On The Ropes: Tapped Out Book 3

by Quinn, Cari

  Christ, I sounded just like my mamma, even after all these years without her.

  She gripped her arms in tense fingers and watched the numbers rise above the door, saying nothing.

  Swearing under my breath, I unbuttoned my shirt and draped it over her shoulders. She shot me a surprised glance before nodding her thanks and reaching up to grab the lapels. Then her gaze drifted over my bare, tattooed arms, slowly enough that my skin grew hot and tight.

  Everywhere.

  I wore just a white wifebeater underneath the button-down, and my rosary. It dangled free over the shirt though I always kept it tucked beneath. Before I could put it back where it belonged, she grabbed it, and touched the sharp piece of silver at the end. “A dagger,” she said, lifting her head until our eyes met. “Your rosary has a dagger instead of a cross.” She ran her fingertip over the blade and gasped as a drop of blood bloomed.

  “Jesus, tesoro, take care.” She dropped the rosary and I gripped her wrist in both of mine. Without thinking, I brought her hand to my mouth and sucked away the blood, as my mother had always done with every hurt.

  She gasped again, lower now, and the sound traveled straight into my bloodstream like a hit of cocaine. Lighting me up everywhere at once. My fingers gentled on her wrist and I allowed myself one more illicit kiss, fighting every urge that demanded I push her back against the wall, shove up that tiny skirt and show her what she’d made of me. I’d turned into an animal.

  The elevator dinged as we arrived at my floor and somehow I managed to let her go. She stumbled back, her shoulders colliding with the wall, and I looked down to see her bare, wet feet curling over each other as a child’s might. That thought cooled my libido in a flash.

  I walked out of the elevator and down the carpeted hallway, my footsteps soundless. Hers weren’t. The slight slapping of her feet went off in my head like gunshots.

  Taking her inside with me would test me in ways I didn’t think I was strong enough to survive, but I had no choice. I wouldn’t send her home to sleep on the floor. Not after tonight. She needed to be taken care of. I was the worst possible option for that, but there weren’t any others.

  Not for either of us.

  After opening the door, I flipped on the lights. She followed me in and gasped again.

  “You need to stop doing that,” I said before striding across the hardwood floor to the galley kitchen. I pried open the refrigerator door and took out an ice-cold bottle of Harp. After thumbing it open, I poured it down my throat in about six swallows.

  I rarely drank, but tonight it was a necessary evil. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to stand myself. And I had to. For her. She needed someone to watch over her while she slept.

  Her bad luck that person happened to be me.

  When I finished one, I went right back to the source for a second. I stepped back to pop the top and she appeared at my side, holding out her hand. “May I have one?”

  “Proper fucking English and all,” I muttered, pressing it into her hand. I’d grabbed another one for me when I realized what I’d done. “You’re too young,” I began, reaching for it.

  She hiccupped out a laugh and moved just out of reach. “After tonight, you’re really going to pull the age card on me?”

  Who was I to be the moral or legal police? I was the worst kind of thug, one who told himself he wasn’t. Because I had reasons for what I did. Reasons that had changed Carly’s life.

  I grabbed my beer and shut the door.

  We stood there drinking silently, feet apart, not speaking. I finished my second beer and tossed it in the sink, hoping the bottle would shatter. It just clinked around in the bowl until it came to a stop.

  She set hers on the counter and turned back, wiping her hand over her mouth. “May I take a shower?”

  My horror must’ve shown on my face because she quickly shook her head and stepped forward. She stopped right in front of me but didn’t reach out. “No, no, not that. I wasn’t raped. Jesus, I wasn’t. I’m just cold, and the rain made me all sticky…” She stopped and flushed briefly before shrugging off my shirt and handing it over. “Thank you.”

  “Keep it,” I said gruffly. “You’re going to need something to put on. After.”

  After was such a loaded word. I’d never noticed. Five letters that could change a person forever.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the darkened hall. “That way?”

  “Second door on the right.”

  Nodding, she clutched the shirt between her fists, twisting as if it were rope. Then she disappeared up the hall.

