What filled the hole losing my family left behind was Claudius and the guys.
Almost, but not really.
The only person who awakened my heart and unlocked a place inside me I never knew existed is the stubborn-as-fuck woman inside the house who probably hates me right now for acting like a mobster.
But I don’t fucking care.
She doesn’t realize how much shit we’re in, and she doesn’t know we’re alone in this.
She doesn’t know I’m about to sever the last link to any kind of family I have.
I pull out my phone and see there’s one message from Donny asking me if I’m okay. I won’t be messaging back. Claudius can tell them all what happened. There are no calls from anybody else. Not because I’ve been cast into the outer darkness; it’s because they don’t know shit about what’s going on. They’re all like a bunch of big brothers, and they would have had my back today. This is one time I won’t involve them. I won’t allow them to put their lives at risk, or their families.
I walk further along the lake until I’m in the woods and about two miles away from the house. Then I make the call I’ve been waiting to make all day.
Claudius answers on the first ring.
“Alex…” he says.
“Hey, Boss.”
“What’s going on?”
I scan the trees and the surrounding area. It’s actually beautiful. I’m hoping we’ll be safe here for a while. No one knows about this place, but the same way I won’t assume we weren’t followed, I won’t assume safety from people like Matvey.
“I wanted to thank you for accepting me as part of the crew.” The second I say that, I hear his breath catch.
“Why are you saying that, Capo?”
“Because I’m leaving. My girl was in trouble. They tried to kill her. I couldn’t allow them to do that. They took her and I just managed to get her back. Doing so… I made my choice, Claudius.”
“Alex—”
“Claudius, don’t,” I interrupt. “You were right. You shouldn’t risk anybody’s life for me. I don’t want you to. I killed my own brother to save you, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself every damn day that I had to do that. The pain never goes away. He was the devil to you, and I hate what he did, but he was still my brother. You must know for me to do that, I must have taken you to be my brother too.”
“Fuck, Alex, where the fuck are you? I’m coming to get you.” His voice is hurried.
“No, Claudius. This is it. It’s goodbye.”
“Alex—”
I end the call. The phone buzzes again just as I launch it into the lake.
I pull the earpiece from my pocket too and send it to the bottom of the lake to join the phone.
No one can find me now.
That’s it. I’m done.
Time to plan for the next part of this fiasco.
Zack isn’t going to want Cora alive with secrets.
She knows too much.
He’ll be coming. Coming with Matvey and friends no doubt.
I know it. I know they’ll come, and I have to be ready.
* * *
Cora took one of the guest rooms.
Instead of lying on the bed, she’s sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, knees hugged close to her chest. Anger suffuses her beautiful face.
I know already she’s not going to talk to me, but that’s fine by me. Of course, I’d rather have her naked body pressed up against me in the master bedroom, but I won’t confuse things any more than they are.
We’re here in this place, but we’re still broken up.
She looks away from me when I walk into the room and stares out the window.
“You gonna stay there all night?” I ask. She doesn’t answer. “The floor gets cold down these parts. Want a blanket?”
Still no answer.
Fuck… I’m not doing this with her.
She wants her way, but I won’t give it to her. I turn to walk out, but she clears her throat and I stop, returning my focus to her.
“Where exactly are we? I mean a location,” she demands.
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
“You won’t even tell me where we are?”
“Cora, don’t push me. You’re safe. You can’t be mad at me for wanting to keep you safe. I’m not talking about this anymore.” Not when I feel like this.
“You can’t just keep me here,” she argues.
“Watch me,” I answer, shocking her.
I walk out and leave her there.
I head to the master bedroom and it starts to rain outside. It’s always nights like these when I think of Jude. He hated the rain, so I’m not surprised when he visits me tonight in my sleep.
He has that same look on his face as I look at him.
I have that half-asleep/half-awake feeling again, but I know I’m asleep because everywhere has that hazy look to it.
He’s sitting in the wooden chair by the window, always with that bullet hole in his head. His body as pale as it was when I buried him.
He looks at me and smiles. People used to say we looked so much alike we could be twins, but we were never alike.
“Look at you, brother…” he taunts. His voice is that rasp like a voice on the edge of the wind. “Gave up the crew for a woman? Fuck. I hope it was worth it. You killed me just like that for that bastard Claudius. Chose him over me. Now look at you. You chose to have nothing and accept pussy. Fool. She doesn’t love you. She will never choose you. She’ll leave the first chance she gets.”
I don’t answer. It infuriates him, and he gets up. A gun materializes in his hands, and he aims it at me. As he pulls the trigger, I jump out of my sleep.
Out of the nightmare.
Cora is sitting on the bed, and it’s morning. Blood drips from my nose onto my hands, and she gets up to grab some tissues from the box of Kleenex on the dresser.
I take the tissues when she hands them to me and wipe my nose. It’s the fucking stress getting to me.
“You were talking in your sleep,” she says.
“Shit happens in my dreams too,” I answer and get off the bed.
