16. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
Henny
B itching and moaning to myself under my breath, I waited for the water to warm up in the shower as I paced the apartment. That shit took forever and my patience was gone. Beyond gone. Exhaustion clung to my bones and I needed to wash the stink of the holding cell off of me before I lost my fucking mind. First, I had to deal with Marco’s antics. Then, the fucking jobs. The icing on the cake was getting fucking locked up. Sprinkles on top of this shit cake came in the form of Marco not answering his fucking cell.
I held the towel around my waist in one hand and stalked into my room, eager to see if he'd finally decided to check his fucking voicemail, but alas. No texts or calls from good ole Marco. I grew irrationally angry at that fact, but a notification popped up just as I went to toss the phone back on my pillow. Luca. Figures; the brother I wanted to hear from didn't give a fuck. Despite my pissy reaction, I opened the text to see what he had to say.
Luca: yo Marc took off after Pops said some bullshit
Luca: idk where he's going
“Yeah, not my problem,” I muttered sourly to myself as I abandoned the device and went to check the shower. The billowing steam was a light at the end of the tunnel. At least one thing was looking up. Nudging the door closed, I dropped the towel and climbed into the blissful inferno that would hopefully burn off the shit attitude I'd picked up from the holding cell overnight.
Logically, I knew I had no right being pissed off at Marco. This had been all my doing from start to finish. I was the one who had the brilliant idea to sneak off and handle the business of being a mafia prince. I was the one who let Gianluca tag along. I was the one who got Jericho locked up right alongside me. Marco had no clue, but the fucker could have at least answered my phone call. He could have reached out. He was a selfish prick and I shouldn't have been surprised.
We got lucky. We got damn fucking lucky that Luca had stayed behind and was able to get us sprung. I knew his dad was behind it, but every time I thought of how much worse it could have gone, a cold that I couldn't erase sank deeper into my soul. We got so fucking lucky. I scrubbed my skin harder with the loofah and cranked the water just a little bit hotter.
The shower was restorative. I could have lived there for the rest of my days, but that wouldn't be fair. Jer needed one just as badly as I did. There was absolutely nothing about a New York City holding cell that inspired feelings of cleanliness, especially sitting alongside drunks and drug addicts and a few people I was sure were in there on solicitation charges. As soon as I turned the tap off, the noise from outside the bathroom had me on edge. Banging. Shouting. King barking like a rabid hell beast. A loud crack had my body jumping and I nearly slipped in the tub. Jericho's shouting got louder and… no. This was clearly an auditory hallucination due to exhaustion.
I had exactly zero time to respond. I yanked the shower curtain open as the bathroom door nearly flew off its hinges. If I were more aware, I would have reached for my towel, but I wasn't. Completely dumbstruck, I stood there dripping wet with my dick and balls out as Marco seethed in the doorway with barely controlled rage and something darker in his eyes. Something haunted.
God damn him for the subtle dip of his gaze as he took in my body from head to toe before returning to my face. His fists clenched, released, clenched again, the trembling visible even through the fog of the bathroom. And then, in the blink of an eye, my body was moving. His grip on my arms was painfully tight as he dragged me out of the shower, squeezing even harder as my wet skin and writhing protests made his hold falter.
“What the actual fuck?!”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He wrestled me out of the bathroom and then froze in place as the ominous click of a gun safety being disengaged cracked through the air. King’s growl followed close behind.
“Marco, I will not hesitate to shoot you.” Jericho’s voice was stone-cold and deathly calm.
Another frisson of trembling zipped through Marco’s body, his hands quaking with tremors as he dropped them to his sides and struggled to breathe. My mind was fucked by all of it.
“Jer… Jer, I think we’re good.” I held up a hand, shaking almost as badly as Marco was, to placate him and hopefully take back some control of the situation.
“Are we, though? He's completely unhinged. King almost took his fucking head off.” Jericho jerked his chin toward Marc, his hand holding the gun steady with his finger hovering over the trigger. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Marco started panting, the breaths coming out short and shallow and sounding painful for how strained they were. His wild eyes darted between me and Jericho as the trembling shifted into something more like a perpetual full body spasm and then the words started tumbling out of his mouth, making no sense at all. Disjointed phrases, one word whispers, and stuttering syllables filled the air as his hands flew to his head and fisted in his hair.
“Not safe. No. Did they…? Please. Gotta go. I didn't… please?! Bran?” The last word, my name, fell from his lips with a breathy whisper as his eyes locked on mine, imploring, beseeching, and so incredibly haunted, my heart stopped.
