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Craving Cecilia

Page 28

by Jacquelyn, Nicole


  “How?” she asked quietly. “What do you need me to do?”

  “You’ve got to be fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” I bit out.

  “Olive stays here?” she asked her dad, looking straight into my eyes.

  “Of course,” her dad replied.

  “Then I’ll draw that asshole a map straight to me,” she said.

  I held her gaze, the muscle in my cheek jumping as I forced myself not to shout at her. We could do this without her. I wasn’t sure how yet, but I knew there was a way, I just had to find it. Unfortunately, the only idea that kept popping into my head was cutting Farrah’s hair short like Cecilia’s and taking her instead—which I knew Cec would never allow in a million years. Maybe if I put the idea to Farrah instead. When it came to a showdown between Cec and her mother, I honestly didn’t know who would come out on top.

  Cecilia turned to her dad and Dragon. “If something happens to me—”

  “It won’t,” her dad said instantly.

  “If something does,” she continued, ignoring his reassurance, “Olive goes to Mark.”

  I choked on an inhale, my entire body locking in surprise.

  “If something happens to Mark,” she said, her voice less steady. She looked between the men and swallowed hard. “She goes to Lily and Leo.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Dragon said quietly. “Nothin’s gonna happen to you, CeeCee.”

  “Baby girl, you think I’d okay this if I thought you’d get hurt?” her dad asked, staring at her in wounded surprise.

  “Now nothing will happen to Mark, either,” she joked flatly, shrugging her shoulder. “Lily is my first choice if we’re dead, but Mark would never let Olive go to Leo.”

  My stomach churned with nausea as she walked away, her back straight and her chin high.

  “She’s exactly like her mother,” Dragon mused.

  “I’m aware,” Casper said emotionlessly. He finished his cup of coffee and set it hard on the counter. “I’ll round up the boys and let them know what’s happenin’.”

  “You don’t lock that down, you’re a fuckin’ moron,” Dragon said to me, gesturing toward Cecilia before turning back to the bar.

  I didn’t bother answering. I wasn’t even sure if I could speak. I hadn’t felt this kind of helpless frustration in more years than I could count. I knew, flat out knew, that I could stop Cecilia from going, even if I had to kidnap her ass. I also knew with complete certainty that type of interference would sever any chance of a relationship going forward. Could I live with that if it meant Cecilia was safe? I shook my head. She wouldn’t be safe, not unless we ended the threat—and if I interfered with what they were planning, I wouldn’t be around to protect her anymore. I strode toward the back hallway, my hands fisted at my sides.

  * * *

  “Forrest filled us in,” Lu said when I found the team in her room. “What’s the plan?”

  “We’re going to use Cecilia as bait,” I said, making my decision as I said the words.

  Lu nodded as Forrest swore in two languages.

  “Don’t like that,” Eli said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “It’s her monster,” Lu replied, going to her stack of things in the corner of the room. “She deserves to be a part in taking him down.”

  “I agree with the sentiment,” Forrest said politely as Lu opened a case holding a dismantled sniper rifle. “However, allowin’ her to be present durin’ a confrontation may not be the best way for her to do that.”

  “Let her kill him once we have him,” Josiah said flatly.

  “That’s fair,” Ephraim added, his voice low.

  Forrest looked at me.

  “She wants to do it,” I said quietly. “I might be able to stop her this time, but I won’t be able to next time. She’ll make sure I’m nowhere near her the next time.”

  “Understood,” Forrest replied. “Fill us in.”

  * * *

  After I’d filled my team in on strategy and objective, we agreed that they would leave long before me and Cecilia. When it came to a confrontation, as Forrest put it, their strongest asset was stealth. While the Aces relied on brute force in most cases, our team was built differently. They’d take care of the players from a distance, toppling them like the pieces on a chessboard.

  “See you later, Alligator,” Eli said as I opened the bedroom door.

  “Catch you on the flip side,” I said as I left the room.

