Tipping Point

by Ali Parker

  “Didn’t you tell me to stay the fuck away from her?”

  Joe laughed loudly and patted his stomach. “Come on now, D. As if that shit would ever happen.”

  A weight that I hadn’t known I carried seemed to fall away from me, leaving me lightheaded and dazed. Had Joe, in his own strange way, just given me approval to be with Izzy?

  What the fuck was going on?

  He patted my shoulders as he walked around my chair. “Go see her, son. She hasn’t left her room all day.”

  I listened to his footsteps fade as he went back into the house. I stayed where I was for several minutes and stared out at the still surface of the pool. The sun reflected off of it, sending dancing reflections of water up onto the patio.

  The strain of loving Izzy and knowing I couldn’t be with her was evaporating. All our compounded angst and pain hummed in my ears before it all at once vanished. Was the girl I loved no longer off limits? Would we actually be able to make this work?

  I got to my feet and moved slowly, as if shifting through quicksand. My mind was trying to process a world where things didn’t have to be so damn dicked up all the time. I ducked inside and moved up the grand staircase two steps at a time. As I went, I tried not to think about the last time I climbed them, with Izzy unconscious in my arms and blood running down the side of my head.

  Would we be able to brush all that shit under the rug and both choose each other?

  I went down the hall and paused in front of her bedroom door. It had never been so intimidating before.

  I raised my knuckles and knocked softly before pushing it open.

  My eyes sought her out right away. She was on the window ledge, wrapped in a white fleece blanket. Her feet were bare and poking out the bottom, and I could see the red polish on her toes.

  But she wasn’t alone.

  She was curled up in Eddie’s lap.

  His head snapped up when I walked in, and the eye that wasn’t swollen shut widened. Izzy turned to look at me over her shoulder, and her lips parted as she took a sharp breath. She pushed herself up out of Eddie’s lap and grabbed the edge of the blanket as she swung her legs off the ledge to rest her toes upon the carpet.

  “No need to get up,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I was just coming to see if you needed anything. But it would seem you’ve got everything all figured out.”

  I turned and left before she had a chance to say a word.

  Nothing would ever change with her. We were destined to fall in love at different times and hold each other at bay.

  Always. Forever.

  Never.

  10

  Izabella

  “D, wait!” I called as I tried to untangle myself from the blanket. He had already turned and left. I could hear his footsteps fading down the hall as Edward got to his feet behind me and made to follow. “Just let me handle this,” I said over my shoulder as I hurried forward.

  “I don’t know if you should be alone with him,” Edward started.

  I spun back to him. “Eddie. Just go home. I can handle myself, all right?”

  Edward stopped to stand in my doorway, looking after me, and I ran out of my room and down the hall after D, who had already almost made it to the top of the stairs.

  I didn’t call his name, even though I wanted to. I followed the lines of his shoulders and the muscles in his back. I ached for him to hold me the way Eddie had been. D was the only one who could offer me the comfort I needed right now.

  But damn him for always jumping to conclusions and thinking the worst of me. And fuck him for punishing me with his passive aggressive bullshit after everything that had just happened.

  I caught up with him at the top of the stairs and grabbed his elbow. He spun to face me, his eyes hard. He stepped toward me, closing the small amount of space between us.

  Just like in my dream, all I could see, smell, or feel was Demetri DeMarco.

  Then Edward shuffled past us. He muttered a few apologies under his breath before hurrying down the stairs and out the front door. After standing in tense silence while we waited to be alone, we finally gave in to the anger burning inside us.

  “Why don’t you run along after him?” D pressed. “Or would you like me to fucking fetch him for you, Bella?"

  I pushed hard at his chest and then turned sharply away from him, marching back down the hall. “Fuck you, D. I don’t need this shit right now. Least of all from you.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you need,” D snarled as he caught up with me. This time, he grabbed my elbow and spun me into him. “I give a shit about what I need. And it isn’t seeing you and Edward cuddling up to each other like two fucking lovebirds.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We weren’t. He was trying to be a good friend.”

