Unforgotten Family (An Ariel Kimber Novel Book 6)

by Mary Martel

  The man rifled through Vivian's expensive purse that one of her “boyfriends” had given her, probably after he'd stolen it. He pulled out a wad of crumpled up bills and stuffed them into the front pocket of his dirty jeans. Something I would be blamed and beat for later. He tossed the purse down to the floor and it unfortunately landed in a pile of vomit. Oh man, Vivian would be so mad when she came to.

  The man shrugged sheepishly when he caught me looking at him, but not enough to look remorseful.

  I hated him and I didn't even know him. I didn't need to know him to know he was like all the rest and that was reason enough to hate him.

  He walked out of the apartment without a backwards glance, and I flinched as the door slammed shut behind him.

  Vivian just rolled over to her side and hiked her legs up to her chest. The hair at the back of her head was wet and matted, looking like an absolute mess. At least this way she was on her side and I wouldn’t have to worry about her choking to death on her own vomit. That was something, I guessed.

  I spent the next hour and a half cleaning up vomit and the mess left behind after the party Vivian threw for herself on my birthday.

  When the apartment was finally cleaned, I was left a trembling mess covered in vomit that was not mine, sweat and other questionable fluids that I didn’t want to think about. Even at nine.

  I took my clothes off in the tiny bathroom after I made sure to lock the door and propped the chair up under the doorknob for extra safety. You could never be too safe here, and at nine I already knew this lesson down to the depths of my soul.

  Before getting in the shower, I scrubbed my clothes in the sink with a wire brush I kept hidden under the sink and a bar of soap. I wrung them out with my hands and hung them up over the shower curtain rod to air-dry.

  Only then did I turn the shower on and step in under the spray. Cold water blasted me in the face, and no matter how far I cranked the knob, the water never heated up and remained freezing cold.

  I sank to the bottom of the tub and curled up on my side. I pulled my knees up tight to my chest, wrapped my thin arms around them, and my body racked with silent sobs.

  I didn’t even think about how it was the same pose I’d found Vivian in, only she wasn't crying because I didn't think she knew how to cry.

  It wasn't even the worst birthday I'd ever had, so why was I crying?

  I blinked, coming back to myself in the shower underneath the spray of hot water blasting down on me.

  Vivian kept creeping back into my mind at every turn, and I didn't think talking with Tyson last night about our mothers had been necessarily good for my mental health. Somehow, I needed to stop thinking about my birth mom and my fake kidnapper one before I drove myself crazy.

  I placed my shaking palms flat against the wall and hung my head. My sopping wet hair clung to the sides of my face, neck, and back. I closed my eyes and let the hot water wash over me, chasing out all the bad I had filling me up on the inside.

  Chapter Eleven

  Fuck Me

  I didn't hear him coming, but I knew he was there before the glass door to the shower even opened. I was honestly surprised it took him this long to wait to come to me.

  I’d had time to shave my legs and armpits, and lather myself up in sweet scented body wash that smelled like honeysuckle. I had no idea where it came from, but I couldn't resist using it because it smelled delicious. Then again, so did the other twelve bottles on the floor lined up against the wall. They all had different scents, and I'd only used four of them so far. The honeysuckle was my favorite, which is why I used it so often.

  I was in the process of rinsing the soap off my body when his hands landed gently on my hips. I stiffened but did not look back at him or acknowledge his presence in any other way.

  Using my hands and the water raining down on me, I cleared the soap off my body with quick efficiency as if I didn't feel Quinton's fingers burning into my skin where they were wrapped around my hips.

  He stood still behind me, waiting me out. Outside of his hands and where they touched me, he remained apart, keeping himself from me. I rinsed the last of the soap off, and even though he'd come to me, I knew I needed to be the first one to get the ball rolling here.

  I sighed heavily and allowed myself to lean back against him. His chest came up tight to my back and his hands shifted forward. His palms lay flat against my lower abdomen, fingers splayed wide, body tense.

