Conor Thames 2

by R. J. Lewis

  For once hiding her emotion, she kissed him hard, but he felt her tears in their kiss. She clung to him needily, and he felt her desperation.

  In the background, Penny squealed with laughter, running in with her iPad, claiming, “I blew Kane’s house up! He is going to be so mad.”

  Charlotte shook her head, fighting her grin. “Why would you do that, Penny? You’re turning into a gremlin with that game.”

  “It was his fault. I warned him not to build on my land, but now there’s this giant hole in my yard and he’s stuck at the bottom.”

  “How on earth did he survive that?”

  “I think he stole a health potion from me.”

  Giggling like a madman, she turned the screen and showed them her game.

  Just like she said, there was a giant hole. She somehow was able to fly over it, giving them the full view of a pixelated boy at the bottom of the hole.

  He’d been good. He’d ventured outside, walked the block with Penny every day, and he was learning his way around the kitchen. He had made leaps and bounds and could have sworn he’d felt better.

  But a few days later and the darkness returned, and he felt blindsided by it.

  Vulnerability was scary to Thames. His heart was battering inside his chest, so much so, his entire chest ached. He had felt these anxiety attacks in prison for years, and he’d hidden the debilitating effects they had on his body. He’d wait until he was in his cell, and then he’d try and find the safe place in his mind.

  Most times, he’d jerk off, and it wasn’t to feel pleasure, but to take the edge off the adrenaline coursing through his body.

  He stood under the hot spray, staring down at his hard dick, wondering if he should do that now.

  It was night and the house was still. Charlotte had been on the bed reading on her phone when he’d disappeared inside the bathroom. With shaking hands he’d turned the hot water on and stripped, desperately seeking the heat. Vision spotting, he’d locked the door because he didn’t want her to see him this way.

  He spent so much of his time thinking he was going to be jumped, waiting for someone to hurt him the second he’d let his guard down. He’d made so many enemies, had drawn so much blood, that all he could do was look over his shoulder, waiting to be struck.

  But he didn’t have to worry about that now, so why was he still feeling like it was about to happen? Maybe he was never going to feel like his old self again. He could never go back to feeling untouchable. How the fuck had he ever felt invincible? What a foolish boy he used to be.

  It was always kill or be killed.

  Strike first or get hurt.

  “I win when he’s down?”

  “You win when he’s dead.”

  He wrapped his hand around his dick and pumped, but all he saw were the scared, pleading eyes of the men he’d hurt. The very same men who’d tried to touch him. Who’d tried to defile him.

  Like he’d been burned, he let go of his dick and beat his forehead against the tiled wall.

  This wasn’t going to work, and he wasn’t going to calm down anytime soon. He needed another way, or he might do something stupid.

  Charlotte was face down, belly flat against the mattress, fast asleep when he stumbled out of the shower and crawled into bed. He pulled the sheet off her body and kissed up her bare leg. He pulled her night gown up and over her hips and buried his face in her ass. He felt like a man possessed, needing nothing more than the scent of her pussy.

  If he didn’t fuck her now, he’d die.

  Pulling her panties down, he spread her cheeks apart and worshipped her smooth skin, lapping his tongue along her folds. She stirred beneath him, releasing a surprised groan deep in her throat. Within minutes, she was wet and writhing, and he was so hard, he might break her if he wasn’t careful.

  And he wasn’t careful.

  That was the hard part. He couldn’t control himself. He just wanted to stop seeing those pleading eyes every time he shut his eyes. He just wanted to be sane again.

  He was shaking with need when he dropped the towel and directed his dick at her entrance. His muscles strained, every inch of him ached for release. He grabbed a chunk of her hair and slid into her without notice. She gasped at the sudden move, moaning out his name.

  “Yes, dove, keeping saying my name,” he strained out, the ache present as ever in his voice.

