
She turns up the amber colored drink in her hand, guzzling it down.
Her eyes cut to me as she lowers her empty glass, and she gives me a tight smile. “What about you, Kara Caine?”
I blink a few times.
“I’ve never even considered sleeping with Snake. I swear,” I assure her. “Though, I did visit the sex club with Rush.”
Her lips twist in wry amusement.
Leaning over, she pours herself another glass of whiskey. I think. It’s something cheap looking, poorly labeled, and written in Spanish, so I can’t be sure what it is.
“When I was just some ‘hometown girl who didn’t feel loved by her family and was stripping just to make a meager living in an uncaring world,’ I met Snake and the rest of the Death Dealers.”
I struggle to picture her as a stripper, considering I imagine her cutting off hands that get too frisky. Seems bad for business.
“Rush was with them a lot at the club, and sometimes he’d watch the girls. Sometimes he’d even pay for a lap dance. But he’d never fuck any of them,” she goes on, causing me to clear my throat and weirdly bristle in my seat.
It’s not like I have any right to be jealous, but I still lean forward abruptly and grab the unidentified liquor.
“Most of those guys came in hoping for a quick hookup. Rush wouldn’t even let the girls touch him with their hands during the lap dances. And the girls said he was usually a thousand miles away while they were doing their best work,” she goes on as I quickly throw back the really harsh, still unidentifiable liquor.
I feel her smile before I glance over to see it spreading.
“It became a game, of sorts, to them. Every woman wants the guy who doesn’t seem to want just any woman,” she states idly, pouring herself another glass, and then reaching over to refill my now empty one.
“Rush, however, only got annoyed and eventually cut out the lap dances, settling for simply watching the girls on stage. He even used the tip bench instead of touching them to put ones in their G-strings. Drove them out of their minds,” she drones on.
I hate the sour taste in my mouth, and hope it’s just the alcohol.
“I never got his story. He never really talked much to anyone. At all. Other than Sledge, and Sledge isn’t much of a talker either,” she says, leaning back and kicking her feet up on the coffee table.
“But I get it without being told his story now,” she murmurs almost absently. “This world is hell for most of us. The heart grows cold unless there’s a reason for it to warm up. When that reason is gone, it gets really cold again. It’s almost like being in suspended animation.”
She says those last two lines so quietly that I almost think she’s speaking on autopilot and sharing her inner musings.
I sip the drink in my hand, leaning back.
“I asked Snake once why Rush snubbed my fellow strippers, assuming it was just a judgment thing where he thought he might get dick rot or something,” she states as she returns her full attention to me. “He told me it wasn’t nothing personal. Rush was the kind of guy who didn’t make time for girls when he had a perfectly good hand to take the edge off. Sledge told me Rush had been with one girl, and that he didn’t have any use for anyone else.”
I swallow the next sip a lot harder and cough on it, shaking my head.
“You’re not seriously suggesting he’s stayed celibate and that I’m his one and only lay, are you? Because that’s a load of shit. He’s way better in bed than he once was,” I tell her very quickly, and then take another long gulp.
She visibly resists the urge to smile at me.
“I doubt he’s using his hand to his own imagination. Porn has been teaching guys things for decades,” she drawls as she wiggles her eyebrows at me. “Besides, he hears the guys talk, and hears the women bitch. Rush is the kind of guy who takes notes. He’s taken plenty of notes from me on the more lethal side of things.”
A nervous laugh bubbles out of me, a
nd I quickly gulp more of my drink.
“I’m not the only girl he’s had sex with,” I argue, turning in my seat to face her better.
Her entertained smile slips into a thinner line.
“You left, assuming him to be a part of your past, Kara,” she says quietly. “You never really moved on, but you damn sure tried to because you only have one life to live. You were doing your best to look forward instead of back.”
I sink in my seat, hating her a little for being so on the nose.
