Seven pulls my phone from his pocket, glancing at the screen, shaking his head.
Three’s voice chimes back in. “He said to answer the phone when he calls you. He’s tired of getting your voicemail.”
Son of a bitch.
Guess the mystery of the blocked number has been solved. I’m still not answering it.
The ringing stops.
I lower the gun, shoving it in my waistband.
“Well, then, who’s up for making a trip to Limerence?” I ask. “There’s a lot of money in it for you.”
Hands shoot up.
Every single one of them volunteers—even Three, as fucked up as he already is, and Seven, whose wife would kill him if he stepped foot in that place. My guys, they don’t back down from a challenge, especially where cold hard cash is involved.
“Go tell that Russian bastard I’ll think about accepting his call when he grows some balls and unblocks his number, because pussies don’t get talked to, they only get fucked.”
I turn, to go back into the library, catching Scarlet’s concerned gaze.
“Oh, and say it just like that, word-for-word,” I say, glancing back at the guys. “And if you survive, when you come back here for payment, don’t let him follow you. I mean it. You endanger my brother, I’ll kill you all myself.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Is a library still a library if there aren’t any books?
Wouldn’t it be more of a study?
That’s what I’m thinking about, as I sit on the floor in the library right beside the door, knees pulled up to my chest, arms wrapped around them, back against the wall. I mean, he’s got a handful of books, maybe a dozen, but the shelves are pretty much barren. Are twelve books enough to push it into library territory?
I don’t know.
Don’t really care, either.
But I’ve got to think about something or else my mind will just drift to thoughts I’m trying desperately not to have, so I’m thinking about him, and his room, and his life...
Lorenzo.
He’s working on the puzzle. I’ve seen him do it before in little spurts, but he’s been at it now for hours consistently, making quite a bit of progress as I watch. He’s methodical, the whole process clearly serious to him, but at the same time I think he’s actually enjoying himself. It’s strange. Every now and then he’ll get this look on his face, like contentment and relief and pride all rolled into one.
I’ve seen the man in the throes of passion. I’ve seen him excited, and agitated, and dangerously cold. I’ve watched his emotions fluctuate the spectrum, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen him calm.
Like, this is the guy who raised his little brother to be the responsible, respectful guy Leo is. This is the guy who could actually have a library and not just a barren room with bullet holes littering the floor.
Yeah, I noticed them...
He’s wearing his glasses, a light illuminating the area around the table, although the rest of the room is dark. Night fell hours ago. We’re the only ones here. None of his guys have come back yet.
He doesn’t seem worried, but I am.
Knowing Kassian, they could all be dead.
And I kind of like the guys, you know, what I know of them. Not a single one has ever made a pass at me, thinking because I’ve done certain things obviously that’s all I am. Men that treat me like a person… what a concept. So I’d rather them not lose their lives because I’m here.
“I’m going to bed,” I say quietly, pushing up from the floor. I know Lorenzo hears me, because he glances my way, but he says nothing.
I make it down the hall, toward the stairs, when the front door shoves open. My heart stalls a beat, thinking finally maybe one of them is back, but Leo walks in, along with Melody.
“Hey, Morgan!” Melody says. “I love the color of that top!”
I glance down. It’s some watercolor-looking mash-up. I took the money Lorenzo paid me and invested in some new clothes of my own. “Thanks.”
Leo smiles in greeting, and I return his smile, but jet out of there before any further conversation happens. Trekking upstairs, I kick my shoes off, pulling off my jeans and unhooking my bra before climbing into the bed, snuggling up with a pillow.
I’m not tired.
Hell, I can’t even sleep.
I lay here, listening to the sounds from downstairs.
Maybe another hour passes, I don’t know, before the front door opens, voices rushing through the house. Carefully, I climb out of the bed, creeping out into the hall, pausing as I lean against the banister at the top of the stairs. They’re all here, gathering in the hallway, Declan and Frank even sharing a laugh about something. I can’t hear much of what they’re saying, but they survived, so I guess that’s something.
