Deal with the Devil (18 page)

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Just get up. We have to go.”

He coughs. I hate how wet the sound is.

“I’m sorry I never said it,” he mumbles.

“Said what?” I ask. Why is he talking like it’s the last words he’ll ever say to me? “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I love you,” he says. The pained smile on his face sends a shot of warmth through my chest. “I love you so fucking much. More than I ever thought possible.”

“I love you, too.” I’m crying, tears falling like raindrops down my cheeks. “You have to get up. We have to go to the hospital.”

He doesn’t move. His eyes flutter closed.

“Leo!” I scream, trying to shake him awake. His body collapses to the side and it takes all of my strength to keep him upright. “Please, wake up.”

His eyes slowly open, but they’re hazy and distant. It’s like he’s looking right through me. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

The world is closing in around me. I know that he’s dying. Leo’s eyes close again. His breathing slows down until I can barely even make it out. The pale blue of his skin takes on a gray cast.

In another few minutes, he’ll be gone forever.

I
wake
up too hot and in pain. When I try to move my arms and legs they’re too heavy to lift more than in inch. I’m trapped under something thick, but also soft.

My vision is blurry. It takes a minute for things to come into focus. I hear the steady beep of a machine and the occasional drip of liquid. My eyes clear and I realize I’m in a hospital room.

My whole body feels like it’s on fire, but I’m alive.

Mara is sitting in the chair next to my bed. She’s asleep and her upper body sprawls across my legs. I realize that I can’t feel her weight.

Maybe I’m fucking paralyzed.

No. I try to wiggle my toes and see the slight movement of them at the end of the bed. Not paralyzed, just too weak and wore out to feel much of anything.

Except for pain. I can fucking feel that shit.

Mara must feel the small movement because she shifts a little. I watch her as she slowly wakes up. When her eyes open, they’re full of love and relief. I feel swallowed up by all of the emotion.

“You’re awake.”

She throws herself on top of me, arms wrapping tight around my neck. She lands directly on the gunshot wound on my chest. It hurts like a son of a bitch but I force one arm out from under the covers to wrap around her. I’m never letting her go again.

Mara pulls back when I wince in pain.

“Oh my God, did that hurt?”

At my slow nod, she reaches for a little remote that’s lying beside me on top of the covers. It’s got a wire that connects to the IV machine on a pole next the bed. She presses the large purple button. The machine makes a few clicks and then a cooling rush of relief moves over me. The pain recedes until it’s almost gone.

I relax into it, feeling like I’m floating on a fucking cloud. “Oh, that’s good shit.”

“It’s morphine,” she says, squinting at the little syringe locked in a box on the pole. “The nurse says it feels better than sex.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s pretty good.” I hold my arms open. The way I’m feeling, I could run a marathon or scale mountains. Because she’s right here and we’re both alive. “Come here.”

She carefully lays down on the bed next to me and rests her cheek on my chest. The little machine beeps with the same rhythm of my heart — slow, steady and reassuring.

“I love you.” She whispers the words like she’s not sure how I’ll respond.

I tip her chin up with the tip of my finger. “I love you more, sweetheart.”

“Not possible.” She kisses me softly and gently like I might fall to pieces if she’s too rough. I’m not having that shit. I grab her up with my uninjured arm and arrange her willing body so she’s lying fully across my chest. I kiss her with all of the emotions that I can’t put into words. I slide my hand down her back and dip under the waist of her jeans. Even sick and near dying, I can’t be this close to her and not want her.

Finally, she pulls away with a laugh. “Stop it. The nurse might come in.”

“I don’t give a shit.” I trap her with my arms and force her mouth down to mine in a searing kiss. All I want to do is tear her clothes off and fuck her right here.

“You’re going to rip your stitches,” she says with a gasp when I break the kiss. I press my mouth against the overheated skin of her throat.

“Then stop fighting me so much.” What am I saying? I love it when she fights. It gives me an excuse to punish her. Not that I really need one.

“Leo!”

I reluctantly let her go. Not because I’m worried about the fucking nurse, but because it’s getting hard to breathe. This is more exertion than my torn up body can handle at the moment.