“Jer, put the gun away.” I lifted my hands in slow motion, telegraphing every movement well in advance, as I gingerly touched my fingertips to Marco’s shoulders. “Marc, breathe. You need to breathe.”
“What the hell is going on?” Jericho muttered the words as he engaged the safety and slowly shifted to shove the gun into the waistband of his pants. He muttered a stern command and King switched from high alert to wiggling puppy in an instant, whining for attention as he squirmed across the ground with his tail thumping a metronome of excitement.
“Marc, I'm gonna give you a hug, okay?” I shifted my hands further over his shoulders and invaded his space at a glacial pace. His breathing quickened, growing more erratic, until I pulled him against my body. At that point, he stopped breathing all together and cinched his arms around me in a brutal hold that made it hard to draw air into my lungs.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Jericho stalked around us and disappeared into his room for a few minutes, reappearing with a leather satchel that landed at my feet with a soft thud. “I'm taking a fucking shower.”
The bathroom door slammed, rattling in its hinges and causing Marco to flinch as he exhaled. I held him tighter as he sagged against me with a choked sound that was almost a sob. I wondered for a moment how long we would stay like this as the adrenaline faded away and left me shivering against the burning hot body still quaking in my arms.
“Did they… did they hurt you?” His voice was wrecked, ravaged, raspy.
“No? Marc,” I shifted my tone from incredulity to concern. “Marc, what happened?”
I pulled back enough to search his face, and what I found there was enough to have my blood running cold. This man was clearly haunted by something and I had a feeling it was something he had never spoken aloud. The visible horror on his features gutted me, my worry swiftly becoming a thing of unbridled rage.
“Marc, who hurt you?”
He flinched, his eyes narrowing as he sucked his teeth and looked away, tremors coursing through his body and causing his breath to quicken again.
“Nevermind… nevermind, baby.” I tried to bend down and grab the bag at my feet, but his grip tightened again. There'd be bruises. I was sure of it. “We’re gonna lay down, okay? I'm not going anywhere.”
He nodded, barely, and let me go long enough to retrieve the satchel. I was barely upright before he snapped his hands out and grabbed onto my arms again. His movements were frantic and desperate as he clung to me, each step feeling monumental as I backpedaled toward my bedroom.
“Kill them. I'll kill them all,” he mumbled more to himself than me, but I offered quiet platitudes and my agreement as I gently navigated him onto the mattress. Lucy yowled and hissed, his tail whipping as he glared from his throne, also known as my pillow.
“Shut it, bitch.” I reached out and affectionately tousled the cat’s fluffy head. He swiped at me with another hiss before slinking away to cause more mayhem elsewhere. King whimpered in the distance. Despite the heightened tension, I huffed in amusement and dug into the satchel Jer had tossed at us. That's when my chuckle became a full-blown, barking laugh. Fucking Jericho. That ass had given me his fucking aftercare kit.
Marco was lost to his demons as I rifled through the contents of the bag. Chocolate bars, bottled water and juice, a velvety throw blanket, a fluffy robe, and an honest to God stuffed bear. A stuffed bear that started playing a soundtrack of a beating heart when I squeezed it too hard. He was fucking nuts, but I loved him all the more for it. I pulled the robe on and carefully shifted onto the mattress, knee-walking closer as I whispered Marc’s name. His eyes snapped toward me, confusion and distress clear on his features.
“Hey, Sad Panda.” I pushed the bear against his chest with a grin. “Have a cuddle.”
“The fuck…?” He glanced at the bear, his hands dwarfing the toy as he instinctively clutched it.
“Yeah, don't ask. It's easier not to ask.” I took advantage of his distraction and pulled the blanket out before draping it over his shoulders. “When did you last eat?”
He shrugged, still staring at the bear with a crinkle in his nose. Despite his disdain, as soon as the beating heart stopped playing, he squeezed it again. The queen-sized mattress felt impossibly small with our combined bulk on it, but I managed to wedge myself beside him with our backs to the wall. An eerie stillness fell over the room, the heartbeat bear and Marco’s labored breathing the only sounds audible over the muffled animal antics in the other room. We sat like that for eons, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh, as my adrenaline continued to subside and Marco remained motionless except to squeeze the bear when the soundtrack stopped.
“Here, drink.” I moved too fast in reaching for the bag, causing Marco to tense and draw in a sharp gasp. He worked hard to prevent it, but I was so in tune with his body, I felt it just as profoundly as he did. I cracked the twist top off a bottle of apple juice and held it out toward him, murmuring quiet praise as he took the drink in a shaky hand. I suspected he hadn't consumed a damn thing since I left him to his own devices twenty-four hours earlier.
