Chapter 18—Milly
“W hat’s the verdict?” I spin around in his desk chair, imitating my favorite villain, Dr. Evil. I curb my need to put my pinkie finger on my lip, but only just.
“Jesus, woman!” I raise a single eyebrow at seeing him jump so high. For someone with so many weapons and who’s able to hit a guy dead center in the head, he’s pretty jumpy. “Don’t scare a guy like that. Fuck!” He takes a second to close the door before looking back at me with a glare. “How’d you get into my room?”
I shrug. “Picked the lock.”
He huffs as he rolls his eyes before he moves to his closet. I figured he’d be more impressed that I figured out which room at the clubhouse was his than how I got in. The clubhouse might be hard to get into, but a key lock is a key lock—aka, easy to access.
“Something you learned on the run?”
“Nah, Bobby taught me how to pick locks when I was five.” I spin in his chair as he goes about doing whatever it is he was hoping to do in here. I took a gamble that he would come here after his boys’ meeting. He hasn’t had much time to get away from me and Ollie of late, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned since living with the man, he likes his privacy. Since he isn’t getting that at home, I figured he would try here. Too bad I’m not one to take the hint. “But Tommy was the one who taught me how to boost cars when I was twelve.”
“Fucking hell. Never figured your brother to be the type to let you in on the family business.” He grabs some clothes from the top drawer of the dresser and then heads to the attached bathroom. I let him have the space but don’t stop talking, raising my voice for him to hear with the door shut.
“Oh, Vinny, my oldest brother, didn’t. But you knew that already. It was the others I would con into letting me tag along. Vinny much preferred me locked away, chained to the fucking bed to keep me safe. But he realized I could pick that lock, too, so he stopped trying to force me to stay out of things. He just got smarter and stopped giving me the chance to follow. Would even take the boys when I was out, so I had no clue what was up. His way of keeping me safe.”
“He that protective, or was there another reason?” he says as he comes back into the room.
I scan his body in approval. What can I say? I’ve dreamed about his fingers every single night. The memory of his body pressed against me is seared into my brain. Scanning the gym clothes he changed into has my body heating on its own. Guy makes gym shorts and a black wifebeater almost sinful.
“Don’t know. He wasn’t ever the sharing type. I’m sure I had the threats. Most families did, and being the only girl in the Leone family in about four generations, I was more a novelty than anything, I bet. But I got smart, got tough. Made sure no one pushed me down so far that I couldn’t get up and stab them in the back myself.”
“Sounds about right for a Yank.” He sits on his bed, lacing up his tennis shoes .
“Brooklyn, baby. All Brooklyn.” Smiling, I twirl completely around with a small smile as I stare up at the ceiling. “So… you still pussyfooting around, or are you going to tell me what your boss said?” I glance at him from the side of my eye as I keep my head angled up.
He finally meets my gaze, the first time since he entered the room. I noticed it but didn’t call him on it before. Probably subconsciously trying to delay the inevitable. But that moment of peace has passed, it seems.
I don’t know why, but I smile. It’s not a happy one, rather one of resignation. “Yeah, thought as much. The risk is too high, right? Club doesn’t want to get involved? I get it.”
“Club doesn’t want to start a war with the Russian mafia. We’ve got our hands in a lot of jars as it is, and putting one more out there will push us over,” he says with his forearms on his knees, looking over at me as I stand.
“No worries. I get it. You guys going to get me a new car since you dumped my last one, or do I have to steal one before Ollie and I hit the road?”
“No, you’re not going anywhere.” He slowly shakes his head.
“Pretty sure you just said the club ain’t keeping me, and I’ve definitely played out the kidnapped fantasy long enough. As they say at the bar, it’s time to go.” I step toward his door, but his next words stop me from opening it.
“Your brother’s on the way.”
I pause. My brother. The thought of him coming to my rescue would have been a welcome gift years ago. But times have changed. I’m not the same naive girl I was once upon a time .
