by Penelope Sky
I nodded. “I know what you mean.”
Cane refilled his glass before he changed the subject. “I know you’re trying to kiss Griffin’s ass right now, but we’ve got to do something about the Skull Kings. I haven’t heard a peep about them, but after ordering a hit like that, I don’t think it will end quietly. If they’re anything like the way I remember, they’re insanely ruthless. I’m sure killing the entire team they dispatched made them realize they underestimated us…but I don’t think it’s over.”
It’d been on my mind for the last few weeks. Their quiet surrender sounded too good to be true. Things like that never dissolved into nothingness. “Neither do I.” Now that my son was going to be a father in just a few weeks, this war needed to be dead and buried for good. I didn’t want my grandbaby to come into the world in the midst of a battle. They should only know peace.
“Griffin has some kind of relationship with the Skull Kings,” Cane said. “Based on what Conway said about the Underground. He was there one night, whether he was buying a woman or staking out the place. He might be able to help us.”
“Perhaps he can talk to them about dropping this feud,” Button said. “We aren’t even certain what instigated this provocation in the first place. Conway doesn’t seem to know what the problem is.”
“They must have realized that Conway was buying and freeing the slaves,” I said. “Maybe someone ratted on him. That’s the only thing that makes sense. They probably don’t appreciate the fact that Conway was making a fortune off their products.”
Cane nodded. “Probably. And I don’t think that’s something we can discuss calmly. The Skull Kings aren’t calm. They’re psychopaths.”
“Griffin might have something that could help.” He was a powerful man with a lot of connections. Maybe he had a special relationship with them and could arrange a peaceful negotiation. “Outright attacking the Skull Kings is the only other choice—and it’s a terrible choice. We’ll be fighting that war for three more generations.”
“I don’t like that idea either,” Button said. “Not when we only want peace.”
“Griffin will help if you ask, right?” Cane asked.
I felt pathetic asking him for help after what he did for my family. He didn’t owe us anything, not any longer. I hated to admit that I needed him, but I definitely did. “Since this concerns Vanessa, yes. I prefer to wait until Griffin and I have established a better relationship because I don’t want him to think I’m only behaving this way because I want something…”
“Well, you’re going to have to get over that,” Cane snapped. “Because we don’t have time for that shit. We need to pull him in now.” He tapped his fist against the table. “We’ve already wasted enough time.”
“I agree,” Button said. “Griffin is a smart man. I’m sure he understands that these are two separate issues. Since he loves Vanessa, I’m sure he wants to bury this as much as we do. He craves the same quiet life that we do…with our daughter.”
I’d hoped I could make progress with Griffin before I asked him for a favor, but that didn’t seem possible. Right now, protecting my family was the most important thing. I didn’t just have Vanessa, but a son, a daughter-in-law, a niece, and nephew…and so much more. “I’ll talk to him.”
“When?” Cane pressed.
“I’ll make the drive tomorrow,” I answered. “Ask him out for a beer or something.”
“Should I come along too?” Cane asked. “So we can get to work right away?”
“No.” I was the one who ruined everything with Griffin in the first place. I was the father of the woman he loved. It had to be me. “I should go alone.”
Six
Bones
My life was the same few variations on repeat.
It was simple. Predictable. Tame.
But I loved every second of it.
I used to work constantly, pick up women at a bar for dirty threeways, and get off on the corpses I would dump in the lake. My life was never the same, full of adrenaline and the unknown.
I traded all of that for Vanessa.
With no regrets.
I woke up at seven every day because I liked to get my workout finished before Vanessa woke up. She was usually cuddled into my side, her hair all over the place and her arm draped across my chest. It was easy to roll her onto her back, move between her legs, and fuck her quickly before I started my day. She moved with me slightly, her eyes barely open and her nails deep in my hair. Every morning, I woke up with a hard-on, and I liked to take care of that before I continued on my day. Before her, I would jerk off before I hit the weights. But now, I preferred her, whether she was really conscious to enjoy it or not. She climaxed most of the time, so her body was obviously aware of what was happening even if her mind wasn’t. I put my come where it belonged, deep inside that slit I paid for with my blood, and then left her there and went about my day.
