His Light in the Dark

by L. A. Fiore

  “You’re right, I do. I don’t have the time or patience and though Dyl’s been handling it, we need someone dedicated to it.”

  “And that’s me. I may be leaving for a while, but I’ll be back. You’re stuck with me, Dad. When you’re ninety, I’ll be the one feeding you pudding.”

  “When I’m ninety, I’ll still be working on cars.”

  He probably would.

  His arm tightened around my shoulders. “But I like the thought of you working with me. If you still want that after you graduate, we’ll talk.”

  “I will. Together forever, right.”

  “Fucking straight.”

  During dinner, a man approached our table. He looked hesitant; as if he wasn’t sure he should stop and say hi. He looked familiar; recognition didn’t take long as I remembered him from the baseball field. Dressed in his cop blues, I stared having never really seen a cop up-close. It wasn’t polite, but I imagined he got that reaction a lot.

  “Hey, Mace.”

  Dad looked up and grinned. “Bruce.” Dad turned his focus on me. “You remember him from practice. Bruce, my sister Dee and Dylan.”

  “Nice to see you again; Dee, Dylan.” Bruce’s eyes lingered a beat longer on me. “Congratulations, Mia.”

  “Thanks.” I gestured to his getup. “You know, I’ve never met a cop before.”

  His smile came in a flash. “That’s probably a good thing.”

  Dad chuckled in reply. “You can say that again. Are you off shift?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you eaten?” I asked because he was a civil servant who had just spent the day keeping our neighborhood safe, the man needed to eat.

  “Not yet.”

  Dad looked at me, asking without words, and I smiled before he turned his focus back on Bruce. “Why don’t you pull up a chair?”

  He hesitated, clearly not wishing to intrude, so I seconded Dad’s offer. “Yeah, join us.”

  “I’d like that, thanks.”

  Once settled, I asked him, “I'm curious. What's the worst call you’ve been called to?”

  Bruce’s eyes sparkled. “Well, there was this one time…”

  That night when I returned home, there was a small brown bag on my bed and written in permanent marker on the bag: Congrats Ugly Duck. Inside was a university tee. So he had stopped by to see me earlier and the thought of that turned my crush on Cole into something deeper.

  It had been three months since I started university and I loved it. The work was much harder than I expected, but I thrived on the challenge. Being away from Dad was hard, but we talked a lot on the phone so that helped ease my homesickness.

  While walking back to my dorm after an early dinner, I saw Cole coming from the direction of campus. It was the way he moved, almost staggering, that clued me in that he was seriously drunk. Hurrying across the street to him, he looked up as I approached. His eyes, usually so focused and frosty, were slightly wild.

  “Mia.”

  “Cole. What are you doing here?”

  “Came to see you.”

  Even drunk, his words left me reeling.

  “You’re drunk.”

  “A little.”

  “Come back to my dorm.”

  He smiled, not a grin but a full out smile, which nearly brought me to my knees because the sight was so beautiful. “Are boys allowed?”

  He was teasing me. It was a damn shame he was drunk or I’d be flying high right now. “You’re too drunk to go anywhere else.”

  “Not that drunk.”

  I wrapped my arm around his waist; his heavy muscled arm came around my shoulders. “You taking me to your room, Mia?”

  It was the way he said it that had heat pooling between my legs. “You need to sleep it off.”

  I had a single so I didn’t have to worry about my roommate kicking up a fuss. Once we reached my room, Cole glanced at my bed before turning his hot stare on me. “You’ve only one bed.”

  “We can share.” Instead of ecstasy, I felt disappointed because I was finally getting Cole in my bed and the man was about to pass out. Which begged the question, why was he drunk? In all the years that I had known him, I had never seen him out of control.

  “Are you okay?”

  His focus shifted to his feet. “Tough day, always a tough day but some years are harder.”

