by E. M. Moore
But maybe I don’t. At least not with the people who care about me.
And maybe I fit in too well with the people I’ve vowed to make suffer.
2
After a long ass shower and picking countless tiny rocks out of my skin, I emerge from the scalding hot water with scrapes down my arms and stomach and my shin throbbing. I find Johnny’s closet in his room and pick out a t-shirt to throw on before moving to his kitchen, so I can ice my leg. Now that my adrenaline has bottomed out, the pain is starting to flare up like I knew it would. Injuries are always worse after your body has calmed down from the excitement of the fight. I wonder what it will be like after coming down from the high of a shootout. The crash will probably suck that much more.
I don’t know what time it is, but my body drags. It’s telling me it’s time for sleep, even though my ears are attuned to the front door, waiting for someone to come in and give me any kind of news. If I’m lucky, maybe Oscar or Brawler will even come in themselves. That’s just wishful thinking. I highly doubt any of those guys come into Johnny’s suite. Especially not Brawler. He’s not even a member of the Crew. Am I? Not because of Johnny, but because of what I did for them. That was my goal all along: Embed myself into their group. Into their lives. Make them trust me.
I need to call my aunt and uncle. I need to check in with them. I need to get ready for school on Monday. I need to watch the latest episode of The Witcher. I need to—
Damn. I’m the fucking queen of ignoring things without ignoring them. I can tell my brain not to think about Brawler or Oscar, but my body does it on its own even though I try like hell to distract myself. Eventually, I throw what’s left of the ice in the kitchen sink and lie down on Johnny’s sofa, knowing I won’t be able to think consciously about the fate of Brawler or Oscar while I’m asleep.
I pull my knees up to my chest and pull his shirt down around my legs, using a small square pillow to lay my head on. I drift off immediately. Blissfully, I think, and dream about nothing until I’m jostled awake and lifted into the air.
My body tightens.
“Shh. You’re fine. It’s just me.”
I instantly relax, but then I force my eyes open to see who “me” is.
Dark hair blends into the shadows. “You should’ve crawled into my bed.”
I close my eyes again, my brain warring once more between finding distraction in who’s holding me and wanting to be held by someone else.
Johnny’s hands tighten around me before he places me carefully onto his plush blankets. He moves the sheets back and straightens my legs before pulling the sheets back over me. I’m encased in silk. It’s dreamy. This mattress is a thousand times better than the mattress I’ve been sleeping on back at the shitty apartment.
Johnny climbs in after me, moving his arm under my head to pull me close, swaddling me in his embrace. “You looked so peaceful,” he whispers. “I didn’t know whether I should leave you there or not, but ultimately, I’m selfish and wanted you here with me.”
I try to keep quiet. My mind warring over his words and the effect they have on me, and whether I should even trust my own reactions to him. If a person you hated said the most beautiful things to you, it might put a chink in your armor. It might even continue to put dents and scrapes in the more he kept saying and doing those things. Sure, he’s done some shit that has made me fill those chinks in with plaster to harden them back up, but there are other moments, too.
Like this one.
Johnny talks again, his breath caressing the tip of my nose as he speaks. “I hope you know I was absolutely certain you were going to be okay.” He peers at me through feathered lashes. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I wanted you to focus on the fight and not what would happen afterward. Hell, we didn’t even know if it was going to happen. We were playing it by ear.”
“What happened after I got out?” I ask, voice hoarse. I’m picturing a smattering of dead bodies with rivers of blood coursing away from them.
I sneak my eyes open, catching him staring at the ceiling. “It was chaos,” he recounts, his body shuddering briefly. “I don’t know when Magnum got you out exactly. I remember looking back and seeing you close to Mag, and that’s when I knew you were going to be safe. Dad and I made our way to the cars with a few others from our security team before we jumped in and fled. We didn’t have a tail, but we took a roundabout way here in case we were being followed.”