“When you can’t move on, it’s because you can’t really let go. He never even tried to move on, because he knew it’d be a lost cause. Hence the suspended animation metaphor,” she tells me as she drinks a little more. “Or maybe I’m just shitface wasted and have no idea what I’m talking about,” she adds as she stands and puts the glass on the table. “The guys talked about nailing women all the time. None of them asked questions about why Rush wasn’t chasing tail like all of them.”
She lazily gestures toward me while stretching.
“Since you’ve been back, all the veterans have barely even glanced at you. They know Rush is crazy, and now they realize why he remained celibate. They’re not even bothering to speak to you, because he’s fucking crazy and thinks he’s the sanest madman in that club.”
I snort derisively, staring at a blank space on the wall as the glass gets heavier in my hand. Sarah finishes pouring me another round, but I hold it instead of drinking it.
“Rush and I are kindred, which is why he spends so much time learning tricks of the trade from me,” she states in an almost muted tone, causing me to turn my head toward her again.
Her eyes are almost dead now, her mood shifting with the churning tides of her drunken thoughts.
She chugs down the rest of her own freshly poured glass, staggering to the right a little. Her eyes stay fixed on the empty glass as she lowers it.
“If Snake loved me the way Rush loves you, life for me would be easy. I’m sure he thinks the same thing when he sees me stuck in the same dark void as him, while Snake tries to move forward,” she tells me, lips thinning.
My heart starts to physically ache.
“If you love him, stop holding back. You’re just fighting it because you think you’re supposed to, otherwise,” she states as she stumbles away, throwing a peace sign in the air. “That’s just my two cents, anyway. See you in the morning. Don’t worry. The security on this place is better than it looks.”
A heavy breath spills between my lips, and I stand up, wobbling a little myself because that shit has to be illegally strong. I have to use a hand to steady myself in the hallway. Okay, so I have to do it multiple times.
Seriously, what the hell is that shit?
Rush is still hugging the pillow when I start stripping out of the clothes I put on. I wish I hadn’t even left the bed. Then Sarah wouldn’t have shoved revelations down my throat and made me feel like the world’s worst person.
One person.
One person has ever loved me the way Rush has.
And I tried to forget him because it hurt too much to miss him. Sarah just thinks it’s because I wanted to lump him in with all the parts of the past I wanted to escape.
I’m completely naked when I curl up next to his bare body, sliding my leg over his waist.
He immediately drops the pillow, turning as his arms drag me closer, even as he stays asleep.
I’m tempted to tell Sarah about Snake being the one who shot her free. But...then I imagine he’d make good on his threat to shoot Rush in all my favorite places.
My mind wanders back to Rush, as I absently trace a few of the tattoos on his bicep.
Ignoring the stray tear that slips out of my eye, I kiss his chest. As quietly as I can, I whisper, “I love you, you crazy son of a bitch. Even when I tried not to, I was still so in love with you that I haven’t even known how to act since you crashed back into my life. It’s just happened too fast for me to keep up.”
Sighing, I lift my head just so I can look at his sleeping face, and go very stiff when I see him staring down at me with hooded eyes and zero expression.
Now...I want to crawl off the bed and go hide in the bathroom until this very sickening feeling of exposure is gone.
For too long, he simply just stares at me with that stoic expression, until he slowly shifts his body, turning me over until he comes down on top of me. His movements are so fluid that the transition is flawlessly smooth.
His muscles tense as his lips brush over mine in the softest, barest touch possible, and a shaky breath sneaks through my lips as my heart hurts a little more.
“I wish you’d gone with me,” I tell him, watching as his lips tense. “Because I loved you as much as I missed you, and both hurt me too much to deal with. We were just kids. It wasn’t supposed to be that powerful.”
It’s like word vomit is oozing from my mouth now that the cat has been unceremoniously tossed out of the bag.
“Hell, I barely even complained about being hog tied, Rush. It should have been obvious by now, but—”
He kisses me abruptly, using his tongue to part my lips. My fingers slink up and tangle in his hair, dragging him as close as possible. But he breaks the kiss just as suddenly as he started it, and he licks his lips before he sighs long and hard. I’m not sure what that look is. It almost looks liked...tortured anguish.
