by Zara Cox
“Life is fucking hard, Cleo. You can’t run from it.”
“But we can seek refuge for a while, can’t we?” I plead.
Lightning flashes through eyes gone slate gray. “And you want me to be that? Be sure, Cleo.”
“For…for tonight—”
His head shake dries my stream of words. His fingers slide up my cheeks to fist my hair, and he brings his whole being, vital and virile, to mine. “I can give you what you want, but I can’t promise that I won’t want more in the morning. Enough has never been enough with you. Are you prepared for that?”
“How about we promise to give each other as much as we can?”
His thumbs caress my cheeks, his eyes fixed, his breathing eerily calm. “There has to be an acceptable baseline. Mine is high. I don’t want just your body, Cleo. I’m coming for all of it.”
My breath strangles. “Axel…”
“Get in the car, baby. Let’s go get your night started.”
“Where are we going?”
“My place,” is all he says.
I slide in. He shuts the door. I thought my head was spinning before. I had no idea.
Three blocks later, he catches my hand and raises it to his mouth. The open-mouthed kiss, followed by a slow lick of my palm, draws a low gasp.
And a curse from him. “We should’ve taken the limo. I could be balls deep inside you by now.”
My free hand caresses the butter-soft leather of my seat. “I like this car.”
White teeth flash in a carnal smile. “It likes you too. Very much.” His voice throbs with torrid sex. He starts to raise my hand again. His phone rings.
His body goes rigid, and the thigh he lays my hand on is iron hard with tension.
Letting go of me, he answers. “Ronan.”
He listens for a minute before his gaze finds mine. A subtle nod punches relief through me. “Glad to hear it. No, Troy will come around. And I’ll take care of Bolton.”
He stays silent for another minute before he exhales heavily. There’s determination in there. But also regret. “I can’t promise that, brother. So I won’t.” His voice is deathly rough. “I’ll be in touch soon.”
The screen goes black, and he shoves the phone into his pocket.
I’m almost too afraid to ask. “What did he want you to promise?”
His jaw flexes. “That everyone will come out of this…whole. Or at all.”
Terror blazes through me. “What…what are you saying?”
“That I’m not making promises. To anyone.” He reaches for my hand.
I snatch it away. “What happened to wanting more? To enough not being enough? Were those just words?”
He freezes for a moment before he traps my hand again. “I meant every single word. For however long we have, I want it all.”
However long we have.
I can’t think beyond those fatalistic words. Can’t think to a time in my future when Axel Rutherford won’t be there when he’s been at the front and back of my mind every single day since we met. Wanting vengeance kept him alive in my soul, searing him into the fabric of my existence in a way that bound us.
The thought that he won’t be…
I remain silent as we roar through traffic toward the Upper East Side. His jaw is still set as we cross the breathtaking lobby of his Park Avenue apartment building. The concierge’s deferential greeting is met with a tense nod. Axel’s stride is almost punishing as he hustles me into the elevator.
He’s on me before the doors are fully shut. Trapped against the elevator wall, I can only stare up at him as narrowed eyes rake my face to rest on my mouth. “The second I taste those lips I won’t be able to stop. So let’s deal with what’s running through that head of yours first, hmm?” Despite his words, his hips push into me, the thick rod of his cock making possessive demands, promising immeasurable highs.
My fists ball on his chest, and I push. I succeed only because he lets me. “What if I want that promise?”
He exhales. A muscle jumps in his jaw. “There are only three things you want that I can’t give you, Cleo.”
My freedom. His innocence. His word on this.
The first I should be fighting tooth and nail for. The lack of the second had until recently fuelled my vengeance. But it’s the third that’s dominating my thoughts now.
I’m beginning to lose all perspective, and I can no more lay blame for that on Axel than I can stop breathing.
What is happening to me?
I breathe in. Out. My soul still flails.