  “You’re supposed to say, After a while, Crocodile,” he called out behind me.

  My lips twitched as I went to find Cecilia. I was strung too tight to laugh, but I was thankful for the familiarity of Eli acting like a dumbass before a mission. He could be staid as a priest when he needed to be, but up until that point, he’d act like a punch-drunk seventeen-year-old boy that had been up all night drinking Mountain Dew and gaming. It had driven me crazy until I’d realized that it was his own way of keeping everyone calm when nerves were a problem. He could pinpoint which person was thrumming with the most tension, and he knew exactly how to get their attention enough to piss them off or make them laugh, easing that tension. It was a skill that came in handy, even if it was irritating as hell.

  “Hey,” I said in surprise as I saw Farrah in the hallway carrying Olive. “You know where Cec is?”

  “I think she just went in to shower,” she said, her expression taut with worry. “I can’t believe you’re allowing this bullshit.”

  “You think I could stop it?” I asked seriously.

  Farrah paused. “No,” she griped, shaking her head. “I told Cody it should be me.”

  “The thought crossed my mind,” I said, a little guiltily. If Farrah went in Cecilia’s place, she’d be in the exact same danger.

  Farrah huffed out a small laugh. “I bet it did,” she said knowingly. “But Cody was right. CeeCee would never allow it. We’d have to literally lock her in here.”

  “Yeah.”

  Farrah stood there for a moment, her eyes unfocused. “It feels like I just got her back, you know?” she said, shooting me a helpless look. “It took years to get to where we are now. If we forced her to stay here—”

  “I get it,” I replied. Farrah and Casper were in the same boat I was, and the knowledge of that pissed me off even more. It was like we were walking on eggshells to keep Cecilia happy, and that didn’t sit well with me at all.

  “It is what it is,” she said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve disagreed with a club decision and it won’t be the last.”

  “More than a club decision,” I pointed out.

  “Haven’t you learned yet,” she said, no trace of bitterness in her voice, “in our family, everything’s a club decision?”

  “You’re okay with that?” I asked curiously.

  “Cecilia was in trouble and she had somewhere to go,” Farrah said. “A place where she knew the people would protect her, or die trying. That’s worth it, don’t you think?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “She’s in the bathroom next to your room,” Farrah said with a sigh. “You might be able to catch her, if you hurry.”

  She left me standing in the hallway by myself, turning her words over and over in my head. Logically, I knew that Cecilia could’ve gone to the police. They would have protected her as much as they could. I also knew, in my gut, that Farrah was right. No one would protect Cecilia more diligently or wholeheartedly than the Aces—not even my own team. She was one of them, for better or worse, and they protected their own.

  As I turned on my heel and headed for the bathroom, I thought about the times when I’d gone to the club, knowing that I was welcome, no matter what. The way they’d paid for my medical bills when my mom couldn’t—not only after the shooting, but before that, too. Amy and Brenna had taken me to get almost all of my vaccinations growing up. I grimaced, remembering the time I’d ended up in the hospital at fourteen. Cam had driven up to Salem, where I was living with my mom, and beat the shit out of my dealer—ensuring that he’d n
ever sell mushrooms laced with poison again. They’d even taken care of those hospital bills.

  “It’s me,” I said, opening the door to the steam-filled bathroom. I stepped inside and closed it behind me as Cecilia poked her head out from behind the glass shower door.

  “Everything okay?” she asked, her eyebrows rising as I stripped off my t-shirt.

  “Room in there for two?” I asked. The question was rhetorical, and I didn’t wait for an answer as I toed off my boots and stripped off the rest of my clothes.

  She was still healing, and I needed to keep my head on straight for the shit we were facing, but there was no way in hell that either of us was leaving that bathroom until I felt her skin against mine. Enjoying Cecilia naked and wet wasn’t an opportunity I was willing to let pass—not anymore.

  “Are you bigger?” she asked, pressing her lips together to keep from grinning as she stared at my dick. “Because I don’t remember you looking like that.”

