Absolution

by LP Lovell

  I point at Jonty. "You tell the fucking bouncers not to let him in here again." He nods. "Fucking shit! I would have thought that was obvious." Jonty scowls at me. I know I've pissed him off, but shit, the last thing I need is Zee in my club. And now he's seen Evie. "And put the girls on lockdown," I say. "Call them all in and tell them they work only from the club, they do not go on the streets, and have the guys walk them home. He's going to keep coming for them."

  I grab the back of Evie's neck, take a fistful of hair, and I drag her off the stool. "I'm taking you home," I say.

  "I don't need you to take me home."

  "Do not argue with me." She studies my face, and she must see how deadly fucking serious I am because she slowly nods, her fingers gripping the cross hung around her neck.

  I guide her toward the hall, grab Dave from my office, and we leave from the back of the club.

  The tires of the sleek Mercedes scream as Ezra pulls onto one of the dirty New York side streets. Dave slides across the back seat, panting. I glance over at Ezra. His posture is rigid. His knuckles have gone white from how tightly he's gripping the steering wheel. I don't like him angry because he reminds me of the devil when he's like this. I press my back against the door, trying to keep as much distance as possible between us.

  An alarm dings. His eyes cut over at me, and he groans. He steers with one hand, reaches across my body with the other, and forcefully pushes me back into the seat before jerking the seat belt across my hips and clicking it in place. "Shit's annoying," he says, and the beeping cuts off.

  Swallowing, I force my gaze away from him. He scares me, and I don't like that. Not since Zachariah have I let a man scare me. Ezra's sharp facial features, his demeanor, his course British accent; it’s all so chivalrous, yet brutal at the same time. He is quite deceiving, but then again, the deadliest things usually come in the prettiest of packages. I stare at him for a moment longer. He is beautiful in the most brutal of ways. And now I see why they say beauty is a sin, because he makes me want to sin. He makes me want to lie back on a dirty bed with filthy sheets and let him spread my legs apart. I want him to do terrible, nasty things to me. He makes me want to be that redhead, sucking back his cock in front of a window so others will want to covet what is mine.

  There's a rough bump as we pull onto the Manhattan Bridge. Ezra's jaw tenses and his arms straighten out. We drive in silence, and when we pull onto my street, I feel sick. He knows where I live.

  "How do you know where I live?" I ask.

  He taps one finger on the steering wheel; his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "I know everything, little killer. I had you followed that first time."

  The thought of him having me followed seems romantic, and the sickness in the pit of my stomach transforms into flattery. I feel flattered. He's more like you than you want to admit, Evelyn.

  The car stops on the side of the road, and he cuts the engine. I glare at him as I climb out of the car. "Thank you," I say before shutting the door and heading toward the steps.

  I hear his car door slam shut, and the click of Dave's paws trotting over the pavement. He's right behind me. I spin around, and he all but walks into me. Ezra snatches the keys from my hand and storms ahead of me, opening the door to the stairwell and signaling me to walk ahead of him. Dave ducks into the doorway and disappears. Panic winds its way around me. I don't trust Ezra, he's dangerous, and I of all people know how things like this end. I'll let him follow me into my apartment, and he'll kill me then dump my body into the Hudson River because that's what I would do. I'm shaking at the idea of how he would kill me. I've never thought of what death must be like, but now I am wondering if it hurts.

  "Walk, Evie,” he says in a commanding tone.

  He walks to my door, and I stop. I'm not going to be dumped into the Hudson River tonight. "You can go now," I say as I snatch the keys from his hand. He terrifies me, yet somehow I crave him. This was not planned.

  "No."

  I grit my teeth and anger bubbles through me. "I don't want you here, Ezra."

  "I don't care what you want,” he says calmly, making me aware that what I want is irrelevant.

  He stares down at me, his enormous frame towering over mine, and all I can think is he's like the devil towering over an angel, that angel me, the devil him. The tension rises between us, and I become increasingly aware of his body only inches from mine. This calm air of danger pours off him in waves, and it should scare me because I know he wants to hurt me, but I like it when he does... His eyes drop to my lips, and my lungs falter. There's a pause, and then he slams me against the wall, forcing the breath from my lungs in a rush. His mouth meets mine in an angry clash of lips and tongues. My heart hammers, I can hear it in my throat as I tear my lips from his, fighting to catch my breath.

