When she greeted him at the door, his expression looked a little dull, and she wondered what had happened. Before she grilled him about the arrangements they’d made and the exchange of her jewelry, she wanted to show him how much she missed him and how happy she was he’d returned.
“Kelli…” Carson started, but she cut him off. She didn’t know when she’d been this happy to see another person in her whole life.
“We can talk about what happened later, but now I want to tell you what I was thinking about when you were gone.” She noticed that he wasn’t acting normally, but sometimes when you were around criminals and criminal activity it shut your emotions down. That’s what always happened to her, so she just moved forward with what had been on her mind since he’d left.
“I need to tell you what happened in there,” he grabbed both of her hands and stared into her face.
“We’ll talk afterwards. When you left, I was so terrified that I’d never see you again. I wanted so badly to lay in your arms and have you kiss me. When you left, I wanted to call you back and tell you to just forget about it. Let them search for me. That’s crazy right?” She took his keys and threw them on the counter before helping him with his jacket. He seemed like he was just moving along like a robot allowing her to do whatever she wanted with him.
Carson looked almost pained, and she wanted to take all that away from him. He’d done so much for her and her happiness it would only be proper to help him when he was not as perky as she’d like him to be.
“Can I have you? Is this body mine to play with as I see fit?” She didn’t know where these words were coming from, but she liked that there was a small spark in his eye as she said them. Flirting and teasing were her stomping ground, and sometimes she went to it when she was feeling anxious. Working out her stress on Carson was something she would hopefully be able to do for a good long while.
“You can always have me to play with, but I still think we should talk before getting into anything else. There are some things that I want to say before we do anything else.” He put his hand in her hair, and she loved it like she always did. It made her feel like a treasured pet, not that she would admit to anyone that she adored being stroked and loved upon this way.
“Shhhh…” she hushed as she took off his shirt and kissed up his chest. This is what he liked. She liked to be petted, and he liked to be stroked and kissed. Should she be happy that she knew that? Kelli knew that she enjoyed finding out what worked for him, and it was payback because he knew how to hit all her hot buttons.
“Kelli, please,” he whispered, and she figured he needed her more than he was willing to admit. She sat him on the couch as she stripped off her clothes slowly, and as each piece fell from her body, she could see that he relaxed just a touch more.
She had on only her pink lace panties, and now that she had him under her spell, she would have to admit that she’d put on this particular pair because she knew he liked them. Walking to the steps, she waited for a second to amp up the anticipation. “Are you coming?”
He inhaled a long deep breath and released it on a sigh, but he got up and followed her up the stairs until she stopped mid stairway and turned around.
“I want you to know what I was thinking when you left. I was sorry that there was no evidence that you’d ever touched my body. No love bites, no hand prints from your taps on my ass or around my wrists when you held my hands above my head… I wanted that. I want to know that you were here and now that you’re back, I want you to give that to me.” She looked into his eyes and wanted to see more than what she was seeing. He had held her when he thought she’d needed it and how she was going to return the favor.
He stood there looking as dazed as he did when he opened the front door, but there was a little understanding that went with the expression. “You want me to fuck you on the stairs?” He asked with his face scrunched up in a puzzled look.
“I want you to fuck me any and everywhere in this house. I want love bites and hand prints. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted to be marked. Have the world know that something had changed and there is someone special claiming my body.” It felt like she was rambling, and he just looked confused by either what she was saying or how she was acting, but he didn’t stop her.
“Turn around.” His gruff voice still didn’t sound like the man she’d damned near fell in love with, but it was sexy none the less. It was almost like he was a stranger, and that little piece of pretend gave her a bit of a thrill.
“Whatever you say.” She turned around and heard his zipper right before the woosh of his jeans heavy with his belt hit the floor.
“Bend over, Kelli.”
She did so happily wondering what was in the air that was causing this level of excitement to cause goose bumps on her skin and her hair to raise. He entered her quickly, and she almost climaxed on the spot. She’d been ready since he’d left, but she tried to hold it back so he wouldn’t stop so soon. This decadently sexy feeling of being in front of a massive window where they could potentially be seen was one of the items on her sexual bucket list.
The darkness outside made the large window look like her mirrors at home, and she almost felt comforted. She could see Carson in his power thrusting mode and lost it. Doubling over the rail, her body convulsed and shook with pleasure, but Carson still went full throttle. She tried to press her back to his chest to make her entrance tighter around the powerful tool that was hammering away at her. He grabbed the back of her hair and moved her head to the side exposing her neck before he ravaged the area with his mouth.
“Yessss!” She screamed as her body tightened up again and the small ripples of pleasure made her push her ass back to Carson like a wild cat in heat.
