13. Chapter 13 – Maddox
Chapter 13 – Maddox
I lay on my side, watching Liv sleep with her naked body snuggled in against mine. When I got home last night, my plan to shower off the evidence of my job gone awry with Dane before going to her fell flat. My pretty perfect little Storm was already waiting for me.
I took her twice over night, once when I first got home, still covered in dried brain matter and blood. And then again after a quick shower, when she wrapped her sexy curvy body around mine, as I crawled back into bed.
Just like she was right now, breathing her soft little pants against my chest.
I thought she was asleep, but without even signaling that she was awake, she parted her lips and spoke. “So, who’s brain was on your skin when you fucked me last night?”
I snorted at the absurdity of her question and tightened my arms around her waist as she snuggled deeper. “Good morning, Storm.”
“Morning, Psycho.”
I pinched her ass, and she wiggled and finally opened up those striking green eyes and looked up at me. “My psycho should scare you. Which means you shouldn’t toy with it.”
She shrugged and ran her hand over my chest, gently dragging her nails down over my chest hair. “It kind of makes me wet, actually.” She chuckled, and I grunted before she moved on. “Do you want me to be afraid of you?”
“No.” I replied instantly, “But I think you’re the only person in the world that isn’t.”
“Will you ever hurt me?” She stared up at me, and I ran my thumb over the plump swell of her cheek.
“I’d die before I ever did anything to hurt you, Storm.” Running my thumb down over her bottom lip, “And I’d rip anyone to shreds that tried before they even got near you.”
“And this baby?” She whispered, “Will you love and protect it as if it was yours?”
I rolled us over, so I was on top of her, resting my weight on my elbow even as she wrapped her legs around my waist and hooked her ankles together, pulling me in further. “It is mine.” I took both of her hands and pinned them next to her head, threading my fingers through hers. “You are mine.”
“Doubt keeps trying to break into my happiness.” She whispered, revealing her vulnerability to me. “I’m afraid that you’ll change your mind.”
I pulled my hips back and my morning wood nestled against her wet opening, still coated with my come from both times last night, and I pushed my head into her. “Did you not tell me last night that once you took me, you’d never have another?”
“Yes.” She moaned when I pushed further into her. “But it’s not me I’m worried about.”
“I’m yours.” After pulling out, I slowly gave her all of me until her eyelids fluttered and she tightened her fingers in mine. “I give you my word, Olivia.”
“Show me.” She rocked underneath me.
“I’ve made promises to many people over the years. I’ve given my word, and I’ve earned my reputation by it. But I’ve never promised myself to anyone. Never.” I thrust into her and watched as she smiled in pleasure from it. “You are mine, and I am yours.”
“Yes.” She tightened her ankles around my back and rolled her clit against my groin each time I bottomed out. My girl was so responsive to my touch, and I didn’t know if it was the hormones or if she was just that turned on, but I was feral for it. I loved watching her lose her mind for me. “Madd.” She moaned, “I’m so close.”
“I know, Storm.” While keeping my hips pressed down, I moved them back and forth until she clawed at my hands and opened her mouth in silent ecstasy. “I can feel you tightening around my cock, desperately trying to milk my come from it.”
“Please, baby. Please, I want you to come with me.”
I pulled out and slammed back in, drawing a delicious cry from her lips. It wasn’t like I had to work hard to come, two more pumps into her tight body and I was right there with her. “You want my come, do you?”
“Yes!” She cried, “Now, Madd. Please, now.”
“Take it.” I growled, pumping into her as her body tightened even more as she came on my cock. “Take every bit that I give to you, Storm.” When I was done pumping, I rolled until she laid sprawled out on my chest, still impaled on me and the little flutters her tightness gave with her aftershocks kept me hard and eager for another round.
She softly giggled after a few minutes and tipped her head up to look at me. “Does it ever get soft?”
Pushing her hair back from her face, I winked at her, “Not when it’s still buried deep inside of you. No chance.”
“Hmm.” She wiggled and then sat up, putting her hands flat on my pecks to straddle me before slowly lifting herself up and then lowering back down onto my cock. Unable to resist, I palmed both of her big breasts and played with her nipples while she slowly rode me. “A girl could get used to this.”
“A girl better. Because I’m obsessed with filling your pussy up with my cock and my come. And I don’t plan to stop anytime soon.”
“Good boy.” She winked and then quickened her pace, keeping her eyes locked on mine as she rode me like a pro. “That’s my good, fucking boy.”
“ Y ou avoided my question earlier, by the way.” Liv said, looking over the tops of her knees as she painted her fingernails on her couch. I sat at the kitchen table, working on my laptop, so I didn’t have to be away from her. I was obsessed, and I didn’t feel any shame or hesitation about it.
“Did I?” I looked back at my screen, trying to focus on the map of targets left and their most frequented whereabouts.
“You did.” She said, lifting her hand in the air and looking at her nails, “But that’s okay, you can answer it now.”
I grinned behind my hand and leaned back in my chair to give her my full attention. “You’ll have to remind me.”
She pursed her lips and then gently blew on her nails as she stared back at me. “Who’s brain matter were you wearing?”
