Page 35 of Death's Deal

Pulling free my phone, dialling the number, and hitting send, it immediately rings with the international tone.

Once.

Twice.

Three times it rings.

As I’m about to hang up. “Hello?”

I say nothing. I’m in awe. I’m amazed. The sound of the person I long felt dead is speaking in a tone I’d so badly missed. The soft lyrical hum, the gentle whisper of her voice, the voice has not changed at all. I’d know her anywhere.

I’ve heard it in my dreams. My memories have rung with the sound of her singing me to sleep.

Just before I’m about to hang up, without thinking I ask with trepidation, “Hylo?”

For a moment she stays silent, processing the voice. Eventually her voice rents the air between us again, softly, questioningly, “Quinlan? I wondered when someone would find my book. I’m surprised though that you figured out the number and called it. I never expected you.”

Chewing the inside of my cheek, warring with saying something profound, or nothing at all, I stay quiet just with the thought of her voice coursing over the tiny speaker.

She continues, “You don’t have to say anything. Though, if you need anything, anything at all. Call me again.” She lets out a heavy sigh, as if she’s content with the world and me finally knowing she’s alive. “It is nice to hear your voice, Quinlan.” Without warning, she hangs up the line, ending the moment.

Pocketing my phone and placing the book on the table, the moment has had a profound effect on me, but also, it has given me further resolve to know the truth. Yes, I’ll admit I’m fearful of Mayhem’s gaze as he sees me, or as he tries to hide what I now know to be true. She’s not dead, and I bet he knew it all along. The book is a recounting of a woman’s life who I had thought long dead. A simple phone call has changed that historical truth.

I need the truth and my father is as real and as powerful as he’s ever been. Thankfully, the one thing he’s never been is a liar. He’ll voice the truth to me like firing a gun point-blank. Swift and without remorse for any feelings I may have.

With fifteen more years left on his sentence, there’s only one way to get in front of him. I’d sworn long ago I would be the last person he saw grace the prison for a visit.

“Ready?” Reappearing in the hall, she has her long hair tied back, wearing a tight, formfitting black tee shirt with stone-washed gray jeans. The outfit hugs all of her curves, accentuating every ounce of her beauty. One look at her and neither the phone call nor the visit to Mayhem matters. Wearing something so simple, Toni looks utterly stunning and the boy in me remembers how she felt.

How we were.

Biting my lip, feeling my cock rising to take notice, I smirk as I take two steps toward her. “If I were a better man.” Stopping short of stepping on her feet, I stand above her, looking down.

Softly batting those huge eyelashes, her simple grin says it all before she speaks, “You’re pretty great too, if you asked me, Quinny.”

“You broke me for all other women.” I play with the hair that lazily drapes across her forehead. “I’ve never kissed anyone since you. I couldn’t imagine anyone who would fit me quite the same as you.” Unable to curb my reaction any longer, grasping her by the nape of the neck, and bringing her closer, tentatively at first, I place my lips against hers. I gotta admit, I was expecting a slap. Toni surprises me though. She wraps her hand around my neck and toys with the thick necklace around my throat. In that moment, I know she is a slave to the same memories as me. Feeling her hand rise, feathering the necklace, Toni twists the gold links, playing with it. It’s as if a piece of our souls has been entwined once more and no time at all has passed between us.

Wrapping her up with my other arm, leading her backward, guiding her slowly down the hall, we bounce off of the walls. The feel of her, the scent of her perfume and her arousal drive straight to my core. Our lips never detach, and our tongues explore as if it is for the first time and the last. I have needed this more than air, and as the heat of our breath tickles the hairs on my face, so seemingly innocent, yet deeply erotic, my need for her grows higher. For years I thought of her as someone who had betrayed me. I’d thought of all the ways I could hurt her back, but I never acted upon it. I guess, in a way, I knew she never really deserved that hatred. Now, knowing the truth, knowing it was never her intention to hurt me, I need her more than I can speak aloud.

“Quinny,” she speaks my name on a sigh as I let my hands wander down her length. I reach for the button of those newly installed jeans. When her hips rise to meet me roughly, with a frenzied fervor my hands grasp the edges of the jeans to yank them down. Peeling them off of her until they are stuck near her knees, brushing my hand along her soft silken panties, peeling them away to access her pussy, without a second thought, I rip the expensive shit off. Hearing the material tear, and knowing what I want is now proudly naked in my hand, I cup her, feeling the heat rolling off of her skin. The trimmed, soft and silken hairs are neatly shorn around her lips, and feeling my way between them, I find the slickened heat of her arousal. Exploring as if it were the first time all over again, I ask, “Do you still think of me when you come?”

With her eyes trained on mine, she replies, “Every time, Quinny. There’s been no one else.”

Hold up.

Since we were teenagers, she’s had no one else between her legs? Or is it that she only thought of me? This gives me pause. “You haven’t had sex since I went to jail?”

“No, Quinny. I haven’t. The last thing I wanted to have was a discussion about my son to strangers, or talking to my father about my sex life. And honestly, there was no man who could take up real estate in this heart, because it’s always been yours.”

I’m speechless. “Then I’m not rushing the first time you’ve had sex in all these years.” If all she’s done is made herself come on her hand thinking of me, then I’m showing her what she waited for.

Wrapping my left arm around her waist, and the other under her knees, I carry her into my bedroom. No one but me has set foot in this room. It’s my sanctuary. I only fuck women in my apartment at the clubhouse, none have ever come here.

Laying her on the bed, taking in the moment, realizing she is here and this is not just another awkward dream, I contemplate releasing her legs from her jeans. Deviously, I figure if she hasn’t had a proper orgasm since we were kids, I want to make her come over and over. She’ll feel it in every inch of her body.

I’m keeping her legs locked up.

“Roll that pillow over your eyes,” I tell her sternly. “I want you to feel what you were missing for all these years.” With a smirk, she does as I ask.

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