by Everly Lucas
Her eyes drop to below my belt, where my aching cock strains at my jeans. Her mouth pops open, her lips forming a round, pink O. Another invitation I’d accept in a heartbeat.
I nod at the object clutched in her right hand. “Need help with your glass slipper, Princess?”
With a huff, she plops her ass back on the wall, lifting her left leg and dropping her foot on the stone, apparently forgetting it’s not a normal, non-sprained foot. She cries out in pain, and her sandal crashes to the ground when she winces.
I scoop it up and resume my crouched position. “Face it, Kenny. I’m all you’ve got.”
I get no response for a full minute, which, in Erin-speak, means I’ve won. She just doesn’t want to admit it yet.
First, I feel a hand on my right shoulder, then her heat at my back. Her arms band around my neck, her legs parting until my body fits between them. When I hook my arms behind her knees and straighten, her thighs clamp tight to my sides.
“Where are you parked?” I ask.
“On Connaroe Street, up by Silverwood. Think you can handle hauling one hundred-plus pounds up that hill?”
“Baby, I could run a mile like this and not break a sweat,” I say, starting up the steep incline.
“Uh huh…” One of her fingertips touches my temple and swipes up. Then that finger appears in front of my face. “What’s this wet stuff, then?”
“We’re in a fucking heatwave, and I’m a man. Sweat happens.” Without thinking, I close my lips around the tip of her finger and suck, tasting the combined salt of my sweat and her skin.
Erin lets out a harsh breath that sounds a hell of a lot like “fuck,” before pulling her finger free of my mouth with a pop and wiping the wetness on the sleeve of my t-shirt. “You disgust me.”
Chuckling, I hike her up a little higher on my back, the move rubbing her breasts and hips on my muscles and spine. A second later, her hips press against me again, this time all on their own. I grin in triumph. “Try saying that like you mean it.”
“You. Disgust. Me.” She emphasizes each word, like she’s spelling it out for a child. I manage to speak a whole fraction of a syllable before she slaps her right hand over my mouth. Her left reaches down and swats the top of my ass. “Mush, doggy.”
This girl is gonna get it. Or she would, if I didn’t have to be at work in an hour. Instead, I behave, like a fully trained house pup. I take long, effortless strides up the hill until I reach a two-story row home with a black front door set in a red-brick exterior. Releasing one of her calves, I fish my keys from my front pocket and use the gold one to unlock the door.
“What the hell are you doing? My car is still half a block away.” The hand that was muting me points to the right, up the hill.
“Yeah, well, my place is right here.”
Stepping into the short, narrow entryway, I duck down to keep from banging Erin’s head on the doorframe and toss my keys on the glass-top console table. The whole house is just over one thousand square feet, so the trip from the door to the green, velvet sofa is a short one. Slipping my arm out from behind Erin’s left knee, I swing her body around into a bridal-style hold and deposit her on the soft cushions, then set the bandage and Advil on the butt-ugly, brass coffee table.
Her gaze bounces all over the small living room, no doubt trying to total up how much all this expensive furniture cost. Probably also wondering why the fuck the walls are bright blue. The place is one big eyesore, totally out of sync with this working-class neighborhood, but I guess people with money can get away with shit like that.
“You live here?”
“I’m house-sitting.” Kneeling in front of her on the floor, I rest her shoeless left foot in my lap. The swelling isn’t much worse than it was ten minutes ago, but I can tell by the way she tenses up and claws at the couch that the pain definitely is.
Pulling out my phone, I google how to wrap a sprained ankle and do my best to copy the instructional video.
“Whose house is this?” she asks, watching my hands as they work.
“My boss’s brother owns it. Frankie’s touring with his band and probably not coming back after that. I’m here until he figures out what to do with the place.” I run out of bandage after a last turn around the middle of her foot, but I don’t have the metal claw fastener the nurse uses in the video, so I improvise and tuck the loose end securely into the edge of the wrap, near her toes. “He was a bartender where I work. It’s his job I’m going for.”
