Ruby Ink (Clairmont Series Novel Book 1) (25 page)

Ruby’s finger pressed to his lips. He suckled her index finger, moving rapidly onto other body parts, breasts that begged for his mouth. Ruby was unable to do anything but encourage him. She wanted his lips on every part of her. Her hands wrapped around Aaron’s head, her body sinking into the mattress as the kisses grew more indulgent, moving down the flat of her belly. It was a delectable tease, a new level of longing when it came to Aaron. Even the air filled with the sensual fragrance of desire. Her body nearly hit tilt as Aaron deftly slipped a finger inside her. She pushed against it, inviting more.

“You’re right,” he whispered, “I’ll be quiet. You just show me how much you want this.”

Aaron’s thumb caressed the swollen nub, and Ruby reacted. First a breathy gasp, then her teeth sinking hard into her bottom lip. He left her in a tremulous state of neediness and edged off the panties—kissing the pale-pink fabric and skin on the way down. At the same time, Ruby kicked off her heels as Aaron peeled the undergarment away. He followed, stripping off his underwear, and Ruby swallowed—
hard
. Seeing him again, every part of him, it was some place she’d rarely allowed her mind to go. If it were possible, he was even more sculpted than she remembered, lean muscle giving way to a thicker Aaron—but maybe circumstance had required the striking presence before her. From there Ruby’s mind switched to autopilot, committing to a course of heated pleasure. Things she wanted desperately to give him.

She sat upright and shuffled to the edge of the mattress, her legs straddling his as every hard inch of him waited. It was absolution as her mouth traveled from his chest, sinking lower, to a thicker trail of hair. With her hands on Aaron’s hips, she nudged him back, enough to slip to her knees. A gravelly moan erupted from him as she first ran her hand over the thick shaft, so anxious to take him in her mouth. The gratification wasn’t all Aaron’s. It pleased Ruby to know how much he enjoyed this—surely how often he thought of it. Aaron didn’t seem to forget a beat, a ragged, “Jesus, Ruby…” slipping from him. His fingers wove through her hair as she took him deeper into her mouth. Her hands cupped around his ass, then flirted delicately with strictly male parts. As her grip grew surer, tighter, so did his. She could tell Aaron was holding back, his hand holding harder around her head, then easing off. “Ruby… damn, I can’t… If you don’t stop, you’re going to make me come, baby. I’m going to explode right in your mouth…”

He was so fucking hard. She loved it when Aaron reached the point of no control—he so rarely did. But he was going to win this one too, his voice divided between a precipice of pleasure and exactly how he wanted this to happen. Maybe how he needed it to happen. “Please, Ruby… I want…”

She knew what he wanted because she wanted the same thing. Ruby made a slow sexy stop, her hand never releasing the pending volatile steeliness of him. Aaron’s hand covered hers, their eyes meeting in a point-of-no-return gaze. She was back on the bed, falling into the mattress under his weight. Aaron pushed her legs apart, an old edge of gentleness absent. Ruby understood why. He needed this like he needed his next breath. But Aaron seemed to steady himself, gathering her in his arms. It was a place as familiar as it was sweet. Ruby smiled, kissing his shoulder. She could feel Aaron reining himself in. “Don’t,” she said. “Just make this what you need it to be. I want you to.”

With his face so close to hers, a glimmer of crooked smile formed—like he appreciated the offer, but he wouldn’t dare. That was Aaron, wanting things… wanting Ruby, but always putting her first. Ruby had no idea what her life would be after she left this room, and she planned on leaving with a memory seared into the moment. “I mean it, Aaron.” Her lips grazed the edge of his ear. “Fuck me like you thought about all those night for all those years…” His brow knotted, the late-afternoon sun casting woozy daylight across the bed and around them. He searched her serious face as Ruby’s fingers dug hard into his shoulders.

