The Reaper

by RuNyx

  Breathing hard, he broke their kiss, leaning his forehead against her. She could feel her heart stuttering, trying to calm down. It was over within minutes.

  “I’ve never come in my pants before,” he murmured in the space between them.

  Morana felt a chuckle leave her, as it turned into a full-blown laugh. “Me neither.”

  “I’m not sure my lack of control around you in a good thing,” he stated, untangling her legs from around him. “I need a shower.”

  Morana straightened her glasses and pulled her clothes back into a semblance of decorum, as he turned towards the stairs and climbed up quickly. Her eyebrows hit her hairline as she saw the speed at which he was running away, sighing because he needed to learn to process shit. She already had her hands full.

  But well, he’d given her two pretty good orgasms in one day so she could be nice.

  Shaking her head, she grabbed her bag of toiletries and followed him up at a more leisurely pace, pretty sure he wasn’t going to be expecting what she was going to do. Entering the bedroom, she quickly stripped and headed to the bathroom as the sound of the running water filled the space.

  Opening the door, she stepped inside and saw him in the glass cubicle, bare to the eyes and vulnerable. It wasn’t lost on her that this was exactly how he’d found her back in the penthouse. But she didn’t go to him. Instead, she wrapped a towel around herself and opened her bag.

  “You realize we’re in a relationship, right?” she called out casually, enjoying the view in the mirror from her spot.

  She saw him look at her as he ran his hands over his shoulders. He didn’t say anything. She continued.

  “Relationships work with communication,” she went on. “I don’t mind that you’re not the most talkative guy in the room, but it means that when shit gets in your head, you tell me about it so we can have discussions like adults rather than retreat and deal with it on your own.”

  He kept looking at her through the glass, his eyes intensely focused on her. She knew she had his attention. Taking out her face wash, scrub, and a divine mask she’d found thanks to a link Amara had sent her a few days ago, Morana put down her glasses and tied up her hair in a bun.

  “I know you’re not used to explaining your thoughts to anyone,” she went on, slowly wetting her face. “And I’m not asking you to. What I ask is for you to share whatever you’re feeling with me. Be honest with me. I’ll be the same. That’s how relationships work.”

  “From what I know, you don’t have a lot of experience in relationships,” he said over the water, his tone slightly defensive. “In fact, your one ex was a thief who sold you out.”

  Morana locked eyes with him in the mirror. “And I let him die, didn’t I?”

  Point made.

  She saw his lips curve slightly and slathered her face with the berry-scented wash, cleaning her skin. “Point is, you know I’m in this for the long haul. I know you’re in it for the long haul. Let’s just make the long haul easier for both of us, what do you say, hmm?”

  She saw him turn off the shower and wrap a towel around his hips. Washing her face quickly, she exfoliated, his eyes locked with hers on the mirror.

  “And if I don’t?” he asked quietly. Morana felt her heart pound slightly but she kept calm, slowly opening the jar for her mask and applying it with her fingers to her face.

  “You will,” she stated plainly, seeing his eyes flare in the reflection. “Because deep down, Mr. Predator, you’re a good man who has been waiting all his life to be able to share with someone. You just need to trust in this connection, trust in me enough.”

  She saw him take in her muddy blue face, his lips tipping up on the sides. Leaning forward, he pressed a soft kiss on her head, their eyes locked in the reflection, and said the two words that made her heart melt like the goo on her face.

  “I’ll try.”

  Sharing her space with a man was an odd kind of experience. For all her bravado about ‘this-is-how-relationships-work’, Morana was pretty sure she sucked at it. Well, not that the man in question had ever indicated that but who knew. He kept a lot of shit to himself anyways.