There was a gym down the street that I went to. I didn’t like sharing my space with the public, which was why I had a private gym in my homes. But for now, it would do. Vanessa was obsessed with my body, aroused by the way I’d thickened over the last three months, so I increased the weight to keep my size. I didn’t need it for a battle. I just liked making her forget she ever bothered with that boy painter.
I returned home, showered, and then sat at the dining table with my laptop. It was another sunny day in Florence, and the sunlight filtered through the apartment. When I scouted this piece of real estate, I thought it would be the perfect place for her. I bought it under the assumption she would never share her space with anyone, not even me. So it was smaller than I preferred.
I finally finished the mission statement Max sent over to me. I completed all the case studies I needed against my hit. I’d be heading to Egypt in a few days, something I hadn’t mentioned to Vanessa. She knew it was coming. She always knew.
Vanessa woke up thirty minutes later, parading around in my t-shirt. She looked sexy in the lingerie I picked out for her, but never quite as sexy as she did in my clothes. She leaned over me with her arms wrapped around my shoulders and kissed me on the neck, the same way she always greeted me in the morning. “Good morning.”
“Morning, baby.” When she walked away, I smacked her ass—like clockwork.
She helped herself in the kitchen, making a bowl of cereal. Her long, tanned legs poked out from underneath my shirt, two legs that looked like pure sex. She ran her fingers through her hair before she carried her bowl to the table.
My eyes were glued to her, focused on the one woman who captured my complete focus the second I met her. She was such a woman that she made me, a man incapable of love, fall so deeply that I sacrificed everything to keep her. I gave up promiscuity for monogamy. I gave up death for life. I’d been a man a long time, but I’d never met a woman who could match me, a lady so strong and fierce that she reminded me of myself. Once she put that bullet in my shoulder, I was gone. I watched her shoot me with determination, and the second she pulled that trigger, I was harder than I’d ever been my entire life.
Every day, I couldn’t stop staring at her like this, like it was the first time I’d laid eyes on her. She was used to my constant looks that bordered hostility, but she had no idea what I was thinking. She had no idea that I was thinking about how much I loved her every single second of those stares. Sometimes, I wanted to fuck her. Sometimes, I wanted to grab her by the neck and pin her into the mattress, just to remind her that she belonged to me—even though I would never let her forget. My love was sometimes so possessive, it was violent. My love was so physical that I wanted to fuck her ass and mouth just as much as her pussy. My love so intense that it made everyone in our vicinity uncomfortable. But she was such an extraordinary woman that she could handle it.
Since the moment I met her, I could honestly say no other woman ever caught my attention the way she did. I didn’t fantasize about other women. I didn’t miss the threesomes, the handcuffs, and the strippers.
Ne
ver once did I doubt what we had.
That it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
She ate her cereal while these thoughts passed through my head, the corner of her mouth raised in a smile. She could feel my stare, and even though she should be used to it by now, it still distracted her. She turned her face toward me. “What?”
I didn’t waste my time telling her every thought I had. I didn’t describe the way she made me feel, the way she turned me into a stronger and weaker man at the same time. All those words seemed like too much work, the feelings impossible to translate into a spoken language. So I held her gaze, my eyes conveying everything I didn’t have to say. “You already know.”
Vanessa was downstairs at the gallery for the day, so I stayed in the apartment and watched TV on the couch. It was tempting to go downstairs and watch her work, but I knew my hostile presence made people uncomfortable. She needed more customers, not fewer, so I stayed out of her business.
She came upstairs in the middle of the afternoon and stood in front of me, blocking the TV with her petite frame. Her eyes locked on to mine before she undid her jean shorts and pushed them down her long legs. Her panties came next, landing on top of her jeans on the rug.
