Too many, was the answer.
And were any of them happier than they started? Fuck no. Of course they weren’t. They were dogs chasing their tails, except worse. At least dogs had fun.
Their efforts accomplished nothing except additional misery. That was all that came from hunting goals that would forever be out of reach.
I wasn’t them. What I wanted was in my arms, hot and willing and ready. Whatever kept me from treating her as harshly as I probably should have—given her ties to people in opposition to the Sinners—was a problem for some other time.
A hand slammed into my chest and I grunted, glancing up at a fire-eyed devil determined to drive me crazy with pure, unfiltered lust.
“Put me down,” she said. “I need to get these sweatpants off and then I need you inside me.”
Lord, you did not prepare me for a woman that knows what she wants.
I did as she asked, lowering her to the floor by degrees. Once her feet were on solid ground, I knelt in front of her, lips trailing a path between her breasts and down to the waist of her sweatpants.
My fingers gripped the material tight, starting to pull, and I glanced up at her.
Josie was leaned back against the wall, mouth spread open, one hand in my hair and the other splayed on the wall behind her. When I paused, she purred and rocked her hips into my face. The musky scent of her arousal drifted around me until my whole body buzzed like nothing before.
I yanked her sweatpants to her knees, baring her pussy in all its glory. She was pink, wet, and perfect, lips already slightly parted and glistening. My tongue found its way to her slit without a conscious decision from me, and I wasn’t sure who released the moan that floated through the air.
“You should’ve let me do this that first night,” I growled, dipping my head against her stomach so I could savor her flesh the way she deserved. “I could eat pussy like this for years and never get bored.”
“I didn’t know you,” Josie said.
Her voice cut out in a sharp exhale as I gripped her thighs tight, holding her in place.
“And you know me now?”
“Enough to know that listening isn’t your strong suit.”
I paused in my feast long enough to shoot her an irritated scowl. When she matched it with one of her own, I smirked, tongue running circles around my mouth to collect her juices. “Sure you want to be a smartass right now?”
Her eyes flared with challenge. “Sure you want to keep playing with the appetizer when you can sink into the main course instead?”
“You just go ahead and keep talking.” I pulled her sweatpants off completely and tossed them over my shoulder to be forgotten. “See if I won’t gag your ass and laugh when you try to scream at me.”
Josie wasn’t the least bit intimidated. Damn if that wasn’t an even bigger turn on.
“Do whatever you want,” she dared. “As long as it means you’ll be inside me instead of talking.”
I hated to admit it, but her goading was working. The blood in my veins was closer to lava. My dick was harder than steel, throbbing with heat like it was fresh from the forge and desperate to find the sheath it’d been made for.
In a swift move, I stood to my full height, capturing her neck with one hand. With the other, I lifted her by that tight ass, barely holding in the praise I wanted to lay at her feet when long legs wrapped around my waist without needing to be directed there.
My hips dipped as I aligned myself with her entrance. I couldn’t stop my groan when I felt her silky lips part around the intrusion. And I couldn’t look away from her green eyes as passion glazed them over.
“Holy shit,” she mumbled as I stretched her tight pussy open around my length. “You’re like a fucking bat.”
“And yet you take this dick like you were built for it.” Fuck. What happened to not praising her? “Look at the way your pussy is clinging to me.”
Her eyes stayed on mine, the defiance in them easy to read.
I surged the rest of the way inside her, hard enough to press her into the wall. Her lids fluttered, so I did it again, and again, devouring the strangled noises I managed to rip from her chest. “I told you to look, pussycat. Now’s not the time to fuck with me.”
She wet her lips, the tightness leaving her expression as her body adjusted to my size. “Pretty sure I already am fucking with you, big man. Isn’t that what’s happening here?”
I bared my teeth, growling right in her face. “Jesus Christ, woman. What the fuck does it take to shut you up?”
“More than you have,” she hissed from between her teeth when I bumped against the end of her, as deep as I could go.
Finally, she shifted her neck around in my grasp and looked down. I did as well, wanting to see the same thing. And oh what a glorious sight it was.
Immediately, I was certain there was no better view on the entire planet than the one of my cock emerging from between her pink lips, wet and glistening with juices that were already running down my balls.
As if recognizing their existence was a trigger, a pulse of need went through them, traveling through my gut and settling on my spine. Unable to resist the fresh surge of torrential desire, I pounded into Josie harder still.
Our bodies slapped together in the relative silence, the perfect company to the heavy breathing filling the room.
She tried to lean into me, but I only pinned her between me and the wall with my weight, bringing my hands up to protect her head from being banged into the wall with every powerful thrust.
Even between lids threatening to flutter closed, she glared at me.
At how close my face was.
At the way I stared at her lips, wanting to taste them again as badly as I wanted this to never stop.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she whispered. “You can’t make a habit out of kissing me.”