  “He was a little close for a friend.”

  I tore my elbow out of his grip. “I’m sick of you manhandling me,” I snapped.

  D’s eyebrow arched. “Are you now?”

  I shoved him in the chest and pointed my finger in his face. “Yes, I am. So keep your goddamn hands to yourself.”

  Demetri stared at me hard before the corner of his mouth twitched in a way that I knew was a suppressed smile. He shook his head at me and looked at the floor. When he lifted his dark gaze back up to me, my breath hitched in my throat. How could I always forget how fucking hot he was? He had a way of always reminding me at the most inopportune moments. Like right now.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered roughly as his eyes moved around my face.

  “Don’t. I can’t do this right now. You push at all, and I’m going to crumble.” My lip quivered as my body tightened. With all of the madness everywhere around us, all I wanted was him. He was all I’d ever wanted.

  “I wish I had handled last night a little better,” D said.

  I blinked. “Is that an apology?”

  “As close to one as you’re gonna get. Yeah.”

  “D, seriously, you’re not the one who should be saying sorry. I’m the one who was out of line. I should have listened to you. I should have trusted you. But when you started saying all those things about Marco, I just couldn’t hear it.” I reached up and pressed my hands to his thick chest, the muscles twitching beneath my touch.

  He lifted a hand and pressed his finger to my lips. “Hush, Bella. It’s all right.”

  I swallowed. I wanted to take his finger into my mouth and suck on it. Then I wanted to move down his body and do the same to the rest of him.

  Instead, I slapped his hand away from my mouth and shoved him backward into the wall. His shoulder blades hit the drywall as I grabbed his face in my hands and pulled myself into him. I sealed my lips over his in the most desperate kiss I had ever given him. He tasted like mint, just as he had in my dream.

  His hands wrapped around my waist and held me tight against him, crushing my breasts into his chest and pressing my abdomen into his thickening cock.

  I slipped my tongue between his lips and explored his mouth. It wasn’t enough. I needed so much more.

  His hands moved down to cup my ass, and he lifted me up. I hooked my legs around his waist, and he carried me back down the hall and through my bedroom door.

  “Please fuck me,” I mumbled against the onslaught of kisses.

  “No need to beg this time.” He nipped at my lips.

  After walking into my room, he threw me down on the bed. I scrambled up onto my hands and knees as he worked furiously to pull his shirt off over his shoulders and undo his belt.

  As he undressed, I began doing the same, but I made a show for him. I came to my knees and slowly pulled off my shirt. As it came off over my head, my hair fell back down around my shoulders. I caught D watching as I tossed the shirt over his shoulder. He was already down to his boxers by the time I unclipped my bra and threw it in the same direction as my shirt.

  I went down on my back and unbuttoned my jeans. I shimmied them down my hips until I was in nothing but my thong. I ran my fingers over the black
lace, my knees pressed firmly together, and teased him.

  D didn’t hold out very long. He lost patience with my games and climbed up on the bed on his knees. He pushed my legs apart, and I let out a sound that was something between a giggle and a moan. He’d barely laid a hand on me, and I was already so fucking horny for him.

  He ran his hand down the inside of my thigh. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth. This distraction was so needed. So was his touch. With him was the only place I felt safe.

  He patted my leg. “On your stomach.”

  Feeling more than a little defiant, I shook my head and gave him a coy smile. “No.”

  D slid off the bed and grabbed me under the knees. He yanked me to the edge and flipped me over like I was a rag doll. Then he had me turn around so that I was on my stomach facing him, my eyes in line with his crotch. I could see the outline of his massive swollen cock beneath the thin fabric of his black boxers. Saliva bloomed under my tongue.