He let go of her hair and brought his hand down to squeeze her breast and pull her nipple. This is what she loved about him… his ability to turn her on and bring her to the edge of madness. His grunts got louder and more animalistic. This was a man out of control, and she reveled in this moment. It was like this was what she was after the whole time. He was with her in his passion 1000 percent.
He was silent after his loud climax, and he withdrew from her body. She turned around hoping to see that his face was less intense than it was when they started, but if anything he was worse.
She put her hands on his face and pulled him down for a kiss. Maybe she should have been more receptive to his needs. It was true that she wanted to be sexed up rough and hard, but she’d totally misread his mood, or maybe it was just that she was too focused on herself.
“What’s the matter, Carson?” It was like a cloud had disappeared, and she saw Carson for how he really was. He wasn’t robotic; he was sullen. Something had happened, and she knew he had been trying to tell her something, but she wanted what she wanted first. How selfish and when she had been telling herself she was doing it for him… that made her doubly selfish.
When he looked up at her, she knew he was going to tell her something horrible. She backed up, and she could barely breathe.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this…” He started talking, but she didn’t want to hear it.
Walking up the stairs it seemed like she was in a dream. She didn’t want to hear it, but she knew she was going to have to. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought it was. She wanted to be the calm intelligent person that she prided herself on, and she did something that her father would do. Walk away from what was the truth? No.
She got to the bedroom, sat on the couch, and waited for Carson to come into the room. He was going to come in there, of that, she had no doubt, but would she be crazy out of her mind by then? Maybe.
He entered the room slowly, and he’d picked up her clothes and put his pants back on. Did he think having his chest out was going to soften the blow? She hoped he didn’t think she was that shallow.
“I’m ready to listen, Carson. What happened?”
“I got to the warehouse ready to give your cousin the bracelet he requested when a guy
named Crowbar—”
“Who the hell is that?” She couldn’t help but interrupt.
“He’s the guy they sent as a backup when my company didn’t think I was doing my job fast enough.”
Carson was looking into her eyes, and she knew that he wanted her to believe what he was saying.
“Then what, Carson, I am trying to hold it together, but I can’t pull this shit out of you. Open your fucking mouth and tell me what happened.” It felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room, but she kept trying to control her breathing so she could remain in control and not lose herself. She prayed that he was not going to tell her anything too crazy.
“Crowbar found me because they have a tracker on my motorcycle that I didn’t know about, and after a few words…” He looked like he wanted to stop there, and she realized that she was so tense that her jaw was clenched. She tried to relax herself, but it just wasn’t working.
“What!!!! Damn it!” She stood up, and he stood with her. He gathered her in his arms and took a deep breath with his face against her hair.
“Argo’s gone.” He said it so softly she wondered if she heard him wrong or maybe he meant something else. Something other than what she was thinking.
“Gone?”
“Argo and Crowbar shot each other, and they’re both dead.” He pulled away from her and looked her in the eye.
She pushed him so hard he fell back on the chair. “You killed Argo?” It sounded like there was an ocean in her ears, and she could only see his mouth moving, but she knew that life as she knew it had changed. She had to get away from him, but she didn’t know where to go. Time to think… that’s what she needed but the way he was following her talking she didn’t think she was going to have that time. Zeroing in on the bathroom, she went in and slammed the door locking it.
The beautiful bathroom was something that she raved about in her mind every time she entered, but it all seemed dull and drab now. The Jacuzzi sized tub was empty and looked like a good place to sit and think. She pulled her knees into her chest and tried not to come apart. How could she not have known that Argo was dead? There should have been something in the atmosphere that would have changed that would have alerted her that something so deeply meaningful to her was gone. GONE.
Her Argo was gone. She had three younger brothers, and they were great but no one looked out for her like Argo. There were times she knew that he didn’t understand her or the way she hated violence, the way she tried to avoid her family and the tales she told so no one would know who she was, but he loved her anyway… protected her anyway. He was the one constant that she could count on in her life, and now he was gone. It felt like the moon should have stopped shining and the stars should have shut off. Nothing was right… nothing and the guy she’d been sleeping with and giving her heart and soul to had taken him from her.
She heard the knock on the door, and she didn’t know how she would ever face him again. Violence beget violence, and she never understood why… until now. Her father would be proud of the hatred and brimstone that seemed to be bubbling in her veins. She didn’t know what she should do, but getting away from this love haven she’d set up with the devil would have to be the first thing she changed.
There was a phone in the bathroom, and she knew it was a secure line. To think she thought it was humorous when they described this feature to her. Who the hell needed a phone with private access in the damn bathroom? Who needed it? She did… right now.