  I walked to the counter and picked up her beer. She’d barely taken a few sips.

  Shutting my eyes, I gripped the bottle until I was sure I could feel her leftover warmth emanating from the glass. God knows I had none left of my own.

  I took the beer into the bedroom and set it on the bedside. She might wake up and need the alcohol. I’d get her water too. And I should change the sheets, though they were fresh yesterday. But she deserved better than this.

  Better than me.

  Sinking on the edge of the neatly made bed—I was nothing if not Anna Costas’ child—I buried my head in my hands. I pushed my fingers through my hair then just pulled until the relentless churning in my gut started to subside.

  Fox was my friend. I didn’t know how it had happened, but it had. How would I ever look him in the eye again, after what I’d done? He deserved to know. And Mia…

  Mia would kill me.

  I wanted her to. I deserved to die for this. For so much else, and now this too.

  My eyes burned as I fumbled through my nightstand. My mamma’s Bible was sitting on top, next to the condoms I’d carelessly thrown in there the last night I’d had a woman over. Months ago now. I grabbed the handful of them and dumped them in the trash, then flipped through the dog-eared Bible my mother had read every day of her life. My father hadn’t wanted it. My older brother, Dante, had scoffed at its contents. But it had mattered to her, so it mattered to me.

  Right now, I had nothing else to cling to but the faith I’d abandoned so many years ago. Back when I’d been young and cocky enough to think faith was for the naïve. Now I knew it was the only thing that would get me through this night, and all the ones that came after.

  After.

  Job 10:22 was where my finger landed, the spot marked by the prayer card from my mamma’s funeral.

  A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.

  I read the words with my eyes full. Clutching the pages in stiff fingers, I didn’t look up when a shadow appeared in the doorway.

  Shadows everywhere, memories I couldn’t bear, thoughts I couldn’t scrub away. Then there was me. Somehow still breathing, when those I loved were long in the ground.

  She walked toward me and knelt at my feet, her expression heartbreakingly understanding. How could she understand me? She didn’t know who I was, what I’d caused. And it was only the beginning.

  Now I’d harmed her too. Beautiful, sweet Carly, who had only wanted to get to know me. As if I were an ordinary man, who didn’t have three deaths on his head. That wasn’t even counting tonight, because I couldn’t. I couldn’t add anything else to my tally.

  It was only when I let my gaze travel down her body that I realized she wore my shirt over her still damp skin. She’d only buttoned the middle button, and the top couple were open, which left her ample cleavage on the verge of spilling out. I glanced away, but that only brought my gaze to the shirttails hanging down her bare, wet thighs—and the shadowy cleft between her legs.

  She wasn’t wearing panties.

  I snapped the Bible closed and shoved it in the nightstand drawer, then started to stand up. But her hand on my leg stopped me cold.

  “You’ve been running from me for months,” she said softly, without any censure. “Don’t you think maybe it’s time to stop?”

  I shut my eyes, because that wa
s the only way I could stop from dragging her up onto the bed. “Staying away from you for your own good doesn’t equate to running.”

  “It does in my book. And who’s to say what’s good for me?” Before I could summon a response to that idiotic question, she rose and undid the single button, shrugging the shirt off her shoulders and letting it fall.

  And Christ, her body was a masterpiece.

  She was all honey and rose gold, small and packed in all the right places. Her tiny waist flared into rounded hips that turned into long, supple legs. Her skin was the color of peaches, especially between her thighs. She was completely smooth, her puffy lower lips on display.

  Lips that were already visibly damp.

  I dragged my focus upward, desperate to reach her face again and bring this conversation back to a place that felt sane, but her breasts were impossible to ignore. They were large for her frame, the nipples tight and a deeper peach shade than the slit between her legs.

  She was like ice cream, and I’d been starving for so fucking long.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” I managed, swallowing over the dust in my throat as I searched for something to drive her away. Not the apartment. No, she needed to stay, so I could be sure she was safe.

  Because the wolf is always the best choice to protect the lamb.