“Ah,” I nodded, remembering that question right before she rode me like a bronc in a rodeo. “It was a paid hit, unrelated to the Velvet Cage.”
“But you won’t tell me who?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I want to know everything there is to know about you.” Raising one brow at me, “Including what you do when you go full Psycho, and come home wearing brains.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her, but the seriousness in her demeanor made me pause. “You really want to know?”
Shrugging her shoulders, she put her nail polish down and slid her feet to the floor. “I want to know you, Maddox.” I watched as she slid her dry hand over her lower stomach and silently waited for me to go on.
“Her name was Carleen.” I answered and, as expected, her eyes widened with the information. “She was part of the Cartel decades ago.”
“And were you paid to kill her?” she asked calmly.
“Dane was.” I replied, “But he needed some help to get to her. So he called in backup.”
“Do you kill women often?”
I licked my lips and closed my laptop, leaning forward on my elbows to stare at her. “Not as often as men, but often enough.”
She swallowed, mulling that over. “Do you do it differently than a man?” She waved her hand. “The actual killing, I mean.”
“Sometimes.” I replied, understanding what she was asking. “But when the woman is responsible for the deaths of dozens of families full of women and children, then we treat her no better than any other monster we eliminate.”
“Hence the brain.” She whispered.
“It wasn’t the first part of her to get splattered, but it was the last thing she felt.”
Liv licked her lips, and I was afraid she would get emotional or nauseous even at the conversation, but she didn’t. “What did she do to those families?”
“Do you really want to know?” I asked, “The woman was a monster.”
“I want to know.”
I rose from the table and went to her, dragging her feet onto the couch as I sat and rubbed them, recounting Carleen Delgado’s horrors inflicted on innocents. “She was the mother of a leader. And I guess you can say that it takes a certain kind of monster to raise one.” I rubbed my thumb into Liv’s arch as I recounted the tale. “She would find impoverished families in Mexico, which wasn’t hard where they were. And she’d offer them help, under the guise of being some sweet older lady. She’d befriend the women at the market or church and offer them meals and help with their obvious needs.”
Liv deadpanned, “So kind of her.”
“And when the women got hooked on her friendship, she would begin offering things to the rest of their family. Jobs, places to stay, money, food, you name it, she gave it.”
“I’m sure it came with a catch.” Liv said ominously.
“A big one.” I affirmed, “She’d pull the rug out from under the women after a while, making up some tale about needing the money back or needing something in return for her generosity. She’d weave a story about how she was in trouble and needed it, or she’d be in trouble. Obviously, those women couldn’t repay her, if they could, Carleen wouldn’t have gotten her claws in them to begin with. And when push came to shove, Carleen’s son would step in. He’d demand repayment with interest, and if they couldn’t pay, then he’d have them on the hook for labor. In some cases, they would take husbands or older sons from their homes and ship them off into the drug game. Other times, men from the cartel would show up at their homes in the middle of the night and take payment out of the women and their daughters right in the middle of the street.”
“Jesus.” Liv sighed, “Rape, you mean?”
“Yeah, most of the time, the young girls never got back up off the ground when the cartel was done with them. That woman decimated entire families in the dark of night.
She stared down at the foot that I was rubbing, chewed on her bottom lip while keeping her hands covering that bump under her t-shirt. “And you made it hurt when you killed her?” She asked, looking back up at me with glassy eyes.
“She fucking screamed for mercy. But she found none from me.”
“Do you believe a person is good or bad based on their DNA?” She whispered and my chest ached for her, knowing what she was really asking.
“No, I don’t.” I slid under her legs, pressed myself against her, and then, wrapping an arm around her, pulled her onto my lap. “I believe that a baby is born innocent and good to their core. Behaviors are taught and evil is grown and festered inside of someone based on someone they’re around.” I tipped her head back, so she’d look up at me again when she stared off at the wall behind me. “Your baby is good, Liv. You are good.”
“But Damon isn’t. What if some of his evil is engrained so deeply in his DNA that he transferred it onto my baby?” Swallowing, she went on, “That’s my biggest fear. And I think the part of me that keeps me held back from fully embracing this as a gift and not a punishment. What if my baby is just like him?”
“It won’t be.” I reassured her, resting my forehead against hers. “This baby will be just like you. And just like me. Because we’re the ones that are going to raise it and teach it right from wrong and good from bad.”
She hiccupped and laughed at the same time, but there wasn’t much humor behind it. “You’re a psycho and I’m a criminal. What the fuck do we know about being good?”
“You’re so fucking good, Storm.” I countered, “And my darkness will never touch this baby. I won’t allow it, on my fucking life.”
She took a deep breath and contemplated everything before wrapping her arms around my abdomen and snuggling in deeper. “Sometimes, I think a little darkness in a person’s soul can be a good thing.” I leaned us back a bit and got comfortable as she continued her thought, “Because only the pure and innocent get hurt. That darkness within us, that which we harbor while striving to do good, protects us from the manipulation suffered by those in Carleen’s story. I would have killed that fucking bitch myself if she even tried.”
I tightened my arms around her, moved by the way she thought of people like us. “You’re damn fucking right about that, Storm. Damn fucking right.”