Hopelessly Yours (12 page)

I swirled my tongue around his bulbous tip, finding the underside, the sweet spot that made him groan and fist a handful of my hair. I stretched my lips and took him into my mouth, breathing in the moment, basking in my ability to make him moan and give him pleasure.

Every sound made me wetter. I slid a finger inside my panties as I sucked him, and my body made a smack that he heard. He let out a throaty moan and pulled my lips from him.

“I want to feel you for myself, Vix.”

He pulled me to my feet and buried his lips in the nape of my neck, his moan rippling across my body as he thrust a finger inside me. Fireworks exploded, my body embracing his finger. Welcoming him home, pulling him deeper.

“God, you’re so wet,” he said huskily, cradling my face with one hand as the other jumped inside me.

Words tumbled around in my head, but I plucked a few out and strung them together. “See what you do to
me
?”

His handsome face registered shock, and it melted into something beautiful and dangerous as he tore my underwear off and pushed me back onto the bed. His boxers were next and it was like I was seeing him for the first time. Everything outside of this room, outside of us, meant nothing.

He climbed onto the bed between my legs, looking at my most intimate place like it was the most delicious thing he’d ever seen. “You’re so beautiful, you know that? So perfect.”

We were close, skin to skin. His cock pressed at the juncture between my thighs.

Pulsing.

Waiting.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Vix.”

I wrapped my legs around him, gasping with pain and delight as I pulled his cock inside me. We held our breath, savoring the moment. I basked in how tight I gripped him, the shards of pain blending with bursts of pleasure until only moans remained.

“You won’t hurt me, Jace. You saved me.”

Our bodies blended into each other. The emptiness inside me was sated and I didn’t close my eyes. I didn’t want to miss a single moment.

Our hearts were in sync, our shouts of ecstasy silencing all else. It was just him and me.

The way it used to be.

The way I wanted it to be always.

I curled up beside him, my leg draped over his, my chin against his chest, listening to the thunder of his heart.

“Did you mean what you said?” I asked tentatively, telling myself that I could handle it if him saying he loved me was because he got caught up in the moment. “Do you really love me?”

He rearranged himself until we were practically nose to nose. “I meant it, Vix. I love you.”

I pecked the tip of his nose, then put a lingering one on his lips. “I love you t—”

Knock knock.

His face hardened to stone. He was out of the bed in a blink of an eye.

In nearly a single movement, he yanked on his boxers, then went to his jacket and pulled out something that looked suspiciously like a gun.

He cocked it, the clicking sound making me feel sick to the stomach.

It
was
a gun.

He turned back to me, the fight in his eyes replaced by care and concern. “I’ll protect you by any means necessary.” He gave it to me straight, speaking my worst nightmare into existence. “I think we both know that’s not housekeeping.”

My heart wasn’t beating, my brain stumbling in my head as I scrambled to my feet, wrapping myself in the sheet.

Jace looked through the peephole and cursed under his breath.

The voice that filtered from the other side of the door was deep and filled with disgust.

“You have five minutes to get yourself decent, or we’ll come in and drag you out, Jace. You and your girlfriend are coming for a ride.”

W
alking into Macone's used to feel like coming home.

Well, home was like a freak show, a demented haunted house I couldn't escape. How deep would the eggshells cut into my feet as I tiptoed around my grandmother? What face will I see? The drunk? The monster? The weary shell of a woman who made sure I knew that without her, I'd be on the street?

No, going to Macone's wasn't like coming home. But it was like what home should have been like. Adalina rushing to embrace me and hold me close. Forcing food into my mouth and love into my heart whether I was ready or not.

But not today.

The face that was usually brighter than the sun was masked in shadow as she gave me the once over. It was the mistrusting reception she gave to strangers and anyone that walked through the door with a badge. Even though it hurt that she was giving me the cold shoulder after all these years, I couldn't help but notice how much she looked like my grandmother. Same old leather skin, wrinkles slicing into a bone weary face, same feral look in her eyes when it came to crossing the ones she loved.

