Monster had gained too much ground in our little tug of war. In the landscape of our battle inside my mind, I was knee-deep in the mud on a rainy field, barely holding onto my end of the rope. Across from me was an eighteen-wheeler pulling as hard as it could.
“Just tell me,” I spat, digging my metaphorical heels in.
Right away, I knew I’d chosen the wrong response.
The rough grip on my breasts eased and he held himself up, arms flexing on either side of my body. His head tilted for a moment, his look considering, then he spread his body across mine and brought our lips close together.
Monster touched his nose to mine, and my heart contracted in a way that was very not good. “What do you want to hear, Josie? That I threw on a cape and went around my neighborhood playing hero? That the first life I took had it coming? That’s now how this is gonna go.” His breath fanned across my lips. “Kip Malone was the local pimp and a violent piece of shit. He also thought he was the king of his tiny, insignificant hill.”
“He came after you?” I whispered, watching him closely.
It wasn’t Monster I was wary of so much as the cunning glint in his eyes. The one that said he was up to something and I had no idea what.
“No.” He rolled his hips, and I felt the hard length of him pressing between my legs. “Kip was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so were his boys. I needed to make a name for myself, and they chose the wrong time of day to come down an alley they had no business being in.”
I shivered in his grip but made no move to flee. There was tactical retreat and then there was running with your tail tucked between your legs. I would never be that girl.
Never.
Monster sighed, eyes losing focus for a moment. As if not wanting me to witness the recollection along with him, he dropped his head to the hollow of my throat. The brush of his lips and the wet trail of his tongue along my neck had me wriggling restlessly, needing so much more.
“Wrong place, wrong time,” he said. “I was securing a way to keep myself fed when they got in the way of the deal. Sometimes, I wonder if I would’ve been better off if I was one of those people who fall into a rage and forget everything until they come out of it. But I’m not one.”
“I still remember everything.” He kissed my neck. Worked his way down to my shoulder. Swept back across to drag his teeth along my collarbone. “The first time they shoved me. Who threw the first punch. The feeling of having three grown-ass men trying to turn me into a pinata.”
My fingers curled into claws, raking down his back. He hissed against my flesh, hot mouth closing over my breast and sucking.
We were open flames, burning brighter together than we ever could have apart.
Did he think I would judge him for the things he’d done in the past?
Whoever had been in the wrong, I wanted to jump back in time and help him kick their asses more than anything.
“There were bricks in the alley,” he said, voice gone cold and flat. His body was more than hot enough against mine to make up for it, but I missed the rumbling life that had poured from his throat a minute ago.
Why had I asked about the watches anyway?
Whatever this was we were doing, I didn’t want to hurt him.
I didn’t want to make him relive any painful moments.
And no matter how much I tried to coax my selfish side into spouting something about that being because I would rather have him fucking me, I wasn’t able to.
Deep in my heart, I knew the rope we were both tugging at—refusing to let go—stayed in place through more than physical desire alone.
Monster pulled my jeans lower on my hips, planting sweet, torturous kisses from one hip bone to the other.
“I’ll never forget the sound when I smashed one of those bricks into Kip’s head,” he said softly, breath fluttering against me. “He dropped like a puppet with the strings cut, and that was the end of him. His so-called friends ran. Didn’t take long for the police to show up.”
“But you have—”
He flipped me over suddenly, brushing hair out of his way as he planted more kisses down my spine.
“You have all this,” I managed between my moans. “How? People don’t usually come out of jail and make it this far.”
He tugged my jeans down all at once, baring my ass. I could feel him hovering there, staring at my nakedness. Even though this was nothing new, I still found myself clutching the sheets nervously.
Monster said, “I had a guardian angel that wasn’t an angel at all.”
Everything from earlier clicked. “That’s what you meant when you said Creed saved your life?”
His weight left me for a moment and there was a rustle of fabric. When his body heat returned, I knew he was naked even before I felt his thick cock between my legs, rubbing against my pussy.
I was already wet enough. I shifted, trying to capture his length. Strong arms pinned me to the bed, stopping my movements. The impatient huff that escaped was embarrassing, but it was worth it to hear his soft laugh floating around me.
Whatever frost had coated him was gone.
Good riddance.
“I would still be in there if not for him,” Monster said. He must’ve grabbed his base, because I felt the tip of his cock sliding back and forth through my slit, spreading my juices. “And for all the respect I thought I had, he was the only one who kept in touch with me while I was on the inside.”
“How’d he find you?”
“Fuck if I know. To this day, he’s tight-lipped about it. The one time I dragged a few words out of him, he said that the people in our lives sometimes work in mysterious ways. Whatever the fuck that means.”
He sounded so petty and annoyed. Giggling wasn’t a conscious decision so much as something that just happened. And while the giggles vanished when he finally slipped the blunt head of his cock into my entrance and pressed his length inside me, the light, happy feeling the sound had filled me with remained.