I make my way back to the bed, curling up on my side, hugging the pillow again. Relieved. For now. Barely a minute passes before I hear noise, and I peek over just as Lorenzo walks into the room. He meets my eyes, so he knows I’m awake, but he says nothing, tugging off his shirt, stripping down to nothing before climbing into the bed beside me.
His arms snake around me, pulling me back into him, his lips going right to my neck, leaving a trail of kisses along the sliver of exposed skin.
“Tell me a story,” he says, hand sliding beneath my shirt to palm a breast.
I smile to myself. That’s his not-so-subtle way of telling me he wants to stick it in. “Why don’t you tell me one?”
“You didn’t like the last one I told you,” he says, tugging at my underwear, pushing it down to my knees, just enough for his other hand to slide between my thighs. A soft moan escapes me when his fingertips graze my clit, and I shove the underwear the rest of the way down, kicking them off to spread my legs, so he can reach better.
“I’m sure you can come up with a better one.”
“True story or fairy tale?”
“Hmmm… both.”
I yelp, surprised, when he yanks me around, over on top of him. He lays flat on his back as I straddle his waist, his cock right there, hard, pressing against me. I shift my hips, rubbing against him, my hands flat against his bare chest. My shirt is long enough to cover everything so he can’t see, but I know he feels it. He lets out a low groan, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me down for a kiss.
I lose myself for a moment, kissing him deeply, roughly, groaning as he nips at my lips, tingles flowing through my body when he grasps my hips, pulling me up. I feel it, his cock pressing into me, slowly slipping inside as he teases me with the tip. My head goes fuzzy, warmth consuming me.
It isn’t until he thrusts up, hard, filling me completely, that it knocks some sense back into my brain. I pull from his lips, barely able to get the word out. “Condom.”
He looks at me, his hands moving, running along the curve of my ass before he grabs my shirt, pulling it off and tossing it over the edge of the bed. His gaze scans me, from the top of my head to where we’re connected as he reaches over and starts rubbing my clit. “Do I need one?”
“I, uh... I mean...”
What kind of question is that?
“I’ll pull out,” he says, shifting his hips, pulling out just a bit before pushing back in. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I, uh... Christ... I can’t get pregnant.”
“You physically can’t, or you mean getting pregnant is the worst thing that could happen?”
“Uh, I mean...” Fuck, he feels good, deep inside of me, nothing between us. “Both.”
I start moving, rolling my hips, sliding up and down slowly on him. My brain is still trying to argue a point, chanting, ‘condom, condom, condom,’ like a twelve-year-old boy, but the haze is taking it over, the tingles blocking it out. ‘Fuck it,’ my heart frantically beats. ‘Just let him fuck you, you know you want it.’
Closing my eyes, I gasp as he thrusts up into me, meeting my rhythm. His fingers steadily stroke my clit, rubbing circles, sending jolts of pleas
ure along my spine, stronger and stronger, until the explosion hits.
My muscles seize up, my toes curling as he rides me through a strong orgasm. As soon as it starts to fade, he grabs me by the back of my neck, pulling me down closer to him, making me look him in the face.
I brace myself, hands flat against his chest, holding on as he bucks hard, fucking me, gripping tighter every time my eyelids start to flutter, parts of me trying to drift away.
Another orgasm hits, and I cry out, my breaths strained, but before I can recover, Lorenzo throws me off of him, catching me off guard as he pins me to the bed.
“What—?”
Before I can get anything else out, Lorenzo covers my mouth with his hand, squeezing my face, silencing my words. Shoving my legs apart, hitching my knees up, he thrusts inside of me, barely giving me a second to adjust before he starts to fuck me.
Hard.
Deep.
Fast.
