Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
LAINEY
Y ou can only wake up once from a dream. Mine hadn’t been particularly comforting of late. The shift of weight in the bed and the hot hand sliding down my torso snapped me awake. Deep green eyes seared into mine as the morning sun edged the curtains and left the bedroom cast in a gray twilight.
“Kotyonok,” Ezra half-groaned the endearment before nuzzling a kiss along the corner of my lips. With only scant seconds to appreciate the heavy weight of his cock on my thigh, I parted my lips and he claimed my mouth.
The kiss stole every ounce of my breath. Teasing hands pushed up the t-shirt I’d gone to bed in before tugging and then my panties were a memory.
I stopped trying to track how he was tormenting me, the pinch of his fingers against my nipples. The caress of his hands as he cupped and kneaded my breasts. The way he kissed me like he needed me more than oxygen.
His boxers were gone and the silken steel of his cock was right there, filling my palm and gliding against my skin as he pumped his hips. The pre-cum soaked cock was right there for me to wrap a hand around.
With a scrape of his teeth, Ezra shifted gears from soul-stealing kisses to love bites. The first to my lower lip, then to my jaw as he nibbled his way to my throat. I closed my hand around the base of his cock and gave him a squeeze.
The low moan he released had my thighs clenching, but Ezra was already in the cradle of them. He blanketed me everywhere.
“I need you, Kotyonok,” he groaned against my throat, his hips rolling even as he slid a hand down to drag my knee up. I still had his cock in my grip and I stroked him from base to tip, teasing his piercings. The pair of bars he’d had inserted one for me and the other for Adam.
My pussy clenched in anticipation, I loved the way those stroked me inside. There was just something so damn erotic that had me panting while I wanted to drive him as mad as he made me.
Ezra fisted my hair and tugged once. My scalp lit up and tingles raced through me. Shivers danced up my spine and seemed to cascade over my nipples. I dug my fingers into his shoulder and flexed my hand around his cock.
At this angle, I could drag him back and forth along my slit. It was torture for both of us. But what delicious torture. Ezra stared down at me with hungry eyes full of questions and heat.
“Kotyonok,” he whispered, the endearment was a revelation. So much emotion punched through each syllable. That nickname. He’d stuck me with it years ago and yet it had remained a treasured secret, a name just for us. Now, I heard all the things in that single word that he’d never been able to say.
The longing.
The need.
The love.
It had all been there, tangled up and hidden away. From me, from himself, from the rest of the world. Loving was dangerous for Ezra…
Hatred for his father bubbled through me. That Ezra could love was a testament to Ezra. Not the family that raised him and tried to fill him with their poison.
“La—”
“I love you,” I told him, because I didn’t have a nickname or an endearment, I just had the words themselves. “You know that, right? That I love you? I would die for you, fuck knows, I’ll kill for you too?—”
Wonder punched through the desire in his eyes even as I nudged his cock toward my entrance. “Kotyonok… I would never ask you to.”
“You never have to,” I promised him. None of them did. “You’re mine. I will protect what is mine. I will protect all of you.” Arching my hips, I enjoyed his swift inhale as he nudged inside of me with a kind of torturous care. Just the tip, nothing more and yet I’d never been more aware of him.
He circled one of my nipples with his finger and the skin puckered tighter. It was the perfect amount of teasing, not quite giving me everything yet at the same time making me want it.
“My kotyonok,” Ezra said, his whisper almost hoarse. “Mine.” The word stamped so far below the surface that no one would ever erase it.
I was his.
I was Adam’s.
I was Milo’s.
And I was Bodhi’s.
They were also mine.
“Me and Adam.” I cupped his face, staring up at him. Adam didn’t have to be here to be with us.
Ezra’s expression crumpled for a moment, the raw vulnerability peeking out from behind the darkness, leaving him open and unguarded. “You are perfect.”
I chuckled. “No one is perfect—” I arched to nip his lower lip. He chased my mouth with his own, sliding in to the hilt. The moment he sank home, we were both gasping. “Ezra,” I whispered his name against his lips. “I love you.”
He groaned and deepened the kiss. Each time he lifted his head to allow us to breathe, I exhaled his name again. The soft huff of his laughter as his chest rubbed against my breasts and the full of him settled on me was a miracle.
Nothing else mattered. We were together. I loved him. All of him. All the broken and scarred bits he hid beneath brashness and sarcasm, dipped in alcohol.
He hid nothing from me. Not his needs or his wants. Not his fears or his nightmares. You only got to wake from a dream once, but we could dream of each other again and again.
We could wake up like this, together. He ran his tongue over his lips. I drank in the sight of him from the wet lips to the sleepy-eyes to the rumpled hair. Loving them consumed every part of me and it seemed to grow the more time I spent with them.
Honestly, obsessed was not a strong enough description for what Ezra aroused in me. The hunger in his kiss fired my own and I rocked with him. I couldn’t get enough, I didn’t think I would ever have enough.
