In Dale, I see moments of genuine concern for the exact same issue, but he has a compassion I do not possess. So, I take what I am given from Amber and ask for nothing more.
While the boys join forces in an all-day long video game marathons, Amber cooks and I clean. I am folding three loads of laundry in our bedroom when she walks in carrying number four. Our engagement thus far would lead me to believe that she would chunk the load off on the bed and leave. But as she starts folding, I say something about baby clothes which leads to discussing children and my future with Sal.
“You know I don’t hate you,” she says, gathering the socks into a pile. “I know you think I do, but I don’t. In fact, I actually have a lot of admiration and respect for where you are and what you have done for him.”
Folding Sal’s jeans, I say, “What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s changed, Iris,” she offers.
With the tiny crack of civility, I push and wedge my fingers in for more. “How so? I mean I know he lost Kace.”
Yes, even I have taken to calling her Kace now. Because regardless of what I want, she will forever be a part of us.
“He gave her everything he had—emotionally, physically, spiritually. We she died, so did he for a very long time. For about three years, he did stupid shit. The kind of shit to put his life in danger, but that all started to change when he went back to living in Sugargrove full time right before you showed up.”
“When…exactly?”
“I think it was middle to the end of March,” she informs, thinking. “He moved out of Dom’s house and came back to Texas for good.”
“I thought he spread out his time between Texas, New Orleans, and Sibyl?”
“Nah,” she says, “He lived in New Orleans. That is how we got so close. I mean he took a few trips back to Texas to check on Anna and a couple training courses in New York, but for the most part—he stayed with Dom.”
“Were they…”
“Involved?” she interrupts as I look to her for the answers he will not reveal. “You could say that in a way. I mean I don’t know the degree of it, but Dom kept Sal collared for three years.”
“What do you think changed it all?” I inquire casually, not wanting to reveal my mixed emotions.
Imparting her wisdom and knowledge, she says, “I imagine he finally decided it was safe to come home.”
“It wasn’t safe before?”
“No, do you not know about the shooting?”
I shake my head and drop my last folded towel on the pile as we move to the small love seat. “You can never tell him that I told you.”
“I won’t say a word,” I whisper, clasping my hands.
“He came to work Juliet one weekend 2013, around the winter holidays and someone attacked him in the parking lot. He was shot and almost bled to death. If it hadn’t been for Mierne finding him, he would have died.”
“Oh, my god…”
“The rumor mill was that it was an inside job from another agent. Someone wanted him out of the picture. They never figured out who it was or even why. And if Sal knew, he certainly never said. He spent three months recovering at Dom’s until he finally said he had enough of the sweeping games.”
“Sweeping games?”
“Yeah, I never understood what it meant,” Amber says, laying her hands on mine. “But then you showed up, and his world changed.”
I say nothing else as I offer up an acceptance nod. I don’t need any more information to fill in the blanks. Sal may have not actually killed Chance Ballister, but he damn sure knew who did. The timeline according to Amber coincided along too many events related to my own.
Sal’s dark side loomed with a disparaging shadow. His covert monster hidden beneath the surface as I didn’t really know the man behind the pretty mug.
“Thank you, Amber,” I say as her expression lights up.
“For?”
“Trusting me.”
I only wish I could say the same for the man I love.
SAL
We cuddle in bed after making love. Wrapped up in one another, our bodies tangle amongst the sheets. I love this girl more than the air I breathe and cannot imagine losing what we have found in one another.
“Are you ever gonna tell me where the bruises came from?” I coax, hoping she will open up and talk to me. “I can fix it if you will let me.”
“Your version of fix is a bullet to the head,” she scolds harshly, offending my dutiful sentinel. “And I won’t have you going savage on my account.”
“Savage on your account?” I snicker, lighting a smoke. “Baby, I have been going savage on your account for six fucking years. And I cannot keep you safe if you never talk to me.”
“Thanks, but I am not paying a bill for service I didn’t ask for!” Sitting up hastily, Iris clicks on the light. “Why don’t you tell me about being shot before I came to Texas, Sal?”
“What about it?” I ask, exhaling a line of rings. “Ask away. You want to poke that wound, I’ll let you.”
With her pissed off resolve, she chaps my hide. “Did Chance shoot you?”
“Chance?” I ask, furrowing my brow and losing my temper quick. “Who said anything about Chance?”
Flurrying about the room, she throws on a shirt in a tirade. “Oh, I don’t know… Maybe my crazy mind! Given the timeline of events, anything is possible.”
That word.
Watching her spin wildly out of control, I say nothing in return until she starts shoving clothes in a duffel. Lunging across the bed, I latch onto her wrist and warn, “You aren’t leaving.”
“Who is going to stop me?” she sasses with a jerk of her head.
Lifting my brows, I smirk sexily.
“Stop it!”
Pouring on the charm, I growl low and slow, “Stop what?”
She fights against my strength as she rages, “Doing that!”
“What?” I snap.
With her cheeks flushed in anger, the tears well up in her eyes as she admits, “Being so damned fucking beautiful that I forgive everything you do.”
