“I can stay in you forever,” he whispers harshly against my ear just before his body stiffens and I feel his length throb, pulsing deep inside of me as release takes over him. He groans against my neck as we share ecstasy in its purest, most divine form.
I fall into a state where mental and physical exhaustion makes me feel like I’m floating. Bliss is the sensation taking over me when my bones start to feel like they’re melting. It’s in the way he holds me so tightly against his sweat-stained body. We’re tangled up in each other, lower limbs intertwined—I’m practically his blanket. His arm wraps around my waist while he holds my head to his chest with the other. So good. So, so good. With his fingers slowly raking through my hair, I listen to the strong and steady lullaby that is his beating heart. I let it guide me to sleep and realize with powerful clarity that this is the only time in my life I’ve ever felt truly safe.
***
Maddox
That motherfucking cop deserves the worse sort of death. He and the fucker who had a hand in giving me life have a special place in hell waiting for them. Though I doubt my sperm donor isn’t already fucking burning to a crisp. If I could make a deal with the Devil himself, it would be for me to have a hand in their eternal suffering. Every single word of her confession had been like a fire poker searing slowly down my heart. I’m not accustomed to caring this much about someone’s pain, to truly feel and know exactly the sort of anguish buried so deep inside her that I could taste it. There’s only the smallest bit of difference in our experiences, but she’s dealing with her own monster. With a coward who gets off on preying on the innocent. And with all the fucked-up shit I went through, at least I can say my predator is six feet under, but Aylee is still living with hers. I tighten my hold on her to the point where her small whimper is the only thing that pushes me to ease up. Every time it hits me that I have to let her return to that place, with that fucking pedophile, I want to jump in my truck, ride out to her house, and find the motherfucker and hammer his face into the ground.
My arms tighten around her again as it hits me that beneath the blinding anger there’s the very real and very dark pit of fear sitting at the base of my chest. It’s a fear that something might happen to her and I won’t be there in time to stop it. It’s the fear of disappointing her. The fear of hurting her. The fear of not being enough for her.
I’ve never noticed this part of myself before. But I know it came the day she rode her bike to my house and it’s only gotten worse because now she’s become this permanent thing inside my heart. She’s living there now and my heart isn’t much but it’s the only home I can give her. It’s in her beautiful, delicate hands that I put the ruins of my heart. I’m wondering what she’ll think of me if I tell her I’m going to lock her in this apartment and never let her out of my sight. She’ll probably think I’ve lost my shit but I can’t stomach her being hurt ever again.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
What the fuck? The blissful silence is gone. Three hard-fisted knocks on the front door of my apartment startles the fuck out of me and scares Aylee awake. I hate that we’re interrupted and hate more seeing the fear in her eyes.
“Who is it?” she asks softly trying to sit up, but I don’t let her.
Keeping my arm around her slim waist, I answer just as quietly, “Don’t know. Don’t care.” I cup a hand around her nape and kiss her head. “Go back to sleep.”
I know it’s not Dro because he always has his set of keys on him. I’m not expecting company. Which means whoever the fuck is at the door is either going to stay there or come back later because 1) I’m comfortable. Aylee’s naked body pressed up against mine is a goddamn luxury I’m not about to give up. And 2) If you show up at my place without a phone call or a text it’s pretty much a guarantee your ass is staying outside.
So seeing as both scenarios are unlikely to happen, I ignore the knocks and get back to soaking up every second I have with her.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
The knocks are forceful this time, louder, and followed by, “Yo, Max, open the fucking door, man!” It’s only the sound of Willkie’s urgent voice that finally gets me to my feet. Aylee sits up, pulling the blanket to cover her nudity. I grin when she meets my gaze and ducks her head to hide the flush staining her cheeks. That’s definitely my second favorite reaction of hers. The first would have to be the way her tongue always darts out to nervously run across her bottom lip.
Putting on my briefs and jeans, I lean down and take hold of her chin, “Lick your lips.”
“Max…”
I grin, thumbing at her lip, “You should call me that more often. I like the way it sounds coming from your mouth. Now,” my eyes trail down her button nose and land on her plump pout. “Lick. Your. Lips.”
My dick throbs when she slips her tongue out to lick her bottom lip and it strokes along my thumb. She pulls it between her lips, and the heat from her mouth and the erotic slide of her tongue has me on her in a flash. I take her face between my hands, mold my mouth to hers, and taste the sweetness of her mouth. I’m ready to be inside her heat again when the loud call of, “MADDOX!” brings me back to the goddamn cock-blocker, Willkie.
“I’m coming back and we’re continuing this.” With one last kiss, I reluctantly turn my back to her to answer the door. Piece of shit better have a good reason for why he’s at my place right now.
“Yeah, yeah, hold the fuck up,” I grumble when he knocks again.
Opening the door, I’m ready to ask him what the fuck is up when he barges past me. “Dro got taken in, man. His garage got raided, it’s swarming with cops. I wasn’t there but Baz was. He called me half an hour ago, said shit was bad.” Everything falls to the wayside as I jump into action.
“Where is he now?”
“Downtown. Haven’t heard anything from Baz since it went down.”
Heading back to my room, I tell him over my shoulder, “Let me grab a few things and we’ll head out.” In my bedroom I find Aylee on the bed just how I left her minutes ago. She looks at me expectantly, trustingly, with love so blindingly beautiful that all I want to do is dive into its brilliance and swim its purity. It quickly becomes clear to me that my priorities are shifting when my first thought is not Dro but her and her safety. I want to keep her here but it’s not safe. Instinct tells me it’s only a matter of time before the cops come, swarming this place. Only four people know that the garage is where Dro keeps most of his products and launders his drug money through the car shop front. If the cops know about the garage then that means we have a rat. Someone fucking snitched to the 5-0, and whatever deal the son of a bitch made he better make damn sure he’s going to get some deep witness protection because we’re going to drop his ass once we find him.
There’s no way I’m taking a fucking chance on the cops coming here and finding Aylee. It suddenly hits me that her old man is a cop and with my mind racing from one point to another, I’m thinking he had a hand in the raid.
Jesus, fuck.
“Everything all right?”
I nod. “My foster dad’s garage was raided. Cops took him in.” Funny how rather than lie or omitting details, I find myself telling her the truth.
A small frown of genuine concern brings her brows together. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Do you know what happened? How serious is it?”
Heading over to my dresser, I grab my phone that I muted earlier and look down at the screen to find twenty messages and ten missed calls. Fuck. Most of the texts are from Wynn. They’re all coded. To anyone else reading them they wouldn’t make much sense but she’s freaking out about the rest of the stash in the apartment. “I don’t have all the details. But I plan on finding out.”