“Then it has to be exactly what I imagined… start to finish.” She nodded at his terms, prepared for perhaps an Aaron she didn’t quite know. He grabbed her arms, pinning them up over her head, his mouth covering every inch of skin that he could reach. His body was impossible to resist, powerful and rigid—captivating. One hand was more than enough to keep hers at bay, and he got busy with the other, stroking a clit that needed only the kind of release Aaron could bring. He knew it and he used it, all the while making his most private thoughts known. “You can never imagine what I thought about all those nights—fucked up pleasure and pain because you were everywhere. But really, you were only in my head.” Aaron kissed her, and Ruby responded as their mouths met over and over. “You’re so fucking wet… I thought about that a lot,” he said, slipping a finger inside her, the pressure never easing. “But which do you want more, Ruby? Do you want this,” he said, sure how to take her to the absolute brink, “or do you want me to fuck you so hard you forget the last seven years even existed?”

A desperate, willful smile escaped past pursed lips. “Both,” she said, “I want both.”

“Good. Good answer. Bend your knees, baby… more. That’s it.”

The movement heightened everything, the expectation ravaging Ruby’s body, the preciseness and pressure with which Aaron used both hands—one tightening ever so slightly around her restrained wrists, the other matching the feel of tension and pressure as he circled a sweet spot that she could no longer resist. Ruby cried out, an achy pounding of pleasure coming with his name—an incomprehensible feeling she hadn’t forgotten but hadn’t experienced anyplace but in a dream. He freed her wrists, Ruby so grateful to wrap her arms around his body. Aaron didn’t give her a moment to recover, moving on with his post-prison fantasy. “Look at you,” he said, positioning himself over her. “So fucking ready for this… for us.” He thrust inside her, hard and without apology. And she wanted it that way, Aaron stretching her body to fit his. It took her breath away, and he slowed for a second. “Are you okay? Do… we can dial it back.”

“No!” she said, her fingers holding fast to the muscle of his shoulders. “Don’t you dare.” Still, he hesitated, his mouth covering hers with the most exquisite kiss. The rest of Aaron returned to what he’d promised them both. His arm hooked around her leg as he thrust deeper inside her. She invited more with throaty gasps, words of encouragement, an urge building inside her all over again. Ruby’s hands traced every part of his body she could touch, reacquainting herself with the power and depth of Aaron Clairmont. Jolts of current linked into one steady stream of energy, Aaron’s body using hers in a way she couldn’t describe to another human being. Passionate kisses reflected the past, and Ruby guiltily kissed him back, knowing Aaron thought they were paving the way to the future. She came again, Aaron following with a thunderous climax. It shuddered helplessly through both of them. He captioned the act with simple sincere words. “Do you know for how long and how much I’ve loved you?”

Ruby nodded, burying her face in his shoulder, explaining her tears as happiness.

Hours had passed. They made love again. This time Aaron’s pace was more measured, more thoughtful—not like a man who’d just done hard time. Afterward, Ruby grew quieter. Lying in his arms, the two of them stared out the dormered window of the Dutch colonial. The sun had set to dusk, stars showing up one by one. Aaron took the night sky as a fresh start. They’d been lucky. The house had remained quiet, peaceful. That couldn’t last. Under Ruby’s hand, Aaron’s chest rose high and lowered.

“That breath feels like a confession,” she whispered.

She could even translate his breathing. “It is. Ruby, I have to explain something. I don’t know if now is the right time. But we can’t go forward, not unless you know everything. Maybe not knowing is what made you think Stefan was still the right choice.”

“Aaron, you couldn’t be more…” She didn’t finish the thought. Instead, Ruby pushed up on her elbow and peered down over him. “It’s about that night. Isn’t it?”

“Yes. Everything that came before that night,” he said, flexing his battered fist. “And after.”

She nodded gently, listening.

“I was overseeing drug runs for Silas Brikk. You know this. The whole fucking world knows this.”

Ruby remained perfectly still.

“What you don’t know… No one knows is that I was also working undercover for a covert branch of the DEA.”

Ruby’s body rustled, he felt her leg stiffen against his.

“Those vague jobs, the college classes I never talked much about—I was training with the DEA, working my way up from nailing bars and liquor stores that served minors to high-end stuff, like Brikk’s organization.”

“Wait,” she said, her voice confused. “You weren’t really working for Silas Brikk? Aaron—”

He held up a hand. “Just let me get this out before I change my mind. Telling you is still not my first choice. ” Aaron inched off the pillow, kissing her. “But if it keeps you here, makes you understand that we do belong together… then telling you is what I have to do.”

