SOULLESS (Black Thorns, #2)

by Franca Storm

  “Shoulda never shot me up with it in the first place!”

  “Made you sleep for once,” Smiter cuts in.

  He’s right. As usual. I did need the rest. I ain’t slept well for a long time.

  “What time is it?”

  Smiter lifts his left arm and glances at his watch. “Just after four.”

  “Why you up so late?” The club’s on lockdown. I remember texting Grit ‘bout doing it before I passed out in Runner’s truck on the way up here. So, there ain’t no pussy parties happening, which is what usually has us all up all night.

  “Us?” Smiter says, gesturing between him and Rox. “Movie marathon. Him?” He points at Runner. “Got bored jerking it and headed on down here.”

  “More like his dick finally went limp,” Rox says.

  Both Smiter and Runner burst out laughing.

  For a second, I think the girl I knew is back. That comment had a lot of bite to it; something she used to have in spades. But as I watch her wrap her arm ‘round Runner and pull him into her so brazenly, I realize she’s smashed. A problem, cuz she don’t drink—has a bad history with it. So there’s a real issue here if she’s drinking now. Shit.

  Runner’s eyes dart to mine, looking real uncomfortable that she’s touching him in front of me.

  “Time for bed, Rox,” I tell her.

  “Not yet,” she says, laying her head against Runner’s chest.

  “Weren’t a request, babe. Get your ass off that stool now.”

  “I don’t like you as president,” she tells me in a drunken slur. “You’re bossier than ever. A real buzz kill.”

  I scrub my hand over my face. “Ain’t in the mood to fight with you.”

  “Ax, we’ll take care of her,” Runner tells me, clearly tryin’ to diffuse the situation before I lose my temper. He knows me well.

  He dunno her, though.

  “She shouldn’t be drinking,” I tell him.

  I see by the look on his face that he gets it right away. He’s been through some real bad shit with substance abuse, so if anyone’s gonna get it, it’s him.

  “You don’t know that anymore, Neil. We haven’t been together for a long time. You don’t get to do that…pretend like you know me now,” she says. She pulls away from Runner and stumbles off her stool, only just managing not to fall. “You left me!” she yells, her voice echoing right through the room.

  This ain’t the time or place for this conversation.

  “Rox—”

  “And now you hate me, because I fucked a guy who turns out to be an enemy of yours…from years ago.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “Yes, you do! You couldn’t look at me! You’re disgusted by me.” She staggers over to me and gets in my face. “It’s okay for you to stick your dick in hundreds of whores, but if I’ve been with another man, you can’t handle it? Are you threatened? Worried he has a bigger dick than you? That he knows how to use it better than you? That he can make me come better than you can? Is that it? Some pissing contest?”

  “Babe,” I growl in warning.

  “Ax,” I hear Smiter call to me. “She’s just drunk, yeah. Don’t mean it.”

  He knows what her words are doing to me. Cuz they’d be doing the same to him and Runner. Jesus fuck.

  Before I can stop myself, I grab her arms and pin her against the bar. “There ain’t no way he’s fucked you as good as I have. You were starving for a good fuck when I came along. That’s how I know.”

  “Get off me!” she cries, tryin’ to squirm outta my grip.

  I lean into her. “You wanna know why I hate him?”

  She tries to push me off her again, but I press my body weight against her.

  “He tortured me. Sadistic, brutal, merciless shit. For days. Yeah? So now you know.”

  She’s so shocked she can’t even speak. Pain flashes in her eyes. Pain for me.

  And then she hangs her head and whispers, “I want to go to bed.”

  I step back and she hurries away in a state.

  Fuck. I can hear her sniffling and crying as she runs outta the room.

  “Her and Kent?” Smiter asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit.”

  As I watch her rush off down the corridor, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I fucked up.”

  “You think?” Runner says. “Jesus, Ax. You gotta tone down the intensity. I ain’t no relationship expert, but I don’t think it’s gonna sit well, you leaving things like that. Better go talk to her.”

