by Jo Raven
Letting me feel how much he missed me.
My eyes sting and I have to pull back to gather myself. It’s the fright I went through, probably, the sleepless night I spent at his side, waiting for him to move, checking every five seconds he was still breathing, despite the paramedics’ reassurances his pills couldn’t kill him.
He’d been so unnaturally still. And I’d been so frigging scared.
“Hey…” He cups my cheek. “Where did you go?”
“Maybe… maybe we should wait. Until you feel better.” I swallow hard. “If anything happened to you…”
“Cos… I’m fine.” He strokes his thumb over my cheekbone, over my nose, my lips. He leans in, kisses me. “I have an idea. How about you undress for me?”
I give him a doubtful look.
He leans back and starts stroking himself, his fingers curling around that big, flushed hard-on I’ve been fantasizing about over the past few days, the memory of having it inside me taunting me. “Work it for me. Then come here and ride me.” He winks. “So you won’t have to worry I’ll tire myself.”
The doubt leaves me, replaced by a rising wave of arousal so strong I whimper. My belly tightens, my pussy clenches on nothing, my nipples harden and ache.
I grab the hem of my blouse and lift it off my head, letting it fall to the floor. I’ve never stripped for anyone before, and despite the amazing sight of Merc stroking himself on the bed in front of me, laid out like a buffet of sexiness, I’m jittery.
Reaching back, I fight with the clasp of my bra. It won’t come off. I bite into my lower lip, frustrated.
Real sexy, Cos. Way to go.
“Cos.” Then he’s sitting up, letting go of his hard-on, dark splotches of red on his cheekbones. “What the hell happened to you?”
I blink, lost, still fumbling with the clasp. “What do you mean?”
He kneels and tugs on my arm, then lifts my hand and traces his fingers over my wrist. “Who did this to you?” He sounds angry, his voice sharp, but his touch is gentle.
Looking down, I find a ring of bruises on my skin.
Oh shit. Just like I forgot about my sister, I also forgot all about Steve and his shoe-in-the-door maneuver, his insistence he was doing me a kindness by offering to take me back, his violent grip on my arm.
That’s how it is with Merc: When I’m close to him, the whole world fades, falls into shadow and disarray.
“It’s…” I shake my head. “My ex.”
Merc’s fair skin flushes dark. A vein starts thrumming in his neck. “Your ex. You never talked about an ex.”
“That’s because he’s a worthless asshole.” I feel my skin heating, too, under his pissed off gaze. “He kicked me out some months ago.”
“You want to go back to him?”
“No, God, no. Never. He thought he could come by Lin’s place and take me back. Grabbed my wrist, tried to drag me out. I called him names, and Lin helped me close the door in his face.”
“Good. Is he coming back for you?” His other hand curls into a fist. “I’ll rearrange his goddamn face.”
“No. I don’t think he is.”
His eyes glitter. “Look, I know this is more complicated than you signed up for. Hell, more complicated than any sane person would sign up for. It’s not fair to ask you to stick by my side through this stupid hunt.” He unclenches his hands, reaches for mine. “I can’t hide from anyone, much less from you, how I feel, how you make me feel. I never could. I don’t even need my music when you’re here. My mind goes quiet. The world stops spinning.”
Oh, Merc… He’s showing me his thoughts, unafraid to be vulnerable with me, giving me the power over him, and I love him for it.
For everything he is.
I lift our entwined hands, look into his eyes and hope he sees I’m telling him all that’s in my heart. “Look, I’m not… not one of the pretty girls that normally surround you. I’m shy, and insecure, and I don’t think I’m particularly pretty, but you make me feel confident. When you say you want me, I believe you.”
“And you should. You’re the prettiest. You’re perfect, CosieCat.”
“I love you. I mean it, more than anything I’ve ever said in my life.” I smile. “I told Steve, my ex, that. Told him I have you, and you’re all I need. And trust me when I say I never felt anything for him. I thought I knew love, but I was wrong. Never felt the way I feel about you.”
