by Ace Gray
“I only want to keep you.” I cleared my throat and tried to shut off the tears. “It was the only way.”
“It wasn’t, Cole.” Her voice wavered between anger and devastation as she pushed up to sitting. “I told you I’d trudge through hell with you.”
“And I told you I wouldn’t drag you down that low.” I couldn’t help the frustration rumbling in my voice as I stepped toward her.
“I was that low, Cole.” Her voice was getting sharper. “It doesn’t get lower than pulling the trigger.” She shifted onto her knees and threw up her hands.
“It does.” I stepped to her as the desperation seeped out of my pores. “Oh trust me it does.”
“Oh yeah? How?” She inched toward me and I recognized the energy coursing through her veins as a twin to what finally thumping in mine.
“Death by loss, by losing you, rather than a goddamned bullet,” I roared just before I lunged at her.
Her touch had awakened something that I couldn’t shove down deep anymore. I’d gotten a taste and now I needed her. I needed cherries and sketches and tiny delicate bird fingertips. I needed her smile. I reached for the back of her head and pulled her to my lips, crashing into them in a wild explosion.
She shoved against my chest, first with one stiff-armed push then repeated wild beats. I didn’t flinch. Nothing in this universe, maybe not God or Satan themselves were going to rip me from her lips. And I was going to remind her that she felt that way too. That her lips belonged on my skin and nowhere else.
“Stop,” she gasped when I let her come up for air.
“No.” My lips seized hers again as I slid down, my knees on either side of her thighs.
Elle captured my lips then bit down. Hard. I knew she was trying to break my kiss, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. I growled at her as my other hand came up to her face and I held her in place. I worked furiously on her lips, even where she still held me with her teeth.
When she didn’t let go, I shoved my hands back into her hair and pulled. Her throat was open to me and for a second I considered squeezing, but in the end, the idea of being too rough with her had panic welling in my chest.
She had to come back.
I snarled again and pressed my chest up against her. My heart thundered, vibrating her skin where we touched. But what was better was hers was freaking out too. She was still craned toward the ceiling, her hands were still pressed firmly to my chest, but she wasn’t shoving anymore, she wasn’t telling me to fuck off.
Ever so gently, I leaned down and kissed just behind her ear. She gasped and a shiver shot through her.
Thank God.
I let my hands fall from her hair, down to my sides. She stayed where she was, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.
“I’m mad at you,” she said softly but her fingertips started to trace the contours of my chest.
“I know,” I murmured back.
“I don’t think you do.” She slowly righted herself and looked dead into my eyes.
The small flecks of dust whirled around her in a pillar of sunlight. Light shined in a brilliant halo around her but it didn’t light up her insides. I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat.
“Cole, I’m hurt. I’m broken and hurt.” Her luscious lips didn’t quite hug around the words the way they once did.
“No, you’re not.” I reached to grab her face again but her hands shot up to block me then she shoved them away.
“I am.” Her eyes shimmered in a way that likewise liquefied my insides.
We sat staring at each other and though we were almost nose to nose and I sat, heavy and semi-hard on her lap, we were miles apart. I could feel it. The endless gulf of grief between us rolled and boiled. Waves crashed battered into each of us, pushing us apart and pulling us closer together all at once. I was a hopeless survivor of a shipwreck, floating on a rotted piece of wood. I needed a life raft.
I needed her.
“So take it out on me. Hurt me. Break me.” I begged in a low voice, desperate to stay above water. To move forward from where I’d pinned her to the floor.
“Hasn’t there been enough pain?” She curled her hands into me, nails digging into me.
“I’d endure everything for you,” I spoke through gritted teeth, emphasizing the word the way I always did for her.
“I don’t want to you to endure anything.” Her voice got small. “I never did.” Her sharp nails dug into me.
My stomach trembled as I arched away from her. Bright red marks crisscrossed between my tattoos.