“Fuck,” Monster rasped, thumbs meeting in the middle of my lower back as he pushed me deeper into the mattress and got in position. “Why do you feel so fucking good?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
I expected his hand to crack across my ass with a sharp, pleasant sting. I braced for it. So the careful sweep of my hair to one side so he could suck at my neck came as a bit of a surprise.
My answering purr? Not so much.
A genuine heart attack would probably be healthier for me than what this man was doing to the organ in my chest.
As he moved inside me, surging and retreating like a living, breathing wave that broke against the shore and always came back, I knew this would have to be the last time.
Monster pressed his cock deep enough that colors I didn’t know existed flickered behind my eyes while my whole body tightened around him. He turned my head to the side and captured my lips in a devastating kiss that proved exactly what I was afraid of.
What I’d been afraid of since the first day he pulled me into his arms and I hadn’t tried to fight to get away, even though fighting everyone and everything was in my nature.
My heart could beat for this man.
I could live to feel his heat pressed against me.
To see those ocean eyes go soft and warm in the mornings when we woke up together.
To feel his big hands splayed across my stomach while he held me from behind like he would never let go.
The fantasy was so real, I could almost taste it on the back of my tongue. It tasted like the most dangerous poison of all.
Hope.
So even as his tongue slipped inside my mouth and I opened willingly for him.
Even while he made love to my body slowly, reaching between my legs to bring me to peak after peak without a care for his own pleasure.
Even when he finally, gloriously released himself with a groan that traveled across every cell and string of DNA inside my bones, I reminded myself of something.
&nb
sp; Trust no one. Always take care of yourself.
Just like I’d imagined, when Monster pulled out of me, he wrapped me in his arms. Pulled me tight against his body. He tucked my head against his chest and settled his chin on top of my head.
We laid there for a long moment, sweat cooling. Long enough for me to wonder how I was going to find the strength to leave before this happened again.
Because let’s be real. At this point, he could crook a finger in my direction. I would probably smack him in the face but I would still go to him.
That was unacceptable, but what was my exit strategy?
His breathing evened out.
I laid there with my eyes open, mind spinning.
Except he wasn’t asleep.
“The watches,” he mumbled, voice so deep with exhaustion I could hardly understand him. “I’ve always been shit at holding onto things that are fragile. But when Creed got me out of prison and helped me get on my feet, I promised myself I would have something of my own and not ruin it. A watch was the first thing I bought when I sold my first house. And even though I never wear them, I just kept buying more.”
I tapped my fingers against his chest in acknowledgement.
You’re not a monster at all, are you?
And with that admission, I knew what I had to do. The thought sent my heart racing so hard it turned a corner and dropped off a sheer cliff.
He was never going to forgive me.
Telling myself not to care didn’t make it better.
But he had his life together.
I only had Mom. The longer I spent around this town with people after me, the more I risked something happening to her. I couldn’t wait around on some man to take care of things for me, and I couldn’t handle them on my own either.
It was time to gather the tiny bits of my life together and get out before I no longer could.
My heart would limp away from the fiery crash it was experiencing at some point.
Right?
But what I didn’t know…was that I’d already waited too long.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Monster
“Dude!” Jason cried, slamming the door to my office shut behind him.
My hand paused in midair.
He said, “You know I love you like a brother. But if you break anything else after all the time I spent getting this place fixed, I'm putting you up for adoption.”
I growled low in my throat, lifting the snowglobe in my grip higher. There was a miniature Eiffel Tower inside the clear glass. Don't fucking ask me why someone had gotten this as a gift.
No one I knew had ever been close to France.
Jason threw a pen at me. It bounced harmlessly off my chest and fell to the floor, but the ridiculousness of his actions gave pause to the need to destroy.
“Last warning,” he said, moving towards me, hands spread in a placating gesture. “Put the snowglobe down. It hasn't done anything to you. Look at that innocent little tower inside there and tell me it deserves this kind of treatment.”
“You think I give a fuck about a tower right now?”
“Seeing as how you’ve been AWOL for the last two days...” God, had it already been that long since she snuck out on me? “...and you came in breathing so much fire that I sent everyone home before they got turned to ash, I’m going to take a wild guess here and say no.”
My hand cocked back again.
“But!” he continued, raising his voice. “If you break anything else, I’m going to leave you to make your own appointments for the rest of the year. I’ll even extend an invite to that annoying old bat from the other week.”
That got me to lower the snowglobe into his waiting palms faster than anything else could have. Although the way he stroked the glass surface and talked to it in baby noises before carefully placing it on my desk made me reconsider. Then the tightness at the base of my neck squeezed my nerves again. A grimace passed over my face and I remembered why I was breaking shit in the first place.
“Seriously?” Jason waved a hand in front of my face. “I can see you spacing out. I’m literally standing right here. If I wasn’t so used to you being a gigantic prick I might actually be offended.”
Flicking my eyes back to his, my lips curled back from my teeth. “This is not the day to fuck me with me, man. I’m on the edge and you aren’t helping.”
