It was empty.
We both exhaled in relief. Though I couldn’t help but feel a touch of disappointment. I really had been looking forward to being able to take out my anger on someone.
I marched back into the bedroom and checked under the mattress where we’d put the guns we’d taken from Harvey and the man back at Tony’s place. They were both gone. We should have taken them with us, but I’d known what security was like at the courthouse, and I hadn’t wanted a reason for the cops to arrest us should we be stopped. It didn’t matter so much, now we had the guns from X’s suitcase, but if he hadn’t gotten his memory back, we’d have been defenseless right now.
“Whoever was in here,” said X, “it appears they were looking for something, and I don’t think it was just the guns.”
“Like what? Neither of us has a thing to our name.”
“I have no idea. Maybe they were looking for a clue as to where we were.”
“If it was my father’s men, they’d know exactly where I was.”
“Wouldn’t Tony?”
“No, he wouldn’t have a way of knowing any schedule of mine—unless someone called him and told him, of course. He was listed as my contact number before you got me out of Tony’s, so there’s a chance someone called him by accident.”
“But what would he come here looking for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Or else it wasn’t either Tony or your father, and someone completely different.”
I looked toward him. He had that same tone in his voice again. “Someone from your past, you mean. Is there something I need to know about?”
“I’m hoping not. Let’s go and have a little chat with the guy at the reception desk. Maybe he saw something, or at least would have some CCTV on the place. We might be able to see who was responsible for this mess.”
It was a good idea.
I nodded. “Let’s do it.”
We marched over to the building which housed the reception area. An older guy—in his sixties, at least, with a full gray beard and an equal amount of hair on his head sat behind the desk. He was watching a game, shouting at the small television and cursing even worse than I usually did.
He didn’t even bother to look up as we walked in, so X slammed his hand down on the little bell on the counter.
“Hey,” X demanded. “We need to speak to you.”
The older man looked up and frowned, then leaned over and flicked the sound down on the game. He looked pissed that we’d interrupted him.
“Did you see anyone going into our room?” I asked, thinking he might respond better to me than X.
“Huh? No, I didn’t see nothing.” His voice was gruff, but his eyes shifted away from us, a slight pink rising to his cheeks—at least to the small amount of cheek I could see through all the fur. I made a mental note to tell X he wasn’t going to be growing that much beard while I was still around.
“Do you even know what room we’re in?” X snapped.
“Yeah, you’re in room seventeen. I know that.”
“The room’s been trashed,” I said. “Are you saying you didn’t see anything?”
I leaned over the top of the desk. Several surveillance screens were placed underneath, showing the parking lot and the fronts of most of the doors.
“Can we take a look at those, then? It must have happened within the last couple of hours. Someone went into our room, and he would have been caught by your cameras.”
The man shifted awkwardly in his seat. “Ah, sorry. I just wiped them. They don’t have much storage, so I clear them off every so often and start again.”
X was staring at him. “You’re fucking with us, right?”
“Nope. That’s just how it went.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You can check. Look.” And he hit rewind on the payback, and sure enough, it ended about thirty minutes earlier. So that must have been when whoever had trashed the room had come in and threatened him to keep quiet. Or else they told him to delete it as soon as they’d left. Either way, we’d only just missed them. If X hadn’t been attacked in the alley, we’d probably have walked right in on them.
“What do you want me to do?” the man said, staring at me in defiance. “You want me to call the cops?”
“No,” I said. “No cops.”
“Then I didn’t see nothing.”
We glared at each other. Maybe I could have taken the gun now stuffed down the back of my pants and shoved it in this guy’s face, but I had the feeling whoever had threatened him probably had a bigger hold on him than I did. They’d have threatened his business or family, where all I could do was threaten to shoot him or perhaps break a few fingers. I wasn’t actually going to kill some random motel guy. I was screwed up, but I wasn’t that screwed up.
“Fuck!” X declared, slamming his palms down on the desk, making the guy behind it jump.
“Come on,” I said, trying to keep my head. “Let’s get out of here. Whoever it was might come back.”
X shot the man a final glare, but he’d already gone back to the game, obviously deciding he’d managed to get out of this one unscathed.
With nothing of any worth left in the room, we went straight back to the car. If someone knew we were at the motel, they probably knew what car we were driving, too. I had the sudden feeling we were being watched, a shiver wracking down my spine.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” said X, giving me a concerned look. He reached out and touched my arm, and then moved in closer, pulling me into his side and kissing the top of my head. “Sure I can’t tempt you with a quick drive to Mexico? I hear the beach is beautiful this time of year. Bikinis and margaritas? It’s got to be better than this shit.”
I gave a weak smile. “You’re absolutely right. After this is over, we’ll go to Mexico. I promise.”
He returned the smile. “I’m holding you to that.”
We got back in the car. We didn’t even know where we were going now, utterly directionless. I dropped my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes. The sudden tiredness I’d been experiencing recently swamped over me.