“You do.” I kept looking at the marks on my skin, at her tiny fingers balled to do it again. She wanted to touch me but was holding back. She wanted to claw at me again but wouldn’t, instead choosing tightened little fists. “Hurt me.” I gave her permission with a husky voice. “Break me.” It was more of a whisper. A plea.
Her fingers uncurled as if I’d commanded them.
“Do it.” I inched closer to her, my lips against her cheek, her perfect peachy cheek. “Hurt me.”
I grabbed her hands and brought them back to my chest. They flexed against my skin but nothing else. I grabbed at her wrists and dragged them down my front, my eyes fixed on her until I shuddered at her touch against my waistband.
“That wouldn’t change anything.” Her fingers wandered along the fabric of my pants.
“It might make you feel better,” I said with a sly smirk. She studied me, her hands tempted, skin grazing against skin as they trembled against me.
“No,” she said as her hands slid up and wrapped around my neck, pulling me into her body. “No more pain, Cole.”
I gasped as I notched into the perfect curve of her neck. I breathed in her sweet scent and felt the warmth radiate from where we touched. For the first time in weeks, it went deeper than my skin. I wove my hands around her waist and tried to inch closer to her.
“Break me,” I breathed against her skin.
“Shut up, Cole,” she snapped, her voice turning strained. “Why do you keep saying that?” Tears were just below her surface, laced in her words, as she squeezed where she held me.
“Because it might make me feel worthy.” The words were so quiet, I wasn’t sure she heard it.
She didn’t say anything else, she simply turned toward me and kissed my skin beneath her lips. The soft flutter kisses trailed down my neck until she reached the meat of my shoulder. She licked across my skin and before I could respond she bit down. Hard.
I cried out. I wanted to shove the vicious teeth away but I also wanted her mouth on me. On every inch of me. My cry said both things at once, loud and clear.
Elle didn’t say anything as she pushed against me. The message was different this time though. I let my body move as she wanted and slid off her thighs. I held my breath when I hit the floor and my hands couldn’t cling to her anymore.
There was a full, excruciating heartbeat when I wasn’t touching her. My heart jackknifed and my stomach flipped, sure I wasn’t going to get her back. But then she followed me.
She shifted onto her hands and knees and with nothing more than a gentle touch pushed against me. I reached back to lower myself to the floor. The further I bent back, the closer she crawled to me. Then over me.
My heart raced. Blood thrummed through my veins—blood and something else. Something else entirely.
Her tiny fingers wandered up along my torso, tracing tattoos as she went until she reached my throat. Her eyes were locked on where her hand rested on my neck. Mine were locked on her. Her breasts hung perfectly between the open lapels of my jacket, her breathing shook her little shoulders, her perfect lips were thinned into a line, maybe a little turned down. Bright blue eyes were watery but fixated where her fingers barely drummed on my skin.
I needed her to lock down, latch on. I needed her to take me. I needed her…
I stretched out as far as I could while keeping my eyes locked on her. It wasn’t enough, so I rolled my head back further and my whole body tense
d when I couldn’t see her. My breathing didn’t pick up—hell, I didn’t breathe at all. Any moment she was going to grab me and in that moment, she was going to shove me off the cliff I teetered on or pull me back from the edge. The tightness in my chest ached worse than most of the pains I’d endured in my life.
But then she latched on.
Slight fingers wrapped around my throat. And squeezed. Then she added her other hand. Her little thumbs pressed into my Adam’s apple. I gasped, and when my throat constricted, her grip tightened.
I had never surrendered to someone like this. I’d been choked too often to count but not once was it something I sat back and accepted. The urge to take control now, to pry her fingers from me, itched beneath my skin.
But then her hips started to roll against mine. I melted, flattening my palms to the floor behind me so she could squeeze as hard as she could manage. My breathing returned to short, ragged gasps as I felt my heartbeat crash against her hands.