My arms rested along the back of the couch, and I didn’t move despite the way she silently paraded into the apartment and demanded sex from me. Instead of staring at the area between her legs, I kept my gaze locked on hers, seeing the way she wanted me.
She pushed down the front of my sweatpants, revealing my cock that had hardened just thirty seconds ago. She lowered herself on top of me, gasping as she felt me stretch her deep and far. When she was sitting on my balls, she gripped my shoulders and breathed into my face. “Oh…yes.” She pressed her feet against the cushions and held herself in a squatting position.
My hands moved underneath her thighs, carrying most of her weight so she could ride my dick with ease. I helped her up and down, making her sheathe my dick over and over again. The white cream built up at the base of my dick. I could practically smell her hormones in the air, feel her horniness between her legs.
My bare feet pushed against the rug as I thrust inside her, hitting her hard like she wanted me to. Her sexy ass cheeks were in my grip, and I pushed her up and down at a faster pace, making her ride my dick fast.
Her green eyes were focused on mine, her sexy lips parted from the sexy moans she made. Her fingers pressed into my shoulder, digging into my old wound. Even if it caused me pain, I still wouldn’t mention it.
I loved kissing her, but I also loved fucking her without kissing her. I liked the connection between our eyes, the way we both smoldered and burned for one another in mutual passion. We made love, but we also fucked like two people in love—and that was my favorite. We didn’t screw each other because we had to. We fucked each other hard like it was the hottest one-night stand of our lives.
I spanked her ass. “Hit me.”
She kept moving up and down, her pussy making the sexiest noises as it rode my cock.
I spanked her ass again. “Hit me.”
She listened this time, slapping me across the face with her palm. She didn’t give me a sissy hit like most women did. She slapped me like she meant it, striking the side of my face with a hard palm. She put her weight into it, using those sexy muscles in her arm.
Her hand stung when it collided with my face, making the surface of my skin burn and the blood underneath boil. I loved the pain she caused me, the way she delivered the hit without hesitation. She knew I was a man who could handle anything, so she hit me with the kind of brutality I craved.
My cock throbbed inside her, my balls tightening because I wanted to come. I loved her fearlessness. I loved the momentum she could unleash with that arm. A strong woman like Vanessa probably intimidated most men, but she turned me on like crazy. “Hit me again when you come. Hard. Hard as fuck, baby.”
She bounced on my dick for another thirty seconds, her pussy slowly tightening around me as she prepared to explode around my throbbing cock. Her breathing deepened, and she bit her bottom lip as she enjoyed the preliminary pleasure, the buildup before the blow. She closed her eyes for a second right before the explosion hit. Then she screamed in my face, her pussy clenching my dick with an iron grip.
As I’d asked, she slammed her hand against my face as hard as she could, hitting me with enough momentum that nearly made my head turn. With precise aim and powerful strength, she struck my cheek with the force to shake a mountain.
I fucking loved it.
I came inside her instantly, pumping her with more come than I usually did. I tugged on her hips and kept her right on my lap, making sure I gave her every drop of come as deep as possible.
We finished together, our bodies twitching and clenching together. Her pussy soaked up every ounce of come I gave her, inhaling it like a vacuum. My eyes watched the sexy performance hers gave me, and she looked so damn beautiful I thought I could come again.
When she finished, she got off my lap without giving me a kiss. She didn’t ask if my cheek was okay, even though it was probably bright red and slightly puffy. She turned around and bent over to grab her panties from the floor.
My eyes immediately went to her pussy, seeing some of my come seep out of her slick slit.
She pulled her panties up her long legs then pulled on her jean shorts. Then, like nothing had happened, she walked out of the apartment without saying goodbye. Not a single word was exchanged between us. She only wanted me for one thing, for a midday fuck because she’d been horny thinking about me downstairs. The door shut behind her, and only the sound of the TV remained behind, my sweatpants still down and my wet dick against my stomach.
