by Ace Gray
I bit my lip and looked him directly in the shimmering green eyes. They shifted from worried to hungry in a matter of moments and when they bored into me, I couldn’t meet them anymore. My blood boiled too hot.
As my gaze wandered down him, I drank in the wet shirt clinging to his insanely sculpted muscles and the artwork that was fuzzy behind it. Until the end of time, I would dream of that body and the things it did to me. I choked on the past tense.
But then Cole’s hand moved to his belt and I snapped back to the present, determined to enjoy him while I had him. He undid his belt but didn’t pull it off, didn’t work on his fly. His long fingers undid a few buttons then yanked the shirttails out of the waist of his pants. As soon as it was free, he peeled it off over his head. Every single muscle, every single art piece danced.
His eyes didn’t move from me as he finally pulled his belt free. Neither of us flinched when fabric hit the floor but my breathing was picking up pace. Arousal was already spreading down my thighs.
For the first time, I felt like someone was really looking at me. Someone knew the underbelly, or at least part of it, and still wanted to dive in. And knowing that, seeing that reflected back was kind of awesome.
Cole stepped toward me and in a simple movement had his belt behind my neck. He used it to pull me to his lips. My hands crashed into his washboard abs, then curled. He kissed me hard and his knuckles brushed along my collarbone but he didn’t grab me. I nestled against him, my hands flat against his skin, just before he slipped the buckle back on and pulled the leather tight.
I gagged when Cole kept pulling. He lifted the tail up over my head and I rose on tiptoe to follow him. My hands automatically scrambled to pull at the belt where it crossed my throat. Green eyes swept over me and flames danced behind them. An inkling of fear smoldered in the pit of my stomach now that I knew what laid in his past.
Before I got swept up in either lust or fear, he used his grip to spin me and shove me down to the kitchen island countertop. I yelped before he tightened the belt enough that I couldn’t squeak.
He kept a tight grasp as he dragged his lips down my back then over the curve of my ass. When he settled in between my cheeks, he pulled the belt tight enough that I arched off the countertop. The throb in my face was amplifying but not nearly as quickly as the throb between my thighs. That was the throb his tongue quickly tended to.
Cole licked fully across me then set his tongue to work on my clit. He flicked it side to side until my body tremored in front of him. I tried to gasp his name over and over as I stood on the precipice of a massive orgasm. Just when I thought I’d explode from pleasure or lack of oxygen—maybe both—his tongue fell away and he dropped the belt unceremoniously across my back.
I sucked in a huge breath that somehow still sounded like his name. I wheezed and rolled my head to press my check to the granite counter that was still cool. My hands came to the countertop and pressed against it hard. The moment Cole pressed into me, they scrambled back to shove at his thighs.
He thrust into me over and over and I couldn't reach far enough to keep him from hollowing out my insides. Our bodies moved against each other the way they always did: perfectly. Whether it was biological, crazy chemistry, or the magic of all great fairy tales, Cole knew me. He knew he could grab the belt again and pull. It tightened on my throat just before he hooked his finger in my ass. I cried out, feeling my throat ripple against the leather. Then his cock nudged against his finger and my body jerked against the countertop with pure pleasure.
Cole thundered into me. His finger crooked with each move, the leather shifted too. My hands automatically dug at my throat or batted at his thighs but I wouldn’t have really stopped him. I couldn’t.
He rolled against me over and over. My breathing was going shallow and my head thudded all over again. The edges of my vision went fuzzy. Electric tingles replaced any real feeling in my fingertips. I tried to moan over and over but my throat just constricted on itself.
His thumb cricked back, pressing into his erection and pulling tight all at once. I came spectacularly. Lightning shot through me, spreading tingles everywhere like the ones in my fingers. I was screeching against the pull of the belt but no noise was coming out. When the waves finished wracking my body I slumped into the counter and let my legs turn to Jell-O.
Cole wasn’t done though. His hand slipped out of me and shoved under my ribs. He easily lifted my limp body and turned me. I folded to my knees partially because of his look and partially because I couldn’t support myself. When I sagged to my calves, he pulled on the belt to perk me up.