Her eyes stay glued to my hands as I move from the floor to the spot next to her on the sofa. She swallows hard when one of those hands makes a gentle glide from the arch of her foot, over her ankle, to the smooth, bare skin of her calf. “Where did you stay before this?” she asks.
“Different places.”
I leave it at that. She doesn’t need to know about the bug-infested couches I’ve had to crash on or that I’ve learned to keep my possessions to a bare minimum, to travel light. Anything that doesn’t fit in my duffle bag doesn’t come with me to the next place.
“Have you…” Her breathing is heavy, and I look up into eyes I could swear are wet with unshed tears. For me? Not possible. She tries again. “Have you been okay, Van?”
Fuck. How do I answer that? I won’t tell her the truth—that I haven’t been okay since I last kissed her. And not because I’m barely scraping by or that I have no friends, no one who has my back outside of work. Except for Tino, I’m alone. That’s no way for anyone to live, but it’s not what gets to me.
No, worse than everything else is the doubt. Did I do the right thing? If I could go back to that night, would I make the same choice?
When I blinked my eyes open in the cab of Danny’s truck, with the smoke filling my lungs and clouding my vision…the pieces of shattered glass from the windshield and storefront covering the dashboard, cab, and our clothes…the sound of sirens blaring in the distance…I had only seconds to act. Was it guilt? Loyalty? Instinct?
It didn’t feel like a choice at all—just what I had to do—until reality set in with the click of the handcuffs locking my wrists behind my back. Right then is when the doubt hit me. But by then it was too late. What was done was done.
The nightmares are vivid and frequent. Every once in a blue moon, I have the dream. What life could’ve been like. Me and Erin together. We would’ve lasted. I have no doubt about that.
I look away from her, but she cradles my quivering jaw in her hands, her thumbs brushing under my eyes, spreading the wetness there. I didn’t realize I’ve been crying. I thought I’d gotten that out of my system after my first night in a jail cell. But fuck yeah, I’ll cry for the life I could’ve had with Erin. With her this close, it’s impossible not to feel in my bones how good we would’ve been.
When I face her again, she’s closer…so close that if she licked her lips right now, she’d lick mine, too.
Pressing her forehead to mine, she says something I never expected—or wanted—to hear. “I’m not okay, either.”
Ten
What am I thinking? Better yet, what am I doing?
This isn’t supposed to happen. I was never supposed to feel sorry for him. Or feel anything for him but hate. And that was easy when he was acting like a dick or just plain indifferent to me. But this…this pain, these tears. They wreck me.
Van Woods is clearly a man filled with regret. And, yeah, good. He should be. More than he knows. He should hate himself as much as I’m trying to hate him. Trying so hard. But how can I, when his heart is mine and mine is his, and there was never any hope of separating the two? Four years without him wasn’t able to change that. The daily hell I live through—the hell Van helped create—couldn’t erase how tied I am to him.
His pain hits me as hard and cuts me as deep as my own, and I need to…I don’t know…take it away. Make it hurt worse. Wallow in it. Heal it. Heal us.
I don’t know how to do that, but I do know I can’t resist the pull of his gravity anymore. All I can do is let go a
nd give in.
Van doesn’t move, not an inch. So like in that tree when we were kids and on the night of his prom, I move first.
Holding him steady with my hands bracketing his face, I take in all of his crazy-beautiful features. Smoldering brown eyes, the color so deep I sink like a stone to the bottom of them. High cheekbones, slick with his tears. Strong jaw, flexing against my damp palms. Full lips… God, those lips. No one has lips like Van Woods.
I kiss them. Attack them. Mouths closed, but not for long. In the same breath, he responds, prying my lips apart with his and letting me sample his flavor for the first time in forever. I taste the cherries he kept sneaking from the garnish tray today and take long, slow licks of his sweet tongue.
Strong hands fist my hair at the roots, the ache in my scalp sending a rush of heat coursing through my veins and sparking some of the anger I’d lost at the sight of Van’s quiet tears. But the intense emotion just turns me on even more. Something is seriously wrong with me.
I fight back, breaking our kiss to scrape his jawline and the length of his neck with my teeth. Clutching the hem of his shirt, I pull it over his torso, my nails digging into the deep, solid ridges of his abdominal muscles.