  “She ain’t usually this sensitive.”

  “She’s lost,” Smiter says quietly.

  My gaze snaps to his. He’s right. That’s exactly what’s happened with her. It’s why she’s not herself.

  She’s lost.

  Problem is; how do I bring her back?

  Chapter 11

  ~Ax~

  I push open the door to the spare room that I had one of the prospects set up for Rox. It’s dark inside. I walk over and sit down on the edge of the bed.

  “Rox? You awake?” I whisper, reaching out to her.

  She stirs as my hand strokes her back.

  “Neil?” she murmurs sleepily.

  “Yeah, babe.”

  I’m expecting the next words outta her mouth to be something along the lines of “fuck off”, so I’m more than a little surprised when she reaches out and grabs my hand. Squeezing it, she says softly, “Closer.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, not sure what’s actually happening here. If I’d spoken to her the way I had downstairs a few months back, she woulda ripped me a new one. But now…what...she’s just over it? That ain’t like her. Hell, it ain’t like no woman. They hold onto shit and Rox weren’t no exception.

  “Yes,” she says, releasing my hand and shifting onto her side, her back to me.

  She pulls back the covers and my dick jerks as I catch sight of her in nothing but a pair of black lacy panties and a matching bra, just as fucking sexy.

  I slide in next to her and pull the covers up over us.

  Instantly, she turns to face me and comes to me, burying her face in my chest. I wrap my arms ‘round her.

  It shocks me. She’s so…vulnerable.

  “Are you going to sleep in your jeans and t-shirt?” she asks, her voice muffled against my chest.

  “You want me to sleep with you?”

  “Please,” she answers, in a pleading voice.

  Goddamn. She’s really lost her spark.

  And it’s my fault. I up and left her right after we almost fucking died in that car accident, right after we’d lost our baby. What did I expect? That she’d be the same person through and through; that all that hell weren’t gonna impact her?

  It’s killing me seeing her like this. And the worst part is, I got no idea how to bring her back and how to find my Rox buried down deep inside there somewhere.

  “I’m sorry ‘bout the way I handled shit at the bar, Rox. I just—”

  “It’s okay,” she says, cutting me off. “I get it.”

  “You do?”

  “If any of the women you’d fucked were suddenly thrown in my face like that, I’d be beyond pissed as well.”

  I can’t help laughing at that.

  “How’s it work, Rox? Having two people with raging bad tempers and both stubborn as fuck in a relationship?”

  A small giggle escapes her. “I don’t know. It just does.” Her body tenses up in my arms as she adds, “Or, it did.”

  An awkward silence falls between us.

  And then she says, “What Malcolm did to you…I’m—”

  “Didn’t come here to talk ‘bout me and him, Rox.”

  “We weren’t engaged, Neil. We weren’t even dating. I told you before that you’re my first relationship. We were just screwing around. It was mostly just business mixed with a little bit of…you know? He proposed out of the blue one day, a little while after I’d told him I was going to walk away. He did it to try to keep me, I guess. It was also around the same
time that Skinner hurt me, so he always thought it was about that.”

  I can’t believe what a goddamn relief it is to hear that it weren’t fuck all between ‘em. Sure, I don’t like hearing ‘bout another man getting anywhere near her—fucking her—but ‘em being all serious and shit woulda been way worse. Cuz she’s mine. I was a first for her, just like she was for me. Before we got together the two of us never got involved with nobody—no emotions. And thinking she’d had that with another man, especially that sick fuck, was eating away at me.

  “How’d you even cross paths with a man like him?”

  “Power. Connections.”

  And then it all falls into place. “He helped you get your start in Brockford?”

  “Yeah. But once I was in a better position, I cut all ties to him. Ralph and I went it alone then.”

  “Ruthless,” I say, stroking her hair.

  “That’s me.”

  “Was you.”

  She tenses in my arms again. “Don’t,” she murmurs.

  “We gotta talk ‘bout it, Rox.”