BAM
BAM
BAM
I scream into his palm as sensations flow through me. Pleasure and pain warps every inch of me as he rests his body weight on top of me, making my chest ache, my muscles clenching. My fingers dig into his back, scratching at the skin, as he brings his mouth to my ear, his voice low and gritty.
“Once upon a time, there was a woman—a woman with a gorgeous little body and a mouth made of sin. The only thing sweeter than this woman’s pussy was the thirst she had inside of her, a thirst for fucking and fighting, for tempting fate,” he says, and I let out a whimper, gripping to him tightly, as another orgasm starts to take over. Fuck.
It hits me so intense I buck against him, my fingernails tearing skin as I bite his palm.
“Jesus Christ,” he growls, yanking his hand away from my mouth, griping instead to my jaw, shoving my head away, forcing the side of my face into the mattress. His mouth is back on my ear, tongue swirling around it before he says, “This woman, she tempted fate so much it was a goddamn miracle she wasn’t dead, but she was lucky, I think, because fate brought her a man, one who would kill for a sip of the thirst inside of her, who would start a war over that sweet, sweet pussy.”
His words send a chill through me as I close my eyes. He fucks and threatens, kisses and caresses, grabs and bites, over and over and over again, until my body starts to give out. Groaning, he pulls away from me, shoving my legs further apart as he pulls out. Opening my eyes, I watch in the darkness, breathing heavily, as he strokes himself, coming right there, between my thighs. He rubs it in then, gently stroking my clit with his fingertips, before leaning down, kissing along my stomach, his tongue circling my belly button, before moving down even further, his mouth on my pussy.
“Oh God,” I whisper, my toes curling. I don’t know how the hell he does it, bringing my body right back to life again with nothing more than the tip of his tongue.
He’s gentle, so fucking gentle, almost painfully so as he brings me to yet another orgasm. I gasp, grabbing ahold of his hair, arching my back as the pleasure ripples through my trembling thighs. As soon as I collapse back onto the bed, he makes his way back up, kissing along my stomach, before his mouth finds mine.
I kiss him, tasting myself on his lips, but more than that, I can taste him. Every inch of my body flushes at that realization.
“I think you’re trying to kill me,” I whisper.
He laughs into my mouth, nipping at my bottom lip. “If I was really trying to kill you, Scarlet, you’d be dead.”
The sun’s starting to rise outside, but you can’t tell it looking at the horizon. Thick gray clouds cover every inch of sky, blocking the warm orange glow from appearing. Everything just seems to gradually get lighter, like a veil is being lifted, exposing what was already hidden beneath.
Sunrise, it always makes me feel hope, another day dawning, another chance at things turning around for me, but today?
It all just felt so horribly bleak.
“Ten months,” I say. “Before we know it, it’ll be a year.”
An entire year. I can’t even fathom it.
Detective Jones lets out an exasperated sigh as he scrubs his hands over his bleary face, rubbing the overgrown scruff along his jaw. He looks like shit. His suit is rumpled. There’s a stain on his white shirt. He’s in need of a trim, his hair sticking up in a few places, and his socks, well… they don’t even match.
He’s a mess.
But I have no sympathy for him.
Maybe that makes me a bitch.
I used to come here, begging, pleading, feeling like a burden for needing his help, but those feelings faded as I became more jaded. The first few months were the worst, though. Back then, I didn’t think the tears would ever stop. But at some point along the way, my anger surfaced when I realized I was on my own, that nobody could help me. I had to help myself.
And here we are, ten months in, and I’m still treading water, closer to sinking than I am to swimming. I’m slowly drowning.
Gabe picks up his coffee mug, gently blowing into it, steam rising out, surrounding his face like a cloud. I got here before him this morning, was waiting in the lobby when he eventually wandered in, fifteen minutes late for his usual shift, which is fifteen minutes he could’ve spent working on my case.
Yeah, right... like that would ever happen.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he mutters, sipping his coffee.
“Yeah, well, where else am I supposed to go?”