  "What are you doing in here, Quinton?" I asked quietly. It was a stupid question because I knew why he was here, I just wanted to hear him say it out loud. I felt like he owed me that much, and an explanation wouldn't cost him a damn thing.

  His hands slid up my slick stomach, roaming over my body without purpose or destination, just touching to touch because, like me, he couldn't get enough when it came to skin on skin contact. It was a craving, an addiction, and I never wanted it to end, no matter that I wanted to slap him around a bit.

  "Don't play games with me right now, Ariel. You know exactly why I'm in here with you, so don't even try to play stupid. It's beneath you and it's really insulting to me."

  Well, that wasn't a nice response at all. Not that I should have ever expected a nice response coming from Quinton, because everything about him was usually the opposite of nice, but I hadn't expected this.

  "Nobody pisses me off quite like you do."

  Wow.

  I could say the same damn thing about him.

  One hand slid down, too fast for me to reach out and grab a hold to stop him. He cupped me, his palm pressed against my mound, his fingers molding to the outside of my folds. I sucked in a sharp breath as, far too late, I grabbed a hold of his wrist.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I rasped out.

  His free hand slid up over my ribs. His thumb smoothed across the underside of my breast in a barely there caress before tracing up the center of my chest and up my throat. He gripped my chin and jerked my head around so I could look up at him and he could have access to my mouth, I would find out soon enough.

  "I'm gonna work out my rage and you're gonna help me. After, if you still have questions you want to ask me, you can ask then. For now, I've got a better use for that smart mouth of yours."

  And with that, he tilted my chin up and his mouth came down on mine harshly. My lips had parted in outrage at his words and I'd made an angry noise in the back of my throat. Quinton being Quinton, and therefore never one to let an opportunity pass him by, his tongue took advantage of my parted lips and the stupid thing slipped inside.

  He held me firmly in his grip, and no matter how much I struggled his hold never broke. If anything, his fingers dug into my skin deeper, and I knew there'd be bruises on my jaw that I'd have to cover up with makeup later so that Quinton wouldn't feel badly about them.

  The kiss was wet, deep, and he was in control of the entire thing. I was simply along for the ride, Quinton's ride. One I'd been on before but it had never been quite like this.

  My free hand rose and I placed it over the hand at my jaw. Not to drag the bruising, punishing grip away, but to hold on to him and keep him there.

  I whimpered into his mouth as his fingers slipped between my folds, slowly making their way through my wetness there. He fucked my mouth with his tongue in a kiss that had turned beautifully brutal the moment his fingers hit the proof of my arousal.

  My whimpers turned to desperate cries as he slipped a finger inside me, stretching me deliciously, and began pumping it in and out, matching the same rhythm with his tongue. It was so intense, so like nothing I'd felt before, that I could barely breathe. All I could do was hold onto Quinton's hands for dear life as he devoured me and played my body.

  My legs trembled, my entire body began to shake, and I was starting to become just slightly lightheaded. I needed to suck in a full breath soon, or I just might pass out. The hot water and steam wasn’t helping the situation in the slightest, and it was making the air I was able to suck in through my nose he
avy and damp.

  Quinton either didn’t notice or didn’t care about my reactions, because he did not let up. Instead, he kicked things up another notch.

  His thumb moved to my clit and he furiously circled the little bundle of nerves. My hips jerked violently and my head thrashed from side to side.

  Quinton's mouth was finally forced to break contact with mine. I sucked in a sharp, much needed breath that filled my lungs, making my chest rise and a wheezing, desperate noise escape past my parted lips.

  Quinton's hand slid down to the side of my throat and he palmed me gently there. The bruising touch was suddenly gone, but the urgency of his fingers between my legs didn't let up. Oh no, those moved even faster.

  Quinton shoved his face into my neck and his lips immediately began kissing and licking and sucking at every inch of skin they came in contact with.