She was watching me intently, burning my skin with her deep stare everywhere she looked. The way the blood beat in my head probably meant that my face was a dark red, but still her sweeping looks across it blazed all the same.
I still had my eyes closed when I felt her gaze move down my body to my dick between her thighs. I’d had a semi when I kissed her, but with her hips moving against me I’d gone rock hard. And she was devouring the sight of me tented beneath my pants.
Everything in me screamed to bat her hands away, grab her and shove her beneath me just before I shoved into her but I stayed still.
One of her hands slipped from my throat and I sucked in a deeper breath. It cut off as soon as she willfully drug those sharpened claws down the length of my chest. She yanked at the button of my pants between her thighs, a soft glisten showed where she grazed herself against the fabric.
Fuck.
She yanked on the zipper as soon as the button was free and I popped up, notching in between her thighs. My whole body jerked in a painful anticipation. Her hand wrapped around my dick and she squeezed. Both of her hands flexed, my neck rippling beneath one and my balls and stomach tightening beneath her other grip.
My body sang for a moment, electrified by the way she had me. Or maybe just that it was Elle that had me. I groaned a little then went slack beneath her hand.
“Break me,” I barely managed.
“We’re already broken.” She breathed the words as she guided me into her tight little pussy.
When she sat back and swallowed me whole, I lost any air left in my lungs even though her hand finally fell away.
She shrugged out of my jacket then started to slowly move up and down on me. Warmth. I felt warmth everywhere. The slick velvet that wrapped around my dick was just the beginning. Something spread from there like wildfire.
How had I ever walked away from her? How had I fooled myself into believing I needed to stray from her side? How had I survived?
Her hands slid from my body entirely and she let them wander up hers. When she was sure I was watching, she squeezed on her nipples, standing them into peaks, then continued up to shove into her hair. She piled her blonde locks onto her head and made her hips roll all the faster.
I moaned loudly and the sound burned my throat.
Her hands fell from her hair as they dove down low. One went to work on the tiny nub between her thighs and her pussy twitched and waved on me in response. The other gripped around the base of my cock and squeezed. She thought she was prolonging this, but the very thought of her on me, willingly, was enough to shove me toward orgasm. That her hands were on me, that she was enveloping me, was quite possibly going to kill me.
But then she stopped.
And turned.
I fell out of her and couldn’t help the agonized pain that ripped from my throat. She hung her head as she slid back on either side of my thighs. She gripped me swiftly and shoved me inside, her perfect pussy swallowing me again.
This time her full back was on display.
I swallowed hard. Furious red marks outlined where my belt had lashed against her. The redness radiated out the slightest bit and it seemed as though purple swirled into the mess where the raised edges shone.
Horror gripped my heart and wouldn’t let go. I’d given her that. And in fury.
Suddenly having her on top of me was torture.
The monster I’d been was reflected back in something far worse than a mirror. The flesh I worshiped was destroyed. And I’d been the one to do it.
As if she knew what I was seeing, Elle started moaning her sweet, throaty, husky sounds of wild pleasure. Those sounds filled the apartment, filled my head and swirled. They bashed into each of my hateful thoughts and both soothed and taunted them.
“Touch me, Cole. Please,” she begged with a ragged voice.
This time it was my hands that she commanded without my consent. They moved to her back, still taken with the blooming crimson. She shuddered then cried out. It was such an awful sound I threatened to go soft even inside of her.
“That’s nothing compared to my insides,” she murmured.
Her hand tucked back between her thighs and she rolled on me all the faster. Now that I was touching the lash mark, I couldn’t stop. I had to sear that into my brain. They were the lines I had to teeter as I wavered between truly being a monster and playing one. She was the prize. I couldn’t fucking forget that again.
She shuddered again. Her cries were confused, both hurt and pleasured.
My body was betraying me. Whether I wanted to or not, the contact, the expert roll of her hips, the perfect glove of her pussy were speaking to the animal inside me. I was going to come and I fucking hated myself for it.
