I left the van and got into the SUV I’d driven there. I knew that I was going to watch Ember either way, but I felt a whole lot better knowing my sister and mother would be taken care of. Nix and his crew could’ve threatened them to control me. Instead, they’d earned my eternal loyalty. They were taking care of Rhy. Somehow, by existing and doing this thing, I was providing for them both.
Back in the present, the peacefulness of my moment with Ember washed over me. She didn’t know that we were moving to end this for her. And as I held her in the bedroom, I vowed to get her out alive. Get her back to Nix. Even if I didn’t make it.
I was doing the best I could to get her what she needed. And right now, she needed a little hugging. I was down for that. I’d report this whole thing to Nix next time I went to the store.
She seemed more trapped than ever. Before she slipped away, I put her face in my hands. I kissed her forehead, the top of her nose, and then her lips.
Ember seemed ready to crumble at my feet. She clearly thought she was fighting this battle alone. I needed the element of surprise.
Chapter 56
Ember
WALKING AWAY FROM A cuddly, understanding Lock sucked. But I didn’t want to get caught in a bedroom alone with him, no matter how much my soul wanted to stay there.
I was fortunate I’d kissed him back quickly and left the room, because Felix and Cosmo didn’t want to party anymore. They both wanted to go home, not even an hour after arriving.
I wasn’t sure what they had done while we were separated, but when we returned, they quickly made it back to their bedroom. Lock saluted me and swapped spots with Volt before trudging away to Felon’s house.
I went to my room and touched my brother’s jacket, the one he’d wrapped around my shoulder’s at Cosmo’s birthday party. Sometimes, when I reached down to the bottom of the closet, I would sniff it. It still held a hint of his cologne. And it made me feel homesick and happy at the same time. I had to make it sneaky though, because even though I knew the cameras were off, I was wary of dropping this cover I had that I was angry at Nix.
After a quick shower, I toweled off my hair, as the familiar moans began emanating from the guest room. Then the front door unlocked. I opened the bathroom door a crack and saw that Feybi’s men were entering the cottage.
I was stunned silent with panic. The bedroom doors didn’t lock, a feature I discovered soon after coming to this place. I assumed it was so I couldn’t deny Cosmo any conjugal visits, but as the guest bedroom door was flung open, I wished there had been a lock. Just anything to give Cosmo and Felix a few minutes to cover up. Olin Feybi’s rage and disbelief manifested in a noise that was a combination of a scream and a sob. I ran into the room; Cosmo and Felix were in a lovers’ embrace. Naked.
I covered my mouth with my hand as I watched Olin scream yet again like he was falling from a building. The side of his face that I could see was almost purple with fierce emotion. It clicked for me then. If Cosmo was killed, I would be, too. Or possibly used as bait against my brother. There’d be no reason to keep me alive.
The men with Feybi looked truly bewildered. I saw one toss his hands up. A solution, and possibly my only choice appeared in my mind’s eye. A solution. Or a death sentence.
I stripped down and stepped into the guest bedroom. A heartbeat before Olin started slapping his son, I stepped between Cosmo and Felix. The air hit my skin, as did the gaze of every man in the room. I touched Cosmo’s dick and Felix’s face at the same time.
“Let’s not get too carried away, Mr. Feybi. A girl’s got needs. And my fiancé was kind enough to indulge me.”
Cosmo and I looked at each other. He bent his head to give me a kiss. Felix reached around me to cup my breasts. I never felt so exposed, but I knew I had to do this. This was the only way to keep Cosmo alive. I’d seen Olin murder before, and I had no doubt he’d shoot his son if he knew the truth. Cosmo stepped into my kiss and slipped his hand between my legs.
They were covering me as best they could and making it seem like they were into the scene.
Olin teetered backwards. “Cosmo?”
I turned my face from Cosmo. “Have an open mind. People our age are all about pleasure.”
Lock came running up behind Olin, and horizontal wrinkles appeared on his forehead. I saw the betrayal in his face.