  My entire body shuddered as it hit me and I came apart all around Quinton's fingers. My hips jerked with each thrust of his fingers and it was too much, the whole thing was just too much. My knees gave out and I sagged back against Quinton, utterly exhausted.

  Quinton's lips moved to my ear. His teeth snagged my earlobe and they clacked against the metal of my earrings.

  "Nuh-uh," he muttered into my ear. "We're not done here, and you've still got to wash your hair. It doesn't smell like its usual goodness, so you'll need to fix that. Right now though, we need to finish what we started."

  Funny, I hadn't recalled starting anything here. That had been all him.

  And he couldn't command me to wash my hair. That was insane. I mean, yeah, I had every intention of doing that already, but now I almost didn't want to because he'd basically ordered me to. And, yes, I knew just how insane that was too, but I paid that no mind.

  Quinton was ruining my happy, orgasm induced afterglow.

  "Shut up," I muttered irately. Unfortunately, the words fell flat because I hadn't put any heat behind them. God damn the man, he'd done this to me. I couldn't handle his smugness on top of everything else.

  Quinton removed his fingers and he released his hold on my neck. He pulled his face out of my throat and his hands went to my shoulders. He spun me around, his hand went onto my stomach, and I was pushed roughly back against the wall, my back meeting with a loud, wet slap of flesh.

  Quinton wasted no time. He came at me fast. His hands dropped down to my thighs. They circled around to the backs and I was lifted clean off my feet. I cried out in surprise as my arms shot out, my hands landing on his shoulders. My nails sunk into his skin as I clung to him furiously.

  "Wrap your legs around me," he grunted, as his hands slid up my slick skin toward my ass. He palmed both globes of my now round ass cheeks and held me up with my back pressed against the wall. "Fuck. I want to feel wrapped up in you. All of you."

  I complied with this command and wrapped my thighs around his hips, my calves resting against his ass, and my ankles crossed. He pulled my ass away from the wall and finally I felt his cock glide through my wet arousal and cum. I could feel the metal of his piercing. So cold in comparison to the heat leaking out of my core and the burning coming off of Quinton's cock that I couldn’t help but whimper as soon as it touched my flesh, and I swear my nipples got even harder than they were before. Which was pretty much impossible, but I swear it happened.

  "Hold on to me," Quinton demanded harshly.

  I didn't know why, but every time he bossed me around when his dick was involved, I immediately moved to comply. This time was no different. My arms wrapped around his shoulders. One of my hands trailed up his wet skin and my fingers sunk into the hair at the back of his head, fisting there.

  One of Quinton's hands released my ass. He moved around and shoved his hand between our bodies to where we were connected. He fisted his dick in his hand and lined it up with my entrance. The tip caught and his hand went back to my ass.

  Instead of thrusting his hips and therefore his cock into me, he squeezed my ass and pulled me down onto his cock. He sank in all the way and I was stretched deliciously, completely impaled on his cock, and for a second I was unable to move.

  "Quinton," I whispered breathily.

  At the sound of my voice, his eyes snapped up from where we were connected to my eyes.

  The flame was there in each of them, close to the surface and burning so bright it was almost blinding, and I had to blink against the sight of it. When I opened my eyes again, I expected them to be hidden again, but they weren’t. They were on display and his eyeballs practically glowed in his face.

  He looked positively possessed.

  The look in his eyes spurred me on and I yanked on his hair, dragging his mouth down to mine. We weren't kissing, our lips didn’t actually touch, but we were breathing in the same air and if his tongue came out to play right now, it would definitely brush up obscenely against mine.

  "Fuck me," I whispered in that same breathy voice I used just moments before.

  Quinton's eyes flared and his hands on my ass squeezed to the point of pain. I didn't mind. In fact, I kind of liked it.

  Quinton's mouth crashed down on mine, and he kissed me with so much possession he stole the breath right out of my lungs. His mouth didn’t leave mine as he used his grip on my ass to move me on his cock while he proceeded to give me exactly what I asked for, and fucked me harder than he ever had before.

