Page 111 of Price of Angels

Her hands braced on the dresser, she leaned back against him, her inner muscles tightening around his cock.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Come on, let’s–”

He groaned as his face dropped into the crook of her neck, complete relief. His hips surged and his hands locked onto her tight, and it was the most violent thrusting as he drove inside her again and again, building a rhythm that coursed through her, made it difficult to keep her balance.

In the mirror, she watched the powerful movement of him behind her. She watched her cheeks flush deep pink. Watched her breasts swing as he pounded into her.

Her orgasm was shattering. It went on and on, and beneath its crush, she was aware of Michael taking hold of her, lifting her up into his arms, and stretching out on the bed with her. He laid her on her side, so she faced him. In her delirium of burning skin and rippling pulses, she clutched at his biceps and pressed her face to his hot chest.

She loved him. Loved him in a way that was both a white hot burn and a balm to soothe it.

He loved her.

From the moment of his birth to the moment of her death, he’d loved his mother. Camilla had been the sort of mother who loved without reservation; lullabies and stories and warm lipstick kisses. And after Mama was gone, he’d loved Uncle Wynn. He still did; the only father he’d ever known.

And now he loved Holly and he hadn’t the faintest idea how to go about keeping her.

She lay damp and flushed against him, her breath like the sound of wings beating as she sought to regain it.

He wanted to ease her onto her back, and have her again. He wanted to sleep, the soft shape of her fitted against him. He wanted to stop time, and keep things this simple. All women were complicated in his experience – but not Holly. She was bright, and sharp, and sweet, and he could feel the emotion pouring out of her, emotion she held for him. The irony – that she would ever be self-conscious, when she was incalculably smarter and kinder than the women he’d known. Her acceptance had been immediate and total.

And two murders lay ahead of him, and any number of awful things could happen to her before he’d finished them.

The idea terrified him.

For the first time, since the night his father bludgeoned his mother to death with a table lamp, he felt terror.

He felt her lips against his chest, a soft kiss she pressed over his heart.

He stroked her hair back off her face, feeling the fragile round shape of her skull, crushable and delicate. Yes, terrifying. “You wanna go home?”

His place, her place – it didn’t matter. Whichever one would be “home.”

“Yes.”

“He’s coming around.”

Ava peeked over Nell’s shoulder and saw RJ’s eyes flutter. He groaned, and if nothing else, he was conscious. His face looked like it’d taken on the business end of a baseball bat.

Nell dipped a cloth napkin in a cup of water and blotted his face with it again, eliciting a wince. His left eye was already swollen shut, the flesh around the socket puffed-up and rapidly discoloring. The orbital bones had to be broken.

“Man, what the hell did you do?” Aidan demanded of the half-comatose Dog laid out on the picnic table. “I think he was trying to kill you.”

“He was messing with Holly,” Ava said, and felt a dozen pairs of eyes swing toward her. She shrugged. “Well he was.”

“Did you see it?” Mercy asked.

“By the time I got out here, RJ was already on the ground, but Michael, plus Holly, plus RJ, plus TKO equals RJ got too friendly, in my estimation.”

Tango frowned. “RJ’s been sweet on her since she started working at Bell Bar.”

“Who the hell is Holly?” Ghost asked.

“Michael’s girlfriend,” Ava said. “He brought her with him tonight.”

“He has a girlfriend?”

She nodded.

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