by Bethany-Kris
“I know you’re lonely as hell; I know that you miss me like nothing else, and that’s why you came here tonight.” Tommas moved forward until he was close enough to Abriella that he could see the flecks of navy in her sky blue irises. Tears welled in her eyes, threatening to fall. He wouldn’t relent, he refused to. “I know that, as much as you want to pretend differently, you care. Tell me I’m wrong about any of it, Ella. Go on ahead and do it.”
Abriella glanced away. Tommas wouldn’t allow her to hide her truths simply because she was stubborn as hell. He was close enough to touch her, and he did, reaching out to grab her chin and tilt her face back so he could see her.
Her tears streaked down to trembling lips.
Tommas held her chin tighter when she tried to move away. “Don’t, Ella.”
“I hate this.”
Well, at least she hadn’t said that she hated him.
“Hate what?” Tommas asked.
“This,” Abriella whispered, her hand coming up to lie flat to his chest. “I don’t want to depend on you, but I can’t even stay away from you long enough to stand on my own. I’m so fucked up around you.”
Tommas moved closer to Abriella until she was parting her thighs to let him stand between her legs. Her hand slid up from his chest to his neck, stopping briefly over his pulse point before moving to his jaw.
“Don’t say that,” Tommas murmured. “You can’t hate us, Ella.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it? All the things you just said make exactly what we are, babe.”
Abriella’s thumb swept a tender line over his cheek. “I miss you.”
Tommas’ tension drifted away with those words. “The apartment feels empty.”
He released her chin to grab onto her wrist. His fingers curled around hers, stopping the stroking motion to his cheek. Holding her hand tight to keep her still, Tommas used his free hand to ghost the tips of his fingers over her frowning lips.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Tommas said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Frown, Ella. When you’re with me, you should never be sad or angry.”
Abriella sighed shakily. “Why do you do that, Tommy? Why do you have to say things like that when I’m sad and angry with you? It’s not fair.”
She batted his hand away from her face.
“And that, too,” Abriella added, forcing his hand down between them and not allowing him to touch her.
“What?”
“When you touch me, I go fucking stupid. I want more. I want you to keep touching me. I forget about all the reasons why I don’t want you to touch me, and everything you did that made me so angry with you. I didn’t come here tonight for this, Tommy. It’s not fair at all because you know what you do.”
Tommas chuckled. “You’ve never played fair with me, babe. What makes you think I won’t play dirty with you to get what I want?”
He tugged his hand free from her grasp and quickly intertwined their fingers tightly together. For any other couple, an action like holding hands was innocent. A fairly easy way of showing affection and support.
For Tommas and Abriella, something as simple as holding hands was sacred and rare. An action that they could only do in private. Affection they couldn’t give freely. As much as their sex could be rough, dirty, and dangerous, something like holding hands could be the exact same thing but in a different way.
Abriella swallowed thickly, her tongue peeking out to wet her bottom lip. “I do miss you. That’s why I came tonight, but if you keep this up, it might turn into something else, Tommy.”
Despite her words, Tommas felt the tug on his arm when Abriella pulled on his hand. He moved closer until her thighs were closing around his waist and locking him in. The wool dress hugging Abriella’s curves slid up her hips, letting him feel the heat of her sex beneath the cotton panties she wore.
There were no keys to her prison.
Tommas didn’t mind.
In love, freedom was a myth.
Abriella’s hand still hadn’t left his cheek. With her warm, smooth palm pressed tight to his skin, and her other tangled up with his, Tommas was grounded.
“You’re crazy coming here tonight,” Tommas said.
Abriella bit the inside of her cheek and replied, “I know.”
“I am sorry, Ella. I lied. I’ll keep saying it until you don’t need or want me to anymore. You know I will.”
“Of course, you will.”
Tommas smiled. “There’s no hiding anything from you, is there?”
“Well, you can’t.”
“I wish you would let me know when you’re coming. I could meet you somewhere safer. I don’t know on any given night if someone is watching this place, Ella.”
“I was careful. I snuck in through the back alley and used the keys for the emergency door like you showed me.”
Tommas’ fingers tightened with Abriella’s. “That’s not the point. Nothing is safe right now, Ella. I have no idea what your brother is planning, or rather, what he might already have planned. I don’t want you in the middle of anything that might get you hurt.”
“Tommas—”
“Hush, and listen.”
Abriella’s mouth snapped shut. “Fine.”
“I fucked up the first time around with the engagement and the boss, Ella. I thought for sure that Riley would take out Joel, and that would leave you free to do what you wanted.”
“With you,” she said softly.
Tommas had never been a liar. “Yes.”
“All you had to do was tell me and not let me find out in a room full of people, Tommy.”
“You wouldn’t have listened no matter when I told you.”
Abriella opened her mouth to argue, but Tommas wasn’t in the mood to fight with his lover. They had done enough of that over the last couple of months. The worst kind of fighting was the kind that was silent and non-verbal, separated by people and space. He preferred Abriella’s anger, even violence, over her silence and distance.