Mara leans back a little bit so she’s not laying directly on top of me. Her hand comes up to play on a patch of skin on my chest that’s not covered in bandages. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

There’s no calendar on the wall and my cell phone is probably long gone. I realize I have no idea what day it even is. “How long have I been laid up?”

“Almost a week.” Her eyebrow quirks at my surprised expression. “You had surgery to get the bullets out. They had you in the ICU on a ventilator for a day or two, afterward. The doctors had to put you into a medically-induced coma because you kept fighting and bucking at the nurses, no matter how much they sedated you. Fucking caveman.”

I can’t help but smile a little bit at that. “You knew what you were getting into, darling. I’m not gonna apologize for being me.”

She laughs, but her expression quickly sobers. “I’m just glad we got you here in time. I already went through thinking you were dead once. I can’t go through it again.”

Her voice breaks a little and a swell of emotion rolls through me. I’ve never done anything to deserve the love of a woman like this. But I’m not doing anything to screw it up.

I stroke her cheek, right over the little scar left by Ares’s knife. I like it. Lets the whole world know she’s a fucking fighter.

“How did you get me out?” It’s something I’ve been wondering since the first moment I woke up
not
dead. Mara’s stronger than most women, but I can’t imagine her getting my unconscious body up and into that truck all by herself. And it would have been too late if she waited for an ambulance.

She clears her throat. “Cecile helped me.”

My eyebrows shoot up my forehead. “Really?”

“Yeah, after you passed out she kinda got her shit together. She helped me get you into the truck and drove to the hospital while I kept pressure on your wound.” Mara’s face is haunted. I can only imagine what that ride must have felt like.

“Is she here?”

“No. She went back to Newark.” Mara shrugs. “I didn’t think you’d want to see her. And she had to set up Mack’s funeral.”

Fucking Mack. I don’t feel a thing but pleasure at the thought of that bastard six feet underground.

“Willy?” My voice makes it a question.

Mara slowly shakes her head and looks away. I see tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

Shit. “It’s over now, baby. I promise.”

“Ares got away. What if he comes after me again?”

“I’ll take care of Apocalypse.” I invest my voice with as much certainty as I can muster from a fucking hospital bed. “Ares lost half of the guys he brought out here. They’re weak right now. We’ll chase all those biker assholes out of Newark. They won’t come back.” And Carmine would let me have a crew to do it with. Or I’d fucking take him out, too.

Of course, I don’t tell Mara that. She’s got enough to worry about, as it is.

“So, you’re not getting out then?” Her voice is very carefully neutral. “Almost getting killed doesn’t make you want to go straight?”

The worry in her gaze is like a heavy weight on my chest. “This is who I am, baby. I’m not going to change.”

She sighs, but there’s a grudging acceptance in her eyes. “Can you at least try for early retirement.”

“That’s the only kind of retirement guys like me get, sweetheart.”

I
’ve only been back
at school for a week and I already want to go back to Leo. He made me go — something about not letting me throw away my education when he worked so hard to keep me alive.

I still grumbled a bunch. I even offered to pay him. And I didn’t stop until he threatened to tie me up and spank me.

Which is more of an inducement than a threat, honestly.

But in the end, he’s right. Papa always wanted me to go to college. I can still remember the pride in his face when I got the admissions letter. That was the day he told me he was paying for the whole thing.

Papa always wanted something better for me.

I’ve started talking to my mother again, though only in the most abbreviated way. She’s been at a rehab place in Florida for a few weeks. She wants me to come down for their family day. I told her we’ll see how it goes.

I’m happy to be back in the apartment with Lynn — who had an
absolutely fabulous
time in Aspen — but sometimes it feels a little too normal. Part of me misses being holed up in Leo’s apartment or stuck with him in that mountain cabin. You can’t go through the kind of shit we did with someone and not grow closer.

Our relationship was forged in fire. Now it’s unbreakable.

I think about that as I get ready for bed on Friday night. To my surprise, Lynn doesn’t insist that we go out. In fact, she goes to bed early. She says she caught some kind of bug in Colorado, probably Mono from kissing too many boys on the ski lift.

So when floor boards creak in the living room, I know it’s not her. Especially because I can still hear her soft snoring through the thin wall that separates our bedrooms.

A flash of fear shoots through me.