“He’s making arrangements and will be here by the end of next week.”
I take a steady breath, close my eyes, and push away my wants. Something I’m used to doing. At least I have been for the past three years. “No.”
“No?” The laughter in his voice grates my nerves, and I turn in anger.
“Yeah, no. He’s only coming because he feels like he has to. He knows better than to start shit. Like you said, no one goes against the Russian mafia if they don’t have to. With me on the run, he’s not connected. I’m rogue, or at least that’s how he’s spun it all these years.”
He tilts his head and gives me a questioning look before he voices what he must see in my face. “You’re angry with him.”
“No, I’m not. I get it. It was easier to distance himself, especially since he had no idea where I was. Connecting us only left him weak and with no information to trade.”
“Admit it.” He rises from his seat. “He left you out to dry, and it pissed you off.”
“Nah, I’m not that shallow,” I say with a hand wave to push off that ridiculous idea.
“Admit. It.” He steps forward with each word, and the way he says it? The hard notes and the look in his eye like he knows me hit a spot in me that just sets me off.
“Fine!” I yell as I step closer to him, my hands moving rapidly to convey my words. “Of course I was mad. Still am. I’m furious that I have to live and breathe with one eye open all the time. That my days of drunken college years are now a cluster of crappy hotels and poor attempts at pretending that running every day is normal for a little kid. I hate that I was forced to learn how to defend myself and that I have a kill count I know is higher than most of my brothers’, and they’re in the fucking familia . I hate that I’m treated differently because I’m a girl. But I mostly hate that I wasn’t worth fighting for.”
He doesn’t rise to my level of anger. Instead, he does something no one has ever done before—he talks softly.
“Running solves nothing. It doesn’t prove you’re right and he’s wrong. Going out there alone only guarantees one thing.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“Your death. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but we both know the clock is ticking. You can only run for so long before you run right into a trap. You think Ivan is okay with all this time going by? You think he isn’t tiring of waiting for his property to be returned to him? Because that’s what you’re up against if you go out there. Not only do you put yourself at risk but Ollie too.”
“What the hell do you expect me to do?”
“To wait!” He finally matches my volume as he raises his hands in frustration. “Fuck.” He walks away from me but doesn’t go far, as the room isn’t overly large. “I expect you to think it through. Stop trying to just survive the day and start thinking about how to live . Because what you’re doing, this isn’t living.”
“What the hell do you know about it?” I cross my arms.
“More than you think.” He matches my stance but leans back on his desk. “You get three hours of sleep a night, and that’s on a good night. You sleep with a weapon under your pillow and have trained Ollie to do the same. You know how to work a speed bag, I’ll give you that, but you slow after a while. Your timing is off, and you miss. How long do you think it’s going to be before you miss altogether? Or when you take half a second to react, and then it’s not your arm getting grazed by a bullet but your chest taking it dead center? You don’t think I know what you’re up against? I might not have had the Russian mafia after my ass before, but I’ve fought for my life before. Mine and my bothers’, for years. I know what I’m talking about because I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve slept on the floor because there wasn’t a place to rest before. I’ve stayed up for hours on end, days blending together, with a gun in my hand and a finger on the trigger, ready to take the shot when needed. I’ve been you. I’ve done that. So have a lot of other people. But there’s something I did that many didn’t. The same thing you’re being given an opportunity to do.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“I took a break. Got a helping hand. Call it whatever the hell you want, but it’s the same offer we’re giving you. To stand with someone instead of alone.”
I want to yell that he knows nothing, but I see it in his eyes. He gets it. He gets it on a level so few could even comprehend.
Who the fuck knew I would find a kindred spirit in Buttfuck, Kansas?