“Why not?” I demanded, thumbs lightly circling along the base of her neck. A complete contrast to the dominating way I claimed every bit of space and heat and tightness her body could offer me.
Josie didn’t answer.
“Why. Not?”
Still nothing.
Her nails scraped a trail down my back and a tremor followed the path she drew. My head fell forward, lips slipping across hers automatically.
For an instant, the contact was as soothing as coming home after a long journey. That impossibly relaxing Zen of being greeted by a space that was yours and yours alone.
No other people.
No other distractions.
Just...peace, unlike anything I had ever known.
And while I was grateful for it, peace was a dangerous thing to get used to with a woman like this.
She must’ve been reading my mind, because her teeth sank into my bottom lip and pulled until I cursed and drew back.
Except I only managed to crash right into her all over again and start the process once more.
Our tongues met with the same ferocity as our lower bodies. Despite the position she was in—completely at the mercy of whatever I wanted to do to her—Josie continued to meet my thrusts with rolls of her hips that never stopped.
Not even when I felt the small twitches and spasms going through her pussy.
The same ones that had me flexing everything from my toes to the muscles in my neck to keep from reaching the fast-approaching peak.
We were using each other equally, and it eased some of the concern I had about fucking her so hard that everything below her waist was going to be bruised in the morning.
Then I cursed, glancing down again. Realizing what I’d forgotten. “Fuck,” I mumbled. Louder, “Fuck!”
“What?” she breathed, swiping her tongue along my jaw.
“Condom. Specifically, the one I don’t have.”
If I was expecting that to be the moment she finally discovered how out of control I was and ran like hell, I was wrong.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Just pull out.” A small smirk pulled at her lips.
&nbs
p; “Just pull out?” I mocked, the dance of our hips not missing a single beat. “I’m thinking you hit your head when I wasn’t looking.”
She shook her head, wavy hair tickling the backs of my fingers. “And yet you’re still fucking me like you don’t have a care in the world.”
My mouth opened and no words came out.
Just a slow, rumbling chuckle that drifted all around us.
“You’re crazy,” I told her, still fucking her raw when I knew damn well we both had enough sense to realize this wasn’t a smart decision.
“Says the pyro,” Josie rasped, arms circling my neck as her head fell back. She was so goddamn soaked I could hear the wet glide of my cock sliding in and out of her. “Fuck. Just like that. I’m gonna cum again.”
Again? Wait. She’s never going to let me live down burning that building, is she?
Then I was biting down on her collarbone and growling as she came apart around me.
Josie shuddered from head to toe, body milking mine for everything I was worth. A fucking bitch of a feeling, given how close I was already.
My balls were screaming at me from a megaphone, but sweet Jesus.
How could I stop when she felt this good?
When she relaxed into my arms and let me keep using her body like it was already mine?
“Fuck!” I roared, pulling out of her and disengaging long enough for her feet to touch the floor. The moment they did, I caught her hips in a bruising grip, holding her in place as I stroked my dick.
I groaned as ropes of cum shot from me, painting her flat stomach. Josie shuddered with each lash as it landed. And as if the sight of that wasn’t enough, she swiped her fingers up the middle of her body and popped them in her mouth. Sucked off my cum with a wicked grin.
Kissing her again was a mistake.
I knew it before my hands cupped her cheeks and I pressed my mouth to hers.
Not because I could taste myself on her tongue when it flicked out to meet mine—that only made it hotter.
But because with that kiss...I knew.
The realization etched itself into the tablet of my mind. A shining commandment of truth I couldn’t deny no matter how I might lie to myself in the future.
When she sighed into my mouth, arms going around my waist, I knew that when I eventually had to let her go…
I would miss her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Josie
Monster didn’t join me for my second shower of the day, and it was probably for the best.
The soap and hot water washed away the evidence of what we’d done earlier. I turned and dragged my hands through my hair, lifting it from my back so the heat could seep into my skin. Everything from my shoulders down to my hips was tight and achy, matching the feeling between my legs. But no matter how clean I was getting, I couldn’t get rid of the memory of his last kiss.
I wasn’t the girl who believed in happily-ever-after.
Being poor and trying to take care of someone else simplified things big time.
There was surviving. Then there was everything else.
How could I ever have time to worry about more complicated feelings when I was never sure where my next meal was going to come from?
Hint?
I didn’t have time. So, I didn’t worry about it. There was always going to be another guy somewhere, looking to get into my pants even if I’d just spent the night punching his friends in their faces.
The fact that I didn’t trust most men farther than I could throw them—which wasn’t very far at all—made things easier.
I didn’t do sleepovers or cuddles.
I didn’t do pet names and holding hands.
Most important of all, I didn’t kiss the men I slept with.
And yet I’d let Monster check several of those things off the list, multiple times. Even when I turned the faucet off and listened to the quiet drip of water falling onto the tile, I remembered all the times he’d kissed me already.