  I want to slap him for making me want his filthy lips on me. I feel my nostrils flare. I want his lips on me again, and I am going to hell for it, but I don't care. Because I kiss him again, I grab his shirt and wad it inside my fist. I press my body against him, and it's hot because the flames of hell are licking at my very soul right now. He is a sinner, and I am sin and everything about this is the work of Satan. Ezra's lips move to my neck, trailing down my throat, branding my skin in the most sinful way. I moan at the way he feels all over me, moan like a wretched little slut.

  "Door," he growls.

  I turn and fumble with the key. His chest presses against my back, his steady breaths touching my neck. I can't breathe. I can't think. The lock clicks and I push on the door. As soon as it opens, the dog runs inside and lays down by the hearth. I walk through the doorway and Ezra grabs onto my hips, pressing me against the wall while he kicks the door closed with his foot. He's so heavy against me. I can't stop my hands from touching him, from feeling over every last inch of this man's defined muscles. His hands are in my hair, and he's pulling it. This shouldn't feel good. It should feel dirty and wrong and vile.

  His warm lips move over my neck, and then his teeth are on me, biting me, bruising me, and it's painful, but it's right because he's punishing me for wanting him like this when I shouldn't. Make him stop, Evelyn. But I can't because I've already fallen, and there's no way to stop me until I hit the bottom. And I will hit the bottom.

  Ezra tears his lips away from me, heavily breathing as he holds his face barely an inch from mine.

  "The ways I will fuck you up, little killer..." he says with a growl.

  Hands, and mouths, and tongues. He rips my dress over my head before picking me up and lowering me to the floor. His hands grip my hips in a bruising hold as his mouth works over my stomach. I moan like a little whore, my body writhing beneath him even though I'm telling it not to. I like it. I want it. And I shouldn't... but I do. I do, I fucking do. His fingers grip the insides of my thighs, violently shoving them apart before he drags his wet tongue over me, and I whimper.

  "Fuck, you taste like heaven," he growls—no he hisses. Evelyn, you're filthy and dirty. But Ezra says I taste like heaven. He's comparing me to heaven, and there's reverence in his tone.

  His gaze locks with mine as his tongue darts out and dives inside of me. His eyes darken, turning feral, and I, in turn, become unhinged. I'm hot, and I don't want this to stop ever. Is this what sex should be like? Like I am something he wants to worship like I am a stream he can drink life from every fucking day? Is this really sin? Because it's beautiful and I want to burn in it if it is. This is sin and sin leads to hell, and I'm okay with that because I would dance in the flames of that inferno at this very moment. To feel this way, like I’m wanted and adored, I would pirouette with the devil himself. I rip Ezra’s shirt off, my eyes trailing over his bare skin. His body looks like a painting in the Vatican, righteous and glorious. And how can this be sinful when it looks so holy? All I want is him naked. I want to be that redhead. I want to be a wanton slut that needs a dirty, filthy man to fuck all the wrong right out of her, so I take his jeans off. I shove his boxers down, and I sit up, forcing him back on the floo
r while I ram his cock down my throat. I trace my tongue over each vein, over every single ridge, and his hands pull at my hair again, and why does that feel so damn good?

  "Fuck, Evie. Your mouth." He groans, thrusting his hips into my face. His cock slides deeper into my mouth, the tip hitting the back of my throat. "I knew those lips were made for my cock," he says through clenched teeth. And yes, they were. These lips... my lips were made for his cock and I believe that now and how I'm I supposed to kill the man whose cock my lips were made for?

  And all I want right now is that cock that my mouth is made for inside me. I place my hands on his shoulders, and I drag my naked, slutty body over his righteous body. The way his skin slides against mine feels so right. "You're making me sin, Ezra," I whisper.