I could feel my throat closing up. This had been a huge risk. And I had to watch as the love of my life stumbled away from the scene in front of him. Cosmo twirled me so I was chest to chest with Felix and stormed toward the door.
He shouted at Olin, pushing him and his men out of the cottage and slamming the cottage door behind them. Felix was clutching me to his chest when Cosmo turned back to us.
We all took halting breaths, waiting to see what was next. Through the window, we could see Olin striding away from the cottage. Cosmo let out a sharp bark of laughter. He walked naked to the bar in the cottage and poured himself, Felix, and me tall glasses of bourbon.
Felix reached behind us and grabbed me a blanket from the back of the couch. He swung it around my shoulders. I walked over to the bar and grabbed a glass. The guys did the same. We all locked eyes. Something was changing right here, right now. I’d protected them both with my actions.
Cosmo held up his glass. “To Ember thinking on her feet.”
Felix tapped my glass and Cosmo’s before draining his. I managed a few gulps before coughing on the amber liquid. Looking up, I caught Felix and Cosmo trading a look of pure love.
I set my glass down and walked to the kitchen window. In the distance there was repetitive gunfire. Practice. Someone was practicing to kill. And I was positive about who it was. My Lock. I drained the glass. This place, where I was, it was hopeless. Depression crashed around me. I might never get out.
Chapter 57
Lock
I RAGED THROUGH THE night. There was no sleep, but there was exhaustion. The next morning, I got a text that Cosmo and Felix had to go investigate a boat, but Ember had asked that I not accompany them. The boat was supposed to be Ember’s wedding gift, maybe from them both. I was simmering. A slow burn. I knew what I’d seen last night. My girl was in a dick sandwich. I wanted to throw my shit everywhere. As the sun set, I’d emptied tons of clips behind Felon’s house.
Turned out, that rage and jealousy made me a much better shot. Felon kicked the empty shells at my feet.
“You got some anger, kid.”
I made sure the gun I just emptied was, in fact, empty before slamming the safety back.
I shrugged. “Don’t we all.”
“Heard from the guys what happened.” Felon reached into his pocket and held out a Tootsie Roll. “I’ll give you a freebie. If you want, I’ll handle the girl. No guilt for you.”
I turned my head so fast I damn near pulled a muscle. “No. Shit. Never.”
Felon gave me a flat smile. “You have your answer then.” He pocketed the candy.
“An answer for what?” I was still dealing with my shock at the “gift” Felon had offered me.
“There was a girl for me. Years ago. I’d do anything for her. Did everything for her.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “And when I caught her with my brother, I still took her back.”
I whistled a low tone. “Olin?”
He gave me a slow nod. “I’d do anything for her. She knew it. Turned up pregnant after a while.”
We were going deep, standing in spent bullets. I gave him the space to tell his tale.
“Olin was sure it was his. Told me that I was a sucker for her. Let me really have it, you know?” He bent and picked up a handful of brass. “But that baby? He was mine. I knew it. Didn’t have the evil in him like my brother did.”
“Cosmo?” This was some straight crazy shit.
“Yeah. But she went to Olin. I offered her what I had. This house. My heart. My protection.” He let the shells flow from one hand to the other. “I stay here for her now. Watch over him. He grew up to be a little jackass. Entitle
d shithead.”
I stared out at the cottage in the distance. Ember was moving from window to window. Restless.
“She killed herself. Ten years ago yesterday. Left me a note taped to this door. Blamed me for not saving her. Angry that I would watch him with her all these years.” He poured the metal into the bucket we had for that purpose.
“So, what’s the lesson?” I bent, grabbing up handfuls as well.
“I don’t have one. I did what I had to do. I was here if she had the courage to be with me. I was here if she didn’t. My son is better off inheriting the family business. I stay here for him now.” Felon and I finished cleaning up. I had a few minutes before I started my guard duty.
“Do you regret it?” It was a peek into his soul.