His lashes lower, a grin spreading on his face. “You’re my girl. Say it.”
“I’m your girl,” I whisper, and I mean it. “I’m yours.”
A growl escapes him, and he tugs on me until I’m in his arms. He crushes me to his bare chest, against his hard-thumping heart, against his need, laid bare for me to see and touch.
Then he lays me down and climbs between my legs. He says nothing else, focused on ripping away the rest of my clothes and getting inside me. It’s strangely quiet, the only sound our panting breaths, his grunt as he thrusts inside me, my moan as he bends over me and starts fucking me.
No, making love to me. Hard and rough love, but love nevertheless. It was love all along. He’s right, he could never hide what he felt, I just couldn’t see it, mired in insecurity—and though he actually hasn’t said the exact words, I know. Now I know.
Now I’m sure.
His lips brush over mine, soft where his body is hard, gentle where his cock slams into me and then pulls out only to slam back home.
“Mine,” he breathes against my mouth, golden hair falling in his eyes. “Mine. My girl.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes.”
I want him to take me, mark me, own me.
Cheeks flushed, eyes gone to midnight blue under those pale lashes, he’s so beautiful my heart turns over. He’s the guy who stood by my side when my sister needed help, who told me I’m pretty until I believed it, who took me to meet his family when I felt alone.
A groan rumbles through his chest. He lies more heavily over my body, pushes deeper into me, making me gasp as nerve endings light up and sweet pressure in my belly coils more tightly.
So close. So close to coming apart.
“More,” I whisper, “More…”
“All,” he grunts, “all of me,” and lifts one of my legs to shove inside as deep as possible, that massive cock filling me up until there’s nowhere to go, nowhere but take it, let him inside.
All of him. There’s a lot of him to take, but he’s exactly what I want, who I love.
His body trembles, muscles working and rippling in his chest, in his arms as he rocks faster, his cock dragging inside my pussy, making me cry out.
His face tightens in a grimace that’s akin to pain. “Cos,” he gasps my name. He grips my leg, lifting it higher, his thrusts hard and fast, rubbing me in just the right way. His mouth falls open, and he produces a tortured moan that I feel in my bones.
And oh God… I’m coming, clenching around his thick length. We come together, his moans mingling with mine, the heat of his cum making me clench harder, and we writhe on the bed, gasping and grasping at each other.
Drowning.
Surfacing.
Diving into pleasure again, with every shift of his cock inside me, skin sliding on warm skin, his scorching mouth moving on mine.
“I could stay here forever,” he breathes.
“We’d need to get up and eat,” I mutter, and gasp as he thrusts lightly inside me with his half-hard cock.
“Fuck eating.” He chuckles, then it’s his turn to gasp. “Oh shit, do that again.”
Not like I can help it, tightening around his cock with the aftershocks of my release, and he moans brokenly.
He’s hardening again.
“Merc…” I arch up when he thrusts again, thickening inside my pussy. “Holy crap. Please…”
“Mine,” he whispers, “love you, you’re mine…” Moving inside me, starting the cycle all over again. “My CatGirl.”
“My DreamBoy.”
This time he hauls me up
on his lap, kneeling on the bed, and looks up at me with something like awe in his eyes as he pounds into me from below.
I cling to him, rock with him, the pressure rising fast, then snapping just as suddenly, making me cry out.
He groans my name over and over as he loses control and spills jets of wet heat inside me.
My guy.
I hold on to him and he buries his face against my breasts. Whatever is lurking in his dreams, in his past, we’ll beat it together. I’d fight anything, any monster and any dragon, to stay with him forever.
“She just called,” my sister says, sitting on her sofa “Mom. Asked how I was doing.”
“Ah-huh.” Not something strange to ask, granted, but this is our mom we’re talking about. “When was the last time she called you?”
“Uh, I don’t know. My fifteenth birthday?”
“Yeah. See? That’s what I mean.” I think about this. “Did she say anything else?”