I straightened my spine, letting the hurt melt into anger. I'd known I wasn't on the love list with my grandmother since Day 1. It was nice to know I never really had a place on Adalina's either.

Victoria squeezed my hand, reminding me that there was someone who cared about me. Even when I fucked up royally. Even when I didn't do a damn thing to deserve her love but exist.

Adalina stormed from behind the counter, a scowl on her lips. "How dare you bring her here? After all the family has done for you." She stabbed me with her finger, her disgust cutting through the leather and meeting bone. She sniffed, and spit sailed from her lips and collided with my cheek. "You don't deserve to even share the same air as me, boy."

"That's enough, Ma."

Macone's voice burned through whatever curses were hot on Adalina’s tongue. Shaking, I wiped away the spit with the back of my hand. Nothing she could say, no hell she wished to send me to, compared to the one I'd been living in since I started working for Macone. I wanted to tell her that; that her words couldn't poison something that was already rotten to the core, but Vix was shaking. Stuttering like a car that refused to start.

I turned my glare on Macone instead, and I saw why. The man was dressed in one of his infamous two-piece suits, a blood red shirt beneath. A blood red shirt that matched the red that was smeared on his massive fists. He smoothed his oily black hair from his face, and I saw that his face was speckled with the stuff, too. He smiled a big smile that slashed up to his dark brown eyes. Eyes that were locked on my Vix.

He stepped forward, holding out a hand toward her. "You must be Victoria."

She reared back with a gasp, her bright blue eyes going wide before she caught herself and put the mask of indifference back on. "And you must be delusional if you think I'm touching you."

Macone let out a boisterous laugh that made my blood run cold. If you heard that laugh alone, without seeing him standing with some man's blood smeared on his fists, without knowing he was who he was, you might've thought he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world. But there was no humor in his eyes. No one talked to him that way. If Vix wasn’t a woman and I wasn't there, ready to butcher anyone that touched her, she'd be missing a few teeth.

Damien dashed forward, a trusty pit bull frothing at the mouth. "Let me teach her some manners, Boss."

One look from Macone and he shut right up. Macone gave Vix a once over, then walked behind the counter, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Everyone watched his movements, enthralled. He paused at the sink, turning the water on. Washing away his sins.

"Don't mind the girl. She's a fiery one, just like her mother."

Adalina muttered something that sounded a lot like 'stupid bitch', and Vix balled her fists at her side. I put my hand on the small of her back, trying to remind her to be cool. Tension crackled in the air. Everyone in the room was packing, including Adalina. If she did something reckless, it would be easier to ask for forgiveness instead of permission to feed her a bullet or two.

Macone toweled off his hands and rounded the counter, returning to the exact same spot. He almost looked respectable, almost sane as he extended his hand to her a second time. "Let's try this again. I'm Anthony Macone. It's a pleasure to meet you—?"

Vix snarled and glanced up at me. I shook my head slightly, trying to send her the message to pick her battles. Her mouthing off was making me work double time to figure out just how many guys had their fingers on the trigger, ready to mow her down for disrespecting Macone. I needed to focus on our exit strategy. She had to play his cat and mouse game for a little while longer.

She rolled her shoulders back and shook his hand. "Victoria."

She tried to pull her hand back, but Macone held fast and without thinking, I jerked forward. His voice stopped me from doing something that would have made me dead.

"Don't be foolish, boy. I need the girl. You? Not so much."

Fuck. The threat wasn't lost on Vix, and she let out a whimper that sliced me down to my soul. She needed to believe that we were getting out of here whole, and Macone had all but said one wrong move and I'd be meeting the devil soon. The whimper became a hiss of pain as Macone's grip visibly tightened on her hand.

"You son of a bitch," I spat. "If you hurt her—"  Two men stepped up behind me, their guns pressed up against my back, reminding me that my threats weren't like Macone's. They were empty and worth nothing.

Vix cast a look at me over her shoulder, her face awash with pain, eyes filled with tears.

"It's going to be okay," I said firmly. Lying to her. Lying to myself.