“Gimme something to work with here,” I muttered, leaning my shoulder into his again. “Talk me through it.”
“Did they hurt you?” His raspy voice sounded breathless as he lowered the bottle to rest on his knee, half of it gone in two large gulps.
“Who? Moretti’s men? Nah.”
“What about… what about in… in the…?”
“Lock up? Baby, we never even made it out of holding. They sprung us at first light. Your dad sent a car and everything. Free and clear.”
His body sagged with visible relief, his eyelids quickly following as his head dropped to the wall with a loud thunk. “Thank fuck.”
“Marco?” I turned toward him a fraction, tucking myself close and coiling my hands around his arm to maintain contact. “What happened?”
The only answer I received was a soft grunt. A wince flickered over his expression before it hardened again. My imagination didn't need much more to run with the horror story it was concocting. The impenetrable walls he’d built around himself. His insistence that he wasn't gay despite claiming to have slept with men for ‘convenience’ in the past. The panicked response and rage that he tried to cover it up with whenever he would beg me not to touch him. Marco was a traumatized man hidden behind a fortress of anger.
Homicide was sounding more and more appealing the longer I sat with him. Heaven help the fuckers if I ever found out who they were. I'd laugh as I tore them limb from limb. There wouldn't be enough of them left to make a positive ID if the bodies were found. My dark rumination kept me company long after Marco stopped squeezing the bear, so long I thought he'd fallen asleep. His gruff voice startled me from my maniacal murder plot when he broke the silence.
“What are you doing to me?”
“Clarify the question, baby.” I shifted my cheek from his shoulder, perching my chin on top of the broad, muscled expanse as I turned to examine his features.
“Why do you put up with me? Why are you making me feel things? Why can't I stop… stop thinking about you? What are you doing to me?”
“Aww, Sad Panda,” I scooted up higher and pressed my lips to his stubbled cheek. “I'm just helping you put the pieces back together.”
He huffed, a quiet sound that slipped around the room and coiled around my chest. With the weight of the world bearing down on his broad shoulders, he sank further against the wall, his eyes never opening. It took an inordinate amount of determination and effort to compel him to lay down, but once he was horizontal, it was game over—for both of us. The bear was abandoned as he replaced it with my body, and his breathing evened out in a matter of seconds. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to end a marathon day of fuckery. Hell, there were times where I had daydreamed of this exact scenario in the past. I dozed off with a smile on my face, finally living out those hopeless dreams in real life. I'd take advantage of it as long as possible.
If I'd thought my daydreams were impossible, I knew for sure my actual dreams were fucking nuts, but that didn't stop my mind from running wild with the possibilities. Strong hands, a tight grip, and a taunting of rolling hips flooded my vivid imagination until the ache in my dick was too intense to remain asleep. My eyes fluttered open and I sighed in disappointment as the dream disappeared—
Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't dreaming at all. I really was being held in place by the punishing grip of Marco's broad hands. And sure as shit, the fucker really was grinding himself up against my ass. He was grinding his very large, very hard dick right along the crack of my very interested ass. The only salvation was that he was still wearing jeans. I froze in place and held my breath, motionless against his subtle, sultry swaying.
Was he awake? Was he fucking with me? Was this some freaky alternate universe? What the actual fuck was my life?! My cock pulsed with need as he shifted his body, his hand sliding lower to wrap around my hip and hold me in place as he continued to move, each undulating thrust becoming pure, unadulterated torture.
“M-Marc,” I stuttered, trying to stifle a moan as he pulled me tight against him.
“Mn?”
“Marc, please tell me your awake and this isn't some fucked up mind game.” I kept my voice quiet—the sky was dark. The room was dark. Everything was dark and quiet and serene and so very intensely sensual.
“Fuck you.” The gruff response took on a double-meaning as he shifted again, one thigh slipping between mine as his hand drifted from my hip toward my knee before pulling it back to drape over his leg.
“Marco, fuck…” I arched my back with the new position and met his hip roll with one of my own. “I swear to Christ, if you're fucking with me right now, I will feed your balls to my cat.”
“You talk too much.” His words were barely a whisper as his other hand snuck higher over my chest to settle beneath my jaw, his grip loose but there. So very, very there. Each roll of his hips bunched the robe higher until it was rough denim against bare skin and every last nerve was alight.
“Stop teasing and start fucking.”
