Page 63 of Unhinged Cravings
“Even when you have other people in that meeting?”
I raised myself up and hovered there, tracing the dragon tattoo on her shoulder blade with my tongue. “You can, but I’ll have to blind them all before you do. Maybe gouge their eardrums, too, so they don’t hear those beautiful gags.”
“That’s gross,” she said, trying to see me over her shoulder.
“That’s me staking my claim. No one sees or hears any part of you, or I’ll have to kill them. Plain and simple.”
Finally finding my strength, I slid from her and fixed my pants. “Why don’t you keep my cum in you the rest of the day? I’m just going to fill you up again, so there’s no reason toclean up.”
“You’re going to take me again right now?” she asked, her eyes going from the chair and to the desk she was resting against. She was wriggling into her jeans, her tits bouncing in the lace bra she wore. It was white and sheer enough for me to see right through it.
“This guy needs a breather. You just drained him dry. Let’s get a drink and turn on one of your boring small town love stories while I recover.” Of all the tastes in movies I could have guessed for her, it would not have been those. They made me want to gouge my own eyes out, but since she had no reservations about making herself comfortable any time I sat with her, I was willing to put up with it.
I threw her shirt at her. “Cover those up before I make you come again.”
Pouting her lips, she retorted, “I might leave it off then.”
With a shake of my head, I stepped across the room and opened the door for her. My phone interrupted my steps. Seeing my brother’s name on the screen, I told her, “I’ll be out in a minute. This one I take alone.”
“Decided to come crawling to me early?” I asked Greyson when I answered, hoping that wasn’t the case. I wasn’t ready to part with Ava yet, nor did I have a plan to keep her.
“What’s wrong, Mer?”
Our parents had never let us shorten our names, insisting we remain formal, even with our friends. The only rebellion we had was between ourselves. Up to the day I changed my name, he was the only one I allowed to use that nickname, and I was the only one who called him Grey. Anyone who thought otherwise had found themselves black and blue.
“Nothing other than you not following my timeline. I should kill her just for this.” Saying the words caused knots in my stomach.
“I’m serious. Cut the shit for five minutes. Brother to brother, tell me what’s going on beforethis escalates.”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “It already escalated. And we haven’t been brothers since the day you back stabbed me.”
“It’s been twenty-five years, Mer. Let it go. She ran off with a bookie who knocked her up six months after I tossed her out. She was a slut who was using you.”
I let the silence hang between us, tempted for just a moment to leave it in the past and tell him everything. It was what I’d wanted, to have him listen to me, to help me wipe the scum from my territory and make some kind of peace agreement between us. But I wasn’t ready. Too proud to admit my failure to handle the mutiny in my ranks, the failures as everything I’d built slipped through my fingers and turned to ash. Too fearful of losing Ava.
“And you were the bastard who stole her from me.” The words were empty, the rage hanging on by a tattered thread. I was tired of the fight, of clinging to the past. Ready for something more. Scraping my hand through my hair, I said, “You have four days. Call me again before that and I’ll ensure she’s dead before you even hang up.”
I disconnected and stared at the phone, contemplating dialing him back. But I wanted to hang on to the next four days, to pretend things were good. To hold on to Ava just a little longer and to my pride before I had to tuck my tail between my legs and admit that I’d fucked up. That everything I had was now just a façade.
There had been times through the years where I’d thought of leaving it all behind. Taking enough money to live off and slip away, travel the world, live like a normal person. Leave the killing, the constant stress, the high adrenaline and live. But there had been no one worth living for until now.
Phone back in my pocket, I left my office and found Ava throwing popcorn into the air and catching it in her mouth. Hearing me, she turned, missing one. I watched as it bounced off her nose and onto the floor.
“Come on.” She patted the seat next to her, then bent andpicked up the rogue piece, popping it in her mouth and mumbling, “Five second rule.”
“And you call me gross,” I teased, sitting beside her. She curled up to me and shoved a piece of popcorn in my mouth.
“You are. Now shush. She just left her high paying finance job and moved home to help her father run the inn.”
“Let me guess. There’s a buff handy-man who wouldn’t last two minutes in a street fight?”
She bumped me with her elbow, then snuggled into my lap as if it was a natural thing we’d been doing for years. That’s what it was with Ava—everything about her was new, but almost like she’d been doing it with me for a lifetime. My fingers played in her hair as the movie continued, but my mind wasn’t on the predictable plot. It was on the woman who sucked in a breath when the characters had their first kiss, who squeezed my leg when some accident happened, and wiped her eyes when the damn thing finally ended. She added life to my bleak world. A lonely world with no attachments, women who came and went because none had been her, blood and violence. But in the days she’d been in my life, she had grounded it, tethering herself to me and I couldn’t begin to unravel her from me, nor did I want to.
Chapter Twenty
AVA
Emerson had left me in bed after ravaging me to the point that I needed another hour of sleep just to replenish my energy. The man had stamina. My fingers draped over his pillow as I thought about him. Another day had passed, and I was in even deeper than I ever imagined. I wanted to stay here with him, to continue in my ignorant bliss and pretend we were a normal couple on the cusp of our romance, that I didn’t have a life beyond the doors of his home, and he didn’t have some bastards trying to destroy him.