  It was then that I realized he was talking about the day his father died, more specifically that he was the one who had beaten his father to death. My heart ached for Cole even as an ugly emotion moved through me thinking about his vile father. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. You think I’m good. You couldn’t be more wrong, but I like that someone like you sees me as something more than the trash I am.”

  Outraged and pissed that he thought of himself like that, I practically bellowed at him. “You’re not trash, Cole. You’re perfect.”

  “Not perfect, no where near perfect.”

  “You’re perfect to me.”

  His expression turned heated again and I so wanted to hug him, to offer him something more than words, but I hesitated because Cole wasn’t really acting like Cole and when the alcohol wore off I didn’t want to give him a reason to avoid me.

  “Lie down. I’ll get you some water.”

  He didn’t need to be asked again. He kicked off his sneakers and climbed into my bed and by the time I returned with his water, he was fast asleep. Even though it was still light outside, I changed into my pajamas and climbed into bed with him. He may not remember this night, but I sure as hell would.

  I woke when I felt heat burning across my stomach. Turning into the touch that left me aching in a way I had never felt before, my eyes opened to find Cole watching me. His hand moved over my stomach, his touch whisper-soft. The wildness was gone from his eyes, but there was something else about him that stirred my blood

  “How are you feeling?” Lust pitched my voice deeper.

  “Better.”

  I almost didn’t ask, but I needed to know. “Did you really come here to see me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer, well not with words. His hand moved up my ribs, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast and I had to bite down on the moan.

  “I shouldn’t be here.” And yet despite his actual words, I knew he wanted to be here.

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  “We can’t do this.”

  “Why not?” I was nineteen; I had wanted him for years, why the hell not?

  “Your dad is like my dad.”

  “I love my dad, but he has nothing to do with this.”

  His hand stilled, as if he was contemplating climbing from the bed and walking out of my life. Instead of leaving, he cupped my breast as his thumb brushed over my nipple. My eyes closed on the moan this time as I arched into him offering him more. He responded by lifting my shirt over my head and moving to pin me under him. Never had anyone looked at me like Cole did in that moment; possession, desire, want all combined leaving me boneless with my need for him.

  “So fucking beautiful.”

  Basking on those words, his mouth descended to claim mine. Nothing could have prepared me for the electric jolt that seared me when his lips moved against mine, when his tongue dipped into my mouth to taste me. His hands moved over my body and my hips lifted seeking relief. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled him closer, as hungry for him as he was for me. I felt him, hard and thick, against my stomach and I wanted him inside me; I wanted my first time to be him. His hand moved to between our bodies, slipping under my pajamas to slide into the wet heat his touch had stirred. When he fingered my clit, my hips jerked off the mattress at the sensation that rocked me from head to toe. His mouth pulled from mine moments before I felt the cool air on my bare legs as my pajama bottoms and panties followed my shirt. His hungry gaze fixed on the area he just exposed and when he lowered himself down my body and took me into his mouth, my eyes rolled into the
back of my head.

  “Cole, oh God Cole.” Chanting those words, because nothing had ever felt so incredible, his tongue, teeth and lips brought me to the brink of orgasm countless times only to back off making the ache for him unbearable. I didn’t want to come in his mouth; I wanted him inside me when I came.

  “Please Cole.”

  If he had any hesitation about what we were doing, it seemed to have fled. He moved from me and yanked his shirt over his head, followed by his jeans. I could only stare at the beauty of his body; the perfectly defined muscles, the wide shoulders, the tribal tats that graced his upper arms and the line of hair that led down to his erection.

  My focus shifted up to his face to find him watching me. He knelt on the bed, between my legs, his fingers moving to between my legs to play again. My hands moved over him, down his chest, over his stomach, lower to wrap around his cock, pulling him closer as I guided him to where I wanted him.

  I felt him pushing against me, he bent forward and pressed his lips to mine, but it wasn’t the same hungry kiss that started this. It was poignant and perfect, as if this was something he had waited a long time for too. Just when he was about to make me his, my phone rang, “Short Change Hero” by The Heavy, the ringtone for my dad. He was calling to say good night. Cole’s demeanor changed instantly.