“Wherever you’ve been these past few weeks,” he says. “Where have you been, anyway?”
“Around.”
He casts an annoyed look my way, not liking my evasive answer, but I’m not telling him where I’ve been staying. That information is classified.
“After the attack at the club, I figured you’d be laying low, maybe finally getting the hell out of the city,” he says. “Especially with George Amello being dead.”
I gape at him. “He’s dead?”
He nods, swirling his chair back and forth, still sipping his coffee… still not doing any work. “Someone shot him.”
I sigh, looking away from him to glance out the window.
It’s silent for a few minutes.
George is dead, and it’s probably my fault.
“I went to the house the other day,” I say quietly. “I haven’t gone there since everything happened.”
He mutters something under his breath. I don’t catch it all, just a few words here and there, notably ‘stupid’ and ‘death wish’.
“It looks the same,” I tell him. “It was strange. Seeing it, being there... it felt like just yesterday, like no time at all has passed. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect it to still feel so raw.”
He doesn’t say anything, but the look he gives me says enough: ‘get over it’. He’s never uttered those words directly, but I know he means them, I know he thinks them, every single time he looks at me this way. Pity. He pities me. Not enough, obviously, or else he’d actually do something about my situation, but just enough for him to humor me, for him to pretend to want to help.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” he suggests.
“I am. I’m talking to you.”
“I mean somebody who might be able to help you.”
“Again, I thought I was.”
He sighs, setting his coffee down. “I mean a therapist, Morgan. Maybe a grief counselor.”
“I don’t need a shrink. I just need someone to give a fuck about me.”
“Come on, don’t be that way,” he says, shoving out of his chair to step closer, pausing in front of me. “You know I care. I’m doing everything I can. I’m monitoring the situation.”
“Monitoring the situation.” I shake my head. “That sounds a hell of a lot like you’re just sitting back, watching it happen.”
He grasps my chin, his thumb stroking along my jawline as he tilts my head his way. “It’s going to be okay. I swear it. You just need to be patient for a little while longer. You want the case to stick, don’t yo
u? When we take him down, you want him to stay down, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then it’s going to take time. We can’t rush this. We’re not stopping, we’re not giving up... we’re just taking the time to get it right so what happened before doesn’t happen again. Okay?”
I used to buy his bullshit. Used to hang on to every syllable, believing he meant every word. And maybe some part of him is genuine, but that doesn’t mean he’s being honest.
I sometimes say I’m fine when I’m not. I say nothing’s bothering me when I’m distraught.
Little white lies to keep harmony. And I can tell, by that ‘get over it’ look Gabe gives me, that he doesn’t think they’ll ever nail him.
I say nothing, which the detective assumes means I’ve been placated, judging by the way he visibly relaxes, his thumb swiping across my bottom lip.
This son of a bitch…
He smiles, a smug little smile, as he tugs the zipper of his pants down. His free hand snakes inside his boxers, stroking himself beneath the material as he says, “It’s been too long, babe. I’ve missed seeing you.”
Before he can whip it out, I smack his hand away from my face. “You bring that thing anywhere near me, Detective Jones, and you’ll never use it again.”
His eyes widen. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I don’t know,” I say, “but I know what’s never getting into me again, and that’s you. I’m not your little fucktoy. Your job isn’t to use me as you see fit. Your job is to serve and protect. So do your goddamn job, detective, and keep your dick in your pants, because I’ve been waiting for ten fucking months, and I’m running out of patience.”
I got no sleep last night, none at all, every inch of me exhausted and sore. I haven’t even showered yet, leaving when it was still dark, while Lorenzo soundly slept. I didn’t want to wake him. He looked so peaceful. So I just threw on the first clothes I saw, pulled my hair back in a sloppy bun and headed out, remnants of the man all over me. I can smell him on my skin.
Gabe just stares at me with disbelief, hand still in his pants, clutching his dick, but he makes no move to whip it out, lucky for him.