Ripped (26 page)

“It’s about my sister,” she said.

I waited.

“But not about her boyfriend. Well… I mean, sort of. When we were in high school, she was so much better than me at everything, and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t do anything right. And she was always so sweet too. That was the worst of it. It would have been easier to handle if she’d been mean and spiteful, but she was the best fucking sister in the world.”

I still waited, my hands resting on her hips.

“I hated her.” Her face twisted. “And I wanted… I don’t know what I wanted. I don’t even know why I did it. She had this video of her and her boyfriend having sex, and I found it, and I… I put it on the Internet.”

I still waited.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Wait, that’s it?” I said. I laughed. “So?”

“So, it ruined her. Now, she’s a fucking prostitute, and she got that way because she lost all confidence after everyone saw the video. Because of me, my sister’s life is—”

“Totally terrible, right,” I said sarcastically. “How much money did you say that prince pays her?”

“Don’t mock this,” she said.

I chuckled. “But it’s just not that big of a deal. It’s nothing like the things I’ve done.” I slid my hands over her hips, and I cupped her sex with one hand. I rubbed the heel of my hand against her clit. “Come for me, Shell. It’s not that big of a deal,” I crooned.

She threw her head back, and she climaxed for me. Not a crazy, crashing one, but I felt it go through her.

“You don’t understand,” she said through clenched teeth as her pelvis jerked. “It’s worse than what you’ve done. Everyone you killed deserved it in some way… but Starling was never anything…” She tried to catch her breath. “Anything but good… and I destroyed her.”

I kissed her. “You didn’t destroy her. There must have been something inside her that wanted—”

“She was a fucking National Merit Scholar,” Shell said, pulling away. “And she didn’t even graduate from college.”

“So, you want to be punished?” I murmured, kissing her earlobe.

“I…” She foundered.

I pulled back and looked into her eyes. Then I seized a handful of her hair and held her head in place. “You want me to hurt you?”

She sucked in breath.

With my other hand, I grabbed her thigh, digging my fingers into her skin. I pulled on her leg, freeing her foot from her pants, and I wrapped her leg around my hips.

She licked her lips.

I tugged on her hair.

She flinched.

“I’m going to fuck you, Shell,” I told her in a quiet voice. I moved my hand from her thigh, unbuttoned my pants, unzipped, and freed my aching cock. I couldn’t wait to be inside her again. It had been too long. “I’m going to fuck you hard. I’m going to fuck all the guilt out of you.”

Tears formed in her eyes. Possibly because I was pulling her hair. Possibly because…

“Could you?” she said in a tiny voice. “Could you really make it go away?”

“Yes,” I said. “You’re mine. You do what I say. You come when I tell you to, you get aroused by whatever I do to you. I can make it go away.”

She swallowed. She shifted her hips.

I felt her slippery sex against my erection. I gasped.

She shifted her hips again, and somehow captured the tip of my cock.

I groaned, unable to resist sliding all the way into her.

“Do it, then,” she breathed. “Make it go away.”

I thrust into her, nice and deep, all the way in as far as I could go. I felt her surround me, hold me in all the right places. I grunted, and I lost it again. Suddenly, I was pounding against her, jamming myself in as deep as I could go, as fast as I could, ramming her tight pussy, throwing everything into it.

She was moaning, and it sounded half like pleasure and half like pain.

And I didn’t care. She felt so good, and I needed this, because it suddenly wasn’t me fucking away her guilt, it was her taking all of
my
guilt. She was restrained, my hand yanking at her hair, her hands behind her back, my other hand clutching her bare ass, keeping her there as I did what I wanted with her. She couldn’t get away. She was here, and I was giving it all to her, and she wasn’t resisting.

“Ripper,” she moaned. “Yes, Ripper, fuck me.”

I kissed her neck. “Call me Cade,” I said.

“Cade,” she whispered.

“Shell,” I said, my voice raw. I kissed her jaw. Her cheek. I looked at her.

And her eyes were wide open, staring back at me.

We held each other’s gaze.

“I…” I was still going at her like I was dying and this was the last fuck I’d ever have, but everything was building inside me, and it was growing so intense now. I felt like I was getting lost, like there was only my cock and her body, and everything else was falling apart.

And then there were tremors around me, and her tight little pussy was clenching against me, hungrily sucking at my dick.

Her breath was unsteady. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I know you didn’t tell me—”

I silenced her with a kiss. I didn’t need to control her. I didn’t need… “You feel so good,” I told her. “I like feeling you come around me.” And I wished that her hands weren’t in the cuffs, because I wanted her arms around me.

I settled for kissing her again, losing myself in her sweetness.

And surrendering to her, letting free that last bit of all of it, exploding into her body, loosing all my darkness in her light.

* * *

Cade

Afterward, I took her out of the cuffs and we lay on the floor of the weapons room, just holding each other.

We didn’t talk, not much.

She clung to me, her face in my chest, and I wrapped my arms tight around her and rested my chin on the top of her head.

“The guilt is gone,” she whispered into my skin. “It worked.”

I brushed at her hair. “Of course it did, love. Didn’t I say you were mine?”

“I am, though.” She snuggled closer. “All yours.”

I sighed, kissing the top of her head, and I didn’t say that I was hers too.

I hoped she felt it, felt it in the way that I held her, the way I touched her. But I couldn’t make my lips form the words. I didn’t know how to say them.