“I understand,” I say because I can find no other words. Fires I’ve kept burning on the coals of my hate are losing a vital ingredient—my will to keep them thriving. Instead, I yearn for impossible things.
But are they impossible? He’s obsessed with you.
“Do you? Understand?” Axel demands.
I’m not ready for the pithiness in his tone. For the ravaged emotions swirling through his eyes. They speak to a torment that should be absent. He is a monster, after all. Except…
I shake my head, but the action is futile in restoring reason. And with my own bewilderment far too close to the surface, I open my fist and flatten my hand on his chest. His heart beats, strong and steady. And I blurt, “No. Not really. Make me understand, Axel.”
The fingers cradling me tense, vibrating in a tight tremble. He stares down at me for the longest moment. “He has to be held accountable, Cleo.”
I swallow. “For what…exactly?”
He starts to answer. The elevator doors open. He catches my hand and marches me down a wide, carpeted hallway to tall, carved double doors. A swipe of a silver keycard and an input code release the door.
My heels click on dark marble floors before they’re muffled by the thick rug dividing the large, opulent space. Automatic lights illuminate the living room and I get an impression of gallery-sized windows, stunning views, and sumptuous furniture before I’m once against imprisoned in his arms.
“For what? For me. For us. For every fucking thing.” Pure ice cuts through every single word.
My breath strangles. “For us? But Finnan didn’t—”
The mouth he slams on mine is hard. Lethal. He withdraws just as quickly. “No! I can’t tolerate hearing his name on your lips. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to—”
“Why?”
“Why what?” His voice is gravel rough.
“Why can’t you tolerate it?”
“Because he’s not fucking worthy of it! I don’t give a fuck what he gives you that I…that no one else can.” The eyes piercing mine are dark and stormy, his nostrils flaring with barely contained fury. But there’s something else in there. A ragged entreaty that I can’t look away from. “Tell me what it is, Cleo. Make me understand so I can stop driving myself fucking nuts about it. So it doesn’t feel like my insides are being ripped every time I think about it.”
“Axel—”
He propels me backward until my back hits the glass wall. He pins me with his body, traps my hands above my head with one hand, the other curving around my neck to completely imprison me. Gray eyes gone wild and fierce laser me. “Do you love him, Cleo? Is that it? Do you…love that bastard?” The questions fall at our feet like unpinned grenades, with their potential to annihilate in the seconds it takes for me to answer.
“No.”
A deathly stillness shrouds us. He stops breathing altogether. Almost as if he’s afraid to move. A single tremble twitches his lips before he speaks. “I…What?” he mutters.
“I don’t love him, Axel.”
He inhales at the words, his throat working. “Again. Say it again, Cleo.”
“I don’t love him.”
A million questions flash from his eyes. Some bring torment, others fury. Each one blasts my skin. But it’s his trembling hand that decides the next course of action. The mouth hovering a whisper from mine that tells me what’s coming next.
The side zipper securing my dress rolls down, exposin
g me from armpit to hip.
“I have more questions,” he says. His voice is barely audible. “Questions you’ll answer when I’m done.”
“Done with what?” I whisper.
“Done with imprinting my cock in that tight cunt. Done with making you come so hard you won’t know whether to beg me to stop or scream for more.”
The kiss he’s denied us both finally arrives. Glorious, decadent, heart pounding, he kisses me like I’m heaven and hell. Like he’s as addicted to me as I fear I am to him.
His hand slides through the opening to cup one breast in a bold, sizzling caress. He pinches my nipple between his finger and thumb, teasing, tweaking, tormenting until my knees give way.
One thigh slides between mine, propping me up. My dress hitches higher, and I go for a ride of my own, my aching, ravenous core demanding satiation, no matter how inadequate. Because nothing gets me off better than the power that sprouts from between his legs. Nevertheless, I pump then shake when my engorged clit drags against the woolen roughness of his pants.
He groans against my mouth. “Jesus, that greedy little pussy has a fucking mind of its own, doesn’t it? Are you attempting to come without me, baby?”