He reaches behind his neck to help me, tugging the shirt off in one swift, sexy motion.
Fuck, he’s gorgeous. So much corded muscle, with prominent veins trailing over his arms—arms that scream power. Black tattoos, mostly tribal designs, decorate his dark skin, with the word “LOYALTY” inked across his upper chest in large, gothic letters. Below that, a heart with outstretched wings and the word “betrayal” etched near the center. Tattoos like these always have stories behind them.
Unlike me and Danny, Van’s never been chatty. He would never talk just to hear his own voice or for the sake of filling silence. When he’d speak, I always made sure to listen, because his words meant something. So if he permanently inked two words on his body, front and center, they must be more significant to him than every other word in the English language.
I want to know what they mean. I need to know. More than that, something tells me I should know. But just as I’m about to ask, I notice the chain around his neck—the same one I gave him on his eighteenth birthday. And hanging from that chain, a gold ring. My claddagh. I recognize it instantly, and my gut tightens, shock and nostalgia hitting me hard.
I’d given it to him as a good-luck charm that night. He was planning to face my brother’s notorious wrath—Van needed all the luck he could get.
The ring hadn’t crossed my mind since. Too much else had been lost along with it. A piece of jewelry was the least of my worries.
I slip the tip of one finger through the center, feeling metal as heated as Van’s skin. I wonder if he ever takes it off, or if he wears it this close to his heart twenty-four seven.
He grabs my hand, tearing it away from his neck. His rough grip jerks me out of my memories. Still holding tight, he lifts my hand to his mouth and presses a tender kiss to my palm. “Don’t you fucking touch that,” he says in a soft growl, kissing me again, “unless you’re prepared to wear it.”
My breath leaves me in a rush as fire replaces air in my lungs. My chest burns. My throat closes. Not that it matters. I mean, what the hell would I say, anyway?
Since I don’t have words, I respond the only way I can. With a hard shove to his shoulders, I force him against the back of the couch. His eyes harden, but his mouth curves into a lazy, sinful smirk. I want to kiss that smirk, slap it off him, then kiss him again.
Instead, I shift on his lap, straddling him. My sprained ankle throbs from all the extra blood my excited heart is pumping to the swollen flesh. My clit throbs harder, rubbing against the seam of my denim shorts, still damp from our water-gun fight.
Van works at opening my sleeveless blouse, but the buttons are too small and his fingers too thick. I strip it off over my head before he can rip my favorite shirt to shreds. He’s deft with the front clasp of my bra, though, pulling it off and leaving me half-naked.
He spreads his legs wide, spreading mine right along with them, and yanks me closer—close enough to suck one of my taut nipples into his mouth. Not satisfied with just the tip, he devours my entire breast. His tongue on my flesh sends shivers down my spine and deep into my core.
With his mouth busy, his hands explore my body. Goose bumps crop up along the length of my arms as rough calluses scrape the skin of my shoulders, my back, my sides, my stomach. I sigh with pleasure when his fingers dive under the waistband of my shorts, popping the button and lowering the zipper.
My body knows exactly what it wants, and my hips rock against him in slow, deep circles. His hands find my ass, kneading it and shoving my shorts halfway to my thighs as he urges me to ride him harder.
My hungry lips crash onto his. Our teeth and tongues do battle, clashing, bruising, and drawing blood. Flavors of salt and copper and cherries flood my mouth. A cocktail of desire. Lust. Need.
The move is so effortless, I barely notice when Van rises, holding me to him. He doesn’t gently lay me on the sofa. He doesn’t simply drop me. He throws me down, knocking the wind out of me as my back hits the couch. I blink, and he’s stripped off my shorts and underwear, somehow pulling them past my bad ankle without causing more pain.
This is all moving so fast, my brain doesn’t stand a chance of catching up. This race of fevered kisses, groping hands, and eager bodies making up for lost time leaves no room for second thoughts, which is fine by me. I’m tired of thinking. I want to act and feel and just…experience this man.