Instead of allowing her to argue the point with him, Tommas leaned forward and caught her opened mouth with his own. Her silky lips pressed back to his, returning the kiss, and almost instantly, their softness was gone. Abriella’s fingernails dug into Tommas’ cheek the second his tongue found hers when he deepened the kiss. He fisted her dress and pulled her closer, wanting her to feel the hardness growing under his slacks.
Simply being close and touching Abriella was enough to make Tommas harder than steel and fucking stupid in the head.
Tommas caught Abriella’s bottom lip and bit down hard enough to leave the imprints of his teeth behind. She gasped the sweetest sound, a high whine following right behind. The spikes of her leather high-heeled boots dug into the small of his back, stinging in the best way when she left her own mark on his cheek with her nails.
“You wouldn’t have listened,” Tommas breathed against her trembling lips. “No matter what I said or how I told you, Ella, you wouldn’t have heard a thing I said. All you would have heard was that someone else would stand with me, and not you. Someone else would be thought of as mine, and not you. Someone else who wasn’t you, Ella. It wouldn’t have made a difference how fake it was, and that I never intended to follow it through, because it wasn’t you.”
Abriella’s lashes fanned her cheeks, and more tears escaped the corners of her eyes. “You’re right, but it still hurt me, Tommy.”
“Hurting you kills me, babe. You know it does. It was easier for me to do it the way I did. I knew you would be forced to control your reaction and …”
“Keep going,” she demanded.
“And I didn’t want to see your face when you heard about the engagement.”
Abriella didn’t even seem surprised. “That was selfish of you.”
“The word you used was cowardly, actually.”
“You’re not a coward, Tommy, but you are terribly selfish.”
“W
hen it comes to you, yes. I’ll always be that way. You’ve made me like this, Ella.”
“And what about the monster you turned me into, huh?”
Tommas leaned down, nose to nose with his lover. “I adore the monster in you.”
The sadness in Abriella’s gaze was replaced by a feisty fire. This was the woman Tommas loved; she was the woman that he wouldn’t trade for anything. There was no one on earth like Abriella Trentini. She was fucking gorgeous, as sharp as a razor’s edge, and smarter than most men in the Outfit.
She was perfect.
Crazy wonderful.
Abriella bent forward and kissed Tommas hard, driving her booted heels into his lower back and pushing him into her body. His tongue tangled with hers, their familiar dance falling in tune like it always did between them.
There was nothing like this.
No one else but Ella.
“Goddamn,” Tommas groaned into her mouth. “I thought you said that you hadn’t come here tonight for this.”
Abriella’s laugh was high and airless. “Should I go somewhere else for it?”
Tommas let loose a sound that came off a hell of a lot like a growl. He grabbed her waist with enough force to leave his fingerprints behind, but he knew she liked it. Abriella preferred him rough and dirty, not soft and sweet.
“Excuse me?” Tommas asked. “Do you want to repeat that a little louder, babe?”
“Is that a no?”
“That. Is. A. Fucking. No.”
Abriella flashed a wicked grin. “You’re so jealous.”
He was.
He was damned awful.
“You love it.”
Abriella’s smile fell. Tommas’ frustration skyrocketed at the sight. All it took was one word for his girl’s walls to climb back up high.
In typical Abriella fashion, she went for a deflection. Tommas decided to let her.
“You weren’t the only one who lied tonight,” Abriella said.
“Oh?”
“No. I didn’t actually sneak out. Joel’s been in his office for a couple of days. He barely comes out of it. I don’t know what is up with him, and he’s not that important anyway.”
“Hey,” Tommas said quickly, quieting Abriella instantly. “Don’t underestimate your brother. Too many other people have done exactly that and they’ve ended up in a grave because of it, Ella. Joel is an asshole, but he is not a stupid man.”
Abriella tipped her chin down. “Sorry. You’re right. I just meant that he’s not important to us right now, Tommy.”
Tommas disagreed entirely. Joel was the one and only reason why Tommas couldn’t have Abriella in every possible way that he wanted to have her. Joel was the one thing keeping Tommas from everything that mattered in his life. Joel was the road block to the highest seat in the family and the wall keeping Abriella’s heart locked up tight.
Joel was the problem.
Abriella didn’t understand just how much her brother was really in the way. Regardless of Tommas’ thoughts about Joel, he wouldn’t argue with Abriella about her feelings on her brother.
“Keep talking,” Tommas said.
Abriella smiled. “I was actually at Alessa’s to help her with the final plans for the baby shower. It was late. Joel called over and said I might as well stay there. Alessa helped me to sneak out.”
“And you came here.”
“Yeah. So, I lied. A little.”
“I don’t mind.”
Abriella rocked into his groin, reminding Tommas of how damned hard and aching he was. “No, I don’t suppose you do mind.”
“Stop that. This stage is awkward to fuck on. We learned that once, remember?”
Her shiver was a gift to him.
“Take me home,” she whispered.
Tommas cupped her face in his hands. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, Tommy. I want to go home with you. I want to sleep in our bed. I miss you.”
Shit.
Tommas didn’t know how to deny Abriella when she said things like that. He knew it was stupid as hell and more dangerous than he could explain, but he just didn’t care. His bed was fucking cold, and his sheets didn’t smell like her.