“Go on,” she said as his head lay back on the pillow.

“Our team.… Well, make that me. I was close, so close to blowing the whole thing wide open. Over time, Brikk came to rely on me. He trusted me with his money, his product, his underlings, his routes… The only thing I hadn’t gotten from him was a name. The DEA and me, we knew that Brikk was high up on the Nickel Springs drug chain. But he wasn’t the CEO. Brikk wasn’t calling the shots. We needed that name. We needed the person who was going to turn the operation global.” Aaron took a breath. “And just to be clear,” he said, stroking her cheek, “know that you and I were a crazy coincidence in all this, Ruby. When things started between us, I wasn’t in that deep—I certainly never imagined how it would all play out.”

“You mean the hit on my father.”

“Not entirely.” Aaron took another deep breath, Ruby staring down over him. “Word was that Brikk and Jerry—that’s how Silas always referred to him, wanted Dante Vasquez out of the picture. Until that point, they’d ignored our relationship. I had that side job working for the city, and it gave me access to patrol routes—other information I’d provided to Brikk. It was important I earn my keep. Every piece of information I gave to Brikk, and ultimately Jerry, raised my stock. It put me one step closer to whoever was running that operation.

“Eventually, it worked. Brikk said Jerry wanted a meeting. I was ecstatic—ecstatic that we’d get the son of a bitch in charge, ecstatic that it would all be over and you and I...” Aaron’s hand thudded into the mattress. “Well, the you and I part… we never got that far.”

Ruby’s hand skimmed across his chest. She leaned into Aaron, kissing him. “But Brikk and… and this, um…
Jerry
,” she said. “They wanted one more thing before the meeting. They wanted you to kill my father.”

Aaron’s gaze ticked from the rising moonlight onto Ruby. “Not just that. Silas and Jerry made one more thing clear. If I didn’t go through with the hit… If I didn’t deliver, they would kill you.” Aaron could feel Ruby’s shock, her hand gripping the sheet. “I remember exactly what Brikk said— ‘Some incentive, Aaron, in case the idea is making you squeamish. If you don’t take out Nurse Vasquez’s padre, we’ll be forced to take our disappointment out on her.’”

“They threatened to kill me because they thought you wouldn’t go through with it?”

“Clearly, it was the plan. Plus, what better show of loyalty? If I was willing to remove your father… Well, this was high-stakes shit, and it would have put me on the inside like never before.”

Ruby was quiet, letting go of the sheet and running her hand through her hair. She wasn’t looking at Aaron but out toward the lake and twilight. She turned back. “This Jerry… these people, they sound intense… determined. What did you do?”

“My immediate alternate plan blew up quick, right in my face. It also told me just how wrong things had gone. I went to my DEA handlers. I told them what Brikk and Jerry had demanded.”

“And?”

“And they told me they didn’t give a fuck. At first it made no sense. These guys were desperate to finger Jerry, but I couldn’t imagine the DEA wouldn’t intervene in a situation that desperate. I pressed them. I threatened to go over their heads. And…” Aaron looked at her, his concentration as focused as it had been that night. “Then I knew. I knew they were dirty… they were rogue. They weren’t looking to take Jerry down. They were looking to go into business with him—or to blackmail him for part of the profit. At that point, their motivation didn’t matter.”

“Aaron…” she said, her fingers fluttering over his cheek. “Did they admit that to you?”

“Not in a signed confession, which would have been my only out. These guys were dug in so deep on both sides, I didn’t have a prayer. They would have fed me to their DEA superiors in a heartbeat. It would have been five sanctioned officers—with I’m sure very coordinated stories—against the word of one undercover plant. I didn’t dare make the accusation, and I had zero proof.” An awkward snicker rumbled out. “Sometimes I think if I’d only been better prepared, recorded the conversation… But it all happened so fast. I didn’t have time to do anything but figure out how to protect you… save your father.”

“Because if you didn’t go through with it, somebody else would have.”

“Exactly.”

“But the drugs, Aaron, the ones they found in your trunk.”

“If you’re going to take the fall for attempted murder—if you want to keep the enemy from coming after you—you’d better be convincing to all parties involved.”