  Morana saw him move around the kitchen preparing breakfast like he did every morning for the last few days that she’d been there, sitting on the stool that she’d claimed on the island, sipping her fresh orange juice. His back under the blue t-shirt moved as he sliced through some fruit.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  Something was off. She didn’t know what it was, couldn’t put her finger on it, but she just knew. Since she had moved in five days ago, she had settled in and he was trying to settle with her. They slept beside each other. Occasionally, he had nightmares but not often. They woke up wrapped around each other. But for over five days, the man hadn’t made a move on her.

  At first, she’d thought that was because he was giving her space but realized that was stupid. Tristan Caine had bulldozed into her space, there was no way he was being a gentleman now. He was taking his own space but he wasn’t distant. He cooked for her, talked to her slowly about his day, and asked about hers, sent her at least a text throughout the day. She now had her stuff in his, now theirs, closet and cupboards. The brand of chips she munched on when working occupied the kitchen drawers. He knew her entire limited skincare routine, for goodness’ sake. They were the epitome of domesticity.

  But he hadn’t touched her or initiated any kind of intimacy since that day. And it bugged her. She missed the spectacular orgasms but more than that, she missed the fire he ignited in her senses.

  And even though he hadn’t made a move on her, he’d been marking his territory. Like just two days ago, she’d been in front of the lake with Vin in her new training clothes, letting the other man teach her how to get out of an attack from the back, when Tristan had walked into the clearing and stood there, his eyes blazing, watching every way the other man had touched her clinically.

  And though he hadn’t objected to her training, he had been there the entire session, letting the other man silently know that one wrong move would have him drowning painfully in the lake. Morana kind of wished he had taken over training her himself, but she knew why he hadn’t – because then they wouldn’t train.

  Honestly though, it was too much to expect a man like him to adjust that quickly to not only sharing his space but sharing his space with her. She was his Achilles’ heel. She was his kryptonite. And just because he didn’t want to kill her anymore didn’t mean everything was hunky-dory between them. To a guy who had never lived with anyone, he was actually doing better than one could hope. He was just getting used to living with her and there was still a chasm between them Morana didn’t know how to breach.

  They’d get there. One thing she could definitely say about living so far away from the mansion – no bumping into other people. Morana hadn’t seen Chiara or any of the Maroni family except Dante in days and she was happy for it. Zia came every three days to the cottage with all the groceries and chatting with her was one of the highlights of Morana’s day.

  Hopping down from the stool, Morana went to butter up the toast beside her man, marveling for a moment at how small she felt barefoot next to him.

  “Is there something you’d like to tell me, caveman?” Morana asked, calling him by the nickname she’d taken to using on him, one she knew he really liked in that lizard part of his brain.

  He glanced at her. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Hmm,” Morana huffed, wondering how to come out and ask him straight up why he hadn’t wham-bammed her.

  Before she could figure out how to voice that thought, a knock sounded on the door and Dante walked in, dressed perfectly as always in a sharp dark suit and tie, his dark hair slicked back away from his gorgeous face.

  “I was half afraid I’d have to bleach out my eyes if I walked in,” he quipped, unbuttoning his suit jacket and taking a seat on the stool she’d just vacated.

  “Shouldn’t have walked in then,” Tristan quipped from beside
her.

  Morana gave him a look that he returned innocently and turned to smile at Dante. “Oh, there’s nothing eye-bleach-worthy going on here. Nope.”

  “Oh?” Dante asked, his eyebrows climbing his forehead as he looked at Tristan for a second before settling his brown eyes on her, a grin on his face. Morana felt herself flush. It had been happening more often lately, her brain-to-mouth filter slipping. She didn’t understand why.

  “Any leads on the Syndicate?” Morana changed the topic without any subtlety, asking the question she was pretty sure she already knew the answer to. Since her meeting with the grave mystery guy, she and the boys had been working relentlessly to unearth some kind of evidence about whatever this Syndicate was, and surprisingly had found nothing. Not even Dante and Tristan, with all their shady connections, could find anything or anyone who had even heard of it. The ghost-group or organization, whatever it was, was good.

  “Actually, there is something,” Dante said, surprising her.