“If they knew we’d be coming back here, how come they haven’t tried to retaliate?”
Johnny pulls away, his lips a thin line. “That’s the reason for doing what we did, Kyla. The only way they’ll come back at us is if we didn’t take out their top people. Dad got Roza. I got Evan.”
“Evan?”
Johnny nods. “I owed him for laying his fucking hands on you.”
I blink at him. Fighting is just that, a fight. It’s not to the death. It’s not so that scores can be settled outside of the competition. It stays there. The better person wins. That’s it.
“Hey,” Johnny says, tipping my chin up so I can look him more squarely in the face. “Evan’s one of their top three. He had to go. We just don’t know if anyone got their second in command. If we didn’t, we can expect retaliation. If we did, we’re safe. No one’s going to act unless we know for sure. We’re hunkering down here, and trust me, even if they do come for us, nothing’s going to happen to you. I won’t let it.”
Johnny thinks he can play God. A disastrous trait he learned from his father. He can take lives. He thinks he can save lives by being who he is, but that’s not the way the world works. One day, his life is going to come crashing in around him. Everything he thought he knew is going to be proven a lie.
Judging by the way he’s been brought up, he’s not going to take it well.
He takes my face in his hands and strokes both cheeks. “Can I do anything for you? Do you need ice? Or Band-Aids?” He lifts the covers away from me, trying to check my body in the low light.
I hunker back down, pulling the sheets back over us. “I’m fine. I iced my shin before I went to bed.”
“My dad wants to see you tomorrow. He wanted to see you tonight, but I told him no.”
“Yeah?” I ask. Hope builds in me, but that emotion associated with this psychopath feels like a betrayal.
Johnny blinks at me. “My dad didn’t want you to get hurt either, Kyla. He likes you. I think he wants to tell you something you’ve been waiting to hear.”
I can’t imagine Big Daddy K would have anything to say that I would want to hear unless he’s going to offer his dead body over to me. Not that that will ever happen.
Johnny’s hand roams over my hip. “Will it hurt if I touch you?”
I stop breathing. My body locks up, and I meet Johnny’s gaze dead on.
“Not sexually,” he explains. “But because you’re really here. Because I was worried. I was scared, Kyla. I knew nothing was going to happen to you, but at the same fucking time, I was scared to death something would. If it had, I’d never be able to forgive myself.” He squeezes my hip. He nestles in closer until we’re millimeters away from touching. When I breathe, my nipples brush his hard chest. “I’ve never wanted something more than you.”
“I’m not an object, Johnny.”
“It’s not that at all. It’s you. The idea of you.” He shakes his head. “You won’t get it, and I’m too fucking…fucked to explain it.”
I bite my lip. Here, in his bed, with low light and an open face, Johnny is being as honest as he’s ever been with me. He’s raw, cut to the quick. Something is bothering him. That much is clear. Something he both does and doesn’t want to talk about. Maybe it’s that I mean something so much more to him than just a thing to own, something he’s claimed on a whim.
I snuggle closer to him. Call me stupid. And fake, because I certainly am that, but Johnny’s softer side is winning me over. Before the fight, he told me he hadn’t been with anyone else since the dress shop gir
l. He told me he was pissed at his dad over me.
I hide my face in his shoulder and wrap my arms around him tighter. I want to believe in a softer side of Johnny. That makes me feel less sick. Less like I’ve infiltrated the gang and found out it’s exactly where I belong because I’m just as fucked up as those guys. Maybe even moreso because I didn’t grow up like them.
“You used my shampoo,” Johnny groans.
I nod into him. “I didn’t have any of mine.”
“We’ll have to fix that.”
I wrap my leg around his to bring me closer and immediately still. He’s hard, his cock straining against the jeans he never took off in his haste to crawl into bed with me. His body follows suit, immediately locking up. His breath leaves in a whoosh.
Because there’s something wrong with me in the head, I push my hips forward, his hard cock teasing my greedy ass core. My breath hitches at the contact.
