Unfiltered & Unlawful (The Unfiltered Series)

by Galvin, Payge

  When I lifted my gaze to look into his eyes, I thought I would incinerate.

  He reached down to pull something out of his jeans pocket. He tore open the foil package. “I don’t always carry one there,” he told me. “I grabbed it before I came into the room.”

  I nodded, my gaze transfixed by the sight of him rolling the condom over his perfect cock.

  We both stepped forward, and then we were skin-to-skin. Finally. I’d spent over a year fantasizing about him, months trying to resist him, weeks trying to forget the taste of him, and hours fearing I’d never feel his touch again.

  “And are you mine, Sasha?” His hands slid to my hips, and his fingers curled possessively around me. “Only mine?”

  “I am.”

  “It’s about time,” he whispered before his mouth crashed down on mine, and he made me forget everything but him.

  By the time we made it into the shower, I was trembling from the first orgasm of the day. He smiled affectionately as I leaned against him while he adjusted the water temperature.

  We stepped into the water, and he began washing my body with the sort of care he’d used when he’d gone down on me on the sofa.

  “No one’s ever been like this,” I confessed.

  He paused in his ministrations. “Like…?”

  “Gentle, I guess.”

  He kissed and licked his way across my collarbone, worshipped my breasts until I believed that I could come from that alone, and trailed his fingers over my hips and belly. “They were fools then,” he murmured.

  I was torn between wanting to lean back on the wall for support and pressing closer to him. His teeth-tongue-hands-cock were all driving me towards euphoria. “If I die here, it’d be worth it.”

  He laughed, a beautiful sound full of promise. Then he lifted me up in a sudden motion. Holding me with only one arm, he reached between us and guided himself into me. I felt like my eyes would roll back in sheer bliss.

  I moaned as I twined my arms around his neck. The shower wall was cool and slick, and Adam was hard and hot. He barely moved at all for several moments, and there was nothing I could do.

  He kissed his way up my throat and to my ear. “I need you,” he whispered.

  I was pinned to the wall with the strongest man I’ve ever known pressed into my body. I might not be able to move, but I wasn’t going to let him have all of the control. I squeezed him, tightening my inner muscles.

  He groaned and said, “Perfect. You’re perfect.”

  Then he began to move, so slowly that I felt like every promise of forever that I’d dreamed of was worth giving up. If this was all he wanted of me, I’d take it. I’d take whatever terms he needed as long as we had this.

  But Adam made my already blissed out mind shatter when he said, “I love you, Sasha. God, I love you so fucking much.”

  Tears filled my eyes, and I admitted, “Need… you…”

  My admission made him move a little faster, not rough or hurried but that little bit of extra speed that made me go over the edge. “Love you,” I gasped as I climaxed around him.

  He came with a growl, and for a moment, we were still and shaking.

  After several moments, when the only sounds were breathing and water crashing, Adam reached out and turned off the water. The sudden silence seemed intimidating.

  I lowered my legs and stepped back slightly.

  Adam lifted his head and met my eyes. “Did you mean it?”

  “I did. I tried not to… I really tried. I tried to be with…” My words stalled. It felt wrong to say another man’s name right now.

  “Tommy,” Adam finished quietly, handing me a towel that I wrapped half-heartedly around me.

  I nodded. “I tried. I didn’t want to love you. I’m a mess and you—”

  “Love you,” he interrupted. “I love you. I loved you when you were a mess, and I love you now that you’re changing the parts of you that were hurting. I love you either way, but I’m proud of you for the changes you’ve made.”

  Carefully, he wrapped both arms around me and carried me from the shower to the bedroom. When he lowered me to he bed, I had a fleeting thought about the fact that we were soaking wet and about to crawl onto my dry sheets, but then Adam peeled my towel off.

  He pulled me into his arms as we stretched out, still wet. I shivered slightly, and he pulled the sheet and blanket over us. “I don’t want you to think you have to pretend Tommy wasn’t in your life. I know he was. I know you cared about him.”