When I opened my eyes again, X had pulled into a small wooded area. There was a picnic table and a grill, but they were unused at this time of year, and there didn’t appear to be anyone else around.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, rubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand.
“You were obviously exhausted, and I just wanted us to go somewhere we could talk and think without worrying someone was about to start shooting at us.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Not long. An hour at the most.”
“Shit, sorry.”
“Don’t be. You obviously needed it.”
I wasn’t the only one who’d been through a trauma that day. “How’s the head?”
“Better. I found a couple of pain killers, and they’ve helped the worst of it.”
“Do you think you’re up to visiting Tony?”
He looked at me, his eyes hard, his nostrils flared. “I don’t want you to do it.”
“I don’t have any choice, X. You don’t have to come with me, but I don’t know what my father is going to do when he finds out Nickie is with Tony the Hound. And she has a right to know our father is being let out of prison. Going to Tony’s is the only way I’m going to be able to do that.”
“Vee, sometimes we just have to make the choice to cut people from our lives. She’s done nothing for you, yet you’re willing to risk your life for her. Both our lives.”
His words stung me. “You don’t have to be involved. Just walk away, I’ve already told you that you can.”
“I don’t want to walk away from you, but her….?”
“She’s seventeen,” I snapped.
“Not for much longer. You’re willing to risk everything for her, yet I’m not sure she’d as much as spit on you if you were on fire.”
I didn’t want to fight with him. But
I had to remember who I was with. X wasn’t some new age guy in touch with his feelings. Perhaps he’d been more like that before he remembered who he was, but the old X was back now. I had to remember this was the guy I’d fallen for—the one who was so like me that we’d both recognized the cold, hard shell around us both. Maybe I just didn’t like what he was saying because I knew it to be the truth. That didn’t make me any more likely to abandon Nickie though. She thought she knew it all, but she didn’t.
He caught me looking at him, perhaps sensing the trepidation that lay within me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You can remember everything now, right?” I asked. “Remember all the bad things that happened to you as you were growing up, all the people you’ve killed, how we met?”
He nodded. “Yes, I remember it all. It feels strange to me now how I’d ever forgotten.”
I opened my mouth, and then closed it again.
“Say what you’re thinking, Vee. I want to know.”
“When you’d forgotten your past, you were different—more tender, more emotional, I guess. Part of me is feeling like I’m going to miss that part of you.”
He twisted to face me, then leaned over the handbrake to lace his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck. I was held in his grasp, caught in his gaze, falling into him so completely and fully. I wanted to know how he felt about me, yet I was too afraid to say how I felt about him.
“Vee, just because I remembered who I was before the accident, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten the person I’ve been since then. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you, or the things I’ve said to you. I meant every single word, and I still do.”
Something that had been clenched tight inside of me unravelled with relief.
“That’s good. I was starting to get used to the other X.”
He pulled me closer. “Does that mean you don’t like the regular me?” he growled in my ear. “Because that would hurt my feelings, and I don’t like my feelings hurt.”
“Now that you have feelings, you mean,” I teased him in return.
His blue eyes narrowed slightly, his lips twitching. “I only have feelings where you’re involved.”
Perhaps we should have been making plans, taking action against the people who wanted me dead, but I knew my chances of surviving the next day or so were slim. Life—in particular my life—was so short, and I wanted to find pleasure in the little I had left. Tony had no reason to keep me alive now that I could no longer testify against my father, and my father would want to see me dead as payback for trying to put him in jail. Yes, perhaps we should have been doing something more proactive, but I wanted X’s mouth, wanted to run my hands over his skin, wanted to feel how I felt when he was inside me.
Xavier Creed. I remembered his full name. My Xavier Creed. The man I’d only previously known as X.
A familiar throb of arousal tightened at my core. I had an itch, and he was the only one who could scratch it.
X must have felt the same way.
He pulled me over, so I lifted my whole body over the handbrake and straddled him. We didn’t have much room, but we didn’t care. Even with the steering wheel wedged into my back, I still couldn’t think of anything but him. He kissed me in that perfect way he did, with his hands either side of my face, his fingers laced in my hair. He kissed me slow and deep at first, but then, as I ground down on the hard length I found pressing against the front of the pants I wore, our kiss became more frantic.
His lips left my mouth to nibble down my jaw and neck. He hovered over the bruises still around my throat. “I hate how that fucker hurt you.”
“He’ll pay,” I said, ducking my head to kiss his neck. “We’ll make him pay.”
I dragged his t-shirt up over his head, wanting to skim my palms over his scarred but beautiful body. His skin was warm beneath my fingers.
His fingers found the buttons of my shirt, and he popped them open one by one, revealing my simple white lace bra beneath. He pulled the shirt from my shoulders then reached behind my back to unhook my bra. We were both naked from the waist up now, and we kissed again, skin pressed against skin.