“That… she wanted to help.”
We sit in silence, contemplating this new twist.
“I told her,” I say eventually.
“Told her what?” My sister is about to freak out. I can tell from the tic starting under her right eye. “What did you tell her?”
“How amazing you are. How she hasn’t been the best mother. And how you could use a helping hand right now.”
She shakes her head, dark hair falling over her face. “Come on. You think she’ll do anything to help? I gave up on her long ago, Cos.”
“I know. But you’re not someone who gives up easily, sis. Not even on those who give up on you.”
“Oh. Did you,” she swallows hard, “tell her about Griffin?”
“I’m not sure what to tell her about Griffin, Soph. You tell me.” I wasn’t going to say anything, but the words pour out of me. Guess I’m angrier than I thought. “You’ve taken care of him for so long, slept at that frigging hospital for, what, days? Weeks. Just to be by his side. He’s been living in your apartment. Does he talk to you at all?”
She makes shushing noises.
“God, Soph.”
Sick or not, I bet he’s just an asshole. My sis came back to him and has been an angel to him. If he didn’t want her around anymore, he could have said so. He’s taking advantage of her, and she lets him.
Exactly what I used to do, how I let guys walk all over me, before I met Merc.
But how can I save my sister when she doesn’t want to save herself, when she obviously thinks that the guy has the right to treat her this way because she came back to him, and lets him?
Handsome or not, he acts like a douchebag. Not talking about it won’t help.
“I’m not saying to kick him out, Soph. You’re his friend, I get that. Help him. Help him get well. You can be his friend. But don’t give him your heart if he won’t give you his. That’s all.”
Her chin goes up in defiance. “You don’t understand.”
Right. “I have to go,” I say. “Leave you with Mr. Tall, Dark and Brooding.”
She flinches, and I wonder why—but then I see Griffin.
He’s standing at the door, frowning. Two dog tags hang around his neck. He’s leaning against the doorframe, looking more exhausted than nonchalant. With the tousled black hair, dark eyes and dark clothes he’s wearing, the sharpness of his features and a gauntness that speak of sickness, he looks like the love child of a mafioso and a catwalk model.
My anger at him rises again, but I’m distracted by the way he’s looking at my sister.
See, I never got a chance to talk to him. I swear, I don’t even know what his voice sounds like. Every time I’ve seen him with my sister, he’s seemed distant and standoffish, even downright annoyed.
Right now, though… right now, his dark gaze is soft as it passes over Sophie, emotions flickering behind it like distant lights.
I wonder if he heard our conversation. He seems lost in thought, oblivious.
Then he turns around and leaves, his steps thumping dully on the floor as he goes.
My sister’s mouth trembles. “Griff,” she breathes, barely audible.
Oh, Soph… I wish I knew what to say to her, what she’s waiting for, what it all means. But I have no clue.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Merc
Matt is driving his new double-cabin pickup, all of us piled up inside—me, Cos, my sisters and Jarett. Cos is practically in my lap, no complaints there of course, while Jarett has his arm around Gigi. Octavia is sitting in the front with Matt, talking to him so quietly I can’t hear a word she says over the hum of the radio. It’s playing a country station, and I’ve already filed my complaint about that, to no avail.
I think Matt is doing it to annoy me. Or maybe that’s Octavia, in charge of the music? That’s one sister I never managed to educate.
Anyway, the low-level noise is lulling me to sleep. Though the pills are out of my system by now, I didn’t sleep well last night, despite Cos’s warm presence in my bed. It doesn’t help that it’s a cold, miserable, rainy day, water sluicing down the pickup windows as we drive out of St. Louis. And having Cos so close relaxes me, while making a certain part of me rock hard.
Small jolts of pleasure travel through me as we roll on the road, and I pull Cos more snugly on top of my hard-on. She wiggles and gasps, and I hold on tight, grinning against her back.
“Settle down, wildcat.”
“Merc.” She wiggles some more.
“Cos,” I mimic her voice. “Stop.”