  “Yes, I do. I’ve known since the first time I laid eyes on you.” She sauntered forward and planted a hand on my chest, pushing me backward onto the bed.

  And I went. God help me, I went.

  She climbed atop me, the wet ropes of her long reddish-gold hair brushing my chest. Even through the wifebeater, my skin responded. She straddled me and rolled up my shirt, her nails and the heels of her hands working magic, and I threw my head back and stared up at the skylight that slanted over the bed. Rain covered it in heavy splotches. The storm still raged outside, and in my head.

  Bending, she licked my nipple, and I caught a fistful of her silky hair, bringing her face up to mine. “You’re getting what happened earlier confused with sex,” I said, voice low. As many times as it took, I would repeat this until she understood. “It wasn’t. We were forced to—”

  “Yes, finally. Finally.” Triumph lit in her summer sky eyes. “We were forced. You didn’t force me, goddammit.”

  “You’re twisting my words.” I reached up and gripped her shoulders, holding her back from resuming her task. My wet nipple tingled, waiting for her mouth. Every part of me, waiting.

  “No, I’m not, and you know it. We were both forced tonight. That wasn’t your choice. But I’ll tell you a secret.” She struggled against my hold and I released her, because I couldn’t risk bruises. Not after all I’d already done.

  She dipped her head and licked my ear, and my cock jerked against my boxer briefs. Desperate to be let free. To go right back where I’d been earlier tonight, in that sweet, tight pussy that had gripped me so fiercely. Not letting go for a second.

  “If one of us forced the other, it was me forcing you. I’ve been trying to force you for nine months. That I was on my belly in front of you surrounded by guys with guns didn’t change what I wanted.” Her teeth grazed my earlobe and I shuddered, fisting my hands in the spread beneath me. I could grip the mattress coils themselves and it wouldn’t be enough to stop me from taking what she was offering. “What I want.”

  A handful of her hair brought her mouth to mine again, and her eyelashes fluttered as she struggled to maintain my gaze. She wanted to close her eyes. Wanted me to kiss her.

  That wasn’t the man I was anymore.

  “I can’t be gentle. It’s not in me.” I rubbed my whiskered cheek over hers and absorbed another of her little gasps. “If I get my hands on you, I’ll be rough. I won’t be able to help myself.”

  “I like rough.” Her eyes glowed into mine. “But I have another solution.” She moved like a blur, yanking at my shirt, tearing it apart. I was still blinking at that—what the hell? She wasn’t a fighter, how could she be so strong?—when she grabbed my arms and dragged them over my head.

  Noticing my expression, she smiled faintly, the curve of her luscious mouth turning her from beautiful to unforgettable. “Chef-in-training,” she said, doing a quick knot around my wrists. Flexing her hands meaningfully, she eased back. “I know my way around a knife.”

  “I could break that knot in a second,” I said, unsure why my breathing had sped up. Something about giving the power back to her let my desire come to the forefront and nudged aside the guilt.

  It wouldn’t go away that easily. Tomorrow morning, I’d pick it up again and shoulder my burdens. They were my responsibility. And they would be heavier for my momentary escape.

  But tonight, she would give me a reprieve.

  “You had your way with me earlier tonight.” She ran her tongue up my midsection and eyed me hungrily. “Now I’m going to even the score.”

  Five

  He’d been reading the Bible.

  I was supposed to believe he was the devil incarnate. Supposedly, he’d raped me and was capable of so much violence—toward me too, along with those men in that room tonight.

  That I could believe. I’d felt every ounce of his hatred in their direction. If they didn’t, they were fools. Too cocky to realize they were toying with someone as lethal as they were.

  But hurting me? Not happening. The knot around his wrist was to ease his mind, not mine. I wasn’t afraid of him. A man who whispered to me in Italian and carried me through busy New York streets to save my feet wasn’t dangerous.

  Something had happened to make him think he was. He obviously had shit in his past I couldn’t begin to comprehend.

  It didn’t matter tonight.