He reclined me against the steering wheel, so there was a curve in my lower spine, my back arched to push my tits out toward his face. He cupped one, squeezing my whole breast between his fingers, and then dropped his face to cover my nipple with his mouth. The warm wet of his tongue sent sparks straight down between my thighs, and I bucked my hips against his, wanting more. X moved to my other breast, laving my nipple with his tongue and then gently closing his teeth around the peak. I groaned and sat forward, reaching for the button of his jeans.
He reached down to the side of the seat and pulled a lever that sent the seat flying backward a couple of inches. Surprising me, the movement made me squeal, and he laughed against my skin. I thumped him on the shoulder, and we both smiled, but then the moment faded and the lust was back.
Kicking off my heels wasn’t too much of a problem in the confined space, but trying to wriggle out of my pants proved to be more of a problem. This was a time when I figured a skirt would have been more practical. I leaned over to one side, practically on the passenger seat now, and wriggled out of my pants and underwear in one go. X lifted his hip and pulled his jeans down, using his heels to push them down to his feet. His cock stood from his lap, thick and hard and rigid.
I didn’t care that we were completely naked and that anyone could see us at any moment. All I cared about was him.
I couldn’t leave that dick without tasting him first. Though we were in a tight space, I leaned over him, with me still partially in the passenger seat, and licked the smooth, swollen head. He tasted of salty pre-cum, the male muskiness of him filling my nostrils. I was crazy about him. Crazy about this man. I wanted to devour him, sink myself onto him, own him and cherish him and never spend a moment without him.
Was this love? Was that what love felt like?
Or was it just obsession?
Though I loved the taste of him, I wanted more. My pussy was wet and swollen, needing to be penetrated. I wanted to experience that feeling of fullness—off completeness—that I only got when I had him inside me.
X pulled me back over, and I straddled him again, this time holding myself up so his cock was just nudging my entrance. I teased us both a little, moving my hips back and forth so the head slicked against my cream. He bucked his hips, pushing between my folds, so I lifted myself higher. I smiled against his mouth.
“Tease,” he growled in a voice so completely sexy, I couldn’t hold back any longer.
We were no longer kissing, our eyes locked. Total concentration and focus on the other person. Slowly, I lowered myself onto him, his shaft stretching my inner muscles and pushing deep. I gave a groan and pushed down harder, wanting him as far inside me as possible. X’s hands were on my ass, his fingers digging into my flesh. He steadied me as I lifted up again, feeling him sliding between my lips. I tilted my hips forward, wanting to feel the friction rubbing beneath the base of my clit.
His breathing grew ragged, his muscles tensed. I loved the feel of his hard shoulders, the muscles in his neck bunched beneath my fingers as I used his support to increase my movements. My ass slapped against his thighs with every downward motion, the sound of us screwing filling the inside of the vehicle. My tits bounced just inches from his face, and he kissed and licked and bit whenever my body got close enough to his mouth. The scratchy brush of his beard against my skin made my nerve endings zing.
My arousal built, the tension at my core mounting. It was building with every stroke of his cock inside me. Tighter, higher, faster, harder. I knew I was going to reach my peak at any moment, and I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing only on the sensations inside me now. The pleasure condensed to a ball of energy at my very core and then my orgasm broke, and the ball burst outward in a thousand sparks that made my eyes roll, toes curl, and my mind spin.
I felt X jerk inside me, his body shudd
ering beneath me. He thrust hard, once, twice, holding himself deep, and then his body relaxed beneath me.
We held each other, my face buried against his shoulder, as our breathing and heartrates slowed to a regular pace. I kissed his neck, his throat, pressing my nose against his skin and holding him tighter. I was terrified what I was about to lead him into would cost him his life. It almost had once, and I wasn’t sure I could go through losing him again. The longer I spent with him, the deeper I was falling. I couldn’t lose someone else I cared about.
He spoke in my hair. “I love you, Vee. I want to be with you. I don’t want to lose you just for revenge.”
I knew what he was saying—that this wasn’t worth it. That we should be thankful and happy to have found each other, and take each other’s hand and get the hell away from here. My heart clenched with longing. I wished I could do that. I wished I was able to bring myself to walk away.
“This isn’t just about revenge,” I told him. “It’s about family.”
Chapter Twenty-five
X
I stayed inside Vee for as long as possible, a part of me terrified this would be the last time I’d ever get to hold her.
I’d tried time and time again to get her to change her mind, but she was resolute. A part of me admired her for her loyalty to a sister who’d shown none for her, while the other part was frustrated. I wasn’t going to change her mind, so I had to support her and do everything in my power to help her. While she might be focused on trying to warn her sister about their father’s release, my focus was only on keeping her alive. I couldn’t imagine a life without her in it. I didn’t know if she felt the same way about me—she had protected her heart, and I understood why—but I would be by her side no matter what.
Against my will, I slipped from her body, signalling the end to our love-making. She climbed off me, and I helped her back into the passenger seat, the movement awkward in the confined space. She flashed me a satisfied grin and bent to gather her clothes. We both dressed quickly, aware we were in a public area and we might be disturbed at any moment. It was one thing being caught in the middle of the act; it was somehow more humiliating just hanging out naked in a car.
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