  “Not like he wanted,” I admitted. “I tried. I really did. It wasn’t him I dreamed about though.”

  “You don’t have to say anything you don’t mean,” Adam said in a very calm voice. “I’ll love you even if you aren’t ready—”

  “I’m not saying anything but the truth.” I lifted my head and turned so I could look into his eyes. “I’ve been in denial for a while. Cass says that we both were.”

  “Cass? From Rio Verde?”

  “I called her,” I said in a small voice.

  He groaned. “Sash!”

  “And the shop—yours not the Cave,” I added meekly.

  He squeezed me to him tightly. “Okay. It’s okay. You trust her, and it was just a couple people from there, right?”

  I nodded. “I needed to talk about us… and someone from Sinners left a message… and I was scared and alone, and”—I lowered my head back to his chest—“it was stupid. I’m sorry.”

  Adam didn’t tell me I was wrong or that it was a bad idea. All he said was, “We’ll sort it out. Together. Whatever comes next we’ll sort it out together, Sasha. From here on out, that’s the way it’s going to be. You and me. We’ll figure it out.”

  “I love you,” I said with a happy sigh as I nestled into his arms.

  “Say it again,” he asked.

  I rolled over on top of him and said, “I love you.”

  The sheet slid down my back, and he stared up at me with that same look of intense desire I’d already started to recognize. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to hear that.”

  “I…”—I leaned down and kissed him—“love”—I stilled as he caught one of my nipples in his mouth—“you.”

  His fingers were inside me, and he nudged my thighs further apart. I kneeled over his hips as he played with my already sensitive body, telling me over and over that he loved me, wanted me, needed me. I came again as he told me I was beautiful, brave, and smart. He slid inside me again as he promised we would start a future together.

  And I rode him until we were both unable to say anything else.

  Chapter 15

  Adam thought that everything was in order. For the first time in his life, he had everything he could want, everything he had wanted. He’d admitted to himself that he loved Sasha last year, but she was still with Tommy then. It made him feel like the worst kind of person, coveting his cousin’s girlfriend. He didn’t do anything to try to break them up, but he pointed out the truth to both of them when they were on the outs.

  That was how he made peace with his feelings. He only reminded them of the facts: the time Tommy was so high that he had his hands on another girl in front of Sasha, the time Sasha was so high she would’ve agreed to Tommy’s suggestion to put on a show in front of everyone in his apartment, the times they fought so loud and long that they were thrown out of bars. There were enough examples of how bad their relationship was for Sasha that it seemed insane that she ever took Tommy back.

  But she had. For months, she gave him second chance after second chance. And Adam could only watch and try to be a friend.

  There were months when he thought the girl he’d fallen for had been lost under the drugs she and Tommy snorted. Then, she stopped. She stopped being with Tommy, stopped snorting cocaine, stopped destroying her life.

  He’d waited for her to take the next step, to see him. It didn’t happen. He pushed, waited, offered. He’d been on the verge of thinking that she simply wasn’t attracted to him. Then, he’d tatto
oed her. He couldn’t mistake the desire in her eyes, not the first time or the third time. He’d broken every ethical code he’d held himself to trying to get her to take that last step toward admitting that they had, at the very least, heat between them. She ran.

  He liked to believe that they’d have still found their way to one another if they hadn’t been forced to flee Rio Verde. It didn’t actually matter though. Sasha was finally in his life, and he wasn’t going to let anything or anyone take her from him. He was going to protect her and do whatever it took to let her have the future she wanted. If that meant setting down permanent roots, he’d do it. He’d already proven to himself that he was capable of staying in one town for more than a couple of months. He’d done that for her. He’d do whatever else she needed too.

  Adam walked into Mezcal Johnny’s feeling like the world was sitting in the palm of his hand. He should’ve known that feeling so good was like a lightning rod for trouble.