  Tonight, I needed to replace what had happened earlier with a different memory. Not because he’d raped me or because it hadn’t been about him and I, even in the midst of the insanity of that room. But neither of us should have that memory as the only one of us being together. And if tomorrow came and he shut me out again, we’d have this.

  We’d have given each other this.

  I slid down his body, tracing his intricate tattoos with the tips of my fingers. He was solid muscle, his entire body honed to the maximum. Ink covered most of his skin, colors and shapes and black swirls that brought to mind some kind of Celtic knots. His rosary with the dagger that had cut me hung down his chest, dangling halfway to his bellybutton. But on his ribs there was another, the rosary’s beads a pearlized aqua green that drew my eye, then my mouth.

  A woman’s name swirled beside the rosary. Anna. I sketched the letters with my nails and he shuddered, his fingers lacing together above his head. I loved that it took so little from me to make this enormously strong man weak. More, that he fought that weakness with everything he had whenever we were together and still succumbed.

  For a girl who’d turned to stripping because she felt ignored by the world—oh and to get the money for school, can’t forget the money—this was heady stuff.

  I peeled away the tatters of his shirt and cupped his bulging biceps, wishing I could twist his arm around to examine the tattoos there. Curious, I wiggled up, leaning over him to try to see the words imprinted on his skin.

  No mercy. June.

  What did that mean?

  I let out a startled squeak when he lifted up and closed his lips around my nipple. He said something against my flesh, but I couldn’t decipher it through the rolling waves of pleasure. Warm, wet suction surrounded me, his kisses erotic and hard, both. This wasn’t the fumbling breast play I’d experienced in the past.

  He switched from one to the other, nipping my skin until it bloomed with the marks from his mouth. I caught my hand in his rain-damp hair, holding me to me, reveling in every rasp of his scruff and every lick. Each time he bit down on the tight peaks, the echo pounded in my clit. I was afraid to move, in case I’d gotten his stomach wet.

  My nipples stood out ruby red when he finally eased back to the mattress, and I studied them, fascinated.
I reached up to pinch one, and he made a muffled noise in his throat, like he couldn’t breathe.

  “No tattoos,” he said, sounding choked. “Your only marks are mine.”

  Planting my hands on either side of his head, I searched for my nerve. I wanted him to kiss me. My lips…both sets. But I didn’t know how to ask. So I rubbed against him, fighting the urge to duck my head when he met my gaze, surrounded by the cage of my arms. My hair fell down to shield us, to block out the silvery glow from the rainy skylight. I was all he could see.

  He filled my world.

  Almost against my will, my hips started moving in slow circles. Dancing was second nature now, especially the provocative kind. Arching, I chased the thrill of grinding against his cock still encased in his jeans. He owed me this orgasm from the rough denim that rubbed between my thighs. I rocked harder, lost to my pursuit, the slapping rain outside the apartment barely matching the endless drumbeat in my head.

  “Take me out,” he said, stopping me on the verge.

  I panted, staring at him, not understanding.

  “Take out my cock,” he said and I shook at the words, somehow realizing then what we were about to do.

  I couldn’t use him for a quick hit of release. We’d have all the time to get it right.

  This wasn’t just about me, and what I needed. He had needs too, and he’d make sure I would fulfill them.

  I wanted to. So fucking badly.

  Above his waistband, he had the numbers 5150 in navy ink. I traced those too, raising my eyes to his questioningly.

  “Police code for crazy person on the loose.” He didn’t flinch. “Danger to the public, and to myself.”

  I nearly laughed but the heaviness in his eyes stopped me. His expression went way past brooding to bruised. I couldn’t begin to guess at what lived behind those gorgeous, changeable eyes. One minute, they were dark blue and sparkling. The next, midnight black. Whatever he’d been through had altered his perception of himself, so I’d just have to show him who he was with me. While I learned too.

  Bending my head, I pressed a kiss to the numbers, each one in turn. He hissed out a breath the lower I traveled on his body, finally unhitching his belt and undoing the button and zipper of his jeans. I tugged them and his boxer briefs down, helpless to mask my gasp at the sight of him bobbing free, slapping against his abs.