A pathetic little whimper leaves my throat. “I need you. So much.” The gravity of that statement stamps on my heart. The power of it freezes me in place.
Axel lifts his head and stares down at me. “Cleo…What’s happening here?”
My eyes slam shut, squeeze tight. A childish move that shames me but my reality is spinning out of control. “I don’t know.”
His hand leaves my breast. “Open your eyes.”
I shake my head.
“It’s okay. Open them. Now.”
I slowly pry them open.
“I can give you this. As often as you want it, day or night. You can have it while you work through what’s going on up there,” he taps my temple. “Deal?”
“Deal,” I croak.
“Good.” He lowers his head, tastes my mouth again. “Now, take my shirt off.”
I fall on the manual task, desperate to stop myself from thinking about the turbulence raging in my head and heart. Unfortunately, undressing the virile man before me offers a fresh set of challenges. My fingers fumble, the heat from his skin fries my brain while making my mouth water.
“I don’t want to be here all fucking night, baby. I need you too. So get a move on, hmm?”
“Don’t…rush me. I want to take my time,” I lie.
His low mocking laugh sees through my ruse. “I’d believe that if you weren’t biting your lip and eyeing me like a hungry little bird.” And just to compound my torture, he palms both breasts again.
A crazy fire blazes through me. Catching the two halves of his shirt, I yank them apart. Cotton rips and buttons ping across the floor.
“Fuck!” Axel’s breath punches out, the tops of his hard cheeks heating with the insane pressure charging through the room. “That was one of my favorite shirts. I can’t let that go unanswered. You know that, don’t you, baby?”
He squeezes my nipples between his fingers with an expert timing that sends flames straight to my sex.
My moan is tinged with desperation as I reach for his belt. Undo his fly. “I’ll pay…whatever you want.”
A torn sound rips from his chest as I shove his pants down. He straightens long enough to step out of them. His shoes come off next. Then, with one hand on my belly to stop me from sliding down the glass wall, he tosses off his shirt.
A naked Axel Rutherford is worthy of so many accolades. None of which can definitively describe the perfection in front of me. All I can do is attempt to appreciate him with my hands. My hands. My pussy.
“God, I love this.” My fingers trail the twin thick veins that V from his abs toward his groin and the delicious crater running alongside it, loving the shudder that ripples up his frame. Reaching lower, I grasp his insanely thick penis and squeeze. “But I love this more.”
His mouth drops open in harsh panting as I pump him. Beads of sweat are already forming over his brows and across his top lip. Leaning up, I lick his mouth.
“Sweet fuck, you’re on a fucking mission, aren’t you?” he croaks.
I lean back and smile. “Maybe…”
“Well, your mission will have to wait. I have one of my own.” Strong hands tug my dress over my head. His mouth captures mine, and his fingers find my wet heat, test my readiness. He swallows my tiny scream. And just like that, between one breath and the next, the balance of power shifts.
“The heels stay on. Need the leverage.”
He spreads my thighs wider and rubs his huge crown against my engorged clit. “Watch, Cleo,” he instructs gutturally. “Watch me take you.”
Foreheads touching, we both look down at the slow play of his cock between my legs. The sight is insanely hot. “God…Axel.”
His gaze alternates between my face and what he’s doing, as if he can’t get enough of watching either. My senses scream with the urge to be filled.
“Please…fuck me, Axel. Fill me. Now. Please.”
He takes me slow, his powerful drive sure and true, his abs clenched in tight, absolute control. I manage a single gasp of wonder at the unbelievable sensation before my vision hazes.
“Jesus, you look so fucking beautiful.” The words are torn from a rough throat, his compliment tinged with a helpless vulnerability that prickles the backs of my eyes.
Because that’s exactly how I feel.