  “You know just the words to make a man feel ten feet tall,” I replied, climbing into the shower. “Or two inches tall—depending on the situation.”

  “I’ve always excelled orally,” she replied in mock seriousness.

  I couldn’t have stopped the laugh that came from deep in my throat. Reaching out, I slid my hands into her hair, gripping her skull in my palms. Jesus, she was so tiny compared to me. Her bruises were gone, and Forrest had removed the stitches across her ribs, but I’d never forget the way she’d looked when I’d found her that night—her face swollen and her shirt covered in blood. I’d mostly been able to put it into the back of my mind, she didn’t need me losing my shit every time I looked at her—but Jesus. The human body was so fucking fragile. Having her bare in front of me, slender and dainty, reminded me of that in glaring Technicolor.

  “We can come up with a different way,” I said, running my lips down the bridge of her nose.

  “I just want to get it over with,” she replied, her hands coming up to rest on my chest. “I can’t keep waiting for the next shoe to drop.”

  “I’ll finish it,” I promised, pressing my forehead against hers. “You stay here, and I’ll take care of it.”

  “If you thought that would work, you’d already be gone,” she said. Sliding her hands up my chest, she softly scratched her nails through my chest hair, up over my shoulders and down my arms, her hands finally coming to a stop wrapped around my forearms. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “I got a bad feeling about it,” I replied, breaking my own rule about saying that type of shit right before things got messy. “Don’t do it, Cec.”

  “I have to,” she said simply. “I promise, I’ll stay out of the way. I’ll be fine.”

  “There’s no way to know that,” I spat, letting go of her to run my fingers through my hair. “You’ve seen how fast shit can go bad.”

  Cecilia’s expression darkened. Before she opened her mouth, I knew she’d moved beyond trying to calm me and I braced.

  “I do know,” she said, raising her chin. “We weren’t ready, and we didn’t see it coming. I can’t live my life waiting for that to happen the next time I let my guard down. I won’t.”

  “I’d never make you,” I shot back. “There’s other ways to finish this.”

  “Today?” she asked. “Because if I do this, Olive is safe today.”

  I inhaled sharply, fury making every muscle in my body tense. I breathed in once, then twice, but it didn’t calm me enough to stop the urge to slam the side of my fist against the wall of the shower.

  “Feel better?” she asked, not even flinching.

  “What’s she gonna do without you?” I asked. “Somethin’ happens to you, and then what? All because you couldn’t be patient enough to wait for a few goddamn days so I could plan somethin’ different?”

  “That’s not fair and you know it,” she spat back, her voice steadily rising with every word. “And if something happens to me, then you better buy some baby books so you can figure out how to change a fucking diaper.”

  “I’m supposed to raise her without you?” I yelled back. “Are you out of your fucking mind? What did I tell you? I’m not leaving you again. Where you go, I go, goddamn it.”

  I was still breathing heavily, my hand fisted in her hair when she lunged. I went back a step as her mouth hit mine, but within seconds, I had control of us both, pressing her into the wall of the shower, one hand still in her hair and the other gripping her ass. Her hands were everywhere, scratching down my back and digging into my ass cheeks, gripping my sides and finally rising to my shoulders. I boosted her up easily and groaned into her mouth as her legs wrapped around my waist.

  As her hips started to roll, I ripped my mouth away. “We can’t do this.”

  “I know,” she gasped, still grinding against me, “but I’m so close.”

  “Fuck,” I breathed, kissing her again.

  Shifting slightly, I held my breath as her pussy slid up my cock and back again, over and over. Shit. With every movement of our hips, I was more and more convinced that she wasn’t the only one who was going to get off. Pressing my face against her neck, I sucked the skin between my teeth, biting down slightly.

  Cecilia hissed in a sharp breath as her hips lost their rhythm and she pressed down hard against me. The change in movement shifted us just enough that I barely slid inside, and I cursed as I jerked my hips back and came against the wall between her legs.

