Page 6 of Dark As Coal

I nodded, waiting for him to finish because I knew there was more to this story.

But he didn’t finish. Not yet anyway.

When we made it to the elevator, the moment the doors closed he explained further, “You remember a couple of years ago, the teenager who was his neighbor that got raped and Piney beat the absolute fuck out of her rapist?”

At my nod, his words floored me, “That teenager just turned eighteen this morning, and she was the one who donated him the kidney.”

I let his words process through my brain and all I could think was, holy fucking shit.

I didn’t say it though, words were useless. It was your actions that spoke for you.

He saw it on my face, though, and therefore he nodded.

When the doors opened, he looked at the screen showing what floor we were on, then he looked at the nurse that was about to step onto our elevator and asked, “Darlin’, you mind grabbing the next one?”

She looked at our kuttes, the whites of her eyes getting brighter with how wide her eyes were, and then she swallowed, nodded, then stepped back.

The doors closed again, and Asher mumbled, “Didn’t need anyone hearing this shit and need you to know the rest. Piney plans to offer her money to help her get on her feet, but he told me he knew she wouldn’t accept that. Then he asked if we could make her a club girl, but that she would be the only girl that had the power to tell anyone no. And I offered that if they didn’t listen to her, I would beat the lights of them.”

That was when Asher’s phone sounded; he pulled it out and read the screen, then pocketed it. “She agreed to be a club girl.”

I lifted my chin at him in acknowledgment and followed him off the elevator once we made it to the right floor.

And knowing my size, knowing what I come across as, the moment Asher stepped through the hospital room’s doorway, I followed suit but did it by hunching my shoulders to make myself look smaller.

Let me tell you something else you don’t know, nor will anyone ever fucking know.

The moment I walked in behind Asher, it had taken all of my control to not bang my chest and shout to the fucking stars in the sky with one word. Mine.

Laying there in a drab white hospital gown with little blue and pink flowers on it… there was nothing that could diminish her beauty.

She had long raven black hair that looked so soft I wanted to run my fingers through it.

But what really got me were her eyes. Eyes that I’ve never seen on another living soul.

They were so bright, and they reminded me of cold mornings when the sky is awash with pinks, oranges, blues, and purples.

Her eyes were the color of when the pink and the purple met.

They were fucking captivating.

And if I didn’t have control over my body, I would have missed her name when Piney introduced Asher and me to her.

As I took in her features, my only thought was Adeline.

Well, Adeline, I really want to see those full, cupid bow lips wrap around my cock.

You fucker.

After everything she’s been through that you know about, that isn’t the way to think about her.

But come the fuck on. I was a man. A red-blooded man.

There wasn’t a man alive, straight, or gay, that could look at her lips and not think about them wrapping around their dick.

I shook my head and cleared it from those thoughts.

And realized something; she was holding my gaze.

---