  “No, we don’t. I’m fine.”

  “You’re the farthest thing from fine. You’re drinking again. You’re…”

  “I’m what?”

  “Broken.”

  She lifts her head off my chest and pulls away, turning her back to me.

  “Babe, come back. We gotta deal with it and also what went down between us in that alley.”

  “We fucked. What’s there to talk about?”

  “You know what. Wouldn’t let me pull out, Rox.”

  “Just go, Neil. I’m tired.”

  “Ain’t going nowhere ‘til we talk.”

  A long silence falls between us. It’s like fucking torture. The room’s thick with all the unsaid shit between us. There’s so much of it that neither one of us knows where the hell to begin sorting through it. Her answering me ‘bout the alley situation will be a start.

  I gotta know.

  Cuz when she basically begged me to fill her sweet pussy earlier, a spark of hope lit inside me. It might be fucked up, cuz we ain’t even really together again yet, but the idea of getting a second chance here, putting my kid in her again—I can’t get it outta my head.

  I touch her shoulder, needing her to look at me, to give me something. Anything.

  But she shrugs outta my grip and mumbles into her pillow, “Go away, Neil. You’re going to anyway. When this threat is gone, I’ll leave here and we’ll be apart again. What’s the point in talking anything over if that’s our fate—you leaving me or me leaving you?”

  Fuck me. There it is.

  “I left to protect you. You know that.”

  That gets a reaction from her and she sits up suddenly and glares at me, her eyes hard. “I woke up in a hospital bed to a fucking note from you saying you were leaving me. And, if that wasn’t enough of a bitter pill to swallow, at the same time, Ralph told me we lost the baby. Everything in one shot. You just left, Neil. Without a second thought.”

  “Without a second thought?” I grit out. “You got no idea what it cost me to do it, Rox. You think I wanted to, that I wanted to walk away from the only thing that’s ever meant something to me in my life? You got no fucking idea!”

  She throws the covers off her and scrambles off the bed. I get out the other side and storm towards her, both of us meeting at the foot of the bed.

  “All the promises you made me about doing whatever it took to be together, about not letting any obstacles stop that from happening? It was all crap! You were just full of shit!”

  As much as her words cut into me, at the same time I feel relief at seeing this fire from her. The old her. The Rox I know. Here she is.

  “Things changed, Rox. How the fuck could we be together when the price coulda been your life?”

  “Right, my life. My choice! But you didn’t even discuss it with me. You made the decision to leave on your own.”

  “No matter what I woulda said, you woulda been your usual stubborn self ‘bout it. Couldn’t risk you, babe.”

  “We could’ve protected ourselves, Neil! We both know how to do that! You know the business I was in. It was as close to your world as I could possibly get without being a member of your club.”

  I shake my head. “Nah. We couldn’t, Rox.”

  “How do you know that? You don’t. You don’t, Neil.”

  I snap then, her words pissing me the fuck off, and I roar, “You don’t fucking get it, woman! I failed the first time ‘round!”

  “What?”

  “Failed to protect what’s mine! You got hurt, cuz of me! Lost our kid, cuz of me! Couldn’t keep control of the damn truck! Couldn’t stop those fucking Mavs from running us off the damn road!”

  “That was Skinner’s doing.”

  “He weren’t the one supposed to protect you! Falls on me, babe! So, I fucking walked. Only way to keep you safe—by keeping you the fuck away from my world and all the shit that comes with it! You think I wanted to walk? It fucking killed me. Killing me now to be here with you knowing you ain’t actually mine. Everything’s fucked without you! Fucking dark and pointless as shit! I can’t fucking see straight without you! You know that?”

  “Neil, I—”

  I slam my fist into the bed. I can’t shut it down now she’s pushed me so far, claiming it was easy for me to walk away; that it was just a cop out on my end. She dunno what it took for me to do it. Weren’t fucking easy. Ain’t been for a single day since either.

