Dangerous Lovers

by Becca Vincenza

  See, this is what happens when a guy tries to talk.

  It backfires.

  “I should have known you were crazy enough to twist what I said into something romantic.”

  “Ahh, now you try the insults,” she said, a smile creeping into her voice.

  “If I was insulting you, you would feel insulted,” I muttered.

  “Hmmm,” she said, taking a step toward me.

  “I’m not trying to pull you closer.”

  She took another step and another. “What if I want to be closer?”

  “Didn’t you hear anything I just said?”

  “I heard.” She stopped directly in front of me, tipped her chin back, and looked up. “So you do this noble thing, you stay away from me, and you ‘save my life’ by not being with me.”

  She hooked her fingers in the belt loops on the front of my jeans and tugged, bringing me that much closer. “But what about you?”

  “Me?” How was I supposed to think with her hands in such close proximity to the fly of my jeans?

  She made a sound of agreement and released my belt loops, but instead of pulling back, she ran her hands along my sides and across my lower back.

  It was the first time she ever touched me… well, touched me first. Usually she didn’t touch me until my lips were devouring hers. Most of the blood flow left my brain and all rushed downward… into my jeans. I knew once the brain downstairs took over, I wouldn’t be leaving this room. It took everything in me to reach around and pull her hands away, to gently return them to her sides.

  I didn’t look back as I left the room because if I had, I wouldn’t have left it at all.

  It occurred me then the reason I spent so much time doing the wrong thing was because doing the right thing was too damn hard.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Butterfly - any of various insects of the order Lepidoptera, characteristically having slender bodies, knobbed antennae, and four broad, usually colorful wings.”

  Frankie

  I couldn’t sleep. I felt restless and hot, like someone left the oven door open in the house on a hot day. I gave up on the bed and left my room, wandering down the hall and stopping at Charming’s door. It was open and a small lamp beside the bed showed me he wasn’t in bed either.

  The past two days had been like a rollercoaster ride. And the things he said, the words he whispered… it was official. He was it for me. That was the only thing I knew for sure right now. Well, that and I wanted him. Badly.

  I wandered through the house, not finding him in the places I thought he would be. So I went down the stairs toward a part of the house I hadn’t seen yet. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I knew he was down there. The sound of his heavy breathing and swift movements beckoned me onward until I was standing in the open door of the most impressive home gym I’d ever seen.

  It was huge. But it would have to be because sitting in the center of the all-white room was a full-sized boxing ring.

  Charming was in the center of the ring, going through movements that up until now I had only watched on TV.

  I stood in the doorway a long time. Watching him move was mesmerizing. His body was so fluid, so strong. It’s like he was exactly sure about every punch and jab he made. His skin glistened with the sheen of sweat and his usually perfect hair was ruffled and damp around his ears and forehead. The gloves on his hands were big. They looked heavy, but somehow strapped onto the ends of his arms, they seemed small.

  He was in his element; that much was clear. The breath that whooshed and wheezed out of him as he practically danced around the ring created an odd sort of cadence that was like music as I stared.

  I felt like a voyeur, like someone seeing something they weren’t meant to see… Yet the idea of turning away, of leaving him to his privacy, was more than I could bear.

  I needed to see him like this. I wanted to.

  The changes in him, the changes that started in L.A. and followed us here… I finally knew what exactly I was feeling. He was becoming human. Where he once seemed cold and shutdown, he now looked more alive than half the people I knew.

  Butterflies with razorblade wings.

  That’s how he made me feel. It was the feeling that plagued me since we had met, the feeling that took me so long to acknowledge and even longer to identify. It’s exactly what he did to me.

  Because the way I felt about him…

  It hurt, but like a butterfly, it was beautiful. He made me feel like I was walking on the edge of a cliff. Like at any moment the bottom could fall out of my stomach. At any moment, the cliff’s edge could tumble away and I would be left falling… plunging toward the unknown.

  The fluttering in my belly was never gentle. It was as if a million wings were in there beating, making me breathless, but then the wings would come into contact with me and slice me open. Being with him hurt. Being without him… I wasn’t sure, but I thought it might be worse.

  I noticed he was no longer moving. He was standing in the center of the ring, watching me.

  I pushed out of the doorframe, the heavy door swinging shut behind me and banging with an ominous finality.

  When I got closer, he grabbed the ropes around the ring and created an opening, holding them while I ducked inside, straightening to face him.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” I said, staring at his chest, following a rivulet of sweat that made a path all the way down his six-pack and disappeared beneath the thick waistband of the silver gym shorts hanging low on his hips.

  “Me either.”

  It wasn’t lost on me that the only thing separating me from him was the very flimsy fabric that made up those shorts.

  “I didn’t know you had a boxing ring,” I said, my voice going hoarse.

  “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

  I was beginning to understand that. There were so many layers to him. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever uncover them all.

  One of those butterfly wings nipped at my belly, causing a stinging sensation inside me.

  I wanted to uncover every single part of him.