Chapter Fourteen
Carson didn’t know what to do. He knew she would be livid. Just like he knew she was going to think he had killed Argo himself. Once she heard her cousin was dead, it was like a switch went off, and he didn’t think she even heard anything after that. She made this noise that sounded like she was screaming inside her mouth, and there was nothing he wanted to do more in that moment than to comfort her, but she wouldn’t stay still long enough for him to catch up with her.
When she locked herself inside the bathroom, he didn’t know what she was planning to do. The screaming that she was muffling in her mouth turned into full blown screams and crying a few minutes after she closed the door. He didn’t think she’d hurt herself, but the thought did cross his mind. In the time that he’d known her, he’d learned how special Argo was to her and sometimes he would cringe just thinking that he was going to end the man’s life for a job. Death happened. Sometimes to the most deserving people, but when you did it for hire, you didn’t even have a problem with the person. It was just business. Before now that was just fine by him, but now he didn’t know how he felt about it.
Sitting by the door of the bathroom made him feel helpless. He’d knocked a few times when she got quiet and told her if she didn’t say anything he was going to call the police. Both times she threw something at the door. At least she was okay even if she apparently wasn’t talking to him.
After a few hours the door opened, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to be good or bad, but when he finally saw her face he knew the end result wasn’t going to be the one he was hoping for.
“I’ve called my father’s people, and they are coming to pick me up.” She didn’t even look him in the face as she said it. It was like she was a robot, and all her emotions were shut down. He understood that, but he wished she would just hear him out.
“How long until they’re here?” He took a step toward her, and she moved around him to start loading up all her items.
“They should be here shortly so I don’t think you should stay. If they know what happened, and I know that they do, this night will be your last.”
“I was trying to explain myself when you went into the bathroom, but I don’t think you could hear me. My side of this story has to be told. I don’t care what your family thinks or what my company thinks, but I want you to know the truth.”
She was normally a methodical neat freak who liked everything in its place, but now she was throwing things into bags randomly. He moved to sit next to the suitcase where she was tossing everything when she suddenly stopped.
“I don’t really care about your truth because the truth won’t bring my Argo back. You and the people you set yourself up with killed off one of the best human beings I’ve ever known. I can’t even look at you without knowing that if you didn’t enter my life, I may have my cousin back. All my life I’ve tried to live a nonviolent and normal life because I didn’t understand how people could want to harm other people.” She stopped to look up at him finally, but when she did he wished she hadn’t. There was a fierce disgust in her face, and it was like he was a child again back in foster care. She wished he was never born just like everyone else he’d ever run across that he took time to know.
“I know that, Kelli,” he said quietly because he knew that hurt people… hurt other people, and he was definitely the target for her wrath.
“But did you know that you’ve helped me understand it all. My father and his boys, my cousin and his underlings… they all have rage. It burns inside of them leaving a path that desires to be filled with ugly things… like revenge, destruction, and hate. I feel that now… I understand that now, and I’m praying that it won’t over take me. I want you dead… in this moment if I had a gun, there wouldn’t have been a question that you would have taken your last breath on the same night as your victim.”
She looked so sad as she explained her feelings to him, and he’d never heard it put that way. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what she was talking about. He lived his life with that feeling, and until he met her, he didn’t know how it felt to be without the monster that lived within him. That thing that made him want to fight, destroy, and fuck anything and everything that had a wet pussy and was willing. Kelli soothed that beast in him, but in turn he made her take on the ugly dragon that ruled his world. He’d destroyed her, and just like he couldn’t bring Argo back, he wasn’t going to be able to fix the fury that beat within her heart.
“I won’t stoop to your level, but I want you out of my li
fe. I want you out of my sight and I’m giving you this one last reprieve. Leave before my family gets here. This is the only way I’m going to believe that this night hasn’t made me into the death machine that you are.” She turned back to her suitcase where she finished throwing her clothes and items in with haste.
“Kelli?” He didn’t even know what he could say to her, but he didn’t want to leave it like this.
“Don’t make me sorry I didn’t let my family clear up this mess. I want to be a decent human being… that’s all I ever wanted. Even though I came from shitty stock, I thought that I could make a good defense for nature over nurture and be the rose that broke through the garbage to bloom and be fruitful, but I can see that science is right and the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’m shit too. Thanks for helping me find that out. I probably should be grateful, but I just am not.”
He stood there for a few more minutes hoping that something brilliant that would make her see that she was wrong about herself. She was one of the best women he’d ever met who always saw the best of everyone. She didn’t look like she was going to be believing anything he had to say. Was it odd that she’d want to be away from him? No, but he’d hoped she’d sleep on it and be able to hear his side of things first thing in the morning. This would probably be the last time he saw her, and he was pissed about that, but things happened, and he knew that it didn’t matter how he felt about things. If someone didn’t want you around, they were going to make sure you knew about it.
CARSON_Satan’s Ravens MC Page 14