  I slip my pussy over him, and just when I feel the flames of hell engulfing every last inch of my being, his lips meet mine in a violent kiss, his teeth biting down on my bottom lip, drawing blood. Blood, and then I taste myself, and he is right, I do taste like heaven. Maybe I have been lied to for all of these years because a devil can't taste like heaven; it's impossible. I want to say his name because I love how it feels when it rolls from my lips. "Ezra," I moan, and it sounds even better in a moan than I imagined.

  He grabs my hips, flipping me over with an animalistic growl. He leans over my back and takes my wrists, holding them both in one of his large hands as he pulls them over my head, restraining me. I try to tug my hands free and he slams them down harder, threatening to cut the circulation off. He squeezes me harder, and I relish in it. I moan at it, trying to contain the urge I have to scream because I want him to fuck me, and I shouldn't be on my floor like this, but I am. He releases my wrists only to grab my hips and yank my ass into the air.

  "You don't fuck me, Evie. I fuck you." My cheek presses against the cool floor as he places a hand between my shoulder blades, pinning me, restraining me. "And I fuck hard," he whispers before he rears back and slams inside of me.

  I bite my lip, a silent scream lodging in my throat. His skin is hot and smooth; his body perfect over my back and between my thighs yet so wrong and dirty and sinful that I should kill him for it. I should slit his throat, but I can't because my lips were made for his cock. You taste like heaven, Evie. And how can I kill someone who compares me to heaven with the reverence of a Saint? I can't even think about that now because he's thrusting inside of me so hard, but yet so gentle if that makes any sense. His hands are forcing me to fuck him, forcing me to feel him, to submit to him, like that redhead. He wants me, and I want him and... I choke on my thoughts because it feels that damn good.

  His fingers dig into my hips with such force it hurts. His lips move to my ear, his teeth nipping at my earlobe as he rears back and releases my shoulders. His fingers dig at my hips, pulling them back to meet his ruthless thrusts. He drags one finger down my spine and over the crack of my ass until he brushes a place that screams dirty and foul and sin. And I gasp.

  "Maybe I should start with this? Have you ever been fucked in the arse, Evie?" He folds his body over mine until his hot chest presses against my back, and his lips are at my ear. "If your pussy feels this good I can only imagine what your sweet," his breath hitches on a deep groan, "virgin arse would feel like."

  I can't say a word. I try, but I'm choking. I shake my head because now I really can feel the flames of hell consuming me, and they will burn me until I'm nothing but ash. I close my eyes, biting my lip. And then his thumb grazes over me—there, and I can't stop where my mind takes me. That one sensation catapults me into the dark crevices I try not to go.

  "Don't you scream. Don't fucking cry either, Evelyn," Zachariah hisses as he pins me down, pressing his thick forearm over my throat. "I'll choke you with my bare hands then wrap a rope around your neck and hang you from the closet. I'll tell everyone you killed yourself just like your mother did because you had demons inside you that wouldn't shut up."

  He slams into me, the pain shooting through me like rusted nails, catching on every piece of flesh inside me. "Dirty. Filthy." He grunts as he rams himself into me again and again, jarring the tears free from my eyes.

  "Please, Zachariah. Stop." I plead through tears.

  "I can't stop, Evelyn. I have to punish you for making me want you so damn badly. It's a sin you know. Sex. You make me sin, and for that I have to make you hurt, make you not want to tempt me ever again. I have to purge the wicked from you with pain." I claw at him, trying to push him away from me, but I'm so weak it does no good.

  Ezra laughs and snaps me out of hell, dragging me back to the brink of his own heaven. He grabs my hair, wrapping it around his wrist and pulling me up onto my hands. "So fucking innocent."

  My back bows and he forces himself deeper inside me, hitting a spot no one has ever reached before, and now I'm back in that place where everything is beautiful and blissful because this is bliss. The tingles jolting through my body, the way I feel like an idol in his hands. My arms tremble beneath me, threatening to give way under my weight and the lack of control I'm experiencing at the hands of this man.

  "Innocent, Evie," he whispers, and my face smacks the cold floor because I can't hold myself up anymore, but he keeps fucking me. I'm screaming and swearing, and I'm clenching around him because this feels too right, too raw, too real, and if he doesn't stop I'm going to...