I feel her eyes on me looking at me in my boxers. I sense her desire and her resistance the way I always do, but today I’m in charge, and I’m purposely holding off from touching her.
She gets up and walks out of the room, but I rush to her and catch her, pulling her to a stop.
“Let go,” she says trying to wrench her arm free of my grasp.
“You gonna stay mad at me forever?”
“Are you going to keep me here forever?”
“Yes.”
“You fucking bastard. You can’t be the man I love if you decide to sit here and hide. Sit here and do nothing until shit comes to get us. Fuck you, you’re just like the mobster you are. Greedy and selfish. I hate you for that. I hate you for making me think you’re just like my father,” she wails and yanks her arm away.
I grab her, pulling her back to me. Her words have enraged me, and I don’t want her to think shit about me.
“Cora, calm the fuck down.”
“I’m leaving!” She slaps me and screams.
She tries to walk away again. This time when I grab her, I pull her to me so hard she crashes into my chest.
I hate feeling helpless. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do though.
I don’t know what the plan should be other than to hide and keep her safe, but she’s right. That’s not me. I’m not a coward. I’m just acting like one.
There’s too much going on in my head. Too many emotions swirling through my body and soul. Rage and passion consume me. Wanting her and hating the situation are fucking with me, and I can’t be the guy I normally am.
I can’t be that guy because when it comes to her, I lose my shit because I’m fucking scared to lose her. She’s the last thing I have left in this world.
She’s precious to me. Time doesn’t do shit to dull what I’ve always felt fo
r her, and love will make me a coward if that’s what it takes to protect her.
Rage and passion are two things I can’t control. The look in her eyes is a blend of both. I’ve always been good at knowing when this woman wants me, and she knows the same.
I’m done resisting, and I don’t want to fight. I’d much rather do what our bodies want to do to deal with the situation. If fucking is the answer, I’ll do it. I grab her face, and our lips crash together.
I kiss her hard, and she kisses me back. She stops trying to break free of my grasp and gives in to the demanding kiss I claim her with.
I pull her back into the room and tear off her shirt like I’ve been possessed.
I rip her bra, and one of her breasts spills out. I want to suck it and taste her, but the need to be inside her pussy is too much for me to hold back.
I start to take off her pants, and she finishes, kicking them off with her panties.
I shove my boxers down my legs and move to her, taking both her hands and holding them over her head so she’ll submit completely to me.
“You are mine, you hear me?” I growl out the words, and I feel like an ass when a spark of fear flickers in the depths of her eyes. “You hear me, Cora?”
“Yes…” she says.
On her submission, I take hold of my cock and plunge deep inside her. Her body welcomes me, and she slips her arms around my neck, holding me to her as I pump into her passage. The scent of her fills my nose. It courses through my veins and awakens every cell in my body.
It awakens need, lust, desire… love.
I tried not to love her. I tried so damn hard, but I can’t stop.
I don’t want to.
She holds on to me as I start to fuck her harder, pounding into her until I’m so deep it’s like there’s no separation of where she begins and I end. It’s the same.
She runs her hands over my back, feeling my skin, holding me to her as I take her and reclaim her as mine.
I never said goodbye that day when she broke up with me because I couldn’t. I won’t be doing that now.
“Alex…” she moans my name as she comes and arches her back, pushing her breasts into my chest, writhing against my skin, setting me on fire as she comes undone in my arms.
I’ve never wanted or needed a woman more than I want her. Always and never. That’s what she was to me. My forever girl but never mine. It’s time to change that.
I meant it when I said I’m not letting her leave. I was never deluded. I never lived in any deluded fantasy. She always wanted me, and she loved me too.
I don’t care what it takes. I need to keep her in my life.
Her walls tighten around my cock, and I lose the mere control I had. I was barely holding on as it was as I drove into her. Now my thrusts are relentless, and the sounds of our bodies slapping together fill the room and fill us too. The scents of sex and of her pleasure drive me insane. Her moans and groans entice me to take her ruthlessly.
Fuck… this woman drives me fucking crazy.
I rut into her body with that raw, carnal, hot animalistic force that fuels me, and we both come together crying out on the wave of passion that claims us in its grasp.
My balls tighten painfully as my cum blows into her body, and even as I come, I still pump until I can’t anymore.
We’re both covered in sweat, the bed is wet with it, and so is her hair. The bra she’s barely wearing is drenched. We’re both breathing hard.
I press my forehead to hers, and we both stare at each other for a few brief moments, then I pull out, moving off her so I don’t crush her with my weight. She rolls into my side, and I slip my arm around her.
I shuffle to face her when she presses her dainty hand to my chest.
We stare at each other, and her gaze clings to mine, holding on just like I am. Never wanting to let go.
“I’m not letting you go,” I tell her. “Don’t ask me to do that, Cora.”
“I… won’t,” she replies, much to my relief.
I catch her face and run my fingers over her slender throat, watching her pulse quicken.
“I love you,” I tell her. Last time, she said it first. It should have been me.