Vanessa wanted what she wanted, and when she got it, she disappeared. With no apologies and no explanation, she did whatever the hell she wanted.
“That’s my baby.”
I was just about to head downstairs and check on Vanessa when someone knocked on the door
It obviously wasn’t Vanessa, especially since she marched in there just hours ago and fucked me without preamble, so it was someone else stopping by for a visit. If it was a friend of Vanessa’s, they would have noticed she was downstairs in the gallery.
That meant they were here to see me.
And the culprit could only be one person.
Crow Barsetti.
I opened the door in a pissed-off mood, not wanting to spend any extra time with her father. I’d just told him off a few days ago. He barely gave me a break before he made another move.
When I opened the door, I came face-to-face with him. In dark jeans and a gray V-neck, he stood with his hands in his pockets. He used to regard me with an innately hostile expression anytime he looked at me. Now that coldness was gone, but warmth didn’t replace it. He looked at me with a subdued expression, a look that was full of remorse.
I clenched my jaw as I kept one hand on the door. I was tempted to slam it in his face. Something stopped me from doing it, and I wasn’t sure if that something was Vanessa. “Vanessa is downstairs.”
“I saw her.”
My nostrils flared. “You better not be here for me.”
“You know I am.”
I leaned my arm against the doorframe, shirtless with my tattoos obvious in the light. He knew I was marked with ink before because my arms were covered with it, but now he knew I had tattoos everywhere, from chest to my narrow hips. “It was less than a week ago when I told you I needed space.”
“I remember. But I don’t think space is going to accomplish much.”
Why were the Barsettis such pains in the ass? “You’re an asshole. You know that?”
He shrugged. “So I’ve been told. Are you going to invite me inside?”
“No.” I kept my body in the way, not letting this man step onto my personal property. Technically, Vanessa owned it because I signed the papers in her name, but it was bought with my money—so it was mine.
Crow didn’t seem offended
by the cold response. “Then let’s get a drink.”
“No.” I didn’t owe him anything. I went out with him once, and I’d spoken to him outside his house. I’d already given him plenty of my time. “Leave. Don’t make me ask you again.”
Crow held his position, standing on my doorstep with no intention of going anywhere. He was one of the only men who was never intimidated by me. I’d made men shit their pants, but Crow was made of something stronger than everyone else. “This isn’t going to stop, Griffin. You may as well give me a chance.”
“I don’t owe you a damn thing. I earned Vanessa by saving your ass. We’re even.”
“We’re never even,” he said quietly. “I will never be able to repay you for what you did.”
“You want to repay me for what I did?” I demanded. “Then disappear.”
He stayed on the doorstep, his arms crossing over his chest.
Whether Crow Barsetti hated me or liked me, he was just as infuriating.
Footsteps sounded in the background, and then Vanessa appeared up the stairs. In those same denim shorts and t-shirt, she was just as cute as she was earlier. She still wore the same panties as she had on earlier, and my come was probably sitting inside them now.
She stopped beside her father, and her disappointed look told me she saw the animosity on both of our faces. She didn’t say a word as she walked past us and headed into the house. She moved behind me and wrapped her arm around my waist. Her warm lips pressed against my back, right between my shoulder blades. Soft like a rose petal and full of the love she didn’t need to speak out loud, her kiss was a sheath to my anger. Her touch brought my inferno to a simmer. She pulled her arm away and disappeared into the apartment.
And just like that, all the rage I felt was gone.
She never asked me to spend time with her father. When I walked out on dinner, she didn’t beg me to come back. When I asked for space, she said I could have as much of it as I wanted. She loved her father and wanted us to have a close relationship, but she never made me do anything I didn’t want to do. All she had to do was ask me to have a drink with him and I would listen—but she didn’t do that either.