Chapter 26 #2
I'd rather every sorry fucker in this town heard her so they'd recognize this territory has already been claimed, but I’ll settle for this. For now.
When her eyes close and her lips part, I smile against her, flattening my tongue against her slit, groaning at her taste.
"Mmm," I moan against her, and her hips buck. Goddamn.
She's so perfect.
So mine.
When her hands twist into my hair, gripping tight, I know she's close.
Her thighs bracket my head as she flexes and rolls her hips. I swirl my tongue faster, slipping a single digit beneath my chin and into her drenched heat, hooking it against the spot she likes with firm strokes.
"Oh fuck, fuck, Seven, I'm…I'm…"
Oh, I know, baby. I know.
I add another digit and fuck my fingers into her harder, rubbing my tongue and lips all over her slippery cunt until she's a mess of sensation, fighting against my hold on her hip as I eat her pussy exactly how I want to.
"Seven!"
My name is a choked plea on her lips, and I commit the sound to memory as she comes on my face. Her body arches impossibly high as she whines my name again.
I only stop wringing every morsel of pleasure from her swollen pussy when she finally sags back against the mattress and shivers, coming down from the high as small tremors still rack her body.
It takes her a second to catch her breath when I withdraw my fingers and use my shirt to clean my lips and chin, then she throws an arm over her eyes and sighs contentedly.
"I think you and Elijah have officially ruined me."
I lick my lips, relishing what remains of her musk there. "Then we're doing our jobs."
I flop onto the mattress next to her, staring up at the discolored popcorn ceiling.
We turn to look at each other at the same time, and I prop a hand under my head to take in the last bit of red in her cheeks as it begins to fade.
I'm harder than fucking granite in my jeans, but I will my body to soften.
Tonight isn't about what I want, and all I needed when I came here was to see her face.
To touch her. Hold her. And we're running out of time.
"What are you thinking?" she asks me after the silence lingers between us.
I smile, taking her hand and pressing a kiss into her palm. "You aren't ready to hear it yet, Ro."
But she will be. Soon.
"Stay?" she asks after another beat. "Until I fall asleep?"
I sit up and draw back the covers for her to get beneath them and peel off my leather jacket to join her. Once I have her tucked tight against my chest, she melts against me. "Thanks for coming."
"I'll always be here when you need me, Ro. No matter what."
She shifts against me. "I know…but, Seven?"
"Hmm?"
"Don't come here again."
I go still.
"It's too risky," she whispers. "We need to be more careful. Both of us."
She's probably thinking about what she did with the car. It was a bit insane, but Atty did manage to make it look like it was stolen in a college prank gone wrong, so no harm done, really.
But I know she's right, though I don't like hearing it. If I had to guess, meeting Ambrose made things a little more real for her.
He's not some faceless boogeyman anymore. He's flesh and blood, and she would've recognized the devil he hides beneath charm and a tailored suit.
"Okay," I whisper back, squeezing her tighter.
I can be careful.
For her, I think I can do anything.
"Could you talk until I fall asleep?" she asks sleepily.
"Mmm. What do you want me to talk about, Ro?"
"Anything. I want to hear your voice."
My chest squeezes.
Ro pats my leather jacket sitting atop the covers next to us. "Tell me where you got this."
I grin. "It was Julian's."
"Really?"
She snuggles in, finding a cozy spot with her head in the crook of my shoulder.
"Mmm." I keep my voice low, just above a whisper. "It was his favorite jacket. He was wearing it the first time I ever met him, but he almost always had it on. Said it was his lucky jacket and if he wasn't wearing it something could go wrong."
"I didn't think he'd be superstitious."
She yawns, her body growing heavier in my arms as sleep starts to claim her.
"Oh." I laugh quietly, remembering. "He was so superstitious."
I stroke her hair languidly, watching my tattooed fingers slip through the dark strands as her breaths even out and her lips part on a soft exhale as she falls asleep in my arms.
My grin falters, replaced with a grimace as I recall how the jacket started to look bigger and bigger on him.
"After Ambrose stole the Ashfords' collection," I continue even though I think she might be beyond hearing me. "…and Flo took a turn, Julian started to spiral."
My voice drops impossibly low, and I hold her tighter. "And by the time she passed, his lucky jacket didn't fit him anymore. He'd lost so much weight."
I clench my teeth against the rage that stings in my eyes.
"Before he started to really lose his touch with reality, he came to me.
I still remember how he called me into the library and sat me down, pulling out his jacket, laying it over his lap.
He stroked the old leather like it was something precious.
He told me that his luck had run out, but that the jacket still had some life—some luck—in it for someone else. "
My whisper grows thick and I swallow the ball in my throat, only to have it expand in my chest instead.
"I'd never gotten a gift like that before. This wasn't a new lockpicking set or an iPod or a really wicked blade…it belonged to him. And he wanted me to have it. Not Elijah. Not Atticus. Me."
I take a shaky breath, then drop another kiss to her forehead.
"I miss him, Ro. Fuck, I miss him so much."
I’m not sure how long I stay like that, mind trapped in the past with my whole future in my arms, but I know I need to go.
Atticus will have my ass if he finds out I was here.
But then Ro makes this little sound—a soft, contended sigh—burrowing closer, and I physically cannot make myself leave her.
I trace the shapes of her face in sleep and brush a strand of dark hair from her temple.
“I love you, Ro.”
The words fall out before I can stop them, quiet enough that only the dark can hear me. “I’m so fucking in love with you it terrifies me.”
Her nose scrunches in her sleep and my heart does something stupid in my chest.
I can’t bring myself to go until the glow of dawn starts to brighten the sky and I’ve finished memorizing the devastating beauty of her in the half light.