I listen hard in the dark but hear nothing except the gentle hum of the refrigerator and Lynn’s snoring. My body is frozen in indecision. Do I go looking for danger like some murder fodder in a horror movie or do I stay here and wait for whatever it is to come get me?

Or am I just being paranoid and freaking out over the sound of the building settling into its foundation?

The door to my bedroom is open enough that I can see part of the living room. I wait for a minute that feels eternally long, but nothing out there moves or breathes.

I am just being paranoid.

My heart is unconvinced. It beats a wild tattoo inside of my chest. I resolve to climb into bed, pull the covers over my head like a kid hiding from the boogeyman, and not come out until morning.

An arm wraps tightly around my waist, almost lifting me off of the ground. At the same time, a large hand covers my mouth to silence my terrified shriek. I go into survival mode, hitting, kicking and throwing my head back in an attempt to catch my assailant’s face — anything to get away.

It’s Ares. Somehow, he found out where I live and he’s come back to finish the job.

Heavy breathing moves over my ear. Hands readjust their grip on me to avoid the elbows I try to jab into any flesh I can reach. It’s like I’m a child. That’s how useless it feels to try and fight. But I refuse to go quietly. If he wants to kill me, he’s going to have to work for it.

A hot mouth moves across the shell of my ear. I’m too overwhelmed to do anything but let out a shrill scream that’s muffled behind the hand on my mouth. Not this. Please, not this. I fight in earnest. All it gets me in return is a hard squeeze that crushes my rib cage.

“I like you like this,” a husky male voice whispers in my ear. “All terrified and desperate. It’s a fucking turn on.”

I recognize that voice.

“Leo!” I screech as he removes the hand from my mouth. “You scared the absolute shit out of me.”

He laughs and lets me slide down his body until my feet touch the floor. But he doesn’t let me go. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

I can barely think past the hand that skims over my breasts and moves down my stomach. All I wear to bed is an over-sized t-shirt that’s gone thin with age. His fingers are so hot and searching that there might as well be nothing between us.

“I thought you had a job.”

His lips nuzzle my throat. “Finished early. I wanted to see you. Couldn’t wait until morning.”

“It didn’t occur to you to knock on the door like a normal person?”

“I like it better this way.” His hand dips under the waist of my panties. He finds my entrance like it’s putting out a homing signal. Nimble fingers rub small circles on my clit. My knees nearly buckle.

“Grownups don’t give in to every urge, you know,” I say through a gasp of pleasure. “You’re like an animal.”

“I’ll show you a fucking animal.” In a violent movement, he picks me up and carries me toward the bed.

“We’re going to wake up Lynn,” I whisper as he drops me unceremoniously on top of the comforter.

His chuckle is low and dark. “Then you better shut the fuck up.”

Hands fall on me in the dark. Leo flips me over onto my stomach and slips a pillow under my hips until I’m raised up for him like a buffet. He pulls my panties down, nearly ripping the fabric. I can feel the hardness of him pressing against my inner thigh as he works at the buttons of his shirt.

I feel a slight rush of air as he moves slightly away to shed his pants. Then he’s back and pressing bare skin to mine. Silken hardness presses against my entrance, a split second before he impales me in one sure stroke.

The pillow under my face muffles a loud squeal as he grabs my hips. He pounds into me with a relentless rhythm. There’s something about being taken from behind like this in the dark that just does it for me. I imagine that he’s a demon from a dream that’s coalesced out of the darkness to ravage me.

I shudder underneath him as the cruel grip on my hips tightens. He finds the little bundle of nerves inside of me and moves faster over it until my toes are curled and I’m screaming his name. Part of me wonders if he even cares if I like it like this or if the darkness has turned me into his own cipher, just a vessel for him to use as he sees fit.

It’s that thought that sends me over the edge into an earth-shattering orgasm.

He comes to his own completion and collapses in hot, sweaty heap on top of me.

We lay like that for a moment, breathing in sync as the euphoria fades and we can move again. He wraps me in his arms and rolls us both under the covers. There’s not much room to maneuver in the small twin bed, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He just presses me closer to him.

“I love you,” I say into the dark.

“You fucking better because I’m never letting you go.”

I believe him.