by Zara Cox
I should be selfless. Think about the foundation we’re laying for our future. Axel wholeheartedly supports my passion for interior design. I feel like the dirtiest bitch for not wanting him to leave me. He thinks it’s because I haven’t seen or heard from my parents since they flew out to a wedding in Boston four months ago. And that was partly true. My heart aches for the vicious argument my mother and I had the morning she left, when she once again mentioned moving back to Boston. The very idea of leaving Connecticut, leaving Axel fills me with dread, so secretly I’m glad they’re not back.
But Axel’s father reassures me that he’ll leave no stone unturned until he finds my parents, and my almost seventeen-year-old self is consumed with Axel, so it’s been easy to give my heart permission not to worry. To enjoy whatever time I have with Axel. My parents will always be around—once they rear up their heads from wherever they’d disappeared to. It’s not the first time they’ve done this since we moved to Connecticut.
The love of my life, however, will be sequestered on a campus somewhere far away. Especially if he doesn’t agree to stay in Connecticut and earn his business finance degree at Yale.
I don’t need tarot cards to know he’s refusing Yale out of hand because he doesn’t want to be around his father.
Tracing my finger over the corner of one distinctive college logo, I bite my lip. My head wants to tell him to follow his dreams wherever he wants, but my heart wants to club my head with a baseball bat. The thought of Axel being away from me, even for a day, is giving me serious sleepless nights. Like the world’s worst pessimist, my heart weeps even when I’m at my happiest in his arms.
Nothing short of a binding blood oath that we’ll be together every day for the rest of our lives will shift my mood. Thunder booms from a storm-laden sky, adding to the melodrama of my melancholy. I hug the pillow that bears Axel’s scent to my face and inhale deeply. Even though I’m wearing his favorite Yankees T-shirt, I can’t get enough of his smell. I burrow deeper and sigh at my pathetically soppy state.
Turning my head, I see a flash of lightning. And a body silhouetted against the French doors.
I should have seen the devil for what he was. Should have jumped up and fled as fast as I could in the opposite direction.
Instead I sit up and pull the pillow into my lap as Finnan Rutherford raps his knuckles against the door and enters without waiting for a response.
I must look like a deer caught in headlights because he shakes his head. “You don’t need to be frightened, Cleopatra. Not of me, at least.”
My gaze tracks him as he strolls across the bedroom like he owns the place. Which he does, technically speaking, but still.
I purse my lips when he picks up and smirks at the stuffed bear Axel won for me at a fair two weeks ago. I want to jump up and snatch the toy from him, but that would mean leaving the safety of the bed, the safety of Axel’s scent around me. So I sit, crossed-legged, and wait for him to finish his casual examination.
When he turns and fixes his eyes on me, I want to cower under the covers. Instead I raise my chin. “Can I help you, Mr. Rutherford?”
“I hope you’ll learn to call me Finnan. ‘Mr. Rutherford’ sounds like my church organist grandfather, the good Lord rest his soul.” He attempts a coaxing smile.
My hackles rise higher than the tide beating itself to death on the beach. When he perches on the edge of the bed, I want to snap at him to move. This bed is our sanctuary from our families, although privately I envy Axel for the siblings he claims to loathe.
Ronan is super scary, no doubt there. But Troy, despite his caustic tongue, can be charming when it suits him. Although I haven’t seen much evidence of it in the last couple of weeks.
But Bolton is a softie at heart. I frown inwardly. A big softie with a drug problem that will fuck up his life if he’s not careful.
“Cleo?”
Finnan’s voice jolts me into focus. He hasn’t moved from where he sits but his gaze is drifting over me in a way that makes me uncomfortable.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know how to sugar coat this so I’m just going to come out and say it. News has surfaced about your parents.”
My heart drops to my stomach. “What news? Are they okay?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know the full story yet but I have people working on finding out. You’re not blind to the kind of businesses your father and I were aligned with in the past, but we’ve been taking strides to put all that behind us. Unfortunately, not everyone is receptive to that move.”