  “Shit.” He moved, pulling away from me, both literally and figuratively.

  “Don’t Cole.”

  “We can’t do this.”

  “We already are.”

  “Fuck, I should never have come here.” He stood there, naked, staring down at me but I didn’t know what was going on in his head. He looked conflicted and hungry. And then he moved, draping my legs over his shoulders and burying his mouth between my thighs. He had me coming in a matter of minutes before he moved again. Grabbing his jeans from the floor, he pulled them on before reaching for his shirt.

  My body pulsed from the orgasm he had just given me, my first real orgasm, and he was dressing to leave. “Please don’t go.”

  “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Why?”

  His calloused fingers touched my face. “I don’t belong here.”

  “I want you here.” And though he wasn’t unaffected by my words, I also knew he wasn’t staying, so I pleaded because if this was the only time I’d be with him, I wanted him to remember it too. “Let me, please let me give to you what you did me.”

  I had caught him off guard with that comment because for the first time ever, I saw that he wanted me as badly as I wanted him. Bolstered by that look, I reached for him. As soon as my hand wrapped around his cock, he closed his eyes as the sexiest growl rumbled low in his throat. Wrapping my hair around his hand, he held me close as I worked to lower his jeans, grabbing his ass to pull him closer. His other hand joined mine, linking our fingers as we worked him, sliding up that hard shaft and down again. Right before he came, his hand moved lower to work the sac between his legs. He came on my stomach and chest, the sensation caused my own body to spasm in response. Heavy-lidded eyes met my gaze before his attention moved to my stomach. Swirling his finger through the evidence of his orgasm, he rubbed it into my skin, circling it around my nipple—like he was marking me—before he lowered his head and touched his tongue to the spot he had just marked. I had never felt anything so incredible until he pulled that aching peak deep into his mouth, tasting himself and me. A startled and wanton cried escaped my lips when he bit me, right on the inside curve of my left breast, really marking me. He pulled from me and for a moment I thought he’d strip down and get back in bed, but when the heat left his eyes, I knew he was leaving.

  “Please don’t go.”

  “It’s just a crush, what you feel for me. You’ll out grow it.”

  “And your feelings for me?”

  “I’ve no right to feel them.”

  “But you do feel something.”

  He didn’t answer with words, but the kiss he gave me before he left was the sweetest and the most heartbreaking because I knew he wasn’t just saying good night, but good-bye. I didn’t move from my bed, still kneeling on the edge, naked and covered in him, when he turned from me and walked out.

  I hadn’t showered; Mia’s scent was all over me. The pounding the carburetor took was brutal but every time my thoughts drifted to last night, which was nonstop, I felt split down the center about what fueled my rage. Why had I gone to Mia’s, why had I instigated something I knew I had no business starting? Especially with the shit going on with Stein and Donny, a link to me was a dangerous one. She was away from it, protected, and then I go and invite that trouble right into her dorm. And why? Because I wanted her, fucking craved her like a junkie needing a fix and there was the dilemma. Wanting something I had no business wanting during a time when it was dangerous to show weakness and she was definitely my weakness.

  “Cole?”

  Mia. Turning to her, seeing the hesitation and worse the fear of rejection, felt like a dagger to the heart.

  “Do you have a minute?”

  “Yeah.” Grabbing my towel, I wiped my hands as I followed her outside. Visions of her from last night slammed around in my head making it really fucking hard to walk.

  In true Mia fashion, she didn’t pull her punch. “What happened last night?”

  Staring into those whiskey-colored eyes, I knew with the next words I said I’d hate myself for a long time to come, knew she would too. “A mistake.”

  She reacted as if I’d slapped her. I would have taken endless beatings from my dad to remove that look from her face. “You really believe that?”