“Hell yeah. I shoulda taken her from here. I made every wrong choice. Now I kill people to keep Cosmo’s inheritance viable. What a waste.” Felon hit me with his regretful stare. “Feels like I’m watching history repeat itself here.”
I clapped him on the shoulder, giving him the thanks I had for sharing. Maybe I had to grab her up and run. Forget the dudes she was screwing. She was mine. And she made me happy. Or miserable. Or both. Either way, I had to go stand guard.
The walk to the cottage was shorter tonight, maybe because I was half-dreading what I would find. I swapped out with Volt. He didn’t say much to me. If I was trying to get in with the other guys, my friendship with Felon was preventing me. I was fine with that.
I rounded the side of the cottage, checking the perimeters. When I checked the window to make sure it was closed, I was met with a surprise.
Ember was leaning out of it, a glass balanced on the sill beside her. Her long, dark hair was cascading over one shoulder. Although the cottage was one story, the foundation gave her a good three feet above the ground. The lack of surprise on her face said she’d been expecting me.
She pinned me with all of her emotion.
Trapped. Scared. Fierce.
I thought of seeing her window at her dorm. And here we were. She folded her arms on the sill.
“I had to. What you saw. I had to do it.”
“Really? You had to get sandwiched between two dudes?” I wanted to run, but she was here so my feet refused to move.
She grabbed a glass that had been near her arm. She drained half of it like it was nothing. It was then I noticed how out of focus her eyes were. She’d been drinking a lot lately.
“I think I’m going to die here.” She dropped the glass outside and it rolled out from under the bush there.
“Nah. You don’t have to do that.” I stepped closer to the window, kicking the glass back under the shrub,
After regarding me for a beat, she started to move. She was wearing a T-shirt and not much else. She pushed herself up onto the sill and swung her legs around to the front.
She was swaying a bit. “If this was higher, I could just…slip off. Right?”
Her fingers danced over her knees. She pushed off the window and I stepped up through the foliage to catch her.
I wrapped one arm around her hips. I let her slide down me. Her shirt rode up.
This woman. She was pretty at a distance. But when close enough to kiss, Ember would melt any man’s brain. She touched my face. I turned toward her palm.
She whispered to me, “They’re gay. Felix and Cosmo. And his father was going to kill him. So I had to.”
I felt my eyebrows knit together. “What the fuck?”
She stepped backwards, out of my arms. I kept a hand on her hip so she wouldn’t fall into the bush. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Cosmo’s gay?” I wasn’t letting her get away that quickly. She looked over my shoulder and past me.
“Yeah. It seems obvious now.” She tipped her head up and closed her eyes. I felt her body relaxing into mine. Like being in my arms took tension away from her.
“What’s going on here, baby?” I was sorely tempted to toss her over my shoulder and heft her out of the entire compound. It was stupid. I knew the cottage’s cameras had been taken away, but there were guys on the perimeter with guns. They wouldn’t think twice about putting a bullet in me.
“I can’t. This weight is too much. Tell me to be braver.” Ember put her hands in her hair, messing it up.
“I dream of you every night. I think about you every day.” I wasn’t going to tell her what she wanted to hear. But I could tell her what I needed to say.
Her glassy eyes were unfocused. “That’s the opposite of what I need.” She turned and pointed to the window. “Get me back in there. Please.”
We were messy intruders. I gave her a boost, patting her ass. She reached down and yanked on my forearm. I pulled up on the sill and slid inside. This was her room.
No Cosmo. No Felix. Just us. The door was already closed.
Ember walked over to her bed and flopped backwards on it. She started laughing, and that’s when I knew she was at the edge of sanity.
Because this wasn’t funny. She was trapped in this house, with a fiancé she didn’t love. There were bridal magazines on the floor, still wrapped in the plastic packaging they were mailed in. I walked to her mirror and touched the Polaroids I’d sent her in our other life. The time before all the death. My heart swelled. She’d brought them here. Had them here. I moved close and sat next to her. The mattress dipped in the center.
“What did they tell you to keep you here?” I asked.