  In the end, it was Quinton who shampooed and conditioned my hair one handed while holding me up with one arm wrapped around my ribs. His fingers were gentle in my hair and he very sweetly stopped every few seconds to kiss the sensitive skin right below my ear, or nip at my lobe and suck it along with one or two of my earrings into his mouth.

  In the end, it was also Quinton who reached around me to shut off the shower.

  As soon as the water stopped spraying down on me, I immediately began to shiver despite the immense heat inside the large shower stall. I had been in here a whole lot longer than I had planned on being in here for.

  Quinton dragged me to the glass door and pulled it open. He reached around and grabbed hold of the super-sized, fluffy yellow bath towel hanging on the rack there. The only towel in sight. And it was my towel. I had a shit load of them stacked up neatly in the closet in here. No one ever used them besides me, and since this was a bathroom I shared solely with Dash who had a matching stack of towels right beside mine, but orange in color instead of yellow, there was no need for me to have to share with anyone. Now it looked like I might need to share, but I could always give him an orange one instead of a yellow one.

  Though, after what we just shared together, it didn't seem like the right thing to do at the time.

  "Hold up your arms."

  Automatically, still in the land where Quinton's cock was out and I did exactly what he commanded and I raised my arms up over my head obediently. Quinton quickly wrapped the yellow towel around my body and tucked a top corner in tightly just above my left breast, securing it in place.

  I lowered my arms and wrapped them around myself, clutching the towel to my chest. My hair hung down my back in a wet mass that immediately soaked through the towel there.

  Quinton placed his hand on the small of my back and he pushed me forward and out of the shower. We stepped out and he carefully shut the door behind us, standing there buck ass naked and dripping water all over the floor.

  "Do you want me to get you a towel?" I asked him quietly. For some reason, it seemed wrong to disturb the peaceful quiet we had going on between us. Especially after his earlier anger.

  "No, baby," he murmured back just as quietly. He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine in a soft, sweet, chaste kiss. He moved back and stepped away from me. "I'll get my own towel, but thank you. It's not your job to wait on me and it never will be. You're sweet to offer though."

  I smiled at his back as he walked away from me. My eyes roamed down his back to his lovely round ass, blatantly ignoring the half moon indents my nails had left in the backs of his shoulder blades. Pink hit my cheeks
all the same at the sight of those marks I'd left in his skin. They looked painful, and I bit my lip remorsefully, hoping I had not caused him too much pain.

  Not even the sight of his luscious ass cheeks shifting with every step he took toward the closet could make me smile.

  Quinton opened the closet and pulled out one of my yellow, fluffy towels. Go figure. He wrapped the fluffy goodness around his waist and tucked it in exactly how I had tucked my towel in to hold it in place. Only his went around his waist and mine had gone around my chest.

  The look on his face was content, happy even, and there was little doubt in my mind that he'd definitely worked the rage out of his system and I'd more than helped him get to this happy place.

  It was an incredibly good look on him, and I hated to do it, but figured now might actually be the best time because of the mood I'd helped put him in.

  "Quinton," I called out hesitantly in an unsure voice. His head snapped up and he pinned me in place with his eyes alone. I swallowed thickly before stating plainly, "We need to talk, and I don't think I can put it off any longer. We're already on borrowed time, and I don't think we can afford to waste any more of it."

  "Shit," he swore harshly under his breath. "We'll get rid of your boys, I'll make you something to eat because I know my nephew did not feed you breakfast before bringing you home, and then we can talk after you're good and full. Does that work for you?"

  No. Absolutely not, because of the content we would be discussing and the reaction I knew I would get out of him. Then again, he was right and I was starving because his nephew had not fed me this morning, and even though Quinton had done all the work, those orgasms he'd given me had definitely felt like it had been me who'd earned him making me breakfast or lunch or whatever the fuck meal we were on now.