God, if she doesn’t stop moving, I’ll be walking around Destiny with a wet stain in the front of my pants.
But I don’t want her off me. I love having her like this. Having her with me distracts me enough not to notice as we approach my birth town and setting of my nightmares.
I try to remember if I returned at all in the past few years since we moved away.
I don’t think I have.
No surprise there. Even though I had a pleasant childhood, I never felt like going back, never felt nostalgic.
Fuck you, nightmares or memories or whatever the hell you are.
Cos struggles a little and I relax my hold, realizing I tightened my arms around her as my thoughts turned to the goal of today’s mission.
She points out the window. “Is that Destiny?”
“Already?” I mutter.
To be honest, I thought it would take longer.
Like… a thousand years or so. As if time can wait for me to get my shit together before I step out of the pickup. Destiny has felt more removed, remote, since we moved. As far as the other side of the moon, a place I only visit in nightmares.
But here we are, rolling through the streets, past familiar houses and shops, hell, familiar trees and hedges and fields.
I’m home.
But it doesn’t feel like that anymore, more like a faded photograph of times past. Home is holding my girl in my arms, home is seeing my family around me and playing my music.
Whatever happened in Destiny, it made me feel like a stranger in my own town since I was a kid. And now I’m gonna find out what it was.
Even if it means talking to Ross and forcing myself not to punch his arrogant face.
After all, you don’t punch family, even if it’s family you wish you didn’t have.
We’ve called Ross a few times since last night, and he ignored us, but he finally answered Gigi’s umpteenth attempt to say he doesn’t know what the hell we want from him, that we can go fuck ourselves—but that he’d be hanging out at Billy’s Bar, a new place I don’t remember from my childhood.
Octavia said that telling us where he is means he wants to talk to us.
The rest of us think Ross doesn’t give a shit, but whatever. If he’s where he said he’d be, we’re descending on him like a flock of vultures on a corpse.
An unpleasant shiver racks me. Yeah, okay, come on, Merc. Stop thinking about corpses. This isn’t funny.
Only, today, that’s what we’re here to talk abo
ut.
Ross’s favorite spot seems to be a newly opened bar. Figures. We glance between us before we climb out of the pickup, then back at the garish green building.
It’s actually not all that far from Little River and the Pagoda.
Another shiver goes through me, and hell, I accept it, let it flow through me as I reach to the side and open the door for Cos to climb out.
I won’t let this fuck me up, and my family, any more than it has. I’ve already thrown out the sleeping pills. My only chance at getting any sleep ever again is to figure this out, and fingers crossed, it works to dispel my dreams and leave me the hell in peace.
So I’m kinda amped up after all my internal pep talk as I jump out of the pickup, but despite my attention being squarely on the bar and meeting Ross, I feel Cos slipping her hand in mine, and hold on tight.
We lead the way, and I’m vaguely aware of the others following across the road and over the cracked and flowering sidewalk to the half-open entrance. The stench of alcohol and fuck knows what else wafts from inside, and I’m already regretting bringing Cos and my sisters here.
The determined glint in their eye when I turn to suggest they stay out, though, stops me. What the hell, right? Besides, Matt and Jarett are with us, so if someone tries to cop a feel, and I have to kick ass, they’ll lend me a hand for sure.
However, once inside, the place turns out to be pretty much deserted. Dim lamps highlight a few patrons sipping their choice of poison at the long bar, perched like crows on rickety stools.
Oh my fuck, knock it off with the similes today, will ya? Not funny at all. Too many English Lit classes can do that to you.
To my simultaneous relief and annoyance, Ross is there, like he said he’d be. There’s a spotlight on him, or it seems like it, his pale blond hair flaring like a silver halo under the light of a lone bulb overhead.
He doesn’t turn as we approach, his focus on the glass in front of him. Whiskey, most probably, the cheap kind. His hair is too long, sticking up in uneven tufts, his hands grimy, black under and around his fingernails, as if he’d been digging in mud before.