“Then let’s see what I can help with, shall we? It’s not like I have anything else to do today. I’m sure the hot date I was going to take an early lunch for will totally understand when I tell him I had to babysit my business partner.”
I didn’t bother responding.
Jason sighed. “Tough crowd today.” He lifted the chair I’d tossed a while ago and brushed off the seat before ignoring the cushion completely and perching on the edge of it. “Is it the tie? I wondered if it might be too over the top. It distracts from the rest of my awesome, doesn’t it?”
“There’s nothing wrong with the tie,” I growled, eyeballing the pink and yellow monstrosity he was wearing with his navy-blue suit.
Somehow, he made the whole thing work.
Of course, Hell would freeze over and the Devil would be asking me for a place to stay before I ever said a word of that to him.
Jason reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a pocket watch with a dramatic flourish that came naturally to him. “Are you going to tell me what’s biting you on the ass—aside from the burning need to go back to your roots of chaos and mayhem—or am I going to have to sit here and watch you pace for the next few hours?”
“I’m not—” I paused mid-sentence. I hadn’t realized I was moving back and forth across the room until he said something.
God, that woman had me all kinds of fucked in the head.
To think, I called her a pussycat. Forget that noise. She had the claws of a goddamn cheetah. Although she wouldn’t have found any gaps in my armor to sink her claws into if I’d kept my goddamn mouth shut.
Something had changed after I took her to that nursing home.
The moment she leaned over her mom’s bed and stared down at her like she wanted nothing else out of life than for the older woman to be okay, a piece of my chest had shifted out of place.
Being pissed at her for believing whatever bullshit people had spouted about Creed was an attempt to force that piece back where it belonged.
I’d had it all planned out when we pulled away from the depressing facility.
The reckless driving and my silence were going to put her on edge.
Once we got back to the house, I was supposed to hate-fuck her on the cold floor of the garage, drag her to bed, and toss her into it before walking away.
How I had gone from that to spilling my guts, I still wasn’t sure.
But I didn’t need to understand why I’d done it to realize how badly it bit me in the ass.
Waking up the next morning and finding her gone—along with my entire collection of watches—was a damn good indicator.
As much as I hated to admit it, I could use Jason’s opinion right about now. I couldn’t pick a side in the war going on inside my chest.
There was a section with pitchforks and torches, ready to burn every hiding hole in this city down if it meant finding her and making her pay.
Then there was the other side.
Those motherfuckers certainly weren’t prepared for war. All they wanted to do was find out if she was okay.
Jesus Christ. Who am I?
Rubbing at the back of my neck, I said, “What if I told you there was a woman?”
Jason clicked something on the side of his pocket watch before stashing it away. “Three minutes without breaking anything. A new record for today.”
“Forget I said anything.” I stalked towards the door but he stepped smoothly into my path, forcing me to either draw up short or bowl him over.
He was only a bit shorter than me, but he had none of the muscle. There wasn’t a chance he could impede me if he tried. But he knew t
hat. Same way he knew he was in the small category of people on this planet I would never hurt.
“Tell me about her,” Jason said, ushering me to the seat he’d been perched on.
I dropped into it as he hopped up on my desk. “I wouldn’t know where to start. There’s been a lot happening that I haven’t exactly brought you in the loop on.”
He nodded. “The Sinners finally punched your card. I figured that one out already.”
My eyes narrowed. “How?”
“We’ve known each other for years. Long before you ever took on that ridiculous moniker. You think I don’t know what you look like when you’re up to something, Taylor?”
“What do I look like?” I asked, ignoring the comment about my nickname.
Creed picked it, not me.
And even if it sucked, the President wasn’t the kind of guy who cared about strongly worded petitions.
Unless you wanted it torn to pieces and shoved down your throat.
“Well…” Jason crossed his arms and tapped his finger along the side of his face. “For one thing, you tend to get this wrinkle in your brow when you’re up to some shadiness. You also have a habit of squeezing whatever might be in your grip at the time like you want to choke the life out of it.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face, wishing I hadn’t come out of the house at all today. I’d had no choice, though. Everything in my basement had been wrecked beyond being salvaged. The only thing that remained was the firing range, and damn if that thought didn't make my mood darker immediately.
“Come on,” Jason prompted. “Give me something to work with here. Tell me about her. What’s she like?” My mouth opened but he held up a hand. “Never mind, don’t tell me. I bet she’s a gorgeous baker with glasses and she offered you muffins as she seduced you.”
“Why muffins?”
“Muffins are the way to every man’s heart, especially if they’re blueberry.”
“I’m allergic to blueberry.”
Jason blinked. “Since when?”
A half-smile curled my lips.
“Oh, you’re such a dick,” he complained, getting to his feet. “Fine, forget the baker. Is she a veterinarian? You found her taking care of a bushel of puppies on the side of the road?”
Monster: A Seven Sinners Novel Page 17