His lips crush over mine, and my defenses break.
I’m so incredibly lost in the moment, in him.
Or maybe, I’ve finally been found.
Chapter Twenty-Two
NINE
“So, what it is you wanted to show me?” Lenny asks, “You said there was one more thing you wanted to show me tonight.” She’s looking up at me with a smile that could power any rocket. I instantly regret suggesting we get dressed.
“You’ll see. Any second now,” I tell her. “Come here. The view will be even better than from the festival.”
“The view of what?” she asks.
“You will see. Patience, little bird.”
I sit and pat the space on the sand beside me. She plops down next to me, and I pull my flask from my pocket, handing it to her. She takes a gulp and grimaces before handing it back to me.
We’re silent for a few moments. The only sound comes from the music and the occasional burst of loud laughter from the festival in the distance, the rustling of the breeze in the mangroves, and the quiet lapping of the small waves on the shore.
“Have you ever been surrounded by people, or in the middle of a crowd somewhere, and still feel completely and utterly alone?” she asks, staring off across the water at the lights from the festival. I don’t know if it’s a rhetorical question or if she’s asking the universe, but I answer anyway.
“Yeah, I have, actually.”
“You have?” She sounds surprised.
I laugh. “Only for I’d say…all of my childhood.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. No point on dwelling on the past. It’s not something that can be fixed. Besides, it brought me here. To my brother. My friends. You. I can’t say certain shit don’t make me angry when I think about it, but a life worth living doesn’t come without trials. It’s what makes us who we are.”
She presses into me and rests her head on my shoulder. “I like the way you see things. I wish I could look at the past and just let it go. Instead, I’m playing back every minute of the last few years, wishing I could go back and change just about everything,” she admits.
I feel a sudden pang of jealousy. “Why, do you want to go back and change things? So, Jared won’t leave?”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, god no! I wasn’t talking about him. If I had to change anything when it comes to him, it would be to avoid the night we met all together. That relationship was a disaster, but I was too inside my own head to see everything that was going on right in front of me. I think I was just so lonely that I was grasping at anyone and anything, and I just let things progress without thinking about how miserable I was.” Her eyes meet mine. “Never again, though. My eyes are wide open now.”
I don’t even realize I’ve been clenching my fists until my muscles relax and my palms sting with the pressure of my nails biting into my skin. “Then, what would you change?” I ask.
Her eyes gloss over. “My parents. I’d fix things so that they never got on that plane.”
Suddenly, I feel like a dick for being jealous about dead Jared when she was only thinking about her parents.
She continues, “So they wouldn’t die and leave me all alone. They were really great. They would have really liked you.”
“I doubt that,” I say.
She narrows her eyes at me. “My parents were really open minded, and they weren’t the kind of people who said that they just wanted their kid to be happy but didn’t really mean it. My parents meant it. They would’ve done anything for me or because of me. When they died, I was alone for the first time in my life. No other family and only one real friend who was off at nursing school at the time. Even when I was with Jared, I was still alone. I never let anyone in after they passed. Not Jared. Not Yuli. No one. It’s like I couldn’t replace them so why try.” Her eyes shift from her hands and lock onto mine. She sniffles and looks to the stars.
I see a flash in the distance. “Keep looking in that direction,” I tell her, pointing toward the horizon.
“I don’t see anything,” she says, looking at nothing but the vast open water.
“Any second now,” I say into her hair.
“What exactly am I looking for?” Her answer comes in the form of a bright blast of light on the horizon, rising quickly into the sky. “Wait, why is that star…is that the space shuttle launch?” Her eyes go wide with her excitement.
“It is.”
We watch it take off into the night. White clouds painting a trail behind the shuttle as it rises further and further into the sky before disappearing from sight.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. The text I read instantly shatters what little peace I feel.
PREPPY: Tico Ricci put a price on Lenny’s head. 200K alive.
Three bubbles appear as he types out the next text. The second I read it, I want to crush my phone in my hand.
PREPPY: 100K dead.
* * *
LENNY
Nine checks something on his phone, then angrily shoves it back into his pocket. The mood changes. His body stiffens.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, as he stands, his belt undone and his jeans open at the front. He walks toward the water, tugging on his hair and pacing from side to side.
“Nine, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
“I thought I could protect you.” He laughs as if the idea itself is ridiculous.
“You still never told me why you’re trying to protect me,” I say, trying to understand why now of all times he’s chosen to bring this up. “What’s changed just now? Why are you so upset?”
“Because I can’t lose you again!” he roars, turning his face up toward the night sky and holding his arms out with clenched fists as if cursing the stars.
I can’t lose you again! I repeat his words in my mind.
I stand to face him. “What do you mean by again?”
His back is to me. He’s looking out over the water. He speaks, but doesn’t answer my question. “There are men after you who won’t hesitate to hurt you. I can’t let that happen. I won’t.”
“But what did you mean when you said you can’t lose me again?” My heart is beating so erratically it’s sputtering out of control in my chest. My palms sweat. My throat is dry.
He stares out over the water silently with his back to me.
