Chapter 9 – Ava Jade #2
I went to him, lifting the edge of his shirt to see his chest. He lifted a brow, but didn’t stop me as I ran my fingers over his tan, muscled abdomen.
Over the tattoo on his hip and up higher, to the rapidly darkening bruise on his ribs.
I pressed gently over each rib until he hissed at my touch at the fifth one up.
“It might be broken.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
I cocked my head at him. “Do you often try to kill each other?”
“Brothers. It’s what we do. He wouldn’t have killed me. He’d miss me too much.”
“Sure as hell looked like he was doing his best to,” I scoffed.
“You don’t know him like we do.”
A silence stretched between us as I continued to lightly trace the edge of the tattoo curving over his hip bone and disappearing into the low-riding waist of his dark denim jeans.
“What happened to you?” I asked, truly curious. Needing to know what forged him. If he was born or made.
I liked to think I was born good. Happy. Healthy. Without even a touch of madness.
I also hated to think that, because it would mean that the darkness took root later. After mom did what she did. After that man bled out near the train tracks in Lennox. It would mean that I let it take root.
Did Rook’s darkness bury itself deep inside him after a trauma? Or was it there all along? Was mine?
Did our darkness lurk deep inside since we took our first breaths? Waiting for us to give into it…
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said in a whisper.
I swallowed hard.
“The person who hurt you…” Rook trailed off, catching my hand as it traced a path across his lower abdomen, trapping it in his iron grip.
Making me look at him. Making me remember the man by the train tracks.
The weight of him pressed against my body, holding me down.
The feel of him between my legs. Of his blood spraying over my face and bare chest. “What was their name?
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t matter because he’s dead.”
He didn’t seem surprised. A bit disappointed, maybe, like he was sad he wouldn’t get the chance to play with whoever it was in his torture shed.
It really was a shame. I’d have liked to watch.
“You?” he asked simply, and ice bloomed behind my breast. A cold sweat slicked my chest and forehead.
I’d never told anyone since the day it happened and that old fear came rushing back.
The image of a cell, cold, with iron bars and a toilet in the corner flashed over my eyelids as I shuddered, closing my eyes.
But the man on the tracks wasn’t the only man I’d killed now. There was Billy, too. You could even say I had a hand in the death of the Ace at the warehouse. And I didn’t lose any sleep over them like I did that first kill.
I was smarter, more careful.
And they deserved it.
I nodded.
I placed the hand not clutched in Rook’s tattooed fingers to his stomach again, slipping my hand along bumps of muscle to his back, finding the puckered ridge of a burn hidden beneath his ink. “And the one who did this?”
He didn’t move as I fingered one scar, then another, staring at me like he was looking for something he couldn’t easily find. “Barbequed.”
A smile found its way to my lips, and his brows furrowed at my reaction.
“Good.”
Rook jerked forward, taking me by the throat to pin me against the center island.
The hard marble countertop slammed into the base of my spine, and I gasped, kicking up a heel to snatch a blade.
He could’ve, but he didn’t try to stop me as I drew it and pressed it between us, to the zipper of his jeans.
His hold on my throat didn’t waver.
“Tell me to let go,” he challenged, leaning in until his warm breath was a promise on my lips. His own upper lip raising in a silent snarl. He squeezed, and I moaned.
I fucking moaned as he leaned in ever closer, a knowing smirk on his lips.
“Go ahead and cut me, Ghost. Leave your mark. I will.”
“You can try,” I croaked before thrusting my arm upward, taking him by surprise. His hold on my throat was broken, and I ducked low, rolling out of his reach, my blade drawn as I fixed my stance, a thrill going through me.
He ran his tongue over his teeth like a wolf might right before a kill and my breathing hitched.
“Will you kill me?” I asked seriously, the ache between my thighs begging to be quelled in the way I thought only this Crow could quench it.
“Want to find out?”
My nostrils flared.
Did I?
I saw the madness in him almost from the start, but it was a familiar thing. An intelligent sort of insanity. Others didn’t trust him. Thought he had no self-control. I was willing to bet it was the complete opposite. He had all the control in the world, he just decided to let it go sometimes.
Was I willing to stake my life on it?
Rook darted forward, and I parried to the right, going around the kitchen island to put it between us, stepping carefully to avoid the tacky smears of fake blood on the floor.