That was worse than anything else.
“Go put your cup on the bar. Meet me out in the parking lot. I’ll warm up the car.”
Abriella’s face lit up with happiness and a sexiness curved her lips. She trailed a hand down his middle and grazed her fingertips across his erection straining the zipper of his pants. A shot of heat and lust coursed through Tommas’ cock.
“Quickly, right?” she asked sweetly.
“God, yes. Quickly, Ella.”
Tommas helped a laughing Abriella down from the stage. He pulled the car keys attached to the auto start for his Mercedes from his pocket.
“Grab my bag,” he yelled over his shoulder.
“Got it.”
Tommas was already half-way to the side of the club where a second exit door led straight into the parking lot when he heard Abriella call for him to slow down. Pushing the door open, he tossed his lover a wink over his shoulder. Abriella couldn’t run in heels, and he told her that he wanted to get out of there.
She would catch up.
The girl always did.
Pointing the car starter as he opened the exit door, Tommas hit the ignition button to start his vehicle at the other end of the parking lot. His foot barely hit the slush covered pavement when he was blinded by light and heat. Tommas’ ears rang from the level of the blast. His breath was gone the moment his back hit the building and his head snapped against the bricks with a sickening crack.
In the background of the sudden pain ricocheting through his body and the confusion muddling up his mind, he could still hear Abriella’s screams.
Fuck.
Predictable, Damian had said.
Joel was going to answer for this one.
CHAPTER FOUR
The boom was volcanic. It was so loud that it made Abriella’s ears ring even inside the club. Her hands flew up to cover her ears, and she crouched low on the floor out of instinct. She was only a few feet away from the door, but the instant reaction of the bomb was unmistakable. Heat, blinding light, and flinging metal.
Abriella’s scream caught in her throat when the exit door was blown wide open from the pressure of the blast.
“Tommas!”
Dropping the messenger bag on the floor, Abriella shot toward the exit and where she had just seen Tommas only seconds ago. She stumbled in her heels, a pain blooming in her ankle when it twisted hard to the left. A sickness rolled in her stomach when she caught herself on the floor. In her chest, her heart raced as tears streaked down her cheeks.
He had been right there!
Abriella finally gained traction on the hardwood floor and scrambled to the threshold of the exit door. On wobbly legs, she staggered out of the building only to find a still burning Mercedes at the other end of the vacant parking lot. The surrounding brick walls were shadowed with marks from the blast, and pieces of the car rested in various spots around the parking lot.
God.
It was almost like a daze had settled over Abriella as she stupidly stared around at the smoldering mess and the black plume rising toward the sky. The world around her moved slower than what was normal as she took a hesitant step forward, and then another.
Abriella couldn’t breathe.
“Tommy!”
“Ella.”
Tommas’ quiet call came from Abriella’s left. Still feeling sluggish and confused, she turned to find her lover on his knees with one hand pressed to the pavement and the other wrapped around his chest. Even with his head bent low, Abriella could tell there was something wrong.
Somehow, she managed to make it to Tommas’ side without falling again. Her knees hit the wet, slushy pavement and she reached for him. Something stopped her hands from grabbing him at the last second.
A dark trickle of red oozed down in a thin line behind Tommas’ ear.
&
nbsp; “Oh, my God,” Abriella cried. “You’re bleeding.”
Tommas shook his head. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not.”
“I am, Ella. Give me … just give a second, okay.”
His words came out mumbled and slow. All of Abriella’s training from school came rushing back in a blink, but she didn’t know where to start.
“Chill out,” she heard Tommas whisper.
“Look at me,” Abriella demanded.
Coldness seeped through her dress and chilled her skin, but Abriella barely felt it at all.
Tommas’ slate blue gaze lifted again. The dilation of his pupils were worrisome. Abriella held up one finger and moved it back and forth.
“Can you watch it?” she asked.
“Stop it, Ella.”
“Tommy, come on. Don’t be difficult.”
“I see your fucking finger.”
“Then why won’t you follow it like I ask?”
Tommas didn’t answer. Abriella didn’t need him to. He couldn’t follow it. He was trying, she could see how his eyes flicked in the direction they wanted to go but quickly zoned back in on her.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Abriella asked.
Tommas swallowed hard. “Four.”
Wrong.
Two.
This whole situation screamed bad to Abriella. She believed that Tommas had suffered some kind of concussion. He had been a great deal closer to the car bomb than she was when it went off. The pressure of it probably sent him flying right off his feet.
“Did you hit your head?” Abriella asked.
“Yeah.”
“On what?”
“The wall, or maybe the door. I don’t know.”
“Sit down for me, please, Tommy.”
“Kind of hurts to move right now,” he confessed under his breath.
Damn.
“When you breathe?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Too bad. You’ve got to sit up or lay back.”
Despite his protests, Abriella managed to get Tommas rolled over onto his back. His hands shook and his eyes became unfocused the more he moved. Abriella used his jacket and placed it under Tommas’ head to give him support and keep him higher. With Tommas on his back, Abriella could see that he sported a nasty, bleeding cut on his right cheek directly under his eye.