Axel fucks me slow and deep until I come. Then he moves me to the couch and repeats the performance, his gaze absorbing my every gasp and shudder. He fucks me until I’m floating out of my skin. Until I’m drenched inside and out. Until his own skin is saturated with his exertions.
After a third climax, I open my eyes, watch a bead of his sweat slide down one cheek and land on my breast. I stare as the drop mingles with mine.
Seeps into my skin.
Then I look up into his devastatingly beautiful face. He told me to take the time I need to work things out in my head.
I don’t need to work it out. The truth is savagely simple.
I’m in love with my father’s killer. But despite my heart attempting to tear itself to shreds about it, my soul is shockingly okay with that admission.
Chapter Thirty
QUANTUM LEAP
Before we head into his bedroom, Axel calls B and arranges for my things to be moved to his apartment.
This is after I answer a hushed no to his “Do you want to go back?”
Now I’m lying in his king-size bed, my head on his chest and my hand on his heart. My sex still throbs from his possession.
“Tell me what I need to know, Cleo. If you don’t love him, then why? What hold does he have on you?” His voice holds absolute determination. It also bleeds bewilderment.
This has been coming for a long time. My heart shakes with the leap I’m about to take, despite the insane leap it’s taken all on its own. “He…I…” What the hell are you doing?
I shudder. Shake my head.
I have so much to lose.
Axel rolls me onto my back, levers his body over mine. “He will not hurt you. I will not hurt you.” The look in his eyes shatters me. “Dear God, please trust me on that.”
“You…you go first.”
His brow clamps. “What?”
“Tell me about…” My mind freezes at the last second, the leap a step too far. I can’t bear to know why he decided to take my father’s life. But my need to delve beneath the skin of the man I shouldn’t love, but do, pulses through me. “Tell me about Taranahar.”
He tenses above me, his face devoid of all emotion.
“Were you there?”
A heavy, soulless sigh deflates his chest. “Yes and no.”
My insides tighten. “What does that mean?”
His mouth purses then he exhales slowly. “I was on a special mission in a compound a couple of clicks—miles—from Taranahar. We were almost done
when a private military contractor bombed the village. They got their intel wrong. They thought the wedding was taking place in Taranahar.”
“Your special mission was to do…whatever at a wedding?”
His jaw flexes, and a chilling look weaves over his face. “I was a soldier, Cleo. I couldn’t afford to get sentimental about my duties.”
I don’t have an answer for that so I nod. “Did you fulfil your mission?”
“Yes. I made it out in one piece.”
Something in his voice tugs hard at me. I’m almost too afraid to ask. “Only you? You said ‘we’ before.”
His eyes darken. “It was a two-man mission going out. It wasn’t coming back.”
My eyes prickle. “I’m sorry—”
“It shouldn’t have happened. Crunch would still be alive if MMFR hadn’t clusterfucked their intel.”
Ice rams my spine. “MMFR? Finnan’s and my father’s company? They…he’s responsible?”
“For every one of the people who died in Taranahar that night. All the evidence I’ve found so far on MMFR points to a sloppy operation. The mercenaries were barely trained. Taranahar wasn’t the first mission they fucked up, but it was the worst. They were in it just for the money the contracts brought. They didn’t care about human life. And now he wants me to help him get off scot-free.”
“Oh my God.”
“Do you understand now, Cleo? Why he has to pay?”
Despite knowing the cruelty that Finnan was capable of, the sheer amount of blood on his hands is shocking. But I also feel guilty relief that Axel wasn’t involved. “But how are you going to make him? He’s dangerous, Axel.”
His small smile chills me to the bone. “I said I wasn’t there when it happened. But I was there directly after. I have everything I need to end him with what he did at Taranahar.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
His face closes completely, a mask of desolation overtaking every other emotion. “Because dismantling his operations with the Bratva and the Armenians isn’t enough. He needs to pay for everything.”
“What—?”
“I’ve told you about Taranahar,” he slices across me, one hand coming up to hold my chin steady. “Tell me why.”