She winced and nodded and turned back to Macone. My strong girl. If I could have seen her eyes, I knew the tears would be gone. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Macone studied her with fascination and let go of her hand. I knew from the way it trembled at her side she wanted to nurse it, probably cry out in agony, but she was putting on a brave face.

"It's so rare that we get special guests around here," Macone said. He snapped his fingers, and one of the guys brought him a cloth for him to wipe his hands off like he'd just touched something disgusting.  "I wish we could have met under different circumstances, Victoria."

Vix stood tall, her voice unwavering. "That makes one of us. I think I could have lived my whole life without seeing your face, and it would've been too soon."

Damien lunged to Macone's side, his switchblade catching the light. "Let me teach her some manners. Bend her over and she'll be purring like a kitten."

I forgot about the guns on me and reached for my own blade, then remembered that they took it away. My fists would have to do.

Macone didn't even look in my direction, but his words were directed at me. "You hear that, Jace?"

Every gun in the room came out, locked and loaded.

"If you take one more step, they're going to fill you and Victoria with bullets," Macone said smoothly. "I have no intention of killing the girl, and it would cause me a bit of grief, but I'd hide her body far and deep enough to give me time to think up something to tell her mother." He looked at me finally, with so much hate in his eyes that I knew my death would be slow and painful. "Not one more step."

Victoria's whole body was shaking now, but her voice rang out clear as a bell, turning to Damien. "Your mother would be very disappointed if she knew you used the words 'rape' and 'manners' in the same sentence." She hooked a finger over her shoulder. "Though I guess if she's anything like that bitch back there, maybe not."

Macone's fist sailed through the air, colliding with Vix's face. The sound roared through me as she crumpled to the floor.

He hit her.

Hard.

I'd seen Macone hit men so hard he put them in comas they never woke up from.

My eyes dropped to the floor as panic devastated me. Vix wasn't moving, but blood was crawling from her head.

I snapped in two, lunging toward him. My fingertips brushed his lapel before something hard bashed me against the back of the head. The world exploded in a sea of stars. I dropped to my knees, my lips forming her name.

Arms encircled my head, choking me as everything went hazy, then bled into black.

M
y body felt heavy. Foreign. My eyelids weighed thousands of pounds and were glued together, refusing to open. My memory was fragmented, bits and pieces of the last few hours hitting me like blows to the head. The gas station. The man’s sobs in the back room. The gunshot. The gun being held to my head.

And then there was Jace. His arms. His lips. His body. And then we were taken to Macone's. The rest was...foggy.

I moved the tiniest muscle, and my whole body erupted in pain. Pain didn't even seem like the right word. Pain would have been bearable. This was excruciating, like thousands of knives were sinking into my skull over and over.

I forced my eyes open and wished that I hadn't.

The room was like every horror movie come to life. It was dark, with a single light bulb dangling in the pitch blackness, casting a bitter glow over me. The floor beneath me was covered in dirt and from the smell, human excrement. I looked to my right, near my head, and my fingers dipped into something wet and warm. I brought my hand to the light and gagged.

Blood.

Was that what was trickling from my forehead, what had glommed my eyes shut? My stomach tumbled and my heart followed suit when I heard the sound of a chair scraping, dragging toward me. I saw a pair of shoes, two pants legs, and I groaned with pain as I lifted my head. The man stepped out of the shadows.

Not man. Monster.

Anthony Macone.

I'd seen images of the man on television. I'd lost count of how many times my mother dragged him into court, trying to make something stick. He'd worn a very similar suit to the one he had on now, usually a white shirt instead of the red though. Red was too close to blood. Too close to what was caked all over my face. The room tilted, then righted itself. How much blood had I lost? How much more blood would I lose?

Macone lowered himself into the chair. He seemed out of place in this musty room. Overdressed, a little too clean. Even the chair seemed odd. There were cobwebs and dust dancing in the air, but the chair was pristine. I wondered if he had one of his henchmen dust and polish it. I guess it added to the psychological torture. He sat in his chair like a king on a throne while you writhed in pain, coated in dirt and blood and fear.