  D pulled his boxers down, and his cock sprang free. I leaned off the edge of the bed and took him in my mouth, rolling my tongue over his velvet soft tip as he ran a hand down my spine and over my ass. He pushed my legs apart and continued to wander down my ass. When he reached my pussy, he pulled my panties to the side and brushed a finger along my opening.

  He pushed his hips out, and more of his cock slid into my mouth.

  “Someone is fucking wet,” he said hoarsely. He let the panties slide back into place before giving me a firm slap between my legs.

  I yelped with my lips around his shaft and arched my back, lifting my ass in the air for him.

  “That’s a good girl,” he said. I could hear the smile he must have been wearing as I took more of him in my mouth. I kept going until my nose was pressed to his lower stomach and my throat was full.

  D grabbed a fistful of my hair and held me there. “Yes,” he growled.

  Then he popped me in the ass. Once, twice, three times. The last one stung enough to earn a whimper from me. I liked the pain, and he knew it. I wiggled my ass, daring him to play with me some more.

  He did as I wished and pushed my panties out of the way again. He didn’t tease me this time, though. He slipped a finger inside me. I was so fucking wet, he went in no problem. My body released some of the pent up tension I had gathered over the last thirty hours or so, leaving me feeling light. A pressure was forming below my belly as he inserted another finger inside me and began to vigorously thrust.

  I could hear how sloppy wet I was as I sucked him off. I began bobbing on his cock, pressing my tongue to the underside of his cock and tracing the vein there. I realized I was moaning when he held me down on his dick again.

  “Come for me, Bella. Like a good little slut. Wet the fucking sheets.”

  Holy fucking hell did I ever want to do what he was saying.

  When he slipped his thumb in my ass, I did. I came unhinged, and I cried his name with his dick still deep in my mouth. As I rode out my orgasm, he began thrusting his hips, and I opened my mouth wide for him. I let him use me as he continued to finger me, and then for a while longer. I could taste the sweet saltiness of precum on my tongue, and I wanted more.

  “Fucking Christ,” he grated as he pulled away. “I’m going to blow.”

  “Do it,” I said, looking up at him and running my tongue along my bottom lip. “Let me drink you all up.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m going to fuck the shit out of you. Stay on your stomach but turn around.”

  My instinct was to tell him no. I always liked a bit of a fight, and D was always willing to match me. But I kept my mouth shut and did as he said. I wanted that cock in me more than I’d wanted anything in a long time, and I wasn’t going to torture myself by waiting any longer.

  When I had turned, he stood between my legs. I could feel the tip of him pressing against my opening. I looked over my shoulder at him.

  “Don’t hold back, D. Fuck me hard.”

  D pressed forward and slid himself inside me. I sucked in a breath as he stretched and filled me. The tension below my belly scattered as my body finally attained what it craved, and I let out a sigh of contentment as he began thrusting.

  Then he grabbed a fistful of my hair and craned my head back to force me to look at the ceiling. He leaned over me and pressed his mouth to my ear. He bit my earlobe, and his hot breath on my neck had me panting with need.

  His free hand squeezed and slapped my ass. I moaned. He grew breathless above me, and each thrust drove into me a little deeper than the last.

  “Fuck yes,” I whispered, arching my back and lifting my hips off the bed so he could get even deeper.

  D wrapped his hand under my hips to press his fingers to my clit. He rubbed in quick circles until I came. The sloppy wet sounds mixed with that of our thighs slapping against one another. He pulled tighter on my hair, and I squeezed my eyes closed.

  He kissed my jaw and my cheek as he pushed a finger in my ass again.

  “You’re so fucking tight,” he whispered.

  “So stretch me.”

  He growled in my ear.

  “Come on, D. Fuck me in my ass. I want you.”

  He bucked against me, and I knew my request would not be met. His cock slammed into me, and I came again as he shot his load inside me. I was filled with warmth, and he moved slowly inside me before pulling out and resting his forehead on my shoulder.

  “You can’t say shit like that to me. I can’t keep it together. It’s way too fucking hot.”