Automatically I lifted myself to hip height. He kept it tight and pressed his thumb into my mouth. I weakly sucked at it, still at the mercy of my melted body.
“Suck, Elle.” He yanked on the leather to reinforce his point.
And I did, even though it made breathing all the harder. When he was happy with my hollowed cheeks, he used his thumb to pull my mouth open and shove his cock in.
I took it all.
Numbness was taking over as he thrust over and over. Every single fiber in my body should have been protesting this fucking, protesting him, but I couldn’t. I left my hands at my sides. Even if I’d been able to feel them, I wouldn’t have tried to stop him.
Being savagely taken made every inch between my thighs clench. The more I surrendered, the more likely a second orgasm was. Cole’s ragged moans barely reached my underwater ears but they were amplifying my arousal all the same. The belt still snug around my throat was spurring me on too.
Cole shoved to the back of my throat and sat there. That was all it took. My body jerked, wanting air and release all at once. He pulled tighter on the leather. Waves of an orgasm pummeled my body and crashed against his pull. I shook violently then felt myself drip with pure pleasure.
“Fuck!” Cole bellowed a moment before he shot into my mouth. He tightened his hold as tension gripped every inch of the chiseled man before me.
I couldn’t swallow and the cum spilled down my lips and onto my breasts. Cole whimpered something wholly devastated then fell to his knees in front of me. The belt loosened completely and I gulped in air like I’d been underwater for a lifetime. The sharp intake made me woozy and stars studded my field of vision. The salty strands of Cole that slipped down made my throat even more scratchy.
My body weighed a thousand pounds and I teetered on my knees. I crumpled into Cole’s lap unable to control my limbs any longer.
“Oh, my God, Ladyface. Oh, my God.” His dick twitched against my face as his finger traced the hot sticky coating on my chest. I laughed a breathy, shotgun laugh but managed little else.
He didn’t say anything as we sat in a heap on the floor, he just kept tracing the marks he’d left covering me. I shifted the smallest bit to see his face. His eyes were pointed at me, but the vacancy behind them said he was somewhere else entirely.
“Cole, it’s going to be okay.” My hand drifted up, still not fully-functioning, to graze his cheek.
He managed a wry smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were still dark and distant, equal parts terrified and manic. For the very first time since meeting Cole, the outside world wasn’t falling away. It was a living breathing monster and I had a feeling it was close enough to hide under his bed.
8.
Cole
The inky stain of memory wove into my mind and grabbed hold. Darkness sat heavy on my chest, having tea with the devil himself. I was a monster and I felt the claws sharpen beneath my knuckles and my heart start to harden to stone.
Elle breathed softly beside me in bed with bright and angry marks from the belt worn like a collar on her throat. She hadn’t questioned me about the choking, the dominance or the bruises, which jumbled up my insides all the more. She hadn’t wondered if I was a monster—or at least she hadn’t asked—and I hadn’t had to explain it was just a way to prove to myself I could be me without leaving death lilies in my wake.
I wove her golde
n hair around my fingers, braiding it, twirling it and using the ends to trace the cum she still wore on her chest. That pulled a smile across my face. The plump lips and perfect tits of my angel were as dirty as me. She actually fit me, my soul, like a puzzle piece I’d never known I was missing.
I sighed loudly into the dark of my apartment as I studied the shadows city lights cast across my place. The only thing I could be grateful for was that the soft, steadying breathing of my puzzle piece, my Ladyface, wasn’t mixed up in this thing.
This…monstrosity. Because that’s what life with the Maloneys was. A snarling, dragon from the depths of hell, determined to pull people down further than death. But I would put her on a plane tomorrow and keep her from its jaws. That was something I could hold on to, something to help me sleep at night.
I pulled her toward me and breathed in her scent. That smell, cherry, vanilla and sex, would soothe me when the going got tough. Wrapped up in her, I started to doze off.