  My eyes locked on his. Without looking away, I grabbed his arm, pulling the glove up between us. My fingers tugged on the string that kept the laces tight. It unraveled, loosening the hold the glove had on his hand. I brought my other hand up and gently, slowly yanked the glove off and dropped it onto the mat.

  He watched me, his eyes heavy, as a thick cloud of desire grew between us.

  I repeated the same process with his other hand until both of his hands were free. He reached for me, but I shook my head and laced my fingers through his. We stood there for a long time, hands clasped, staring at each other without saying a single word.

  Maybe I was waiting for my conscience. Maybe I was waiting for him to turn me away. Maybe I was drawing out the anticipation until everything inside me was pulled so taut that I was sure I would snap apart.

  None of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was the here, the now.

  I released his hands and reached out, laying my palm against his stomach. His muscles rippled beneath my touch and my skin instantly became slick with his perspiration.

  I stepped forward, done with waiting, and slid both my hands into the waistband of his shorts.

  “Frankie,” he rasped, his voice stilling my movements.

  Another one of those razorblades nicked me. If he turned me away right now, I would likely bleed to death. I raised my eyes, waiting for his decision.

  “My name…” he began. “My real name is Oliver.”

  Everything beneath my skin vibrated. I felt like I couldn’t stand still a second longer because all of the energy—all the emotion that was building inside me—was dying for release.

  “Olly,” I said, trying the name out on my tongue. I liked it.

  He must have liked it too because he made a sound in the back of his throat and nodded.

  The damn broke. Whatever thin barrier had lain between us until this point wa
s now completely broken. I pulled my hands up and leapt at him, jumping up and wrapping my legs around his waist.

  He caught me, stumbled back a bit, but the ropes were there to steady us as our lips finally met.

  I’d been kissed by many men in my life before I met him, but I couldn’t recall one of them now. It was like he was my first, my only.

  “Say it again,” he said as he trailed kisses down my neck.

  “Olly,” I purred and he sank to his knees.

  He pulled back, robbing me of his lips, robbing me of the sensation of them upon me. His green eyes were practically electrified; they were so intense.

  “Don’t ever stop calling me that. No one has called me that—” His words dropped away and he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Just don’t stop.”

  I don’t know why, but tears filled my eyes. I whispered his name again and he lowered me backward so I was sprawled out in the ring and he was on his knees between my thighs, staring down at me with lust in his eyes.

  He reached out, grasping the hem of my boxers, and yanked them down. I lifted my foot as he slid them off one leg and then I kicked them away, over beside his discarded gloves. I was still wearing a pair of white lace panties and a white tank top, but by the look on his face you would think I was completely exposed.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as perfect as you.”

  I sat up, my face directly in line with his hard abs, and I hooked my hands into his waistband and pulled.

  He wasn’t wearing any boxers.

  All the breath whooshed from my body and I was left with a dull buzzing sound in my head. He wanted me; that much was very clear.

  I looked up, expecting to see the Charming I always saw, the Charming with the arrogant grin, the gleam in his eye… but that man was gone.

  In his place was someone who was vulnerable, whose feelings were laid bare in his eyes and looked like he’d been alone far, far too long.

  No, I wasn’t seeing Charming. I was seeing the real man beneath the carefully built exterior. I was seeing Olly.

  “I want you,” I told him, reaching out my hand and grabbing the evidence of his want, wrapping my hand around it.

  He closed his eyes and swallowed.

  I leaned forward and placed my tongue at the base of his erection, licking upward like he was a giant lollipop that I couldn’t get enough of. He jerked and all his muscles went tense as I wrapped my lips around him, taking every ounce of him inside me that I could. His fingers dug into my shoulder and I smiled as I pulled back, using my teeth to gently rake upward, across the sensitive skin, before pulling away and looking up.

  He groaned my name and pushed me back, coming over me, fitting his body along mine. I wiggled, trying to get him even closer. He chuckled in my ear and pressed a kiss on the side of my neck.

  “Patience, love,” he murmured as his hand found the hem of my tank and traveled upward to cup the very sensitive flesh of my breast.

  I groaned and leaned up to kiss his shoulder.

  The next thing I knew, my tank was gone and the only thing between us was the lace panties I was starting to hate.

  His mouth made me forget, though, and his tongue was like a magician who did things to my skin that I didn’t know were possible. It danced across my cheekbone, trailed down my arm, and then he picked up my hand, bringing it to his lips where he pressed single kisses to each one of my fingers.

  When he was done with my hand, he placed it on my knee, lowering his lips to that sensitive skin just behind, and then nibbled all the way down. “Do you always wear panties that look like this?” he asked, glancing up from the inside of my thigh.

  I nodded. It was all I could manage.

  “Sexy,” he said and then licked right up my center, my swollen, damp flesh being teased by the snippets of his tongue that I felt through the lace.

  My back arched up off the floor and I groaned. I wasn’t sure how much more of his sweet torture I could take. He did it again, his fingertips playing with the edges of my panties, slipping just inside and then pulling back out and trailing down my thigh.