  I smiled as he released my hair and fell down on the bed beside me. He rolled onto his side and rested his hand on my ass. He gave my right ass cheek a good squeeze as I brushed my hair off my forehead.

  “Sorry. I like when you lose control.”

  “I don’t,” D said. “When I lose control, I lash out. Like how I did with you last night. I’m sorry, Bella. I shouldn’t have gotten in your face like that. There were better ways I could have handled it. I was just so fucking mad, so jacked up over the fact that Marco could do this to us, to Joe—to you.”

  I rolled onto my side and cupped his face in my hand. His jaw was covered in stubble, which was unusual for him. Usually he was clean shaven. Everything with Marco must have been hitting him hard, too. “I’m the one who’s sorry. All this shit has made one thing very clear to me, D. I love you. More than anything. And I always have, and I would never betray you. Forgive me for my part in this shit?”

  He closed his hand over mine and kissed my palm. “There is nothing to forgive.”

  I looked at his ear. There was a bandage there. “I shot you.”

  “You missed me.”

  “I still took the shot.”

  “You and I both know you aimed to miss.”

  I bit my lip and looked away. “I still pulled the trigger.”

  “You did what you thought you needed to do in the moment. If I had been in your shoes and that was Drake you were coming after, I think there’s a good chance I would have done the same thing.”

  His words helped ease my mind a bit. He trusted me and he understood me. He always had. Those were two of the many reasons why I loved him so fucking much, and why I had resigned myself to a life of misery and torture by letting myself love a man I could never have.

  But things were changing now. Maybe that rule didn’t have to be in play anymore.

  We lay on my bed for a few minutes, resting quietly together. I snuggled up to him and rested my cheek in the curve of his shoulder, watching his chest rise and fall with each breath.

  “So what now?” he asked.

  “I’m going after Marco.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No,” I said, resting a hand on his chest and peering up into his dark eyes. “This is my job. It’s my responsibility to put Marco in the ground. I’m leaving for Cali tomorrow morning. Daddy has a car coming for me at seven.”

  “Why would Marco go to Cali?” D asked.

  “He’s a Cooper. Where else would he go?
He’s running to them with his tail between his legs to a guy he thinks is a bigger threat, a larger badass than us.”

  D ran his hand over my shoulder aimlessly, and I shivered with goosebumps. He smiled and reached for the blanket at the end of the bed and pulled it up over our shoulders.

  “Speaking of Coopers,” he said slowly.

  “Yes?”

  “You didn’t sleep with Adam, right?”

  I blinked at him. “Uh, no. But by the looks of it, I’m thinking I should have.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  I grinned. “I like you jealous.”

  “Fuck you too, Bella.” D smiled.

  I cupped my hand around the back of his neck and pulled myself to him for another round of kisses. I lowered myself down to the bed, and he rolled on top of me, pinning me with his knees on either side of my hips.

  I reached down between his legs to grip his shaft, which was already hard again for me. I smiled into our kiss and began working him over in long, slow strokes.

  I pulled him down and guided him between my legs.

  “Stretch me,” I whispered before giving in to him and letting myself feel free for the first time in over six years. “Use me any way you want.”

  He licked a line up my throat. “Oh, I plan to.”

  11

  Marcus

  It was nearly ten o’clock at night.

  Damn her for making me wait on her. Damn her for thinking she has the upper hand.

  I drummed my fingers on the kitchen counter and sighed. I was in no mood to be kept waiting. I’d been thinking about Audrey all fucking day, and my balls were starting to ache with need. Had I known she would play coy with me tonight, I would have rubbed one out in the shower when I got home from the office to spare myself blue balls.

  I moved around to the other side of the counter to uncork the bottle of wine I had bought to share with Audrey. I poured myself a glass and set the bottle back down as I took a sip of the red, earthy mixture. I chased the first mouthful down with a few more and went to the living room, where I dropped heavily down on the sofa and threw my heels up on the coffee table.