  “I believe you’ve got the whole world ahead of you, looking back when you should be looking forward is a mistake.”

  “I want you.”

  God, she was killing me. “You’re nineteen you’re not sure what you want. I’m convenient and familiar, don’t confuse that with anything more.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. My feelings stem from years of knowing you, and growing with you. Convenient and familiar, seriously? You play Jekyll and Hyde better than Jekyll and Hyde.”

  “Mia.”

  “You want me to move on, fine. I won’t beg for your affection, but don’t look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t feel what I felt. That you didn’t ache the way I did. You’re still on me; I didn’t shower, I don’t want to lose your scent; I want it like a brand. Tell me you don’t feel the same and I’ll move on and never look back.”

  It was a lie, a small lie, and one that would have accomplished my end goal of pushing her away from me and into whatever future awaited her and yet, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stare into the face of the only woman I would ever love and tell her I didn’t feel the rightness of us. “I feel it.”

  Her reaction was not one I was prepared for, she smiled: so full and bright it nearly blinded me. “I’ll move on for now, for the next four years I’ll focus on my future, but, you and me Cole, we are far from over.”

  She walked away this time, but she skipped as she did so and fuck me if it didn’t make me grin.

  Mace and I walked into the little dive bar off Fairmount Avenue; it took a minute for my eyes to adjust, the place was dark—likely to hide the dirt and cockroaches. We’d only just entered when a man approached us. Average height and build, pretty ordinary in all ways but intelligence looked out of eyes I bet missed nothing.

  “Mace and Cole?”

  “Yeah.” Mace seemed as apprehensive about this as me but the pressure Mace felt from Stein wasn’t the only pressure being applied in the neighborhood. Like Mace had said, the shit had to stop.

  “Terence Clark. Thanks for meeting me.”

  He gestured to a table in a dark corner and wasted no time getting to the point of the meeting. “What’s your interest in Carter Stein?”

  “We’ve no interest in Carter Stein.” Mace leaned back in his chair like he hadn’t a care in the world, deceiving since he was strung tight.

  “We can either be stra
ight up about this or waste our fucking time with bullshit. What’s it going to be?”

  Mace countered, his body language suggesting he could just as easily get up and walk out. “You invited us here, why don’t you start with who you are and what the hell you want?”

  Approval met that answer, if Terence’s grin was any indication. “I work for the PPD and we’ve been investigating Carter Stein. Can’t help but notice how many times in our investigation you two pop up. So again I have to ask, what’s the interest?”

  “It’s not Carter—”

  Terence shifted, impatience replacing approval.

  Mace didn’t even flinch. “If you’ll let me explain, an acquaintance asked me to look around for a friend that seems to have gone missing.”

  “Why not go to the police?”

  “The friend and the one missing are both prostitutes, she wasn’t real convinced the PPD would put their best foot forward.”

  “That’s fair.”

  Knew Mace was as impressed as me that the man would actually admit it.

  “Have you found the missing person?”

  “No.”

  “I understand you have some photos.” Terence was fishing.

  “Took some shots on my phone in the places the woman conducted her business, since the johns seem to stay to the places that are familiar. Not really interested in approaching the johns, since if something did go down I’ve no interest in finding myself chatting up a potential murderer. I’ve been showing the pics to the missing woman’s friends to narrow down which of her regulars saw her last, but so far nothing.”

  “Any chance I could see those pictures?”

  “Why?”

  “I think you may have captured more in those photos than you think. You know Donny?” Terence’s eyes sliced to me.

  “Worked for him for a time until I realized how much of a sadistic fuck he is.”

  “He is, probably even more than you know. There’s been talk that he’s taking a more active role in the Carter Stein inner circle. To my way of thinking, that’s not a good thing, not knowing what I do about him. We recently had to squash a story about corruption, an anonymous source claimed to have pictures to prove the corruption. I don’t suppose you’d be that anonymous source?”