“You know the feeling is mutual right,” I warmly say, grabbing her arm. “I don’t know who shot me, Iris. I believe it was an inside job. I have my suspicions.”
“Names…”
“Mitch Daniels.”
Tilting her head curiously, she asks, “Why?”
“Jealousy,” I mention as I sit on the bed and pull her into my lap. I wrap my arms around her waist and refuse to let her go. “The Janitor—your husband, Chance Ballister, gave you to me, but Mitch always served as his prodigy. I think he got jealous when I was first recruited and the animosity only continued to build between us.”
“So, this is a fucking battle over who has the bigger dick?”
“That’s easy—I do,” I snarl and flash a wide smile. “Because I have you.”
Her hand covers her face as the tears fall in earnest. “Why didn’t you tell me in the beginning?”
“Because I didn’t know how serious you were with Mitch until after the fact,” I offer up the only solution I can—the truth. “I had no idea he would propose marriage.”
“He proposed a lifetime of subservience after a brutal rape disguised as a scene, Sal…” Iris cries as every tear tears at my heart.
“He raped you?”
“Yes,” she confesses and hides her face in shame.
Blowing up, I scold, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you will kill him!”
With the furious flames igniting in my core, I retort, “And that is a problem why?”
“Because he is the only link you have left back to Pharm,” she says as I suddenly no longer recognize the woman I love. “And we cannot have that.”
“What are you talking about, sweetheart?” I ask as she is making zero sense. “What do you know?”
“Gennaro wanted Ainsley to go fishing for intel on Mitch before he died,” she says, wiping her face with her hands. “Ainsley refused t
o do it because she had leads at H2 and didn’t want to leave them. So, I did it.”
Distracted by the billboards, I focus on the details, “Why did he want Mitch Daniels though?”
“Gennaro said it had to do with Dom and Pharm,” she explains, “You aren’t hearing me.”
“I am really trying to pick up what you are saying…” I mumble as the puzzle scatters around our feet.
“I am telling you Mitch has a connection to Pharm. I don’t know what that is though, but every single time he left to go visit his family, he went to New Orleans. Except the one time he followed me to Chicago. I think he knew I was onto him then, and I laid out the only hand I could.”
“You spread your legs…”
“In a fucking alleyway,” she mutters. “Because I didn’t want him to know I was onto his lies.”
“So, you thought it would be a better idea to seduce him and form a relationship?”
“I am not you,” she replies, “I don’t have the support backing me that you do. I have to work with what I have. If that makes you hate me, I am sorry for the inconvenience of your love.”
Letting her go, I pace around the room as I try and reassemble the pieces, but nothing fits together. “Why didn’t you tell me this when we were there?”
She scowls at my confusion and vehemently implores, “Why didn’t you tell me you were shot…”
Rolling my neck, I close my eyes, tilt my head back, and lay my hands on my face. “I’ve been shot more than once; there, now you know.”
“Thanks, asshole,” she hisses, sniffling. I rush to grab her before she continues packing. I cannot let her go—not like this, not now.
“I love you so much, Iris,” I grumble, allowing my emotion to take over. With my cards in full view, I stroke her tear stains and ask, “How did you get the bruises?”
Licking her lips, she mumbles, “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Fine,” I note, giving it up for now and pulling her on top of me. She straddles my body readily. “Can we talk about how good you would feel riding me?”
“That we can do,” she acknowledges, “Anytime.”
Grabbing her hips, I grind my cock against her dampness and ask, “What if I proposed…”
“You would never propose,” she says with a roll of her eyes.
“But if I did, would you happily crawl on all fours for the rest of your life?”
“Yes, but I love you, Nero—and you are the exception to the rule.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Whiskey Rebellion
IRIS
WE HAVE BEEN HERE nineteen days. This afternoon for whatever reason, Dale, Amber, and baby Mae left without a sound. I assume someone picked them up as Sal’s keys to the Raptor are still on the nightstand. I don’t know what happened or what he did, but his distance wears heavily between us.
I want to trust him, but I can’t when he constantly shuts me out.
Watching a baseball game, he sits in the living room, shirtless and sexy as fuck while I read in our room. His shadow arches and dips as I slip off all my clothes and walk into the darkened, smoky room.
“You wanna talk about it?”
His dark, conflicted emeralds shoot up to mine and I see the hurt spread over his expression. The ache is real, permeating through his entire being.
“I promise I am a good listener,” I say, kneeling on the floor with the gracefulness of a swan. “And I won’t say a word.”
“I have lost so much,” Sal imparts, blinking once. “I cannot lose you, too.”
The silence floats between us like an irremovable stain on our souls. We don’t have to say we are sorry because both of us know—we are. If we were in another time and place, we would be married by now with a baby in my belly, but we aren’t. We are in the basement bunker of a church, praying that no one finds us before someone saves us both from damnation.
He curls his arm and tucks his fist beneath his chin as I take the half empty whiskey bottle sitting on the table and pour a few shots down my throat.
“You impress me,” he states randomly, completely bedazzling my mind.
“Why?”
“Because you can shoot whiskey like that,” he comments. “I only know of one other woman that can do that, and I worship the fucking ground she walks on.”