“Tell me! When did you lose me before?” I shout, standing directly behind him.
“Come on. I’ll show you.” He grabs my hand and we silently make our way back through the fairgrounds to his truck.
The ride is silent. Whatever we shared on the beach is still there, but instead of crackling heat, it’s a cloudy fog, lingering around us.
We’re crossing the causeway, and I’m just about to ask where the Hell he’s taking me when he parks the truck in the bike lane and gets out, leaving the engine running.
I follow him over to the railing. A sense of déjà vu washes over me brought on by the salty night air. The breeze at my neck. The memories of the last time I was here. I’m shaking by the time I approach him.
Nine begins to speak. “The second I saw you walk into Pike’s Pawn shop I felt…” He shakes his head and blows out a long breath. “No, I feel this overwhelming need to protect you. At first, I didn’t know why. I thought it might be because I’m insanely attracted to you. I wrote it off as lust, but deep down, I knew it was more. Even in the alley, I wanted to kiss you more than I’ve ever wanted anything before.” He slowly turns around to face me. His gaze hardens. He clenches his fists. “More than I wanted to kill those men for hurting you. I couldn’t save you that first night, but you saved me.”
“That night?” He’s offering no clarity, just more questions, just more confusion.
“That night I couldn’t save you was the night we met. The last time we were up here together.” His eyes seek mine. “Four years ago.”
Four years ago, I wasn’t with Nine. I was with…
It’s impossible. It can’t be.
I can hear the blood racing in my ears as the truth begins to unravel in my mind. “Why are we here right now?” I need to hear him say it. That I’m wrong. That he can’t possibly be who I think he is right now. “On this bridge? Standing in this very spot?” I’m yelling now. Frustrated. Confused. “Why, damnit!”
For a moment, I think he’s going to yell back, but his words are gentle. “Deep in the earth, my love is lying, and I must weep alone.”
“That’s…Edgar Allan Poe,” I whisper.
“The one and only. And now, I understand why you like to quote him so much. Because your name is Lenore, from his poem, The Raven.” His hazel eyes light up the night as they search my face, looking for something. Waiting for me to understand.
Suddenly, it’s not just Nine I see standing there. It’s the boy from the bridge. The one I’ve thought about every single day for four years, and he’s standing here right in front of me.
And I’m in love with him.
“It can’t be you.” But, I already know the truth.
He reaches for the bottom of his shirt and pulls it over his head.
“Why are you…” I stop and pause, not because of his chiseled abs or the v-muscles that travel down into his low jeans or even his expansive and muscular chest, but because I realize what he’s trying to show me. Proof. Proof in the form of a large, black bird tattoo inked across his chest that gleams with sweat under the bridge light above. The bird’s wings are spread, its feathers reaching all the way to the top of his shoulders. The rubies in its eyes made to look as if they’re sparkling. It’s not just a black bird. It’s a raven.
My raven.
“It’s the one from my mother’s pendant. The one I lost before I…” Suddenly, I can’t breathe. I start rambling. The truth is right in front of me, but I’m having a hard time grasping it because it keeps slipping through my fingers. “I mean, lots of people have bird tattoos.”
Nine reaches inside his pocket. “But do lots of people have bird tattoos that look exactly like this?” He holds out his hand, releasing the pendant while holding onto the chain.
The raven swings from side to side before my eyes like a hypnotist’s charm. It’s ruby red eyes glint as they reflect the light from the bridge overhead.
Nine grabs my wrist and turns it so that my palm is open and flat. He drops my necklace into my hand. I quickly close my fingers around it as if it’s going to fly off into the humid night air.
Nine’s voice is low and strained. “The cops told me there was no chance that you survived the fall. That no one ever had before. And now…and now you’re here. Right in front of me. I couldn’t believe it at first either, when I saw that picture of you and your parents at your house. I still can’t fucking believe it. All these years later.”
I’m at a loss for words. I have so many questions, but I don’t ask any of them. I don’t even have control of my own faculties because I can't stop myself from stepping forward and running my fingertips across the tattoo on his chest, as if I’m checking to make sure that what I’m seeing is real.
Nine lets out a low hiss at the contact. His chest muscles flex under my touch.
The tattoo is real, the pendant in my hand real, and so is the man whose skin it’s marked into. Real and…him. Nine is the teenage boy from the bridge, but he’s no longer a boy. He’s very much a grown man in every way.
I look up into his hazel eyes as if I’m seeing him for the very first time. My voice is an almost inaudible whisper. “It’s…it’s you.”
He closes his hand over mine, which is still on his chest, feeling the pounding of his heart beneath my palm.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
He smooths his thumb over my cheek and lips. “I couldn’t. If I told you the truth, that meant I’d have to admit it to myself, but I couldn’t keep away from you. I tried, but I just can’t. Just like I can’t stop touching you. Kissing you.” He brushes his lips over mine. “Loving you.”
I open my eyes, blinking away the tears. I’m so overwhelmed that I have no clue what to say. What comes out is a strangled laugh and a single word. “Hi.”