  We both froze when it was over, breathing heavily.

  “I’m going to be sore as hell,” she said finally, laughing a little as she tipped her head back. She sighed. “Worth it.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered, shuffling back so she could drop her feet to the floor.

  “We better finish up,” she said, giving me a half smile as she stepped backward into the spray. “I was almost done.”

  I just barely kept my hands to myself as she quickly washed and rinsed her body. As she shuffled around me so I could step into the spray of water, her hand slid down my side and over the curve of my ass. Just like that, I was ready to go again.

  “I’ll be out in a second,” I rasped, stepping away from her.

  She giggled as I paused, letting the water hit me directly in the face.

  “You know, you’d do fine without me,” she called over the noise as she dried off. “I don’t want you to have to, but I know you would.”

  Sucking in a sharp breath as the water turned cool, I scrubbed and rinsed as fast as I could.

  “Not happenin’,” I said, turning the water off with more force than necessary. “Stop sayin’ that shit.”

  “I have to be pragmatic,” she replied, handing me a towel. She stepped into her underwear. “I can’t afford to be otherwise.”

  “Just stop.”

  “I can’t,” she said flatly.

  Running the towel over myself, I watched as she finished getting dressed.

  “I can’t be emotional about it,” she said, turning to me as she put deodorant on. “If I let myself do that, I’ll never be able to stop. I won’t be able to make any decisions that have to be made.”

  “You don’t have to make any decisions right now,” I said.

  “Yes, I do,” she argued, leaning against the sink as I got dressed. “Even if I didn’t have this ax hanging over my head—Olive deserves to have that security.”

  “You know she has it,” I replied. “It’s not like she’d go to strangers. Your family would take care of her.”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “But I want her with you, and I had to make sure that was clear. If not you—” she shrugged. “My parents are too old to start all over again, and I love Trix and Cam, but their boys are already half grown. So, Lily. Gray is young, and they’ll probably have more. Olive would have siblings she could play with.”

  “You’ve really thought this through,” I said, slicking my hair back from my face.

  “It’s impossible not to.”

  Crowding her against the sink, I rested my ha
nds on each side of her hips.

  “Nothin’ is gonna happen to you.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Yeah, I can.”

  “You’re psychic now?”

  “No,” I shook my head slowly. “But I know that no God would take you from me now—not when I finally have you again.”

  “You believe in God?” she asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

  “You don’t?”

  She opened her mouth and then shut it again. Finally, she spoke. “It’s hard to believe after the things I’ve seen happen to good people.”

  “Opposite for me,” I replied, smiling. “Hard to not believe when I see you sleepin’ next to Olive, leavin’ a spot empty so I can climb in with you.” I gave her a quick kiss and stepped back. “We need to get goin’.”

  “I’ll be right out,” she said, turning toward the mirror as I opened the bathroom door. “I need to finish up.”

  “Don’t forget the lipstick,” I said knowingly, kissing the back of her neck as our eyes met in the mirror. “The red lipstick makes you look like one of those old school pin-ups.”

  “Get your head in the game,” she teased, shoving at me.

  My stomach was in knots as I went back into our room, stripping out of the dirty clothes I’d just put on. There were so many ways the day could go wrong. As I got dressed, every possible bad scenario ran through my mind on a loop.

  Pulling my holster out of my go-bag, I slipped it over my shoulders, grimacing as it rubbed over my healing wound. We didn’t even know if it would work. Without watching Warren’s movements, we couldn’t even be sure that he knew where the clubhouse was, much less Casper and Farrah’s place. Sitting on the edge of the bed to pull on my socks, I paused, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees.

  I’d trusted the club before, and I’d have to do it again. If Warren didn’t make contact the way we planned, that just meant that we’d have more time to plan something better—something that didn’t put Cecilia in the crossfire.

  As I considered the possibility of just taking Cecilia and Olive to some random island in the Caribbean until her pop took care of Warren, a knock on the door startled me.

 

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