Her weight was shifted to me. I put my arm around her shoulders. Small. She was small against me.
She didn’t answer, but she ran her fingers along my face. “I’ve wanted you since we met.”
I felt the lust rise in me. With her it was always right there, but now it was an active fight I was losing. Maybe I would never forget this moment. Somehow, we weren’t kids anymore. There was a haunting in her face that etched the hole in my soul. We matched for how broken we’d become.
And I should’ve stopped myself, but I didn’t. I dipped my head lower to her lips. We were just a wish away from a kiss. Her diamond ring from another man danced in the moonlight, cutting a white sliver across her bedspread.
“Lock. Let’s take tonight. Maybe. Let’s just take it.” And then she moved her hips and pushed toward me. She closed the gap, and I could taste the explosion of her. Her lips. And then the tinge of the alcohol she’d swallowed.
This was more than lust. It was a rebirth of a girl who’d passed away weeks ago. I knew that her hair was brown now, but I could feel the colors emerging from her. Red, blue, and purple. She straddled my lap, and I had everything that I could hope for. She was so beautiful, writhing on me. And it was wrong. This moment was awful; the street-smart part of me trying to send alarms to my brain, but it was gone. I was all heart. All love. All sex. For her.
She went to her knees and kissed my mouth like it had done her wrong and she would punish it with kisses. And tongue. I ran my hands up the back of her thighs, running my fingers beneath her thong.
The noise she made was a sound I could die to. I guided her onto her back. There was too much here. I tried to memorize this version of her. Her messy brown hair, the white T-shirt pulled above her toned stomach. I pulled it up even higher. I ran my hands over her like I was using the moonlight to sculpt her from my dreams.
Ember reached for my hands, pulling them to her lips. She kissed my palms. “Make me forget that I’m here.”
I leaned over her and kissed her throat, letting my hand slip under her neck. She arched her back just enough for me to hold her. I brought my mouth from her neck back to her lips while pushing the fabric of her shirt up farther.
She was braless, and her breasts were spectacular, but that wasn’t surprising. She was made of diamonds and fire. For me.
I took a nipple into my mouth, thumbing the other one.
“Yes. Please.” And she ran her hands under my shirt, up my back, my spine under her fingertips. My skin ignited with every inch.
I let her go so I coul
d pull my shirt above my head, taking my gun out of the back of my pants and setting it on the nightstand.
I didn’t want it far away. If anyone tried to stop what was about to happen, I’d kill them.
After pulling her panties down her legs and casting them aside, I watched as she spread her legs for me. Ember pulled her shirt off and then lay back, waiting.
In her eyes there was a promise. And a threat even. I slid her by her hips lower on the bed. I kneeled in front of her, letting her be the offering on the altar that her bed had turned into.
She tipped her chin toward the ceiling, nipples taut. Exceptional. And we hadn’t even started. Kissing the inside of her thighs should’ve taken forever, but I needed to make sure she forgot where she was. I put my mouth on her.
With my lips, tongue, and fingers, I let her know how often I thought of doing this very thing to her. My dick ached for her. I’d be willing to screw it off and leave it here for her, because it would want to be here forever anyway.
She alternated between tossing her head around and digging her fingers into my hair and scalp. I felt her first orgasm clench around my fingers and I uttered a litany of horrible curses as I watched her lose control.
And like the first tip of the heroin needle, I was addicted, hooked on her. The scent of her. The feel of her against my fingers. The way her smoothness touched my forehead.
I had to have her. I needed to have her. There was a part of me that begged my mind to go slowly. To know that I can only have this first once.
But I was losing any battle I ever had about self-control. I pulled away from her and slid my pants and briefs over my hips. When she put her gaze on my dick, I felt my ears flare red with the intimacy of it.
Somehow, right now, this second was more revealing than anything in my life had ever been. When she was able to focus, a slow smile appeared on her face, and then she crooked her finger and pointed to her mouth. I’d have run through a lava wall to get there.
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