  Every part of my body began to tremble until I couldn’t even hold myself still. I lay there under his gaze, beneath his feather-light teasing touch, and did nothing but shake and thrust myself closer to him.

  He pulled up, placing an open palm on each knee, and spread my legs as wide as they would go, holding them there before lowering himself between me, pressing his very hard erection right at my core.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed him.

  “Olly,” I said, knowing it was exactly the right word to say to get what I wanted.

  He didn’t even pause to remove the lace. Instead, he pushed it aside and entered me.

  My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I’m pretty sure everything inside me splintered apart and then found its way back together again. All I could do was hold on. I wrapped my hands around his biceps and let sensation after sensation take me for a ride.

  The contrast of the lace against the smoothness of his flesh was almost my undoing. But what truly pushed me over the edge was when he stopped. He pulled back slightly and looked down. Dark hair fell into his eyes and his arms trembled slightly.

  I thought he might say something, but no words left his lips and then suddenly he pushed forward, filling me so deep that my eyes fluttered closed. He lowered himself so every inch of our bodies was in contact and he brought his lips to my ear.

  It was then he whispered.

  “I’ve been dead for so long that I forgot what it was like to live. I forgot what it was like to feel. Even still, I’m pretty sure nothing I had experienced was ever like this. You brought me back to life, Frankie. You make me want to live.”

  I whispered his name again, gripped his butt, and pulled him closer, pushing him as far inside me as he could possibly go. And then I ground myself down on him, grinding so deep that not even air could come between us. A low groan ripped from his throat as he hunched down over me, his body going stiff and convulsing over mine. All at once I felt like a firecracker went off inside me. Bright white pleasure burst in my center and spread out until my limbs were completely boneless and I collapsed against the floor, unable to move. I felt the beads of sweat slipping over my skin and I heard the rasping breaths he sucked in as he leveraged himself over me on shaking limbs, but beyond that I was completely senseless.

  I knew being with him would be incredible. My body never reacted to anyone like this ever before. But damn, I hadn’t known. I hadn’t known it was possible to get so completely lost in another person. For a moment there I wouldn’t have been able to tell where I ended and he began. It was amazing. And terrifying. Like it or not, Olly was now completely and utterly inside my heart.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Truth - a statement proven to be or accepted as true.”

  Charming

  My skin was tingling. My lungs expanded with air. I could feel the erratic beating of my heart against my ribs. I was lying on my back, collapsed on the mat, feeling things I hadn’t felt in so long, things I thought for sure I would never feel again.

  I turned my head to the side, looking at the person who started it all. Looking at the girl who practically dared me to live. Her blond hair was wild, her skin flushed, and every inch of her dangerously soft curves was exposed.

  Something inside me yawned.

  Something stretched and moved…

  I was waking up.

  Over ninety years of being dead—of being consumed by death… I was waking up.

  Nothing had done it before. Not money, not power, not killing or having no consequences for anything I did or took. Up until now, I was asleep; I was completely dead.

  But then Frankie came along. This woman who never shut up, annoyed the hell out of me, and ate way too much candy.

  I loved her.

  I loved her completely.

  And it was because of her I wanted more. I was tired of death. I wanted to
live.

  “You told me your name,” she said from beside me, her voice slipping into my thoughts and wrapping around my mind.

  I’m not quite sure what possessed me to tell her the one thing I guarded so close. I had many names over the years, more than I could count, more than I cared to remember. But only one had meant anything. The one I was born with. The one that my mother gave me, the one that someone truly wanted me to have. My name was the only connection I had left of my past, of my life. It was the only part of me that I thought I had left.

  I turned my head, looking over at her once more. She was watching me tentatively, almost warily… like she wasn’t sure what to expect. She probably wondered if I’d even told her the truth and now that we’d slept together, if I was going to morph back into the man I’d always been with her.

  I walked my fingers between the space between us, and her laugh was throaty as my fingers neared hers. Instead of linking them together, I wrapped my hand around her wrist and tugged, pulling her closer.

  She came willingly, fitting herself against my side and resting her cheek on my shoulder. The toes on her right foot found their way between my calves and I smiled up at the ceiling.

  “You’re the first person I’ve ever told my real name since I’ve been dead.”

  “How did you die?” she asked quietly.

  This was something I’d never told anyone either.

  “I was a boxer. I died in a dirty fight.”

  “Did it hurt?” she asked, sorrow lacing her voice.

  “I don’t really remember,” I lied, but I was tired of lying so I told her the truth. “Yeah, for a moment, but it didn’t hurt very long.”

  “And then what happened? He came for you?”

  He being the Grim Reaper.

  I nodded. The movement of my head caused a couple strands of her blond hair to stick in my stubble and tickle my chin. I reached up to untangle the silky strands and smooth my palm over them. “Next thing I knew I was in his office. Nothing but a cloud of red—basically just a soul—and he was offering me a job as an Escort.”