“Are they okay? Are they…alive?” Axel, where are you? I need you!
He smiles a smile that is meant to be compassionate. It falls laughably short. “Whatever happens, be assured that I’ll continue taking care of you. Like I have been taking care of you these last few months. We’re not blood but I already consider you a part of my family.”
I’m aware that he didn’t answer my question. “I…okay. Thanks.”
He nods and stands. Looks around. “And if anything should happen that upsets the status quo around here, know that it won’t affect the promise I made to your father to look after you should anything happen to him.”
My mind is reeling from what he’s not saying. “What do you mean?”
“I told him returning to Boston wasn’t the best idea. I was quite disappointed about that decision actually. But he wouldn’t be swayed.” He flashes a grim smile that bypasses his eyes. “And when he talked about taking you with them, I know not everyone around here was thrilled about that.”
I frown “He talked about taking me?”
He nods. “Your mother wasn’t too happy about your relationship with Axel.”
My fists clench in my lap. For whatever reason, my mother took an instant dislike to Axel the moment they met. Years later, their relationship hasn’t warmed. If anything, it’s worsened. I’m not surprised that my mother’s been pushing for it. “So why didn’t they take me?”
He shrugs again. “I talked them out of it temporarily. Although…” he stops and looks a little pained. “I’m not sure if I made the right decision.”
“Why not?”
“Axel has been a little…off lately.”
“No, he hasn’t,” I defend hotly.
He reaches out a hand. I cringe from it. He sits back, his expression neutral.
“And what’s that got to do with my parents? What’s he got to do with them?” I press.
“Maybe nothing. Maybe, when you and I go to Boston next week, everything will be fine. I’ve heard your parents were in New Jersey meeting with the head of the Manzino family a few weeks ago but I don’t think that’s true. My contacts in Boston will clear everything up, I’m sure.”
I don’t want to think about going anywhere with Finnan. “I’m sorry, you mentioned Axel. What’s this got to do with him?” I ask again, although my heart is banging against my ribs now. For what reason I don’t know. No, that’s a lie. It’s banging because of the mention of New Jersey. Axel spent the better part of a day there three weeks ago. He grew cagey when I asked him why he went there with his brothers.
But doesn’t he always evade when you ask about the “errands” he runs with his brothers?
I shake my head to disperse my thoughts and the images I once accidently found on Troy’s camera. The horrible things Ronan was doing to that man made me lose my breakfast…
I jump when Finnan leans forward and pats my knee. My stomach takes a long dive. “It’s nothing, I’m sure. You mean a lot to my boy. And I’m certain he’ll do anything to hang on to you. Even if, with that temper of his, I sometimes wonder what he’s capable of. He would never do anything to harm those you care about.”
I’m grappling with the fact that he just implied Axel was capable of violence. Or more.
…you belong to me. I don’t care who created you. You are mine. No one else is fucking allowed to touch you. No one is allowed to take you away from me, do you hear me?
I’m not sure why I’m recalli
ng the words Axel said to me on the beach this summer. Sure, they excited me then. Now a different emotion punctures that excitement.
No. Axel loves me. He’s a good guy. He loves me, and I love him.
End of story.
“No, he wouldn’t,” I answer Finnan, my head held high.
He pauses then smiles. “You’re a feisty young woman, Cleopatra. You’re also loyal. I like that about you.” He starts moving toward the door. “I’ll finalize the arrangements for our trip to Boston in the next few days. I already have permission from your school. I’ll let you know when to pack a bag.”
He leaves with a similar ominous clash of thunder to the one he entered with. I sit in the middle of the bed, unable to stop shivering. I feel like a traitor for the fear I’m unable to dislodge from my heart.
Axel. My parents. New Jersey.
My parents have gone radio silent before. But only for a month or so when they went to Armenia. I never found out the ins and outs of that trip, although I guessed.