Until a booming knock echoed through the apartment, ping-ponging off the wall and chattering my teeth. Elle murmured next to me and her soft body rolled gently against me but she didn’t wake up. Not even when the knock pounded again. I slid out from under her then shot over to the door, whipping it open without a second thought.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” I spit the words out at the brick wall that was Horse.
“Came to join in.” He smiled his big, dumb, face splitting smile as he reached out and drug his fingertips down my stomach before letting it fall away.
I lunged, swinging first for his kidneys then for his jaw before yanking up my foot to crash down on the inside of his knee. He didn’t even flinch when I hit him but when my foot came up, he swiftly wrapped his arm around my neck and curled me under his armpit in a headlock. Since I had a foot in motion, it was easy for him to send me off balance and own me.
“You hurt your hand?” Horse asked still holding my boxer-brief-clad ass in my hallway.
“What are you doing here, Horse?” I asked, muffle against his ribs.
“You know what I’m doing here, Cupcake.”
“Don’t call me Cupcake.” I jabbed at his kidney again.
“Fine.” He untwisted me with enough force that I stumbled back and flattened up against the wall. “Stop punching me?”
“Fine.” I sighed and shoved my hands through my hair. “What does Mick want? Jimmy still has forty-eight hours to find…whatever.”
“You and I both know Jimmy isn’t gonna find it.” Horse rolled his eyes at me. “Get your clothes, we’re going for a drive.”
I sat, plastered to the wall, staring at the man whose body had gotten harder but whose heart stayed soft in the past three years.
“Come on, don’t make me make you, Cole. You know I can and that’s without waking up the girl.”
At the mention of Elle, my temper flared again. I bent and ran at Horse, knowing hitting his balls or his throat were the only ways I could beat him. It had been that way since we were about fourteen. He knew what was coming but couldn’t stop me as my flat fingers darted into the meat of his throat. He gagged and grabbed at his throat and doubled over.
I was almost in my apartment, a heartbeat away from slamming my door when Horse’s giant Hulk hand crushed down on my throat.
Horse wheezed. “Not cool, Cupcake. Not cool.” I couldn’t breathe, my hands dug into his. “Unless you want Elle waking up with my dick up her ass you’re going to go in there, put on something respectable and get your ass in my car.” He squeezed a little and used his grip to draw me close. “I know how much you like this sort of shit. The offer to join in still stands,” he whispered into my ear.
I elbowed him but it wasn’t aggressive. Horse let me go and quirked an eyebrow.
“I don’t do that anymore,” I said as I rubbed on my throat.
“You didn’t. For a while. You also weren’t part of the family. You know what’s coming, though.” He sighed and leaned back against the hall railing. “Besides, together we weren’t all bad.”
“Horse, this was never about you.”
He sighed. “This isn’t about you, either. Just come on. I’ll get you back before she wakes up.” His voice was quiet, defeated almost.
I knew the feeling.
With another heavy sigh, I turned and walked into my apartment. Elle was still tangled up in my sheets, fast asleep but a hand reached out for where my body had been. Everything inside me twinged. I kept my eyes on her as I dug for a pair of jeans and a shirt in my dresser.
When I was dressed, I walked over and bent down to kiss her. I pressed my lips to the thin bruise forming around her neck. She let out the softest, sweetest sigh and her hand curled into the sheets where I should be. Everything below my belly button clenched, my dick twitched.
“Cole.” Horse’s deep voice and dark eyes urged me from the other side of my still open door.
I scribbled a ‘be right back’ for Elle then turned to follow Horse to the street. Once or twice he sucked in a deep breath to start a conversation but the permanent pinch of my face was enough to stop him in the tracks.
The 1971 Hemy-Cuda parked on the street was familiar, with its custom rims and pristine leather interior. It was as familiar as Horse and every bit the dip in the memory pool as he or Mick was. It was the first car we’d stolen for Mick. Horse had been obsessed with it, sometimes he talked about it more than the girls Mick paraded around. When Horse became a man in Mickey’s eyes, it had shown up in our driveway, keys and all because no one would take from Mick Maloney.