“Not till we’re tested.” His nose trailed up the back of my neck and nuzzled into my hair with a low, rumbly, growly sound. “You fucked with my head. Don't know who I am anymore. Just want you.”
God, how my inner slut danced with joy. This was either a pipe dream come true or a really fucked up nightmare, but I didn't care. I was going to ride out this alternate universe of pleasure for as long as the hallucination lasted.
Marco and I rolled over the mattress, insidious and slow until I was beneath him, his bulky frame pinning me face-down on the bed as his gyrating hips continued a torturously slow grind. Each movement caused my aching cock to shift and slide where it was pinned between my body and the surface beneath us. I was going to die. I was going to die and I was already in Heaven and I never, ever wanted it to stop.
“Marco, fuck me. Please?”
“Shut up.” His hand jerked higher under my jaw, his fingers sliding between my lips as his palm hooked around my chin. A full-body shudder tore through me as a needy moan slipped from my throat.
“Such a whore for it,” he mumbled against the nape of my neck, gruff and shaky and breathy.
I bucked my hips against him, the bulge of his cock straining against the denim as he taunted my ass with every unfulfilled fantasy I'd ever had. The act had the exact effect I'd hoped for—feral Marc made a brief appearance as he knocked my knees further apart with his and tightened his grip on my jaw.
“Suck.” The fingers in my mouth pushed deeper and I complied with the demand like the wanton little slut I was. Each downward press of his cock against my ass was met with a mirrored response of my own hips, him rutting against my bare ass as I fucked my cock into the mattress beneath us. Never had I ever in my life come hands-free, but I was about to break that unfortunate streak of bad luck courtesy of a fully-clothed man and the mere promise of his cock.
His pace quickened, the tender skin of my ass stinging with each punishing movement as he rocked against me, grunting softly in my ear with every slurp and suck of his invasive fingers in my mouth. I would be rubbed raw, chafed in all the wrong places, but I couldn't find a single fuck to give as he started panting, his breaths growing as rough and erratic as his movements. I wasn't the only one dancing on this razor edge of pleasure and the thought of that had my balls drawing up and pressure building at the base of my spine.
I whined and whimpered and sucked even harder, his grip tightening in response as he began thrusting in earnest. Both strangely intimate and yet utterly raunchy, we fucked without fucking until the bed itself rocked with our movements.
“Come, slut. I know you want to.” His lips dragged the words over my neck before they parted. The burn of his teeth as he bit down on the tendon of my neck had my vision going white as the impossible pressure crested, peaked, and exploded. I gargled a cry of sheer pleasure as my cock pulsed and throbbed before spilling cum into the tight space between my body and the bed. Marco, formerly all breathy pants and stifled grunts, moaned and shuddered. It was music to my ears as he groaned again, pressing his throbbing dick against my ass to the point of pain. I loathed the existence of his pants but shuddered with pure delight as the damp warmth of his cum seeped through the material while he rocked his hips through the vestiges of his orgasm.
Shivering from head to toe with pleasure, he gradually stilled but for the heaving of his chest as he panted, his sweaty brow sliding back and forth over the nape of my neck, as if he were marking me with his scent. It took forever for his grip to loosen, my jaw tense and aching from the intrusion. It was the most strange and satisfying sexual experience of my life. I was instantly bereft as he rolled off my back with a grunt.
Molten and melted, I shifted with a quiet grunt until I could face him, too tired to bother moving any more than was necessary. I discovered him with an arm thrown over his eyes and his other hand lax against his inner thigh. Oh, fuck. Please don't let him panic. Please don't panic. Please?
“S’creepy to stare.” He tilted his head and peeked at me with one squinty eye. “What?”
“You okay?”
“Mn. No.” He exhaled a long suffering sigh and flopped his arm dramatically over his chest to stare at the ceiling. “I came in my pants like a fucking preteen and didn't bring a change of clothes. Not okay at all.”
The relief that flooded my system was a heady, potent, intoxicating thing. Hell, Marco himself was intoxicating. Marco making jokes after we basically fucked one another? Take away my license because I was effectively drunk.
“I have something you can wear, idiot.” I shifted, grimacing as the wet spot beneath me stuck and clung in all the wrong places. “Got clean sheets, too.”
“Ain't you a fucking Boy Scout. Always prepared.” His eyes slanted toward me and Heaven help me, he smiled. It was a small, shy, slightly crooked thing of beauty. Yeah, fuck me sideways. I was in fucking love and there was no hope for surviving that terminal condition.