  "Fuck," I moan. My hands slap at the floor like I'm trying to tap out, but all he does is laugh that deep laugh that reminds me of the devil. Aftershocks of what he's done to me wrack my body, and I know now that I am his, and he is mine and I can't kill him because this is salvation right here, right now.

  He keeps thrusting until his body stiffens behind me with a guttural growl. Everything stops, and all I can hear is our mingled breaths, almost like the waves of the ocean crashing onto the shore after an angry storm.

  His chest rises and falls in ragged swells against my back. I feel his lips touch my neck, and then he's pulling away from me. My body suddenly feels cold without him, and with that coldness comes the shame. I was that wanton slut, even though he didn't fuck me against the window, and I shouldn't have been. I let him fuck me because I wanted him to. This was no means to an end. He is still very much alive, and I am very much undone. This was a sin, pure and simple.

  I lay on the floor next to him, silently praying to be forgiven, but I know the prayers of someone as wretched as me won't even reach the edge of heaven. They never have.

  I collapse on the bed, my chest heaving and my body slick with sweat. I feel like a fucking sixteen-year-old working out months of frustration. I can't get enough of her. She takes everything I give her and asks for more. She has no limitations, no breaking point, and it just makes me want to push her that much harder. Honestly, I'm pretty sure one of us is going to end up dead.

  I turn my head to the side and glance at her. Her black hair fans out across the bed, her red lipstick smeared across her lips. Her eyes remain closed as she tries to catch her breath. So innocent, so breakable.

  "You done yet, sweetheart?" I smirk.

  She nods.

  I sit up, searching the room for my clothes. I spot my boxers and stand, yanking them over my hips. Evie watches me the entire time; her wide, blue eyes fixed on my every move.

  I wonder if she even knows how far down the rabbit hole she's fallen because there is no getting out of this now. I fucking own her.

  I wake up confused, in strange surroundings. I reach under my pillow for my gun, only to come up empty. I frown as I study the unfamiliar room. The bare walls and sparse furniture remind me that I'm in Evie's apartment. The bed shifts beside me, and I glance over to see Evie's beautifully naked back, the fine pink scar spanning her shoulder blades and stretching down her spine.

  I want to get up and leave, but I can't because Zee wants her, and he's not getting her. I slide out of bed, pull my jeans on, and stumble through her living room. There's a sliding French door that leads to the balcony. The second I open it, Dave jumps up from his
spot on the floor and wriggles through it.

  The frigid morning air touches my bare chest as I drag out a chair from the patio table. I take the pack of cigarettes from my jeans, and light one, inhaling a lungful of smoke. I comb a hand through my hair and brace my elbows on my knees. I can still smell Evie on me, the scent of her perfume mixed with sex makes me bite my cheek as I remember how tight her pussy felt around my cock. No woman should feel that good. It's like she was made for me, and that's just dangerous.

  I should walk away, but somehow, we've ended up bound together in this shit. I don't do this shit, sleeping in a girl's house, in the same bed, but I guess I'm all fucking heart because I'm worried Zee is either going to gut her or sell her. Ah, hell, that's bullshit. I just don't want him near her. I guess staying with her is the equivalent to pissing on her, marking my territory. And she can't stay here alone. She's like a sitting duck.

  I stub my fag out on the metal balcony railing as I rise from the chair. Dave follows me back inside and to Evie's room. He sits at the foot of the bed, cocking his head to the side as he stares at her. She barely stirs when I yank her drawers open, pulling out items of clothing and tossing them on the bed.

  "What are you doing?" she asks, her voice husky and sexy from sleep. The second Dave hears her voice he hops onto the bed next to her and flattens himself into the duvet as though I won't fucking see him.

  "Get up, get your stuff. You're leaving," I say without looking at her.

  She rolls over, her brows pinching together. "I'm not leaving ..."

  "I'd advise you do as I say. It would make my life considerably easier." I spot a suitcase on top of the wardrobe and pull it down, throwing her clothes into it.

  She swings her legs over the side of the bed, staring into the suitcase. "Why?" There's a flash of fear in her eyes as I glare down at her.