This time it’s been months. And like every organized crime family knows, the first rule is to leave the authorities out of their affairs. Even in the case of a missing couple who haven’t been heard from or seen in that long.
Lightning flashes again. Another silhouette against the door. My heart leaps into my throat. But it’s Axel who walks in a second later, cursing and shaking the raindrops from his coat. He turns to set the half-sodden pizza box down, and my breath catches at the similarity in stature between father and son. Axel is very much his own person. And yet so much like Finnan it’s scary.
“Shit, I hate these flash storms. They…Hey, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I…Yeah, the stupid storm scared me a little. And you doing a Freddy Krueger impression against the door didn’t help.”
His face gentles immediately. Unzipping his coat, he drops it on a chair as he strides to the bed. A second later, I’m engulfed in his arms, and he’s rolling me onto my back. “Sorry, baby. Here, let Freddy make it all better!”
I laugh. We kiss. We devour the pizza. Then we make love.
But the fears linger in my heart.
And two weeks later, they are confirmed.
Chapter Twenty-One
IMPASSE
The moment Finnan showed me the video and a photo of my father’s body, my life slid on a downward slope to a permanent residence in the seventh circle of hell. In a state of numb disbelief, I read a copy of the autopsy report confirming he drowned. I barely heard or acknowledged Finnan’s reassurance that he would take care of funeral arrangements or snapped out of my fugue state long enough to wonder why we were the only two people standing by my father’s Boston graveside. Why, in a shockingly horrific twist of fate, the other two people I loved most couldn’t be here.
Axel.
Mom.
Axel.
Axel.
Mom.
Finnan had no answers for me as to my mother’s whereabouts. She wasn’t found in the trunk of the Camaro with my father. I thought the possibility that her body wasn’t found would bring me hope. Instead, all I thought about was what Axel would do when he found out I knew.
Will the man I love kill me too?
Will those hands that lovingly worshiped me snuff the life out of me when his secret gets out? It was an easy choice when Finnan cautioned me against letting Axel know we’d found and buried my father. The not-so-easy choice was returning to Connecticut to live under the same roof as my parents’ murderer.
But at seventeen, as harrowing as it was going to be, I only needed to endure the nightmare for a year. Then I intended to put half a globe’s distance between me and the man who was now the embodiment of every single horror I’d ever imagined.
So I agreed to Finnan’s request.
Then the night before we were to return to Connecticut, he dropped his next bombshell. My mother was alive. For her to remain so, I had to hand over my life to Finan.
That bombshell turned out to be one of many.
I inhale shakily and pull the cotton sheet more tightly around me as I walk to the wide window.
Although I’ve visited New York City many times, I’ve never spent an inordinate amount of time here. A few day trips for shopping or dinners where I played hostess at Finnan’s business meetings are the sum total of my experience.
Now my whole existence is reduced to a two-hundred-square-foot bedroom in a club in Hell’s Kitchen. My lips twitch at the appropriate location name. Unlike the house in Connecticut, I don’t have security guards shadowing my every move, but I’m even more of a prisoner here than I was there.
I woke up half an hour ago, alone in bed. The only indication of Axel’s presence was his scent lingering on the sheets. However, what he didn’t imprint on the outside is very much branded on the inside. I can’t move or take a breath without his possession registering, without the ache his cock left in my pussy making its presence felt. He’s not in the room with me and I’m still claimed.
The door opens behind me and, as if conjured up from my thoughts, my jailor enters.
His dark hair is damp and finger combed, the black T-shirt and pants now replaced with stone-washed chinos and a dove-gray T-shirt. I catch a tantalizing glimpse of the tattoos gracing his body.
His eyes zero in on me with unnerving intensity and intent. Even before he’s halfway across the room, my belly begins to quiver.
My fingers convulse on the corners of the sheet and half-baked words of greeting wither and die on my tongue.
Good morning?
There’s nothing remotely good about what’s happening here.
How are you?
The vibes bouncing off his body are all the evidence I need.