  Morana held up a mug in silent question and Dante shook his head. Heartbeats fast, she settled in opposite him and felt Tristan come to stand behind her, his hand on her waist as he considered Dante. “Tell me.”

  “I have an informant,” Dante directed his eyes at Tristan before looking back at her. “The assassin, who tried to kill you, if his information is correct, was hired by this Syndicate group. He has another lead and wants to meet tonight somewhere public. I’ve told him to come to one of our clubs.”

  The voice of whiskey and sin came from behind her. “I’m coming with you.”

  Dante nodded. “I want you both to come actually.”

  Morana frowned. “Not that I mind, but why?”

  “Because,” Dante explained, “I can’t be sure someone isn’t keeping an eye on us. If they are, I want them to see nothing but us taking you out for a night in the city. Who we meet there, we control. You and Tristan can actually have fun while I get the meeting done.”

  Morana turned her neck and looked up at the man behind her. “I think at this point in our relationship, you should know I don’t like wearing heels.”

  She got a flash of dimples.

  Somehow, she still hadn’t seen his tattoos.

  She didn’t know how he’d done it, given she saw him shower and slept beside him, but one way or another, his tattoos were still a mystery to her. Promising herself to solve them soon, Morana checked out the hotness that was Tristan Caine in dark jeans and black Henley, the sleeves pushed up his muscular forearms, bunching in a way that was making her neglected core pulse with every heartbeat. She should probably just masturbate at this point and make him watch. Now, that was a good plan.

  She sat at the back as the two men sat at the front of Dante’s Range Rover, the vehicle humming pleasantly as they zipped down the hill towards the city, another car following them.

  Over the last few days, Lorenzo Maroni had been absent at dinner but she knew he’d been at the mansion. She’d seen him often enough and sometimes, she caught him watching her with an odd look in his eyes – like he was privy to a secret she didn’t know. It gave her the creeps. Her father was absent as well. She was sure he knew where she was but she hadn’t heard a peep from him.

  Morana had video-called Amara in the evening while getting ready, to chat but also to touch base about Shadow Port and if everything seemed okay. Amara had mentioned something felt off, and Morana had to agree. The woman, her friend, seemed genuinely thrilled that she had moved in with Tristan. Morana had been tempted to discuss her relationship issues with her but didn’t know how to. It felt so new to her.

  That was when Tristan had told her they had to go. And gone they had.

  Dante, dressed as casually as his mob brother, broke through her thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about the man you met, Morana. I suspect who it can be but I’m not sure. If he is who I think he is, I think we can trust the intel he gave you.”

  “So the Syndicate exists?” Morana asked. “I’d honestly started to think we were chasing ghosts.”

  “Yes, I’m beginning to think a whole lot is happening here that we don’t know about.”

  “Then, it’s time we do.”

  Dante exchanged a fleeting look with Tristan that she caught. Not mentioning anything, Morana simply asked questions about the city and Dante answered her, Tristan unusually quiet, as they made their way to the club.

  In the old warehouse district just like in Shadow Port, the club was called Mayhem. Nice.

  Morana saw the neon sign from afar, a long queue outside the doors indicative of the good business. Dante parked in the lot and they got out, Tristan opening her door and offering his hand like the gentleman she didn’t know he could be. Wearing the heels she hated and a dark blue shimmery halter dress she loved, Morana took a hold of his hand and got out. In her heels, with her hair in a high ponytail, red lips, and her rectangular glasses, Morana looked good. She knew she looked good.

  But the way his eyes roved over her with that territorial possession? It made her feel good.

  Splaying a possessive hand on his arm, she walked with both the men into the club, the music suddenly pounding into her pulse. Each hard beat drifted off her heart, sinking into her blood, heating her system. She could see the dance floor full of gyrating bodies, the neon lights playing hide-and-seek with all the exposed flesh, a bar on the sidelined up with more people.

  Unlike her last time, she knew this time she would have a good time.