“God, don’t do that.”
My nipples peak, pushing against my borrowed cotton t-shirt. My breath comes in hurried, needy gasps. I don’t know what’s come over me. I roll my hips over him again.
“Fuck,” he groans. “You’re not wearing anything underneath that shirt.”
I bite down on my lip to stop the whimper creeping up my throat from leaving my mouth. I am in desperate need of relief. Call it the tension of the day coming to a grinding halt right here, right now. Call it the excitement of being alive. Call it whatever the fuck you want, but right now, I’m ready to come apart.
Johnny stays where he is. Despite his heavy breathing, he doesn’t move an inch even though he’s as hard as a rock. He tightens his hold on my hip, clutching the end of my shirt in his fists.
I lick my lips to relieve my dry mouth. I want release like I’m desperate for air. I grind my clit against him, swirling for good measure. Pressure builds until it’s unstoppable. I let out a low mewl before doing it again.
“Fuck, Kyla. You’re going to—” He moves his thumb to my clit, pressing down on it.
“Yes,” I breathe.
He swirls again and again until my fingers sink into the skin at his back, and my body races forward at the speed of light, my mouth open in a silent scream.
I cry out briefly before shuddering, my forehead coming to a rest on his shoulder. Fuck. What just happened? That took zero time at all. I didn’t even have a moment to think clearly.
Johnny moves his hands back to my hips and traces his fingers over my bare skin. I still, wondering what he’s going to do. Is he going to take it further? Is he not? I fear both these paths for different reasons. Tightening his hold, he sinks down into me for a heart-stopping second before crawling backward out of the bed. The pitch in his pants is unmistakable, as is the tortured look on his face. His chest moves up and down as he eyes me in his bed. “This isn’t because of my father. This is for you.” He turns on his heel, leaving me in his bed to retreat to the bathroom.
The shower starts, and I flip onto my back, staring up at the ceiling. My body has that pleasant, hazy after-sex feeling, magnified after a day like today. Maybe that’s why I came so easily. All the stored-up tension in my body. All the wrongness of getting off on Johnny. Whatever it is, I stare at the ceiling and listen to Johnny in the shower. There’s a loud thump like he’s banged his fist against the tiles. Whatever other sounds that might have come afterward are eaten up by the running water until the water turns off.
Minutes later, he emerges from the bathroom with only a pair of boxers on. I look him over and find the same satisfied glint in his eye I’m sure is reflected back in mine. “This should go without saying, but the day I bury myself inside you, it won’t be on the heels of worrying about losing you.”
Despite myself, my heart pitter-patters in my chest. “Are there even any days like that inside the Crew?”
“Of course, there are.” He slides back into bed, moving into the exact same position with his arm under my head and his other hand on my hip. “I’ll show you.”
I don’t know if I want him to or not. If this is how I react to a softer Johnny on a bad day, what the hell would a good day look like?
3
In sleep, Johnny looks like an angel.
I’m not kidding. He’s gorgeous enough, to be sure, but in the midst of rest, his face takes on a relaxed, peaceful look that isn’t there when he’s awake. Do all bad guys look like this while they sleep? Innocent. Trustworthy. Like more friend than foe.
Why do I think Big Daddy K looks the exact same asleep or awake? Like he’s two seconds from putting a bullet between someone’s eyes.
The sun’s rays stream through the ends of the blinds like a square halo. If I ever find Big Daddy K sleeping alone in the dark, I don’t care if he does look like this, he’s dead. Not only for what he did to my parents, but for what he did to me, and Oscar, and Brawler, and fuck, even Johnny. He’s going down for it all. No one deserves to be mixed up in this kind of bullshit.
Because I don’t have any clothes here, I find a discarded pair of joggers in the closet and pull them on. Coupled with Johnny’s too-big-for-me t-shirt, I won’t be winning any beauty contests, but fuck if that’s the reason why I’m here, anyway.