“Aaron, I can’t even imagine the burden,” Ruby said, shaking her head. “And you never said a word, you never even hinted.”

“What choice did I have? And what I did next, it was the only way I could see shutting both sides down. Do you remember that night, I mean, earlier?”

Ruby nodded. “You called me at work, asked me to leave, come here. I knew something was wrong, but you wouldn’t… or couldn’t…”

“I just needed you that one last time, before the whole fucking world came off the rails. I almost told you everything. But if I was being real, if I was being something more than a coward… I couldn’t.” He smiled his crooked smile. “I know you, Ruby. You would have gone straight to your father, or whoever you thought could fix it.” Aaron’s eyes closed, and his forehead bumped against hers.

“And that wasn’t an option?”

“No, it wasn’t,” he said firmly. “I wasn’t taking that chance, not at your expense or Dante’s. Those kinds of heroics, it only would have made the two of you bigger targets, and not just to Silas Brikk and Jerry.”

“Aaron…” Ruby inched back, her voice urgent. “I could have helped. We could have figured something out together. We wouldn’t have ended up in this—” She stopped short. Aaron’s head tilted at her anxious, strained tone. “Aaron, tell me the rest. What did you do that night?”

He’d never confessed a word of his own sinister plot, not to anyone. “I, um… I loaded a Glock 17 with a full magazine. I drove to your house, past the common and the bandstand. I stopped outside Daley’s Drug Emporium. Did you know they have the only pay phone left in all of Nickel Springs?”

She nodded her head, her face utterly somber.

“I made two phone calls.” Ruby’s hand gripped solidly onto his arm. Aaron could have sworn he felt the same touch on that January night. Ruby was with him then—and now. “I didn’t think any more about it. I just did what I had to. I called the
Nickel Springs Press
hotline. I told their toughest investigative reporter that a huge story was about to break. If he wanted it, he needed to get to Mayor Vasquez’s house, pronto. Then I called the Nickel Springs PD and the regional DEA headquarters, I tipped them off, I told them both that a hit was about to go down on the mayor.”

Ruby let go of his body, her hand moving over her mouth.

“Then I called your father and asked him to meet me outside. As he came out the door, I got out of the car. I fired two shots, making damn sure I missed. I could hear the sirens, the police cars screeching to the curb. The reporter was already there.”

Her hand dropped. “You… you set yourself up. You were never going to kill him.”

“It was the only way. Make Brikk and his boss believe I had every intention of going through with the hit. Let my handlers think I’d fucked up. Making it public put a spotlight on the whole scene—the one scenario neither party could afford to deal with. Brikk’s operation would be ruined. And with the hit exposed, your father would be safe. My actions drove the operation right underground, essentially destroying it. The shockwave was enough to send my former DEA handlers scurrying into their holes.”

“And it’s why you refused to see me afterward.”

“Better you think I’d turned on you. I couldn’t risk having you anywhere near me.”

“Aaron…” But the words broke off as his arms circled around her. He could feel how tight her hold was now, like she’d never really let go. “You did all that for me?”

“A lot of people wanted a lot of shit to happen that night. My objective was to protect you. What I did, it was the only way to keep you and your father alive.” At the core of her steady hold, Aaron felt a tremor. It grew stronger, traveling from Ruby’s stomach and overtaking her body. “Hey, come on,” he said, forcing her to look at him. Even in the faint light, her face was pale—sheet white. “The worst is over. We’re going to be okay. Look, Silas Brikk is long gone out of the Nickel Springs scene. And this thing with Stefan… Damn, Ruby, really, we have uglier memories to get past. We’ll deal with him. Right?”

Her hands moved from around his neck, splaying hard across his chest. But she couldn’t seem to get the tears to stop or any words to follow. It wasn’t like Ruby. The tears kept running down her cheeks, Aaron brushing them away. “Ruby, what’s wrong?”

“I…” Her mouth closed, her fingers running softly over his face. “Just, um… Just could you hold me?” Together they slid down onto the mattress, Ruby’s hand flat over his beating heart. “I understand now, what you sacrificed to protect me. I know what you were really doing when you asked me to come here that night. You were making a memory to live off. Aaron, tell me you believe that I’d make the same sacrifice for you.”