He’s in no mood for pleasantries either because, the moment he reaches me, he yanks the sheet from my body. My naked back meets the cool glass and I gasp.
His mouth devours the sound, his tongue licking deep into my mouth as he conquers what he’s already claimed. The kiss is hot, dominating. Unapologetic and sizzlingly arousing.
The swollen tissue between my legs begins throbbing anew. Large hands slide down my shoulders and my sides to rest beneath my breasts. The sensation of them there fries my mind. A whimper escapes me before I can stop it. He eats that too, his hungry growls telling me each sound I make turns him on harder.
“Touch me,” he breathes against my mouth, the command no less potent for being low voiced.
My hands, shamefully eager, slide beneath his T-shirt. Hot, muscle-tight skin greets my fingers as his hard abs ripple to my touch. I caress higher, over mouth-watering ridges to his pecs. When my fingers brush his flat nipples, I pause. Drag my nails over the tiny bumps. A full-body jerk before he’s pressing his engorged erection into the cradle of my hips. Craving more of that reaction, I repeat it.
A feral sound rips from his throat. His hands slide up to capture my breasts, his thumbs mercilessly delivering double the exquisite torture. Hot arrows of need lance my sex, and my knees weaken.
Axel presses his lower body deeper into me, supporting my weight with one leg between mine. The rough material of his pants grazes my ultra-sensitive clit, and I cry out.
“Fuck. Cleo…fuck.”
The words aren’t charged like his vulgar ones were last night. They’re solemn, a little bewildered. Like a prayer. For what, I don’t know.
His head drops to capture one nipple in his mouth, and my thoughts shatter. Hot, wet, hungry, his teeth and tongue ravage one peak then the other, his movements growing frenzied until he pushes the globes together and slides his broad tongue over both at once. He suckles until they’re red and throbbing and ravenous. Then he takes my mouth again, his hands back to cupping and squeezing my breasts.
My hips pump his thigh, the hunger tearing through me needing satisfaction. My wetness soaks through, rendering the material coarser. Delivering more friction. “Oh!”
“Fucking hell, you’re like the headiest addiction,�
� he groans furiously against my mouth before he wrenches away. The brutal denial has my nails sinking into his waist before I register my action.
A hiss rips from his throat. He stares down at me with a touch of the bewilderment I heard in his voice moments ago. His gaze moves lower to my mouth. My breasts. The uncontrollable roll of my hip against his leg.
Lurching forward, he captures my nape and delivers another punishing kiss. “Christ, I have to fuck you. Need to.” He releases me just as abruptly. One hand squeezes his cock, while the other one attacks his belt. The second he lowers the zipper he draws my hand to wrap around his steely length.
Dear heaven. His velvet thickness is a live, potent tool. Promising everything. Including temporary oblivion from fear and despair. I can’t resist the urge to caress him from root to tip, enjoying the power of him.
Dragging his pants down, he pushes me back.
The cold glass reminds me where I am. “Axel, the…the window—”
“No one can see inside,” he rasps, his voice edged in rough arousal and resolute ice. “And I wouldn’t care if they could.”
My breath hitches. The thought of people watching. Of seeing what he’s doing to me. How he commands my body. When the thought doesn’t immediately fill me with horror, another shudder rakes me. He lifts his gaze from the breast he’s fondling, and a smile twitches his lips.
“That turns you on, doesn’t it, my little exhibitionist?”
I shake my head. “No.”
His eyes harden. “Liar. I should punish you for that. Maybe I’ll take you downstairs tonight, fuck you in the lobby, in front of everyone,” he muses cruelly.
“No!”
Rough hands yank me around, and my front is pressed into the glass. Cold meets heat meets the towering presence at my back, and my brain ceases to function.
His fingers slide through my folds, testing and finding my wetness for himself before he grasps my waist. With a guttural grunt, he plows into me, his cock hitting my end in one burning thrust.
My fingers claw at the windowsill as my feet leave the ground. “Axel!”