He watched me with the eyes of a predator, still, and calm. Waiting for his opening.
I shook my head, laughing to myself. At the idiocy of tempting the devil.
But that was exactly what I was going to do.
From the first moment I saw him, I wanted him. He was the forbidden fruit and I was fucking starving .
“Fuck it,” I muttered, ditching my blade. Letting it join its cousin on the floor as I leapt over the kitchen island, tackling Rook until he smashed into the countertop. He took me like he was the one who was starving. Defiling my mouth with his wicked tongue.
A low sound in his throat made my knees quake as he took a fistful of my sticky hair and held me there, stealing all the air from my lungs. Bruising my lips with his kiss. His lip ring cutting into me until I tasted blood.
His hard cock pressed insistently against my belly, and I reached my fingers between us to stroke it through his jeans, making him groan.
Little hard nubs ribbed his cock, and he shuddered as my fingers brushed over each one.
His teeth found my lower lip to bite down hard, the pain adding to the eruption of sensations making my body shudder and shake.
I unbuttoned his jeans, rushing to lower the zipper. Wanting to see what I could feel through his jeans. To free it.
Rook’s cock sprang free, nudging against my palm.
Hot and thick and harder than steel. Lined with a row of frenum piercings running up the base like a ladder.
I counted eleven. Eleven to form Jacob’s Ladder.
I’d always wanted to be fucked by a pierced cock, and I licked my lips at the sight of him.
I jerked him hard, making him thrust forward at my pull.
He laughed, hot against my mouth. “You want to play rough, Ghost?”
His fist in my hair pulled down, forcing me to my knees. “We can play rough.”
I knew what he meant to do. To force his way past my lips, but I was already two steps ahead of him, taking him deep into my mouth, making him curse.
I took him deeper still, wanting to feel him at the back of my throat. The laddered piercing ran over my tongue, pushing back until I choked. Rook stared down at me incredulously as I opened my mouth wide for him, holding him there until I could hardly breathe.
“ Fuck… ”
I wanted him. I wanted him so fucking badly it hurt.
I needed him to show me his darkness, because then maybe…
Maybe I could show him mine.
He pulled back after another second and I gasped for air.
“Fuck my mouth,” I demanded. “Don’t hold back.”
Fear flickered over his features, gone so quickly I questioned whether I saw it at all as he slammed back into my mouth, using his fist in my hair to hold my lips around the base of his cock.
And then he did what I asked.
He fucked my tight little throat until it burned, until I was gasping and tears burned in my eyes. Until my panties were ruined from my own wetness. My cunt throbbing with a vicious ache, demanding to be touched.
I reached my hand down, fumbling to get my fingers below the waistband of my pants as Rook continued to pound into my mouth, low, rough grunts falling from his lips.
“No,” he growled, popping out from between my lips, leaving me gasping. He had me by the throat again, and I was beyond fighting him, giving myself over to whatever he wanted. Happy to not be in control for once. Even if it meant my end.
My back found the countertop of the center island. The air knocked from my lungs as Rook dragged me to its edge, releasing my throat to tear my pants off.
They were still hanging uselessly from one leg when he pushed between them and slid two fingers against my wet heat, making me startle with a sudden cry at the violent sensation.
My back arched, and I pushed closer to him, aching for him to take me.
A tug on my ankle and I realized he’d taken my last blade from its sheath there. I bucked again as he laid the flat edge of it against my stomach, cold and hard.
I watched as he traced a line with it downward, turning it slowly to its freshly honed edge.
He watched me carefully while he moved the blade, biting his lip ring, breathing hard.
His cock was almost level with my opening, jutting out from him, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. The little silver balls catching the light. Menacing and glorious and all fucking mine.
“Do it,” I told him. “Do it all.”
He flicked the blade just below my hip bone, and I sucked in a breath as the fresh cut met the air. He bared his teeth, sucking in breath through them as his muscles bunched. Watching transfixed as the warmth spilled down my hip, rolling onto the counter.
It was shallow. I cut myself deeper than that.
“More,” I hissed, the feeling of being alive, of feeling awakening something inside I thought long dead. “ More. ”
This time when he pressed the knife to my flesh on the opposite side of my hip, I pushed into the blade, my eyes rolling back at the sweet, sweet release of the pain.