Her little fingers grazed against my dick as she played with herself between my thighs. Each was a whisper saying that I wasn’t good enough to get her off anymore. That I’d broken her and whatever had been between us. Those little fingers tore and tore at my heart. But each swallow of my length tore at my willpower.
I was getting lost in my head. My body was getting lost in her. My stomach was both taut with pleasure and sick with my actions. My heart hammered for her while it simultaneously shattered and turned to dust.
A ragged cry, every bit as conflicted as mine silenced all of it. Elle’s orgasm ripped through her. Her hands shot to my thighs and dug in. She jerked on top of me for a second then went rigid. Her pussy pulsed wildly on me, milking at my cock. The sounds of pleasure and pain and wild gasping breaths hung in the apartment.
I couldn’t hold out anymore. Everything in me tensed, my breathing stopped altogether. My hands flew to her hips, then one shot to her breast and pulled. When her back was flat against my chest, I held her as tightly as I could while my orgasm poured into her. Heat spread around my dick and her perfect little pussy trembled all over again in response.
As sideways as everything had gone, that warmth, that moment, they felt…right.
My hands fell from her and we stayed still for a few moments, heavy breaths and sweaty thighs the only things shared between us. I started to trace circles on her skin when she batted me away and stood. I winced as my cock fell back to my stomach but got it together fast enough to reach out for her calves when she started past me.
“Elle,” I said softly. She bent down and with a gentle caress pulled my hands from her shins. “I’m sorry.”
“I actually believe you, Cole.” She walked toward my dresser as I lay flattened to the floor by the tidal wave of emotion I’d just ridden. “I even accept.” I blew out a deep breath and dared to smile a real smile as she grabbed one of my shirts and yanked it over her head. “But I can’t forget.”
“What?” I shot up and spun on my knees to watch her.
“I died that night, Cole. Died.” She focused in on the scar on my thigh. “That,” she pointed at it, “is a lot like the one on my heart.” Her hand fell away and she swallowed a visible lump in her throat. “And even with that gnarled scar, I’d do it again. I’d save you all
over again. And I’d be fucking glad that you were alive even if I barely was.”
She took a deep breath and turned back toward the dresser, searching for something to pull on her bottom half. I stood, needing to feel her skin, to soothe her soul, while she said these words. And to give her back her jeans.
“You’re it for me, Cole. You always have been.” She leaned back into me as soon as I wrapped my arms around her.
“Then why are you looking for pants?” I reached out and grabbed at the last drawer, one dedicated to the things she’d left but I wouldn’t let myself look at.
“Because I’m going home.”
“This is home, Ladylove. I am home.” I couldn’t help but snarl at her.
“You were,” she said softly as she pulled denim from that secret drawer.
“Elle…” I tried to hide the sorrow weaving in my words.
She looked down as she started to shimmy into her jeans. When she got them up part way, she paused, her fingers danced on her thighs. My cum coated them like the first day we met. Her tiny fingers swirled there for a moment then, she looked up.
“I think you could be again, Cole.” Her face softened. “But it’s gonna take more than an apology and sex.”
My face stayed sullen, hanging limply with the equal parts devastation and hope that filled me.
“Where do I start?” I could barely choke out the words.
“Apologize to Horse for one. The way only you know how.” She sighed and something darkened behind her eyes but she shook it off. “Then woo me. Remind me that there is a man worthy of this being inked on my skin.” She gestured at the Sharpie marks on her arm and I couldn’t help but smile. “Remind me who you are.”
Fuck.
9.
Elle
I stopped with my hand on the doorknob and looked back over my shoulder at Cole. He was nothing more than a dejected slab of meat where he stood still slumped by his dresser. Hurt radiated off him, pain was back at the surface of his being, coating him black.
That wasn’t what I wanted. Like at all.
“I’m not doing this to punish you,” I said softly. “I’m doing this so that we have a shot down the road.”