  He was a feral animal, walls down, face hidden from her as he fucked her without restraint. Deeper and deeper, and it wasn’t deep enough. Every stroke of pleasure pushed the bad thoughts away. If he wasn’t inside her, he wasn’t breathing. So he fucked her, until the bad disappeared, and it was just this – him and her, her body and his – fucking.

  He slipped his hand to her pussy, massaging her clit in circles, building her up until she came. She came over and over again, crying into the pillow, hair in her mouth. He sucked at the soft spot between her neck and shoulder, biting gently as she came down from her umpteenth high.

  And then he fucked her savagely again. Harder than before.

  He wanted to leave her sore. He wanted her to ache.

  When he came, it was sudden and explosive and…fucking perfect. He came and came, filling her pussy up to the brim with his seed, groaning like a pained animal, his mouth buried in her hair, her scent comforting him.

  When he got off her and dropped to the bed panting, he grabbed at her body and hugged her to his chest, squeezing her tightly against him. When she tried to look up at him, he forced her tighter still.

  She didn’t need to see his pain.

  He couldn’t bear it.

  “I’m not safe,” she later murmured, half-asleep, her finger drawing circles along his sweaty chest.

  “I know,” he said, passively.

  He didn’t care.

  Prison was a testosterone-fuelled sausage fest. Every day was unpredictable. Thames had learned to endure the chaos; he’d even absorbed some of it. It was sheer pandemonium, and some of the inmates couldn’t cope the second they’d walked in. Thames once witnessed an inmate snap fifteen years into his sentence.

  Snapping consisted of various things. One picked a fight and was beaten to death. Another stabbed an inmate with the broken end of a broomstick and was placed in solitary. And then there were the ones that took it out on themselves. The ones that decided it was time to check out and, See you later, world. They’d usually be found hanging in their cells come morning.

  At his lowest, Thames would have killed himself, and the most fucked up part of that was he didn’t think he would regret it. Even being out, he remembered what that aching depression felt like. When you’ve been that low, you don’t forget the scarring effect it has on you. The depression sinks its teeth into your being and becomes part of you.

  He was feeling that pain right now, and he couldn’t breathe. Sex had taken the edge off, but he was still all kinds of fucked. His chest felt all tight and he didn’t have a cement wall to bust his fist into. So, he slipped out of bed in the dead of night, changed into his jogging pants and hoodie and quietly left the house.

  The second the cold air hit his face, he stepped off the porch and ran. The rush in him was immediate. The burn in his lungs was welcoming. He felt reborn, the space endless in front of him.

  He blinked and pictured the cell he’d rotted in for so many years. He remembered walking in endless circles, brushing his fingers along the cement walls, wondering what freedom felt like because he’d forgotten.

  He took deep breaths, his eyes scanning the large houses he ran past. He kept his hood up, obscuring most of his face so that in the off chance someone was still out, they couldn’t know who he was.

  He wasn’t Conor Thames, bully, infamous bad boy, mega criminal asshole of Blackwater.

  Right now he was invisible.

  He slowed as Reid’s house came into view. The house was dark, but the porch light was on, and sitting on the steps, nursing a smoke was Reid. Elbows propped on each knee, he’d been staring ahead at nothi
ng when his head snapped in Thames’ direction.

  Reid watched him as he stopped and stared back. Thames’ chest was heaving up and down, his skin was slick with sweat. There was a spark of adrenaline at the sight of Reid sitting there. He hadn’t anticipated actually seeing him. He’d just wanted to run past the house, give it a quick look, try to reconcile the curiosity in him from what he’d heard about Reid.

  Flicking the smoke down on the ground, Reid stood up and strolled to him. Dressed similarly as him, Thames couldn’t help but feel a little surprised at how big Reid how gotten. Took a while for the little shit to grow up, but when he did, he turned into a fucking man.

  “Did she tell you about my text?” he asked him, coming to a stop just before the fence that separated him from Thames.

  “What text?” Thames returned carefully.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Reid’s lips went up on one side as he looked his cousin over. “Looking solid, cousin.”