When he rolled onto his back, I moved with him. He wrapped me up tight like I was his favorite blanket. Feet flat against the bed, he controlled the rhythm and I didn’t fight him for it.
Every strike of his cock deep inside lit me up. My inner muscles clenched around him. Hands on his shoulders, I rolled my hips. Every thrust matched our rhythm together and he clamped his hands down on my ass.
“You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he told me in a hoarse voice. I kept my gaze on his, no matter how hard we pushed each other. Then I fell into him as our mouths collided. There were no more words, just skin on skin, fingers digging in and the pure liquid heat spiraling out from within me.
He stroked my ass, my back, and then cupped at my breasts. With every teasing brush of his thumb or light squeeze of his fingers, he dragged more pleasure out of me. Light pressure, firm pinches, the teasing rolls and caresses, every single one did something different.
When he abandoned my lips and locked his mouth around my nipple, I couldn’t stem the tide. It was like my orgasm just broke out. The force of it shattered me and he just slammed into me, the internal pressure so perfect it threatened to undo me.
It was my turn to drag his head upward once more and when our lips touched this time, he came in a hot spurt that added fresh fuel to my fire. We lingered there, savoring the kiss. Little nips and licks that reminded me we were together while I blanketed him.
Satisfaction and need twined together. The musk of sex perfumed the air and I found myself wanting to wrap my mouth around him. Give him a blowjob that would blow his mind. At the same time, I didn’t want to let go or move away.
Later, I promised myself. Right now I needed this as much as Ezra did. I lost track of time as we lay there. He stroked his fingers up and down my spine. A soft knock on the door brought an end to the interlude.
“Yes?” I called lifting my head. The door opened and Bodhi glanced in. His gaze found mine and there was warmth in there as well as a bit of an apology.
“Adam called,” he said. “You haven’t looked at your messages. But he and Milo are on their way back to get us.”
Us.
Then he’d spoken with Liam. The others would back us and I glanced down at Ezra. “You don’t have to go.”
Adam hadn’t been able to kill his father, and I would never have asked it of him. I wouldn’t do it to Ezra either.
We’d discussed this. If Ezra stayed, Milo or Bodhi would stay with him, because I was going. Wallace Graham had a lot to answer for, not the least of which were the scars on Ezra’s body but also the ones we couldn’t see.
“I’ll go,” he said and I pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You should probably shower in Bodhi’s room, because I’m more likely to fuck you against the wall in the shower.”
I chuckled. “Tempting.”
“Raincheck?” The offer was sweet and I gave him another kiss.
“It’s a date.”
“Downstairs in fifteen,” Bodhi said as I rose. He gave me a delicious once over that sent a very pleasant tingle through my aching cunt and definitely made me wish we had more time. “I’ll have coffee ready.”
“You love me,” I murmured, pausing to give him a kiss as he held the door open for me.
“I do.”
“Does that mean he loves me too?” The snark was all Ezra, his masks slotting firmly back into place.
“Sure,” Bodhi said. “But I’m not kissing you.”
I caught the look of shock that rippled over Ezra’s face before Bodhi closed the door. He followed me to his bedroom and the en suite.
“What’s up, Trouble?” I still had Ezra’s cum on my thighs, not that it seemed to trouble Bodhi in the slightest.
“You sure about taking him, Buttercup?”
Was I? I gave the answer a lot of thought as I got the shower started. “Yes. I wish he wasn’t going. It’s going to be hard for him. It would be hard for anyone. But it has to be his choice.”
Absolutely, one thousand percent his. Arms folded, Bodhi leaned against the door frame as I slid into the shower. If he needed a moment, he could take it.
It wasn’t until I’d soaked my hair down that Bodhi finally responded. “We’ll keep an eye on him. But if one of us pulls the plug and says to get him out—I need you to be the one to do it.”
Because Ezra would do it for me. He would protect me. I really wanted to gut Wallace Graham with a spork. It sounded hideous and appropriate at the same time. Yet, I could see Bodhi’s point.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “If I need to leave…”
“You just tell me what part of him you want, Buttercup. I’ll deliver it on a silver platter.”
That really should not be hot or romantic, but it was both. “Thank you.”
“Always,” he said, then left me to finish showering. Ten minutes later, I put my hair back in a braid that would keep it out of the way and neat. The clothes I wore were all black—as much for the mourning as to hide evidence of blood.
The boots were also black, but not my favorite pair. They would also be more likely to clean up and not need disposal. Cosmetics were light enough to not take long, but also efficient enough to hide the smudge of worry from beneath my eyes.
When I descended the stairs, I found all four of my guys waiting for me, along with a couple of extra Vandals. Adam lifted his chin, the darkness cloaking him, one I wanted to embrace.
Because we were going to get our pound of flesh for Ezra and close that particular door permanently. Wallace Graham would never lay a finger on him again.
Harper could never hurt Adam or Andrea again. We were getting our sister back. And Wallace Graham?
He was a dead man.
Just another name on a list we were going to check off.
No more enemies left to come at us from behind.
None.