He holds my face now with both hands, searching my eyes. His grin widens. I realize I’m trembling, but it’s nothing compared to the earthquake-like impact of his next words.
“Hello, Poe.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
LENNY
I want to be mad that he’s kept this secret from me, and part of me is mad. But the other part of me is so happy to have found him again and so filled with desire and lust for him that the anger gets filed under my TO BE DEALT WITH LATER category, and I concentrate on the beautiful man standing naked behind me in the bedroom of the RV.
Nine pushes between my shoulder blades, and I fall forward onto the bed. He lifts my hips so that I’m on my knees. My back arched, with my ass in the air, my chest pressed into the mattress. I feel the weight of the bed dip as he climbs behind me, spreading my legs with his knee. “So, fucking beautiful,” he says, his voice raspy. He grabs a handful of my ass and roughly squeezes. I moan and arch my back more, needing to feel more of him. All of him. He chuckles, “Patience, little bird. I know what you need.”
He runs his rough palms up my back, climbing over me until his heated hard chest is flush against my back. His lips at my ear. “And I’m going to give it to you.”
His teeth nip my earlobe, and I gasp at the pleasure. One hand circles my neck, holding my throat, the other snakes underneath my belly, lower and lower until two fingers are stroking each side of my clit, teasing me.
He lowers his hips along with his impossibly large, throbbing cock. I see stars as his thick shaft contacts my swollen and ready folds. He glides himself through my wetness. Over and over again, he teases me until the pressure is so great I’m sure I’m going to break long before he’s ever inside of me.
The hand on my throat glides down to my breast. He palms the weight of it in his hand, and his breath on the back of my neck quickens. I arch again as he circles my sensitive nipple. I’m seeing stars behind my eyes, and I’m lost in a place where only pleasure and Nine exist, and I want to stay here forever.
His hips thrust harder, faster, his cock teasing my entrance. He pulls back, and the tip dips inside where I need him most. He’s stretching me open once again, but this time, it’s a delicious kind of stretching that I welcome and want more of.
“I’m going to make you come so fucking hard. I’m going to ruin you,” Nine says.
“Yes,” I moan, not caring if his words are a promise or a threat or both. My body relaxes, and it doesn’t matter if he’s going to ruin me. I just want him inside of me.
As if hearing my thoughts, his hips press forward, and his thick cock surges inside of me. “Spread your legs. More,” he commands roughly. He kisses and licks my neck and spreads his legs, pushing mine further apart. I spread for him as wide as I can and he pushes in deeper and deeper until he’s fully seated inside of me, and I can feel his hips against my ass. “Fuck, you feel incredible. Let me in.”
He can’t be talking about letting him into my body. He’s already in so deep I’m pulsing and contracting around his length, grabbing at him with body and soul.
He stills. “Let me in,” he repeats, a whisper in my ear.
I realize that he’s not asking to let him into my body.
He’s asking me to let him into my heart.
Tears sting the back of my eyes. I nod. “You’re in. You’re everywhere. I’m yours,” I moan.
He pulls out from me suddenly and flips me over, surging back in without hesitation. His lips claim mine as he thrusts hard and deep, holding onto the back of my neck, keeping our lips pressed together, connected.
The pleasure mounts with each pull and push. I raise my hips, needing more of him, and giving him all of me. My body. My heart. My soul.
He lifts me off the bed and sits me on top of him. He roughly grabs my hips and lifts me up and down his shaft, building a quick rhythm tha
t has me grinding on him with each pull. His tongue sucks my nipple as his fingers dig into my hips.
The pressure is so great now I know I’m about to fall apart. “Come all over my cock, little bird. Let me feel you.”
With a few more hard thrusts, the pressure turns into an all-out explosion that starts with a tingling sensation that rises from my core to my nipples and the rest of my body. It feels as if I’m burning, like I’m on fire or I’ve been electrocuted, but suddenly, the feeling bursts apart into the most violent of pleasure I’ve ever experienced. I’m consumed by the feeling. Immersed in it.
Nine flips me onto my back again, and fucks me hard fast and forceful. His cock hardens and swells. “Fuck,” he swears on a final strangled groan, releasing his warmth inside of me. My own orgasm, having not yet faded, surges back to life with a new intensity that has me digging my heels into his ass, my nails into his back, and holding on.
For my life.
And for his.
Forevermore.
Chapter Twenty-Four
NINE
After Lenny falls asleep, I don’t want to leave her, but I can’t get the text out of my mind, and I need to try to reach Tico again before it’s too late and someone decides to take him up on the bounty he’s placed on Lenny’s head. I pull on a pair of jeans and grab my phone, stepping outside the RV barefoot so I don’t wake Lenny.
I’m scrolling through my contacts, trying to figure out another way to get to Tico when a sudden burst of blinding pain shoots through my entire body and the world goes completely black.
My head is fucking throbbing. It’s still dark. There’s some sort of course bag over my head that’s about as soft as sandpaper. My hands are bound.
Nine, the Tale of Kevin Clearwater Page 20