This is the part where he’s supposed to tell me he loves me, but instead, he just starts kissing his way down the valley of my breasts, working his way lower.
I forget how to think when his mouth moves right where I want it. If I really am all he’s had, then he has taken exceptional notes.
“Has it just been me?” I blurt out. “Have you really only been with me?”
He goes still against me, shoulders tensing under my legs. Instead of responding, he slowly starts his ministrations again, and I stop letting my mouth run free as my mind tries to blank completely.
I feel his smile against me when I release a string of incoherent, nonsensical, random words. I may or may not be trying to ride his face right now.
He shoves me down to the bed with one hand on my middle, and even though I’m dizzy as hell, the orgasm that crashes through me is what gets blamed for me seeing double.
I’m not even sure what sounds I make, but it does no justice to the fireworks going off in all the fun places.
When I start giggling uncontrollably, Rush tears his mouth away, shoving my legs wider as he slides inside me.
His smiling mouth coming down on my neck, giving me no time to recover from all the sensations before he’s filling me with exactly what was missing.
I drag his lips to me, my giggles ceasing as I kiss like a savage.
He shoves my hands above my head, but instead of clamping them together, his fingers twine with mine. His hips move slower, drawing it out, as I dig my heels into his ass, attempting to force him to stop teasing me.
Our bodies are slick and he’s formed an easy glide against me by the time he finally puts me out of my misery and starts moving faster.
It’s as if he’s studied every single way a man’s body is supposed to move, or I’m really overthinking it and paying too much attention.
“You’re amazing,” I murmur against his lips, struggling to catch my breath.
His hips stagger, and he groans as he slides one of my legs higher, giving him a different, deeper angle. My head tips back, and I don’t even care what comes out of my mouth.
When he stills against me and presses his forehead to mine, both hands still holding mine.
“I want to do that again. So hurry up and recover,” I tell him, chasing his lips as he pulls back, a big smile on his face when lightning brightens the room.
I wince as he pulls back, just because I’m too damn sensitive, and I watch as he goes to scribble something on a piece of paper...
What the—
He flips a knife into the air, end over end, and catches it as he swings open th
e door. My eyebrows go up when he stabs the note into the door, using said knife...
“It’s a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign, since we’re planning to be up a bit,” he says as he shuts and locks the door before coming back to me.
A smile is on my lips before his ever reach mine, and he drags me to him as he kisses and holds me. I wrap around him as tight as I can, not feeling close enough.
I’d forgotten how good it feels to really surrender.
Chapter 31
KARA
I hate my head.
More specifically, I hate the part of my head that always punishes me after I’ve had too much to drink.
What the hell did that lunatic Barbie have in that bottle?
Memories creep in when I realize I’m very much naked, and the sheets are a tangled mess around me. Jackhammering to the upright position is...the worst mistake ever.
“Fuck my day,” I groan, and then whimper as I clutch my head.
I whimper again when the very vivid memory of me confessing my undying love to Rush flashes into my head. Fortunately, it looks like I have the room all to myself.
Dropping back is just as painful as sitting up was, but I pull a pillow over my head so I can muffle my scream. Hours. I spent hours getting orgasms and giving love confessions of all sorts of sappy varieties.
Just like I did when we were kids.
I’m such an idiot. Such. An. Idiot. I couldn’t just stop with the first one. No. I had to pile on and freaking gush about how incredible he is. And I asked him a lot of questions I had no right asking.
And fucking hell. I think Sarah set me up by telling me I was the one and only damn girl he’s been with. Which has to be utter bullshit, and I’m a gullible fool.
“Kill me. Kill me now,” I whine into the pillow.
Frustrated and completely mortified, I sit up, dropping the pillow reluctantly. I’d like to wear that pillow over my head for the rest of the day.