  Thames nodded slowly. “Can say the same about you.”

  “How’ve you been?”

  “Not sure yet,” he said honestly, eyes lapping over Reid’s face. “Still scoping out the lay of the land.”

  “I didn’t think you’d come out of hiding for a while yet.”

  Conor looked at him. “I’m not hiding.”

  Reid nodded slowly. “No, you aren’t.”

  Only a few moments of tense silence followed. Thames always waited for the other person to diffuse it. He found he could read certain things about a person in silence. Sometimes they were skittish. Other times awkward. Sometimes they said too much. Other times too little.

  And Reid…

  Reid always said a lot.

  “You’ll find Blackwater’s changed, but it’s the same, too,” Reid explained just then, breaking the silence. “Same fuckheads, same addicts, same rich fucks, same line right down the middle.”

  “What side of the line are you on?” Conor asked,

  Reid smiled, pausing briefly to flick his thumb in the direction of his house. “Same side, cuz. Haven’t upgraded if that’s what you’re asking. Trying to live humbly.”

  Thames glanced briefly at the pretty sportscar in the driveway. “Looks…humbling.”

  Reid chuckled. “I have my weaknesses. I think love for cars runs in the family, don’t you think?”

  “I think we have our own version of love for them.”

  “Yeah? What’s your version?”

  Glancing once more at the sleek sportscar, Thames said, “I never liked to buy a new car. Never liked owning something so damn pretty without having turned it pretty myself.”

  Reid’s smile wavered. “You were always gifted with that. Putting junk together. Making ugly things…useful.”

  Thames redirected his gaze at Reid, catching the underlying meaning in those words. Cheeky fuck. Leave it to Reid to not let go of the past. Leave it to Reid to reopen an old pain right out of the gate all these years later.

  With a faint smile, he replied, “Never ugly things, Reid. Neglected, more like. Beauty is always there but only wasted in the hands of the one who didn’t value it.”

  Reid couldn’t keep his smile intact. His nostrils flared as he sniffed and looked away. Thames watched him carefully, wondering how short this man’s fuse was. Just how long did a grudge last? He supposed it depended on how much Reid cared for what he felt slighted over. And could it be that Reid cared so much for Charlotte that he still carried a grudge all these years later?

  Or perhaps it went deeper than that. Perhaps it was a harsh blow to his masculinity he was still recovering from. After all, the town had witnessed his loss, and he had made Thames’ dove suffer for it.

  Now that was a grudge Thames felt as strong as the day he’d learned of it.

  “So how’s your old man, Reid?” Thames asked curiously.

  Reid shrugged one shoulder. “He had a stroke a while back. Had to put him somewhere.”

  “Where is that?”

  “He’s being looked after.” Reid was being vague on purpose. “He’s fine.”

  “Awfully vague, cousin.”

  “Well, he made enemies, and I’m not willing to part with that information with just anyone.”

  Ah. There it was, the truth. Good old Uncle Dave was too much of a cunt to the wrong person. Unsurprising. He was always dirty, and judging by what Thames had heard recently, Reid had followed in his footsteps.

  “That’s what happens when you get into business with the wrong people,” he commented, sussing Reid out.

  “Regardless,” Reid returned, “business is better than ever.”

  “Guess you took advantage of my absence well.”

  “Less competition the better.”

  “Still, must have taken a lot of capital to get to where you are now.” On that thought, Thames added, “My house burned down.”

  “Yeah, it made it in the news at the time. Electrical fire, wasn’t it?”

  Thames didn’t respond for a moment. He stared long and hard at Reid. “I got robbed.”

  Reid kept his face neutral, but the corner of his mouth flickered. “That sucks, Conor.”

  Yeah, Thames knew straight away this fucker was responsible for it.

  No wonder his shady business surged.

  The capital came from Thames’ basement.