  That trouble was sitting on one of the four chairs that served as a waiting area for customers. The man was dressed entirely wrong for the end of May in the desert. He had on a dark suit, shiny city shoes, and a lying smile. Adam had met dozens of him in the course of his life. They were the men that his Uncle Thomas, Tommy’s dad, had called “business associates.” The suit stood as the shop door closed behind Adam.

  “Adam Bradbery?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m a friend of your cousin’s,” the suit said. “It’s a shame what happened to him, but I have some interests of his to pass on to his girlfriend.”

  “Tommy didn’t have a girlfriend,” Adam said.

  Drunk Dave lifted his head from the catalogue he was perusing. His gaze met Adam’s for a moment. In it was a question and an offer of help if necessary.

  The suit didn’t even acknowledge the older man. That moved him from potential threat to idiotic potential threat in Adam’s book. Dave might not be as burly as he’d been in the photos on the shop wall, but he had visible muscles and the sort of hard eyes that said he’d seen things best not discussed.

  Adam shook his head once. Dave had a business, a wife, and grandkids to think about. This wasn’t his trouble.

  “Sasha Kovac,” the suit said. “She went by Sugar.”

  “I knew her back in Rio Verde,” Adam allowed. “Maybe you should look there.”

  “I did.” The suit stepped closer. “She left after Tommy’s accident.”

  “He wasn’t in an accident. He was shot.” Adam tensed.

  The man waved his hand dismissively. “Regardless of that, I need to see Sasha.”

  “She worked at a coffee place there,” Adam said. “You could check with them.”

  He knew he wasn’t saying anything the suit didn’t already know. This wasn’t a casual visit. The suit had assumed that Adam and Sasha had left together.

  “I did,” the suit said, sliding his suit jacket off and revealing a holstered gun in the process. “I checked with your employer too. I explained that I needed to see you about Thomas’ death—”

  “Tommy,” Adam corrected. “Thomas was my uncle.”

  The suit nodded and said, “Of course. They said you were probably working at an old shop, and they kindly helped me with a list of shops where you had done ‘guest tattooing.’ It took a few days, but I thought it best to come see you as soon as I figured out where you were.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Adam could see Dave’s hand slip under the counter. There was an alarm there. Alarms meant cops. Cops meant paper trails.

  “No,” Adam said, turning to Dave.

  The distraction was enough to give the suit an opportunity. His fist came at Adam’s face, knocking him back slightly. It wasn’t the punch of a man unused to violence.

  But Adam had grown up with violence back in Philadelphia, where he’d been in so many scrapes his mother signed him up for boxing, karate, and every other defense or “anger management” course at the community center—including yoga and guided meditation.

  “The first punch was a freebie,” Adam said, raising his fists.

  “Your cousin stole something my employer would like returned to him,” the suit said. “Either you or Miss Kovac have our property.”

  “I don’t know where Sugar is, and I don’t have anything.”

  They exchanged blows for several minutes, and Adam was reluctantly impressed by the man’s skill. He fought with enough restraint to make clear that this was not his all. Each punch was a statement, a notice that he was intimidating.

  “I’m sorry you lost something, but that doesn’t have shit to do with me,” Adam said as his fist made contact with the suit’s jaw.

  The man shook his head slightly, like he had to shake off the hit. “We retrieved the cocaine. All we need is the cash.”

  “If you’ve snooped around as much as I think, you know I don’t fuck with drugs, and I live simply.” Adam didn’t take his attention off the suit. “Maybe Tommy got mixed up with someone else.”

  “But you and Miss Kovac left town,” the suit said.

  “I identified my cousin’s corpse,” Adam said coldly. “I was only in town as long as I was because of him. Why would I stay after he was stupid enough to get killed?”

  “And your cousin’s girlfriend?”

  “I saw her around, but I wasn’t her best fucking girlfriend or something,” Adam scoffed. “She and Tommy had a thing. He’d dead. She’s probably holed up at some girl’s house weeping, or her new guy’s place too fucked up to let her tears out.”

  The suit lowered his fists. The idiot believed Adam. Whether it was because of the way Adam had lived or his well known disapproval of drugs or some other reason, it didn’t matter. The suit accepted Adam’s lies.