So, I said nothing, and we lay there together, just being close.

We lay there a long time.

And then, I got her up, and I led her down the hallway to the showers.

We got into one of the stalls together and let the hot jets of water surround us, pound into us.

I scrubbed her hair, gently massaging the places that I’d pulled at her scalp. I rubbed the soap all over her skin, her curves, making her slippery and enticing.

I couldn’t help but get hard again.

But I took her carefully and gently this time. I held her close, like she was precious, and I took my time sliding in and out of her, savoring each inch of her tight heat.

She seemed suddenly so impossibly small and sweet, this miracle thing in my grasp that I’d somehow managed to be lucky enough to get to be this close to.

She was giving herself to me, and I didn’t really understand why.

But liked it. I adored it.

I adored
her
.

I knew that I didn’t want her to go anywhere, and I didn’t know how that could possibly work. It terrified me. I couldn’t think about it. So, I just thought about the moment, about her warmth and softness.

I lost myself in her again, buried myself in her over and over again until I couldn’t handle it anymore.

I came under the spray of the water, begging her to come with me and feeling her tighten and contract around me just when I wanted her to, and we climaxed together, joined together, moving together… and it was good. So, so good.

* * *

Shell

I pulled on the last of my clean outfits. I hadn’t really packed enough clothes for this little excursion, but then I hadn’t known just how long it would last. I was outside the showers in the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror and dragged a comb through my hair.

I had shot a man. I had confessed my darkest secret to Cade.

I had been fucked silly, and I had never felt closer to another human being.

And yet, I still felt like I couldn’t talk to him, like I couldn’t really tell him how I felt. I had this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that this was all only temporary, no matter how close I felt to him.

One way or another, Cade was going to take care of Ice, and Ice wasn’t going to be a threat anymore. After that happened, then Cade would take me back to my apartment, and I’d never see him again.

I looked down at my stomach.

But he’d come in me so many times. And he’d said that he
wanted
to knock me up. We hadn’t spoken about that, not once, but I guessed it had something to do with the fact that Angie person had gotten rid of his baby. Still, he never indicated to me…

How to bring it up?

I didn’t know.

It all seemed awkward and strange.

I glared at myself in the mirror. “Grow up, Shell.” I pointed at myself with the comb. “If you can have sex with that man, you can damned well talk about it.”

Cade’s voice floated in from out of the room. “Did you say something?”

“No,” I said. I bit my lip.

I finished combing my hair and left the bathroom. I’d just bring it up, right now. I’d open my mouth, and I’d talk to him about the fact that we might have made a baby one of the umpteenth times we’d had unprotected sex, and we’d have an adult conversation about it.

But when I saw him, I didn’t say anything.

He smiled at me. “You look nice.”

“My hair is wet. I look like a drowned rat.”

He laughed, one arm going around me. His lips against my temple. “You look freshly fucked and I like it.”

I giggled. “Yes, indeed. Dazed by the use of your cock.”

“My huge cock.”

“Your enormous cock.” I grinned up at him.

He kissed my forehead. “I think you always look hot.” He pulled back and picked up a pistol. “Especially with a gun. I don’t know if I told you, but it’s a good look on you. So, take this one.”

I did. “Thanks.” I turned it over in my hands. “You know, there are things you didn’t really teach me. Like how to load a gun or how to check that it’s loaded. All of that?”

“Yeah, we can do that.” He started down the hallway, away from me.

I hoisted my bag, which was now full of dirty clothes, over my shoulder and went after him. “Are you expecting trouble? We going to need these guns right away?”

“I hope not,” he said.

I caught up with him. Okay. Okay, now, I needed to bring up being pregnant.

But I didn’t.

We walked in silence, and I thought about the idea of a small, tiny little being growing inside my body, and at first it was just a nice thought. I thought of tiny fingers and toes, of cuddling a sweet-smelling little bundle. A baby.
My
baby.

But I also felt a rush of terror.

I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be pregnant. I mean, how was I supposed to support a baby in my life? I was a waitress—maybe I was still a waitress, because I had no idea when I was going to get back to my job, and they weren’t going to hold it forever—and a comic artist. And my comics were in danger of being behind too. I didn’t know when I was going to get to make another strip, but one was due soon. I didn’t have enough money for a baby. And I certainly didn’t have enough money to hire someone to take care of my baby while I went to work and made more money. And…

But maybe Cade would help?

He had money.

But if he didn’t want the baby—

No, I thought he did, but…

I needed to talk to him about this.

But suddenly, I didn’t even want to
think
about this. I wanted to pretend that none of it was real. Maybe I was putting the cart before the horse, anyway. Until I had a missed period, there was every chance in the world I wasn’t pregnant. After all, it did take people who were trying months or even over a year sometimes to get pregnant. So there was no reason to think, even with as reckless as we’d been, that we really needed to worry.

So, when I spoke, I didn’t say a word about it. “Where are we going?”

He shot a glance at me. “Well, we can’t stay here. I’m guessing Ice isn’t watching the place, or he would have already made his presence known, but he’ll probably come back. And I have to admit that I wasn’t sure what we were going to do, because I couldn’t think of anywhere that we could go that Ice didn’t know about.”

“You guys were close, huh?”

He nodded. “I told him a lot of things about me. It works both ways, of course. I know things about him too. But it just makes it harder overall.”