  The front door of the house burst open just then and a woman stepped out, cigarette in hand. She began to call out Reid’s name when she stopped abruptly, noticing him and Thames. Her movements slowed as she quietly lit up her smoke and watched them.

  Reid looked at her from over his shoulder and said nothing, but Thames caught the frown lines on Reid’s face. A storm brewed in his eyes as he swung his gaze back to Thames. It was startling to see his demeanour change so abruptly. Thames recognized that behaviour. He’d seen it in his dad, and in Reid’s dad too.

  “Back with Rebecca,” Thames noted just then, trying to assess this man’s odd demeanour.

  Reid gave him a dry look. “Remembered her name? Impressive.”

  “What’s more impressive is she took you back.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “You were never really a one-woman kind of guy.”

  Reid shrugged dismissively “Becca’s always been good to me. She doesn’t mind having an open relationship, and she doesn’t ask questions. That’s what you want in a relationship. A girl that talks back is a headache. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  What a fuckhead.

  Thames smirked darkly. “I love when my girl talks back, Reid. I love when she holds her own.”

  Reid looked amused. “Interesting. Charlotte was always easy to control when I was with her. She did as she was told.”

  Keeping his voice level, Thames replied, “Only so she could get away from the half-brother that violated her.”

  Reid smiled sinisterly. “According to her. Who knows what really happened in that bedroom?”

  Despite feeling that familiar surge of adrenaline, Thames didn’t react. His face remained clean of emotion as he stared back at this dickhead. Reid wanted a reaction. Kind of like Billy, then, wasn’t he? Thames had always known what a worm his cousin was. He felt kind of validated that Reid was proving to him what a douchebag cunt he was.

  “There was this man in prison,” Thames spoke slowly in a faint voice. “He was funny, but he talked a lot. He thought because he was funny and he made people laugh, that he could get away with saying anything he liked because…you never kill the funny guy.

  “One day, he made a joke. He said, ‘Thames, do you have a bitch at home? If you do, what does she look like? Do you beat off to her in bed at night? Tell us how good she was, so we could, too, because a guy as big as you must have had something hot back home.’

  “I said, ‘Leo, don’t ask me about home, and don’t you dare disrespect my girl by calling her a bitch, either.’ Leo smirked at me, because he was the funny guy and he could say what he wanted because the funny guy never dies. He said, ‘Thames, so
unds like your bitch taught you well. Does she know you’re a faggot in prison? That you made men do things to you because they threatened to do them to you first? Is she the scarred type? Only the scarred type will understand.’

  “I warned Leo one last time. I said, ‘Leo, keep your fucking mouth shut about my girl.’ He laughed this time because he could see how touchy I was about it. It was the first time I ever let slip I had a love outside the walls, and he loved it. He said, ‘Thames, she probably fed you a story of being scarred, but she liked the dick. I’m telling you, she liked it, and now she’s playing the victim, like all the bitches do these days.’

  “I didn’t say anything to Leo. I let him laugh about it. I let him laugh for a good hour. Because it was going to be the last hour he would ever laugh again. I waited in a dark corner that day, had the guards bought off so they weren’t around, and I pounced on him. I wrapped my arm around his throat and I laughed, Reid. I laughed at him and said, ‘You raped a few girls and they’re out there wanting you dead because you tried to discredit them, you tried to tell them they lied, and they’re going to smile when they find out you didn’t make it, and that’s what happens. That’s what happens when you poke the bear, thinking they won’t bite.’

  “That was the only kill I never regretted, Reid. You never, ever regret killing a guy like that, a guy that silences a victim, right?”

  Thames stopped talking and just stared at Reid.

  He stared and stared and then Reid looked away.

  “Alright, Thames,” Reid whispered eventually. “Alright.”

  Yeah, alright, motherfucker.

  If this were max, Reid would be joining Leo, because Leos everywhere didn’t learn.

  They never learned.

  “You out looking for trouble or something?” Reid asked just then, staring hard at Thames. “Is that how you found your way here? Some serendipitous run up to my front door?”