I grin, delighting in her ultimatum. She’ll expect me to squeeze her tits and run my hand across her cunt, but she’s wrong. I’m not a pussy-deprived teenager that doesn’t know restraint any better than he knows how to last more than thirty seconds.
I’ll touch her in all the places that won’t feel good enough. Her inner thighs and up to where they meet her ass, and her tiny waist up to her ribs and the side of her tits. When she’s left with nothing but the taste of ash on her tongue, I’ll show her that regret tastes worse.
She turns her chin towards the window, but keeps her stare pinned to me as she sticks the cigarette between her lips and lights it, the flame dangerously close to my face. The flare brightens her unusual light brown eyes, creating a startling effect beneath the flickering orange light. Shadows dance across the lines of her face, darkening the freckles on her cheeks.
At that moment, I decide she can’t be real, and that I’ve gone mad just like the little doll who used to haunt the inside of the walls.
I’m ready to set this entire car on fire, content with watching it burn around us if it means I can stare at her beneath the blazing glow. The flame goes out, casting us back in darkness, only the glimmer of moonlight allowing me to see her shadowed curves.
The cherry flares as she sucks in and then softly exhales, smoke whirling between us. My eyes are riveted on her mouth, desperate to see those lips wrapped around me instead.
“Am I tangible, or will you let me slip through your fingers like the smoke from this cigarette?” she asks, her voice raspy. Every single nerve ending lights up from how sensual she sounds.
Instead of allowing me to answer, she twists her hand and sticks the cigarette between my lips. The burn from the nicotine and menthol spreads down my throat and into my chest. She pulls it away and leans forward, brushing her parted lips against mine.
My hands begin to move, whispering across her ribs, causing her to shiver as I flutter them down to her hips, squeezing firmly before sliding to her inner thighs.
I exhale, the smoke trading from my mouth to hers before swirling out between the crevices. She doesn’t kiss me, but remains suspended above me and allows the smallest of brushes.
Then, she’s retreating again, inhaling the cigarette once more. Back and forth, she twists it between us, periodically ashing through the cracked window. My hands never pause, though it only took moments before she began to tremble.
The air crackles around us, and it’s clear that I don’t need to set this car on fire when our chemistry is like dynamite and burns everything around us.
“Our mouths are touching the same spot,” she says shakily. “Does that count as kissing?”
“You tell me, little mouse. When I make you cry out for God, does that count as praying?”
Her bottom lip curls beneath her straight teeth, and a growl forms deep in my chest.
“If you’re showing me where to bite, I can assure you those sweet lips will only be the beginning.”
She doesn’t deign me a response right away and puffs on the cigarette again, then ashes it.
“Would you make me bleed?” she asks, her voice hoarse as the smoke swirls around us.
“If you ask me to,” I murmur. “I’d prefer to see you covered in my own blood, though.”
My answer seems to surprise her, so I take advantage and lean forward, brushing my lips across her jawline. She said I could touch her, but she never limited me to my hands.
“Whatever those men made you feel is not what I’m going to make you feel, little mouse. Whether your skin is between my teeth, beneath my blade, or under my tongue.”
She shivers, and I nip at her jaw to prove my point.
“It’s gone,” she rasps, pulling away, throwing the cigarette out the window, and rolling it up. “Don’t forget to pick that up.”
The tension deepens as I wait for her to open the door and slide from my lap. Sensing her turmoil, I slide my lips along her jaw and toward her mouth until they’re centimeters apart.
“You have until the smoke dissipates to kiss me,” I murmur.
Only a hairsbreadth of a pause passes before she’s crashing her lips onto mine. My hands dive into her hair, curling tightly as I devour her lips. She tastes sublime, and the feel of her tongue sliding against mine is intoxicating.
The world could fall to pieces around us, crumble to ashes as the cigarette did between our lips, and I wouldn’t notice.
Staccato pants and desperate moans blend between my teeth, and all I can think of is all the ways I could make this last forever.
As if hearing my thoughts, she rips herself away, nearly crashing into the steering wheel in her pursuit to get away. Her hair is scattered across her face, and she stares at me with wide, panicked eyes.
She’s strung tight, and those strings are on the verge of snapping.
“Smoke is gone,” she whispers before opening the door and scrambling out, disappearing in a flash.
I grit my teeth and curl my hand into a tight fist, seconds away from sending it into the steering wheel.
Growling, I nearly kick open the door, grab the cigarette butt and throw it in the trash bag in my car, then slam the door shut behind me. Tension and anger build in my muscles, and rolling my neck does little to ease it.
Only my runaway mouse will, and deep down in that dark part of me, I hope she’s suffering from the loss of me as much as I am her.
Chapter 29
The Hunter
I cock my head to the side, staring at the running man with bewilderment.
“Why does he run like that?” I ask, genuinely concerned if Rick likes to peg himself with foreign objects. Maybe one got stuck because Jesus fucking Christ, who runs like that?
“That… that’s a good question,” Jay answers through my earpiece, sounding just as bemused as I am. He’s watching through the drone hovering over the awkwardly running dude.
We’ve been tracking Rick Boreman since he fled from Francesca’s house. He wasn’t hard to find despite his best efforts to stay hidden. I’m sure it hurt his shriveled little soul to have millions of dollars and not be able to fuck off to a tropical island with strippers and blow. Guess the dude hasn’t fried his brain with drugs so badly that he’s not aware of the massive target on his back.
One of two people responsible for abducting my girl, and that’s just not something I will take lightly.
I sigh, point my gun and shoot, the bullet hitting him in the back of the knee and sending him to the concrete with a sharp yelp.
“Fucking cocksucker!” he shouts, his voice breaking like a twelve-year-old boy. He even sounded like a kid who just learned to curse and does it every other word because he’s trying to be cool.
“You really want to call me a cocksucker when that’s what you’ve been doing the past four years just to get by?” I retort, arching a brow as I approach him.
We’re in a dank alleyway, with trash littered on either side, spilling over from the dumpsters. Or maybe there’s a family of raccoons in there tossing out the undesirable rot. Makes me wonder if they’d keep Rick’s body after he’s dead.
The pavement is wet and cold, and a whirring, orange bulb hangs at the mouth of the alleyway, offering enough light to bless me with a pock-marked face and greasy hair tucked under a beanie.
“Fuck you,” he spits, his trembling hands holding his bloody knee. Or what’s left of it. He’s rocking back and forth, moaning through the agony as he glowers up at me with hatred.
Even Addie has more oomph in her glares than that, and she’s never truly hated me. Not like Rickety Dick here is about to.
I crouch down and sweep my gaze across his form, dissecting him like bones out of fossilized shit. The summer camp counselors made us do that one year, and all I could feel was utter disgust. Feels about the same as I stare down at the sad excuse of a man.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.