“Stephanie?” I ask, feeling like I should be on a first name basis with his former Mistress Serene.
He nods as a smirk twitches up in the corner of his mouth. “Most girls want some sort of fruity, sweet thing.”
“Fuck no…” I elaborate, handing the bottle to him. “If I have a choice, I’ll take whiskey straight.”
“It’s fucking sexy as shit. Don’t ever forget who you are.”
“Does whiskey define me?”
“Nah, but it does taste sexy as fuck on your lips,” he teases, taunting me as his hand lays on his thigh. Numerous bracelets encircle his right wrist and I find it charming.
Suggestively, I purr, “You want?”
“Yes, baby, come hither.”
Crawling into his lap, I find my sanctuary in his muscular arms as I straddle onto him. The zipper of his jeans rubs my slit and I gasp, biting my lip.
“I think I could dry hump you in denim to come on me,” Sal challenges as his hands run over me.
“I’d stain your jeans though,” I acknowledge, continuing to build up the tension between us. I can feel his cock getting harder, and it’s only making me want him all that much more.
“Then we would be even,” he snickers, wrapping his hands around my cheeks and bringing my lips to his.
We kiss, drifting off to a place where nothing else matters. Binding and coiling, we are lost like two souls caught in the wind and discovering a flowing intimacy within one another. He brims with a heat—red fire—rapid and raw. And I trickle with clarity—blue water—healing and pure.
His tongue supplies his soul to my mine, alternating with a deep, pulsing desire and a shallow, tease. My hips pivot hastily firing off roll after roll of succulent hot wetness and soaking his jeans. His erection throbs at my burning core, threatening to spill us both on either side of the boundary.
Sal simmers, “You wanna fuck?”
“Yes,” I pant. As soon as the words fall from my lips, he lifts my body in his arms and carries me to the bedroom. My tongue licks and my mouth sucks his flesh as we go. He tosses me on the bed and undoes his jeans as his sexy, hard as fuck cock springs forth. Shucking them off to the side, he crawls up my body, trailing kisses along the way.
“I love every inch of you,” he proclaims. “And I am about to show you how much with every inch of me.”
“Tacky bastard,” I accuse, welcoming his wild and reckless beast by spreading my thighs and opening my wings.
Kissing my lips, Sal unapologetically takes what he wants without hesitation. He is a savage as his hands latch into mine and he forces them above my head. Pinned down, I must reconcile all that we are. I must forgive our past indiscretions and seek a hopeful future as we find our oneness within each other.
His left-hand releases me as he directs his dick to my gate. I won’t say no. I can’t say no. My intense passion collects itself like baubles in a jar, and no matter how full or empty the jar is—it doesn’t matter, because we are the space between. We are the air.
His hips roll against mine as he thrusts in slow, allowing my flower to bloom around him. It is a slippery, dew-soaked mess of built up desire that even on our worst nights, I cannot withhold. He knows this—even arrogantly acknowledges it. In the midst of our hatred, we can have some of the best intercourse ever.
We are not textbook. We are not roses and wine. We are not simple. Our relationship is a complicated, misunderstood encyclopedia of psychological mind fuckery and we speak a language unto ourselves. Not only are we fluent in the native tongues of the fetish world and the daily mundane chatter, but the quiet oxygen speaks a dialogue all of its own.
He is here for me. No matter what I do.
No matter what he does. I am here for him.
When does our silver thread to one another break?
I am not sure it can. We rise above the trivial darts thrown against our relationship because to leave this soul binding intimacy would render us alone. There is no one else for either of us who can even hold a candle to what we each bring to this bed.
His sensual lips kiss and devour like a monster behemoth above my curves. I feel so small, so insignificant. Sal can move me in more ways than one. He puts me where he wants me and when I spring off in a crazy direction, his invisible tethers pull me back.
I thank his wife every fucking day for giving me her build. She generously handed over the blueprints and spec sheets and I know every synapse and transmitter in this boy. This machine is mine. His inner workings shift and tick like a well-oiled engine. His calculations precise and absolute with only a hint of a grievous delay. I expect such. It is more of a moment of silence—a pause in remembrance to a maker now gone.
His body vaults a top mine, seeking a merger in our fluids—his and mine. Within the goo, we feed upon one another like hungry ghosts. Our orifices deluge in a wicked desire seeking the only sustenance we know. He feeds me. I feed him. We breathe off one another as our intimate shell expands with every meal. With the rise of my hips, I grant an easy consumption.
“Iris…baby…”
“Yes, Lucy…I am here,” I reply as my hands clutch against his ass. “Take me, babe.”
“I love being called that,” he growls against my neck. “I’ve only ever heard one other girl say that to me.”
“Kaci?” I assume.
“No,” he mumbles, kissing my neck. “Bertrand.”
“You loved her first…” I speculate, reading between the points along his map.
“I did,” he acknowledges. “I would have married that kitten in a heartbeat.”
“You married Kaci though,” I point out as his dick thrives in my swollen folds. It may seem an unusual conversation to be having while we are fucking, but this is who we are. We trade marbles and cards and points as we feast amongst our gospel. Our scripture is our own built amongst the heavens.
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