  A few minutes later, the suit left, and Dave looked at Adam. “I can call my buddy Eli over at the garage. They’ll delay the boy’s car long enough for you to get to her without him following you.”

  Adam nodded. “Do you think he already knows where I’m staying?”

  “Doubt it. Hector’s about ten seconds from a conspiracy nut. Why else did you think I had to vouch for you to get him to rent you the house? The man’s straight-up paranoid. He doesn’t even tell himself half of what he knows. That one”—Dave nodded toward the door the suit had exited through—“wouldn’t get anything other than nonsense out of Hector.”

  Adam felt a little terror recede. “How fast can Eli help?”

  Dave didn’t answer; he just picked up the phone and made arrangements. When he hung up, he said, “Give him twenty, maybe thirty minutes tops, and then you go get her and get out of town.”

  Chapter 16

  Being with Adam finally was a lot like it had been before we admitted our feelings, but with the addition of great sex. We hadn’t turned into one of those obnoxious cute couples or anything. We were still us. We were just naked a lot more… which meant that I was exhausted. Simultaneous with getting together with him, I’d drawn the breakfast shift at the cafe. I was still trying not to spend the cash in the bag, so I worked my shift without bitching. Then, I napped while Adam worked. It was probably for the best because we were either talking or naked when we were both in the house. Somehow, we were insatiable with conversations and orgasms. It was unlike anything I could have dreamed to have, better than my imaginings of what it would be like to be with Adam.

  I didn’t mean to compare it to being with Tommy, but he was my longest—and most recent—relationship. Being with him had always made me feel like I was walking on a lake that had only just frozen. At any moment, I’d slip or crash. There was nothing I could do to avoid the shock and pain. It would come. I just didn’t know when. I got jealous, mostly because I was pretty sure he cheated when we fought, and he got possessive.

  I curled into the bed thinking about Adam instead of napping like I needed to be doing. Even the thought of him made me lose sleep. Being with Adam was different. With him, I felt like I was… special. I started to see myself more like the person h
e saw. I suspect that had been happening for months, and it was a lot of why I couldn’t really be content with Tommy. In Adam’s eyes, I was strong and brave. I wanted to be that way, to be the girl he saw when he looked at me. When I talked, he listened. When I was nervous, he asked questions.

  Of course, I also believed him when he said we were going to last. He reminded me of how much I’d overcome. He encouraged me now as he had been for well over a year. Now, though, he wasn’t subtle at all.

  He had a short shift at the shop today, and then we were going to spend the rest of the day together. I wasn’t sure what we were doing, but at the end, it didn’t matter. I was with him. The rest was just details.

  When I heard the Harley pull up, I had just started drifting off to sleep. Either Dave sent him home early or I’d fallen asleep and not realized it. I hopped out of bed, paused to run my hands through my hair to try and make it look presentable, and then I started toward the door, but it slammed open before I reached it.

  “Adam?” I gasped. His shirt was torn, and a bruise was forming on his cheek.

  “Pack up.”

  “What happened?”

  “The reason Sinners was trying to reach me was a guy claiming to be my cousin, mine and Tommy’s actually.” Adam’s expression grew darker. “Claimed he was in town to check on me after Tommy’s death. Lying fucker. They knew where to look for me because you left them a message.”

  “I’m so so sorry,” I started.

  He glanced outside, and I wondered if he was expecting to be followed. “No calls home, Sash. We can’t talk to anyone there until this shit is resolved… if it ever gets resolved.”

  I nodded. Adam was hurt because of me, because I called and left a message at the tattoo shop in Rio Verde. “I screwed up. I shouldn’t have called them.”

  He sighed, pulled me to him and hugged me so tightly that I thought I was going to have to hold my breath for a moment. “I shouldn’t have walked out and gotten drunk that night either. I shouldn’t have come to a shop where I used to work. They’d have looked at the shops I’d been at sooner or later.”