I’d fucked in that car. We’d fucked in that car. There were countless late nights aimlessly driving, singing as loud as we could to the White Stripes, drinking out of paper bags. I’d killed in that car.
My insides balled up and the bile rose in my throat. Horse watched from the driver’s seat, his features illuminated every block or so by the streetlights. His heavy stare had been able to cut through me since we met in fourth grade.
But he didn’t say anything as we pulled up to a curb and he shut the rumbling engine off. I didn’t need to look out my window, I knew what hell-hole stood beside me. Fury welled in my chest and a belligerent scream threatened to shriek out. A part of me wanted to cry and still another wanted to grab the gun inevitably tucked beneath Horse’s seat and go ape shit. It was that urge that upset me most.
I breathed in the smell of leather polish and the piney scent that had always hung in this car and wished it was warm cherry mixed with dirty sex. I pictured naked Elle and my cum covering her body, she was enough to make me unclench my fist.
“Why’d you do it?” Horse’s voice cut through my fantasy. His soft, gentle tone kept me from snapping at him. “I can tell being here makes your skin crawl so…why?”
I folded forward and let my head sag into my hands.
“Will I don’t know work?”
“For getting mixed back up with Mick? No. Not even remotely.”
We let the silence hang between us the car. Besides our breathing, all there was to keep us company was the usual hum of the city outside, a siren in the distance, a train rattling, a car alarm, something knocking into trashcans. We’d sat like this so many times it was almost comfortable.
“Come on, Cole. Talk to me.” Horse sighed and his giant paw came to rest on my shoulder. “You never stopped being my best friend. I was happy you got out. I checked on you from time to time and I was always proud of you. I never minded that you left me behind.”
I twisted in my seat to look over at him. In that moment, he wasn’t the Hulk, he was the same gentle, scared kid crashing on my floor after his folks came home belligerent.
“I have nightmares about leaving you,” I admitted with a heavy sigh.
“Well now we just sound gay,” Horse snarked.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re the one that likes dick.”
“And pussy. Don’t forget pussy.” He joined in with a soft chuckle. I sat up and sagged back into the se
at before the car went silent again.
“It was her. Elle. I couldn’t let this happen to her.” I shoved my finger at Mickey’s brownstone.
“I can’t believe we didn’t know you guys were a thing. Mick’s had his eye on her for a while what with Jimmy being Jimmy.”
“We haven’t. I’ve known her maybe seventy-two hours.” I closed my eyes and shoved my hands through my hair.
“Fucking cats, Cole.” He banged his hands on the steering wheel and the whole car shook. “You did this for a fucktart? I oughtta kill you right now because if you’ve gotten that goddamned stupid you’re not going to last long.”
“Give me more credit than that. I mean no complaints about her fucktart, like at all…” I let my mind wander over her body, the things she let me do to it and couldn’t help but smirk. “But it’s way more than that.”
“She better be the goddamn moon for what you just gave her.”
“If I weren’t a black hole, she could be the whole universe Horse.” I realized how stupid I sounded. She was a girl I’d fucked. Hard. And there had been little else between us besides moments.
But those moments were everything.
Her sweet talking the cops about my loading zone parking, her tracing my tattoos in the dead of night, her blaring Notorious BIG ring tone, were just tiny little things but they added up to something explosive. And if that hadn’t been enough, she’d looked right at my demons and didn’t flinch.
“Well let’s get this over and get you back to her.”
Horse stepped out of the car and the whole thing shook. I sighed into the empty front seat but couldn’t quite talk myself into moving yet. Horse leaned against the hood just in front of me, once again jostling every inch of the substantial car. It was a not so subtle reminder that he could make me if he wanted to, but also that he really didn’t want to.
He jerked his head, signaling for me to get out of the car. I looked over at the dingy brick beside me, the steps I’d run up a million times. The brownstone was large and had ornate finishes on the wrought iron of the railings and bars that covered the windows. Besides being the biggest house on a rundown street, it was unassuming. Graffiti covered Mick’s trashcans just like everyone else on the street.