CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT MOLLY
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MOLLY
I was watching from the bed as Ashton moved around the room, sweats on, a T-shirt not hiding how very toned he was.
Shock and trauma aside from being shot at and everything else, man , the man had muscles.
He was the definition of muscle definition.
And those sweats were dipping so nicely low on his hips.
I wasn’t trying to work myself up, but it was just happening.
Ashton had given me and Jess and Trace the info on what he thought was happening because my dad was scurrying around out there.
And also that he’d sent in an order for Marcus to reach out, but that he hadn’t yet.
That was either good or bad. I checked my phone, but he’d not messaged or called me there either.
“Do you think he’ll be alarmed when he goes to your apartment, Molly?” Jess had asked earlier.
I snorted before remembering she didn’t really know the dynamic between my father and me. I shook my head. “Number one rule surviving being Shorty Easter’s daughter? Never let him know where you live. He only knows to get ahold of me at Easter Lanes.”
“And if he shows up, Glen will let us know. I have other men in place as well.”
Ashton. The Mafia man of the men. He had them everywhere, had ears everywhere, eyes all over the city. I watched him now as he came to the bed and reached for his shirt’s hem to haul it over his head, but he paused upon seeing me studying him.
He asked, “What?”
“The Worthing family sent men after you.”
His eyes grew wary until he masked them.
He was doing that less and less, or I was starting to be able to read him better and better. I was going with me. Woman power. I was awesome.
“Yes.”
I reached for the blanket, my finger running over the end, playing with it. “So according to Mafia street rules, that means you guys are going to hit them back?”
His shoulders rose as he took in a deep breath. “It’s not normal for me to talk about who I’m going to murder before I do it.”
If he meant for that to be cutting, I let it roll off my back. “They hit you before? With your uncles. Your grandfather. Trace’s uncle too.”
Ashton’s mouth dipped down. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m getting at, why haven’t you hit them back yet?” My pulse began to pick up pace. “Ashton, you are not the guy known for restraint. What is going on?”
He stared at me before a slight grin curved at the corner of his mouth.
Reaching for the sheet, he moved it back and got underneath.
He rested against the headboard, looking at me, so I moved forward, facing him and kneeling on the bed.
He laid a hand between us, palm up, but other than that, he didn’t move to touch me.
“Most women don’t advocate for murder.”
I snorted at that. “Most women don’t own a business or have lived in a community where the Mafia runs it either. They get to live in fairy tales and castles. I don’t. Hit them back.”
He frowned a little. “We’re planning on it, but no, I’m not telling you the details.”
“I don’t care about the details. I just want to know you’re going to do it.”
He rested his head back, still looking at me. It gave him an almost softer look. “You and Jess are friends.”
I shot him a frown. “Yeah?”
“Then why am I the one in here with you?”
I shrugged at that, turning so I was sitting with my back against the headboard with him.
I was still playing with the bedsheet in my hand.
“Because Jess thinks I’m fragile, and she talks to me as if I’m an egg about to crack open.
Yes. I’m not tough in hand-to-hand like she is, and I didn’t have to deal with parolees like she used to, but in a way, I’m more street than she ever was. ”
“Her brother is in prison. Her father was murdered.”
“She was never homeless, and she lived in a decent community.” I’d stopped looking at him when he asked about Jess, but I chanced one now. “You don’t treat me like that. You don’t talk to me like that.”
A dark understanding was looking back at me. “I wasn’t? Not when I was carrying you around?”
I grinned. “That was me milking the situation. No matter how old we get, there’s always a little girl in us who wants to be picked up by her knight.”
He lifted his hand up, his thumb coming to rest on my chin, right in the dip. His gaze fell to my lips. “I’m not your knight.”
I swallowed over a lump. “No, you’re not. You’re the bad guy.”
His eyes darkened, and his thumb moved down to my throat, farther, gliding between my breasts. “Yes. I am.”
“You’re the murderer.”
That should scare me. It didn’t. It really didn’t, and it wasn’t because I was attracted to him or whatever else might’ve been unfolding between us.
It had to do with something more, something underlying everything.
Something in him that recognized something in me.
Something that I felt, knew, was there but still wasn’t altogether ready to address.
And until then, I was willing to address a whole other “something” I was feeling for him, right now, something in a very physical manner.
His chest rose, but he ran his finger over, pulling the side of my tank down, exposing one of my breasts. His finger moved up, circling my nipple. “I’ll always be the murderer.”
“I know what you were planning to do, you know.”
I was watching him as I said it, and he paused, his eyes steady on mine. My pulse was skyrocketing, and a deep ache was beginning to pound between my legs. Still, I held firm. “You were going to use me as bait for Kelly’s killer.”
His voice was raspy. “You knew?”
I nodded, silent, before murmuring, “I guessed.”
The thought of what he could’ve done, maybe should’ve done—my gut shifted, sliding to the side, because a part of me understood.
The part like him, the part that helped me survive the streets, the part that contributed to when “the switch” happened, but the other part, of actual thinking what that would’ve been like? Sitting. Being bait?
“I understand, but I’m not happy about it.” I reached up, pulling my tank down on my other side, letting that breast free as well.
We shared a long look. Him, I don’t know, but me, I was letting him know that I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t wide eyed. And I wasn’t totally sure if I was going to be pissed about what he might’ve done.
“And your response to what I was considering doing?”
I shook my head, instead answering in a whole different away. I moved up, lifting my leg and coming down to straddle him. Both of us paused at the contact because he was right there.