He crawls over me, his powerful frame covering mine like an eclipse. He’s the predator, and I’m his prey, cornered and at his mercy. For now.
“This is fucking happening, baby,” he says, his hand circling my throat and squeezing once before sliding down my body to cup me between my thighs.
I gasp as one of his thick fingers slips into me, then a second, the invasion made easy by how wet I am for him.
There’s no warmup here. He thrusts hard, probing me deep, his digits curving up each time he retreats to stroke a spot no other guy has come close to finding.
“I’m gonna fuck you so hard, you’ll scream for me to stop and beg me to keep going.” His voice is a harsh whisper at my ear. He sucks at the base of my throat, drawing my skin into his mouth with enough force to leave a bruise that’ll take weeks to fade. “When I’m done with you, you’ll be marked…ruined…shattered….”
He has me close to shattering now, reducing my body to nothing but a thin sheet of glass, fragile and so vulnerable to him. His words resonate through me. Pleasure rings in my ears, almost loud enough to drown out the low rumble of his seductive threats. I spread my legs wider and buck against the strong, merciless attack of his hand.
“Your pussy is gonna crave me. Only me. You’ll cry for my cock every fucking night I’m not inside you.” He plunges deep, one last time. His long, thick fingers reach the very center of me, and the pad of his thumb circles my swollen clit. “I own you, Erin Finola Kenny.”
I cry out, break apart, explode, shatter. Jagged shards of ecstasy slice through my body, and I realize…Van is right. He’s ruined me.
“That’s it,” he says, satisfaction dripping from each word. His thumb slows, drawing out the pleasure still vibrating in my every molecule. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous when you come.”
He waits until my aftershocks lose intensity before removing his gifted fingers from me. I’ve never felt so empty in my life. So incomplete.
I reach between us to find his belt buckle and pry it open, then pop every button on his fly. He holds himself off me, his eyes intent on mine as I shove his jeans down over his hips and free his rigid and ready cock from his boxer briefs. I claw at his perfect ass, trying to draw him into me.
His hot, hard flesh grazes my damp inner thighs, but he doesn’t budge. Not until he pulls his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and produces a foil packet.
Half of me hates him for thi
nking of protection. I want to feel him slide into me bare, with nothing between us. Raw, like our love, our pain, and our shared wounds. The other half recognizes that Van and I are already risking a world of regret, and that half of me kisses him, grateful for one less risk, one less potential regret.
He fists his sheathed cock, holding himself at my entrance, waiting for, what, an invitation? “Erin—”
“Shut up and fuck me, Van.”
Needing no further encouragement, he eases himself into me.
I suck in deep breaths, focusing on relaxing my muscles enough to allow him entry. As I loosen and accept him—all of him—he remains patient, even though his biceps quake in my hands and his teeth grind together from holding himself back.
Once he’s fully seated, he mutters a string of curses as his forehead drops to mine with an audible thud. He rests for all of three seconds before he turns wild, a feral animal whose instinct drives him deeper and deeper into his mate. His hips are brutal, relentless, and I match him thrust for thrust, scratching, clawing, biting, conquering.
This is hate-fucking and making love. We were made to worship each other this way. A perfect mix of pain and pleasure, rage and desperation.
I’ve never felt so close to anyone in my life. In this moment, Van and I are forged together so completely, there’s no way to separate us without creating two torn and tattered halves of what should always be whole. We were those shredded, incomplete pieces for four years, but here, now, with this act, we stitch ourselves together with threads of solid steel.
Melting into him in a mess of heat and lust, I gasp for air as I climb to new heights. Van drags me to the edge of the cliff, holding me in a sweaty tangle of limbs as we leap together. The plummet is exhilarating. The impact is fatal. All the rage I was clinging to, the blame I’d placed on him alone, the animosity I’d harbored because I had nothing else left… It all dies.
Van thickens and throbs inside me, roaring as he finds his release. Curling one strong hand around my waist and clutching my ass with the other, he crushes me to his powerful frame. With each throb of his cock, his hips grind against mine, forcing me deeper into the cushions of the jade-green sofa.