  Dante’s hand on her shoulder brought her attention back to him. He nodded to Tristan and smiled at her, before walking off to the back of the club for the meeting.

  A weird feeling in the pit of her stomach, Morana shook it off and turned to the man beside her, pointing to the restrooms. Tristan nodded, his eyes still on where Dante had gone, and she knew he was distracted. Leaving him to his brooding, Morana quickly escaped to the bathroom. After doing her business and fixing her lipstick, she headed out again into the crowd, trying to locate her man.

  Her eyes scanned over the crowd, only to come to a sudden halt at the bar. He sat there with a drink and a red-haired siren all over him.

  Morana stayed still, her heart drumming, observing what he would do, watching as the siren put her hand on his arm exactly where hers had been, and watching as he didn’t shake it off. She watched, the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach worsening, his face blank of all expression as the siren slithered against him.

  Fire infused her veins, filled her belly, sizzled her insides.

  She didn’t understand this emotion, never having dealt with it in her life. She didn’t understand how to react. Gripping her phone, unsure of whether to walk up there and punch the siren or walk off and cool down, Morana took in a deep breath, trying to clear the haze of red.

  As though sensing her gaze, his eyes came to her. He didn’t do anything, didn’t move, didn’t look away, just waited to see her reaction.

  And Morana got pissed.

  Spinning on her heels, Morana weaved through the crowd and headed straight for the doors on the side that was closest to her. Pushing open the latch, she stepped out in the empty alley between the club and a warehouse and shut the door behind her. The cool air was crisp in her nose as she inhaled a lungful of it, her hand shaking with her annoyance.

  She didn’t know what kind of a game he was playing but she wasn’t here for it. Fuck him and fuck him twice for trying to test her. She’d been nothing but open and emotionally unguarded. And she was pissed because he was being a hypocrite – daring to let another woman put his hands on him when he couldn’t stomach her meeting another man even platonically.

  The door opened behind her and the air changed.

  Morana started walking away, not even turning to acknowledge him.

  She felt his hand on her bare shoulder, turning her around. Shaking with her fury, she looked up at him, surprised to find his eyes amused.

  “Sheath your claws, wildcat,” he murmured softly.

  Mora
na growled, pushing him into the wall, glaring at him. “Don’t play these juvenile games with me, Tristan. I will cut you open and eat you alive.”

  He looked down at her, his eyes searching hers, a softness in his gaze. “There she is.”

  Morana frowned, not understanding. But she breathed deeply.

  “What was that?”

  “I just wanted to see something,” he explained.

  “What?”

  “If you burned as I burn with the need to claim you. That I wasn’t alone in the fire.”

  Convoluted as it was, the explanation calmed Morana a fraction. Insecurity, she could deal with that. She had to remind herself they were both new at this, him more so than her. Keeping her eyes on his, Morana pushed him into the wall and put her phone in his jacket.

  His brow furrowed at the action and Morana didn’t explain, sinking down to her knees on the rough ground and unbuttoning his jeans, doing something she’d been dying to do to him for days, putting across her message in a language he would understand, once and for all.

  “You wanted to know if I burn with you?” Morana asked, pushing down his jeans and taking out his semi-hard cock, looking up at him to find his attention rapt on her.

  She licked him at the tip, tasting his salty flavor, and stated. “That’s fucked up. You’re fucked up. But you’re mine.”

  He got harder and she licked him on the underside. “Every” lick “fucked up” lick “inch of you.”

  His hand fisted around her ponytail, holding her head as he pushed inside her mouth, her lips wrapping around him. She took him as far back as she could and pulled back, keeping her eyes on his, her hands on his strong thighs. He opened his mouth to say something, his blue eyes flaring in a way she’d never seen before, and she took him in her mouth again, hollowing her cheeks and applying the pressure she’d read worked wonders in magazines.

  His hips flexed, his hand tugging at her hair even as he still controlled how much she could take. “You keep looking at me like that and I’ll come under a fucking minute.”