My shin aches, so I’m careful about putting too much weight on it as I walk out to the living room, and there’s a tightness in my shoulder blades I need to work out from the fight. All in all, I fared pretty well from the events of last night. The scrapes on my stomach barely hurt anymore. It’s just my heart that holds the worry and ache over not knowing what happened to Brawler and Oscar. If I had my gun, I’d think about sneaking next door, but then…I don’t know if Brawler or Oscar are alive and I need that information. I can’t leave without knowing. I can’t disappear without them.
I’m curled up on the black leather couch when Magnum walks in. He stops in his tracks when he notices me there alone, and then looks around the suite, gaze stopping on the halfway open door that leads to Johnny’s bedroom. “He’s in there,” I say.
He takes in my appearance with his eagle-like gaze. I run my hands through my hair, hoping to tame the mess it’s probably in. I’m not used to seeing so many people this early in the morning. Hell, I’m pretty much used to being alone.
Magnum shuts the door with a soft click. With his eyes trained on the open door, he sneaks toward me, even though God knows he doesn’t need to sneak. He’s one of the most silent people I’ve ever met. He could creep up on a frightened animal. “Oscar checked in.”
I cover my mouth after a loud intake of breath that hangs heavy in the air.
Magnum nods.
“He’s okay?”
He nods again. “He’ll probably show up later today. We’ve had eyes on the perimeter all night. We don’t see anything.”
I take a deeper look at Magnum next. He still has on the bandage from last night. His skin is pale, cheeks sallow with dark bags under his eyes from a full night of staying on duty rather than getting much-needed sleep. I mean he was shot for Christ’s sake.
I rub my own eyes. They’re not scratchy or heavy. In fact, I slept well. Too well for being in a man’s bed I once thought of as an enemy. But there’s a heat behind them now I want to hold back so it doesn’t betray even more of the thoughts Magnum’s already begun to tease out.
“It looks like you need some sleep,” I say instead. “Maybe even a shower. Some food?”
I get up from the couch like I can do any of that here. I don’t know where anything is, and with the bedroom door open, do I really want to make a racket trying to feed Magnum, essentially distracting myself from the news I’ve just received? Johnny would be up in a heartbeat if he heard me moving around out here.
“I need all that,” he says, “…but there’s no time right now.”
“Bullshit,” I say, my voice rising above the whispered tones we’ve been talking in. “You’ll miss shit if you stay on duty any longer. Isn’t there someone else who can take over?”
My gaze darts around the apartment
looking for something to focus on. Maybe a cereal box, so I can eat and force-feed Magnum at the same time. Or a cell phone to call Oscar. Or—
“Hey,” Magnum says, fingers wrapping around my forearm. “It’s okay.”
I take a deep breath, gaze dropping to his touch. Instead of pulling away from me, he keeps his hand steady. Magnum and I are in the same boat with one another. He offered me a way to get out last night. He offered to help, and I could just as easily turn him in as he could me. What does this mean though? Are we friends? Allies? None of those seem like the right label with how he looks at me.
I close my eyes briefly before opening them again, trying to calm my beating heart. I focus on something I can help with. “How’s your arm feeling today?”
“Hurts like a bitch,” he says. For some reason, his response makes me smile. I figured Magnum would be a hard ass. He’d be the type to die before he let anyone know he was hurting.
“I saw some pain reliever in Johnny’s bathroom. Can I get some for you?”
He nods, taking a seat on the sofa. I leave him there to retrieve the medicine and walk back into the main room. When I get there, Magnum is already unrolling the bandages from his arm. He gets to the red-stained gauze and removes it.
He really was lucky. Sure, there’s a gash taken out of his arm where the bullet grazed, but it didn’t pierce him. It didn’t hit anything vital. I sit on the coffee table opposite him and watch as he folds the gauze a different way to a semi-clean side.