  “You got no idea what I’m prepared to do for you, Rox! The way you talkin’ right now is proof enough of that! I want you back and I’m working on it. I ain’t stopping neither ‘til you’re mine again—safe with me. I’m gonna do whatever I gotta do for us to be together. So, you think I don’t want you? Think I like us being apart? You think what happened don’t eat at me every goddamn day?” I draw in a sharp breath. “Think that if you want, but hear me here. There ain’t no line I ain’t prepared to cross to get you back, to make it safe for us to be together again. You feel me on that?”

  Rage is burning through me and I step back, away from her.

  Her eyes are wide with disbelief at me losing my shit and spilling my fucking guts to her.

  She takes a step towards me, but I hold up my hands. “Too angry. Stay back.”

  But she reaches out anyway and takes my hand in hers. Squeezing it, she tells me, “You’d never hurt me. I know it in my bones, Neil.”

  Fuck me. I step into her and wrap my good arm ‘round her, holding her tight.

  “Fucking missed you, Rox. Missed you so damn much.”

  “I missed you, Neil,” she murmurs into my chest. “Can we just be together tonight? Sleep in this bed with me and just pretend there’s nothing else? No complications? No obstacles standing in our way? Can’t it just be us tonight?”

  “Yeah, Rox. Yeah, we can do that,” I breathe into her hair.

  I don’t give a fuck how stupid it is, or how much harder it could make shit between us by us being together tonight, cuz I can’t imagine it being harder than it’s already been. So, screw it. We’re both here. I got my girl in my arms.

  And I’m keeping her there. Dunno if I could actually let go anyway, even if I tried.

  Tomorrow don’t matter.

  Only right now. Just tonight.

  Fuck knows, we both need this.

  Chapter 12

  ~Roxana~

  I wake up to a headache from hell.

  Argh.

  It’s my penance for drinking way too much last night and for freaking out like a maniac at Neil in front of Smiter and Runner. Oh God. I can’t believe I said what I did. It had been the depth of my emotions breaching the surface and spilling out of me in a rush, resulting in an uncontrolled outburst that I just couldn’t hold back. The alcohol had brought it to the surface. Ever since Neil came back into my life, my emotions have been heightened. I’ve felt completely on edge and like I’m just hanging on by my fingernails to prevent myself from fal
ling off the proverbial cliff.

  I guess all of it had come to a head last night.

  Things were always intense before when we were together. Intensity goes hand in hand with passion, after all, and Neil and I always had a hefty dose of that.

  But with our bitter parting fresh in both our memories, the pain of wanting to be together, but being forced apart because of the dangers in his life, and the Malcolm situation, it’s reached such a level that both of us are having a difficult time handling it.

  After our talk in my room last night, we managed to air out some of those things.

  But there’s still more to work through.

  I roll onto my side, my pulse picking up as excitement races through me at the prospect of waking up to the sight of him in bed with me again after all this time.

  Instead, disappointment settles in the pit of my stomach as I see that his side of the bed is empty. He’s not here. The one night that we get to sleep together after all these months and he disappears?

  A sudden anger sparks within me.

  How dare he?

  Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m throwing the covers off and rushing out of bed, letting my anger rule my head. I don’t have any spare clothes here, so I storm over to the chest of drawers to try to find something other than yesterday’s clothes to wear. I know I can’t walk around the clubhouse in my bra and panties. That wouldn’t go over well at all. I’m not a damn club whore and I don’t want any of the boys looking at me as if I am one.

  Wow. Where is this crazy agitation coming from; all these bitchy thoughts?

  I can feel some semblance of the old me right now. Has Neil sparked it in me?

  Argh! No, of course not. He’s not getting the credit for anything right now, not after sneaking out of here like he just fucked one of his whores and couldn’t wait to get the hell away the next morning.

  Bastard!

  I find a black club t-shirt—a men’s medium—and slip it on over my head. It comes down to the middle of my thighs. It will have to do. It’s covering what needs to be covered. Who cares about a little bit of leg showing?

  I storm to the door and haul it open and step out into the hallway.