“Club told your brother we would keep you safe till he arrives. When he gets here, talk to him, don’t talk to him—that’s your choice. But give yourself a moment to breathe, to live a little. Even if it’s just for a few days. ”
I bite my bottom lip and think. Really think it over. Bass seems perfectly content enough to survey me as I do. He leans back on that tight ass of his with his arms still folded, his biceps bulging, the shirt pulling just tight enough that I can see the muscles of his swimmer’s physique. “If I stay, it doesn’t mean I like you.”
“Never said it did.” He holds my stare. “Me telling you to stay means nothing either.”
“Good.”
I cross the distance between us in an instant and attack his mouth. His arms wrap around my shoulders the second I’m near and pull me even closer as we fight again, but this time with our tongues and not our words.
Bad idea doesn’t even begin to describe this, but I don’t give a fuck. I’m doing what he said—living. I’m taking it with both hands and pulling tight. And if he so happens to moan as I pull a bit too hard on his hair, which I’m gripping on with both hands, well, fuck, that only makes me smile more.
I bite his lip, and he groans as he pulls me tighter before spinning us so it’s my back to the desk. The edge digging into my ass isn’t comfortable, but I barely feel it compared to the man in front of me. He consumes me. Not sure when it happened, but in this moment, he’s all I need or want. Nothing else exists for me but the here and now.
I’m being selfish again, I know. But he made me do it. You can’t take a toy out of the box and then put it back in again. It’s just not the same. You want to play with it. And by toy, I mean orgasms, and by play, I mean I want more after having gone without for so long.
When I started my unexpected three-year celibacy, I didn’t know that was what it was. I just knew I needed to take care of Ollie, and that was all I thought about. I might have thought about sex in passing over the past few years, but I never needed it. Not like I do right now.
Again, something that is his fault. I would never have this need if I didn’t feel like Ollie wasn’t safe. I hate it, and I won’t admit it, but that’s what the club—and Bass—give me. Safety. Peace. A place to breathe. I’ve fought for so long on my own that it’s taken me a few weeks to sort out my feelings on the matter. I figured it out when he went to his Church meeting and my next thought was that I hoped they wouldn’t tell us to leave. If that isn’t a blatant sign that I trust this group, I don’t know what is.
A hard tug at my hair grounds me and pulls me out of my head. Not sure if he knew I needed that or if he just likes the moan it pulls from my lips. Then he does it again, twisting more of my hair around his fist till he pulls my lips off his completely.
The separation restricts my access to him with my mouth, not the other way around. He bites my chin, my collarbone, going in a random pattern as he nibbles around, giving me a necklace that I secretly hope stays longer than it takes me to get off.
“Fuck. You’re a pain slut if I ever saw one. General’s going to be pissed that he didn’t get chained to you,” he says between bites, as I feel his teeth sink deep into my flesh and I wither with pleasure as I pant for my next breath.
I lick my lips. “Why’s that?”
He rotates his hips, and I sigh out the satisfaction my pussy feels at the movement. He hit a spot that sent a zing through me, even with both of our shorts on. “He’s the club’s masochist. ”
“The doc?” I huff out a breath. The idea is crazy for my brain to grasp, but then Bass pulls my hair again, forcing my head to the side as his bites turn to my upper neck and ear.
“Yeah. It’s always the quiet ones. Don’t you agree, baby?” He tugs hard and bites deep, pulling a gasp from me as my body jerks in response, yanking his own hair in reflex.
“Bring….” I take a breath to try and push down the lust clouding my head and keeping me tongue-tied. I refuse to show that he’s affecting me more than anyone else. Bass just gets what I need, and while it feels amazing, it’s putting me on edge to a point where I want to say, “Fuck it,” to the bad-girl image I cling to and just cling to him instead.
“Bring him here. Let’s see if he knows what he’s doing. ’Cause you’re doing a shit job of it.”
His dark chuckles pull another deep, hearty moan from my lips, as his mouth is so close to my skin, I feel the vibration. “Oh, baby girl, you don’t know what you just did. Challenge accepted.”
He takes my lips in a punishing kiss, and all I can think is Yessss.