Worse than that, my lips tingled with the anticipation of him kissing me again. He was downstairs, sitting at the kitchen island on his laptop in nothing but a pair of shorts with his stupidly sexy self.
Just from the intensity of that last kiss, I knew I could waltz right into the room. Curl up in his lap. Be safe and happy and protected for however long it took for him to take care of all my problems.
I even knew that was still his main priority.
When I’d glanced over his shoulder, he was researching the men I used to have an uneasy alliance with. Now that they were on the Sinners radar, that problem was all but taken care of.
It would be so easy to get comfortable with him, and that was a huge fucking issue.
Comfort was a lie I couldn’t afford to be deceived by, no matter how tempting the idea might be.
If living this life had taught me anything over the years, it was that the moment I got comfortable, something would sweep the rug out from under my feet. I was lucky to have fallen on my ass without breaking anything as often as I had. Taking the risk that same luck would stick around would be foolish.
I stalked from the bathroom without a towel and glared at my freshly washed clothes sitting on the bed. Choosing to ignore that he’d washed them at some point, I pulled on the jeans and grabbed one of his thermals to go underneath my black hoodie. Meanwhile, I let my mind unravel the crisis I found myself in.
Sure, Monster was more comfortable to be around than he had any business being. He had a big, fancy house, an obviously well-paying and stable career, the loyalty of the hardest men the South had ever seen.
Yeah, he was also a little bit unhinged and a junkie for violence, but I fought for a living and enjoyed it.
I couldn’t exactly throw stones.
What I needed to keep in mind was that this was temporary.
There had to be a reason he was so invested in me and my well-being. I needed to keep reminding myself of that when those striking, whirlpool eyes of his were sweeping a path across my face like he could memorize every feature.
For Monster, I was a means to an end, and I didn’t know what end that might be.
My paranoid side—the one that had kept me alive from town to town while I was living by myself—wondered if I was supposed to be bait. The more sensible side, capable of stopping the terrified flutter of my heart before it could really get started, smacked paranoia in the face with reality.
I’d been at Monster’s mercy over and over again already. If he wanted to get rid of me, he could’ve done it before now. Feeding and fucking me first seemed like a lot of wasted effort if turning me over was the goal.
There was also the matter of him teaching me how to shoot. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the butterflies in my belly when I thought about that, so I ignored them in favor of reaching into my bag when I heard a buzz.
Frowning, I pulled out my cheap, burner phone. I didn’t get calls from many people. Hell, the only people that even had this number were Micah and the—
Shit.
I flipped the phone open and stared at the missed call from several hours ago. Heart falling towards my feet and hitting every inch of barbed wire on the way down, I opened the call log. Sure enough, it was from Alice at the assisted living home.
They called whenever I was past due on my payments, but that was taken care of for a change. At least for this month. The only other reason they would reach out was if something was wrong.
Throat swelling, I checked the time and hit re-dial, lifting the phone to my ear. It was technically after hours, but there was always supposed to be someone at the main desk. Always.
So why the fuck was no one answering?
“Come on!” I shouted into the phone as the dial tone played over and over again. “Pick up.” I walked across the room then traced my steps back. “Somebody answer the damn phone.”
The line beeped, and I was already saying, “Hi, this is Josie Hamilton calling about,” before the voicemail started playing.
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br /> I left a message filled with enough cursing that what I was asking for might be indecipherable.
Then I called again.
And again.
No one was picking up, and the weight on my chest got heavier with every second I didn’t know what was going on.
Mom was all I had left in the world.
She was the single thing that made it worth getting up every day and continuing on, no matter how hard life got.
What would I do if something happened to her?
How would I keep going if—
No.
My hands curled into fists and I started throwing everything into my duffel bag. I slung it over my shoulder and shoved my phone in my pocket before storming towards the door.
She’s fine. They probably just wanted to do new paperwork or something.
But the pit in my gut currently eating away at me from the inside out said otherwise. Fear made the pit spread wider, but it was guilt that corroded the edges and left them searing and painful.
I should’ve answered, I told myself as I flew down the hall, headed towards the stairs. I should’ve had my phone on me like I always do. Just in case.
And what had I been doing instead?
Playing house with a killer like I didn’t have a care in the world.
God, I really was a total and complete bitch, and not one that deserved an ounce of praise either.
There was an annoying pressure behind my eyes when I threw myself around the corner and raced towards the front door. I took a moment, and only a moment, to see if there were car keys anywhere in sight, but there weren’t. Of course, the one time I needed Lady Luck to give me even a grudging smile, her stingy ass was holding back.
“The fuck.” Monster’s deep rumble echoed behind me when I threw the front door open. “Where are you... Hey!”
He cursed some more, but I could only hear the tail end of it as I flung my way onto the paved driveway and started walking. My bag bounced against my legs with every step. Except I only managed a few of those before a growl sounded distinctly close by.
Monster: A Seven Sinners Novel Page 14