He felt good. So good.
I bit down on my lip and began to move over him.
He groaned, his hand moving to the back of my ass, clamping on. I was learning it was one of his favorite places to hold on to me, but he was guiding me so we were both grinding against each other.
I leaned back, my hips still riding him, and I gasped against the onslaught of pleasure. “I’m not the girl who thinks sex is love. I know it’s not. It’s never been that in my life.”
“Molly. About what I—”
“Shut up.” I rose and paused, then ground against him, going slow, savoring.
He frowned a little, but he moved me harder, more insistent over him, distracted at the same time.
He reached up, one of his hands resting on my neck, the rest of his fingers, his palm, spread out over the side of my face.
He was half holding me in place, half somewhat cradling me in a touch that might’ve been gentle, but it was also slightly aggressive. We both knew it.
His eyes flashed, hard, as I rolled my hips forward. “What kind of girl are you then, Molly?”
Need and carnal desire were pulsating through my body, spreading, and I knew he wouldn’t say no this time.
Or if he did, that’d be interesting as well, but because of that, because of what we were doing, because he was rock hard underneath me, I reached down and pulled his pants low.
I moved up, shoving my own pants down, and then I paused.
His dick was fucking long and hard.
I was in love with that part of him, but shooting him a slight grin, I didn’t share.
I just panted, “Condom?”
“Molly.” He was gritting his teeth.
I shook my head. “You messed up. That’s what I think.”
“How?” he rasped out, his other hand kneading my ass.
I knocked his hand away from my face and neck, before grabbing ahold of his cock. He hissed at the touch, but his eyes only closed for a moment. I said then, when he wasn’t looking at me, “You should’ve used me when you had the chance.”
His eyes opened, and they were molten. He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed one from the drawer.
He handed it to me, content to watch as I worked my hand over him before putting the condom on, and then, I rose up.
I positioned over him and sank down, both of us groaning at the feel of him inside of me.
That’s when I said, in a pant, “Because I’ll never give you the chance again.”
He cursed but shoved up even higher inside of me.
God. He felt so good.
I added, answering his other question, “I’m the girl who doesn’t know how to be treated right, so treat me right tonight.”
He froze at my words, but it didn’t matter.
I bent my head down, resting on his chest, and I rode him for myself.
Round two, he flipped us over.
I was on my back, he was above me, and he thrust inside, grinding in. He rode me, sometimes hard, sometimes slow, but always so fucking delicious that I was screaming by my second release, and he started pounding me for his own release.
Round three was in the shower.
I was smashed against the wall, water pounding over both of us.
My hands were up, his were linked with mine, and he was moving up into me from behind.
I think that was my favorite.
Round four was when the sun was coming up.
I’d lost track of time and was starting to lose energy, but Ashton was still going.
This time it was slow and exploratory. If the others had been straight sex, this was the slow-sex round.
He worshipped every inch of my body, kissing, tasting, caressing, and I was panting, grabbing onto the bedsheets as his mouth brought me to climax before he rose back over me.
His gaze met mine, and we both paused. I was panting, trying to catch my breath, and his eyes were dark, so dark. Our last words had been mine, telling him to treat me right, and he had.
The night had been a fuck fest.
Something flashed in his eyes, something hard and primal and something that sent a shiver down my spine.
Whatever it was, he reached for my legs and raised them up, pushing them so they were above my head.
I had to scoot down, but rising back, he held my legs in place.
His hands would leave handprints on the backs of my thighs, but he shoved inside, and I was wrong.
This wasn’t the slow-sex round.
This was the hard: “I’m going to ride you so hard that you have absolutely nothing left, and I will enjoy fucking the life out of you”—it was that round.
He watched me the whole time, his strokes almost punishing.
I held his gaze. We were in some sort of fight, even just now.
I just panted, not caring about whatever was going on in his head, because I was loving this.
The harder, the better, and I grinned as he growled, bending over me, his forehead next to mine.
His head was turned, and we still watched each other.
Our lips were grazing against each other, but neither moved to seal a kiss.
We hadn’t kissed the whole night.
Suddenly, he let go of my legs. They fell around his waist, but he held a hand against the headboard so he was able to pull back, almost coming out of me, only to slam back inside.
I gasped, moaning. He was making my entire body shake, and somehow I knew this round was him taking out some form of frustration on me.
But, almost grinning at how I was about to mess with that, I reached for his ass and lifted myself up, plastering myself against him so he couldn’t give me the punishing strokes.
He made a guttural sound, almost like a growl, and I was moving to meet him so we were both punishing each other.
I was doing it to piss him off, and he knew it, growling before he took charge.
A hand came around me, and he flipped me over.
I was slammed down on my stomach. I reached up, trying to grab a place to hold on the bed, but he took my ankles and slid me down in one yank.
“Agh!” I squeaked.
His hands were on the insides of my thighs, spreading them. He was back at my entrance.
He slid in, thrusting a little slower, but he was back to fucking me, and goddamn, I gave in, my head falling to the bed.
I lay there, and I enjoyed every second of this as he was pistoning into me.
We came together.
I felt his release at the same time mine ripped through my body. I didn’t think that was planned and half laughed about it, but he lay over my body for a minute. He was gasping for breath. I was doing the same.
My pulse was slowing, normalizing.
He began to pull out, his hand sliding under my legs, but I ceased being aware of anything ...
I was asleep. Bliss.