“I love you too. I’ve… loved you since that time so long ago.”
“Which time was that?”
“The first time.”
“It happened then for me too,” I confess.
She moves in to kiss me and we fall into another enchantment of passion that I know will keep us in this bed for a long time.
It’s the kind of spellbinding feeling that wipes your brain clean of everything. Even the things that matter.
I just want to think about her now.
Nothing else.
Chapter Eighteen
Cora
Night fell long ago.
It’s nearly eleven, but Alex insists on making me food.
We’re in the kitchen. He’s standing behind the kitchen counter in just his boxers, and I’m sitting down across from him in one of the high stools admiring his body.
I’m wearing an oversized T-shirt we found in the stash of clothes, and panties. My bra is torn, and the shirt I wore is no more. It’s hotter tonight, so I decided not to wear pants.
This is the first we’ve left that bed. Earlier, he made me some seasoned rice. That’s what he called it. We ate that then went back to feasting on each other. Now he’s making soup.
I don’t know what food we have here, but he’s got some fresh vegetables laid out on the countertop. He got them from the vegetable plot in the back garden. I haven’t seen it yet, but it sounds interesting, and these are probably going to be the freshest vegetables I’ve ever had.
I haven’t forgotten what I want. Not how much I want him and how much I still want to call Richard. I’m just not talking about it because I don’t want to make Alex mad again. I’m hoping my words got to him. I think they did and he’s still figuring things out.
He’s not a coward, and neither am I.
I didn’t sign up to the Bureau to run off like this at the first sign of trouble. But then, I don’t think many people experience trouble like this. I went looking for it, and it came to bite me big time.
Honestly, now that I think of it, I don’t know if I could go back. Do I even have a choice?
I look at the man I want standing before me, and when I think of how much I love him, I don’t think I can be without him.
I can’t be a fed and be with a mobster. Even if I kept it quiet it wouldn’t work out, and I wouldn’t want to go back to having a secret relationship with him. That’s not what I want.
At the same time, am I really the fed I claim to be? In the end I had to hone in on my skills to get down to the crux of the matter. The situation is shit and doing what I did landed me here. On the run and hiding out.
I’d be lying, however, if I said it didn’t feel good to be myself. I started to feel like my old self right from when I made the ghost tracker. Doing so felt like I was using skills I’d been suppressing for years. Then when I looked through Zack and Matvey’s computer files it felt like I was doing the job I was supposed to be doing simply because I was doing something no one else could do. That did not escape me.
Now that I’ve had time to think about everything, I know if I want to be truly happy and have the future I want, I don’t want to do anything that keeps me on a leash. The Bureau has all sorts of people working for them in different capacities. I’m sure I’d fit in somewhere, but it’s just that I saw myself as my own boss. In control and in charge, taking charge of a situation and knowing what to do. More importantly, just doing it because it was required to solve the problem. I hate being controlled, or having any kind of restraint on me. I hate needing permission.
As much as I love making Richard proud and doing something we both enjoy, I can’t be somebody I’m not.
So I guess that leaves me with the question of what I’m going to do next. Now’s not the time, though, to think of that. Not when
things are like this.
“What are you thinking, Goddess?” he states and gives me a wink.
“Just about stuff, and looking at you.” I bite back a smile and allow my gaze to drift over the hard definition of his body. I’ve never been with a man more perfect.
I didn’t even know people could look like that in real life.
He stops chopping the potatoes and walks around to me with that sexy smile on his face. A blush creeps up my cheeks as I recall all we did today. We went crazy on each other, and I know once we eat, there’s more to come. We indulged in each other. The perfect distraction, although my worries were never far.
They are there now even as I sit here and think about what we’re going to do. He must know we can’t just hide away here forever.
He rests his hand on the countertop and leans close to me. “Are you thinking of all the things you want to do to me?” he asks with a sexy smile.
“Maybe.”
He reaches for the hem of my T-shirt and lifts it so he can see my panties. Lightly, he runs a finger over the lacey edge then over the lace covering my mound.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of all your needs once you eat,” he promises.
Heat flushes over my body in waves, pulling on my groin, and wetness pools between my thighs.
He moves back to the other side and continues chopping the vegetables.
I wish I could truly savor this, but the worry of what’s happening outside us feels like an elephant in the room.
“Tomorrow, we’ll go into town and get some stuff. Food and clothes. I’ll cook you something better,” he says before the awkward silence can fill the space between us.
“The place seems quite maintained. Do you come here and take care of it?” I ask.
It looks like it’s all been cleaned, and although the fridge was empty, there were cans of food in the cupboard and sacks of rice. All food you’d need in a storage cupboard in case you had to get gone and live in hiding, just the way we are.
“No. I have been here one time only. I have a person who comes here and tends to the place once a month. They rotate the storage of the food and keep the place stocked in case I need it. They take the food I don’t need or don’t get to use to the shelter. They grow the crops too. One thing I like is fresh vegetables.”
Double Edged Hearts Page 13