Chapter 37 Willow #2
“Ransom,” I moan, barely sounding like myself anymore. I clutch at him, spreading my legs wider in an open invitation.
His cock presses inside a bit, sliding in less than an inch deep. I can feel the stretch of his crown at my entrance, and I hold my breath, waiting for the rest.
But it doesn’t come. He doesn’t push in any farther. He just moves his hips in tiny pulses, keeping the tip inside me but not giving me any more. I groan, half from desire and half from frustration. I feel desperate at this point, like I’m grasping for something just out of reach.
“Please,” I gasp out, arching my back and clutching at his shoulders. “Ransom, please. I need—”
I break off with another choked moan when he dips in a tiny bit deeper, just enough that it sends a wave of sensation through me that makes my breath catch.
“Goddamn, you’re so tight. The way you’re squeezing me, trying to pull me inside… I bet you could choke the life out of my dick,” he groans.
He seems to be having a hard time holding himself back. His arms shake where he keeps himself poised above me, and his face is screwed up in a look of utter concentration. As though if he lets himself go for a second, he’ll shove all the way into me, bottoming out in a single thrust.
But he doesn’t let himself go, and he doesn’t give in. He doesn’t fuck me.
Instead, he thrusts his hips in tiny little pulses, never going any deeper than he’s already gone. Every once in a while, he draws out entirely and slides his cock between my folds instead, so that the piercings on the underside of his shaft graze over my soaked flesh.
“The things I want to do to you,” he breathes as we both look down to watch the crown of his cock breach my entrance again. “You have no idea all the ways I’ve imagined fucking you. All the ways I want to make you come. All the ways I want to make you scream.”
“I—I—”
I let out a sobbing sort of gasp, and he rests his forehead against mine, his blue-green eyes burning into me. Then he releases a ragged breath and pulls away.
I give a little whine of frustration when I feel the head of his cock slip out of me without ever once pressing all the way inside. It feels like the worst kind of emptiness, and Ransom chuckles deeply, leaning down to nip at my bottom lip.
“You didn’t beg me quite enough,” he says, a teasing light entering his eyes. “Maybe next time.”
I gape at him for a second, my jaw dropping open, and then he’s rolling off me and getting out of bed.
“You’re the worst,” I mumble, feeling like someone just dumped a bucket of cold water on me, leaving me half horny and half dazed.
He laughs again, the sound easy and deep. “Sorry, pretty girl, but we’ve got things to do. We need to get downstairs.” He arches his pierced brow. “Unless you want the others to come looking for us?”
He says it like a joke, but my mind instantly floods with the image of Malice and Victor walking in, seeing me spread out in Ransom’s bed with my shirt riding up and my pants on the floor, legs spread, clearly soaking wet and needy.
I go still, my bottom lip trapped tightly between my teeth as my chest heaves, and Ransom glances over at me.
“Fucking hell.” He tips his head back, groaning. “Now who’s teasing who?”
He reaches out and tugs me up from the bed, pulling me into his arms as soon as my feet hit the floor. He kisses me with so much enthusiasm that he bends me backward from the force of it, and somehow, my hands end up in his hair, gripping the strands tightly as his mouth slants over mine.
When we separate this time, my body feels like it’s floating, and Ransom looks even more mussed and flushed than before. He chuckles, shaking his head ruefully as he releases me from his hold.
“You’re my favorite kind of distraction, you know that?”
He winks, then slaps my ass lightly, nudging me in the direction of my clothes.
I pull them on, aware of his gaze on me as I get dressed and surprised how comfortable I feel having him see me like this.
I haven’t even been here that long, but it’s a far cry from the way I dressed so furtively that first morning I woke up in his bed.
Once I’m fully dressed, we leave the room. Ransom heads downstairs to start working on coffee while I head toward the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth, but when I get to the bathroom, I realize it’s already occupied.
The door is open and Malice is standing at the sink, washing the new parts of his tattoo.
It’s interesting to watch the way he cleans it, rubbing at it with surprisingly gentle fingers, and I stand there for a moment, too absorbed by the sight to realize that I’m staring.
“What?” he asks, sounding gruff but not angry for once.
“Oh. Nothing,” I reply, jerking my gaze back up to his face. “I was just… I needed the bathroom, so I’m waiting.”
There’s no mention of the conversation we had yesterday, or the way he held on to me like I was his lifeline for a moment before finally lifting me off his lap and leaving the room without another word. Watching him now, it almost feels like that was a dream. Or something I imagined.
But he doesn’t tell me to fuck off or close the door in my face. Instead, it almost feels like he’s inviting me to watch as he dries off the tattoo and then grabs a bottle of lotion from under the counter, rubbing it into the new lines.
“Does it still hurt?” I ask, curious.
Malice glances at me and then away. “No. The pain doesn’t stick around. Just the ink.”
He wipes off his hands and puts the lotion away before pushing past me and out of the bathroom. I watch him go, my gaze drawn to the broad strength in his back muscles, obvious even beneath the fabric of his t-shirt.
When I go back down to the kitchen, Malice is nowhere to be seen, but Victor is setting up his laptop on the kitchen table while Ransom digs around in the cabinets for something to eat.
“How do you feel about peanut butter and banana sandwiches?” Ransom asks, directing his question my way.
It doesn’t sound bad at first, but then I remember Ransom’s preference for crunchy peanut butter and shake my head. “Uh, no thanks. I’ll just have toast.”
Vic glances up at me, and our eyes lock. His lips twitch at the corners, almost like he’s going to smile. Then he pushes back from the table and gets up, crossing the kitchen and rifling through his special drawer to come up with the jar of smooth peanut butter.
“I’ll make your sandwich for you,” he tells me.
I can’t stop the grin that spreads across my face—both from Victor’s unexpected offer and from the way Ransom looks so put out that Vic just stole his job. I bite my lower lip to try to hide it, catching Victor’s eye and murmuring, “Thanks.”
Victor doesn’t look at me, but he nods as he gets to work, peeling a banana and cutting it into slices so even that I’m almost surprised he didn’t use a ruler to measure them.
“Clean out the toaster when you’re done,” he comments, glancing over at Ransom as his brother grabs the bread.
“No one cleans out the toaster every time they use it,” Malice declares, joining the conversation midway through as he strides into the kitchen.
“We do,” Vic replies, grabbing a knife for the peanut butter. “Do you know how many toasters catch on fire a year because people don’t bother to clean out the crumbs?”
“No, and I don’t care,” Malice shoots back. “It’s a pain in the ass.”
“Yeah, but you know what’s probably a bigger pain in the ass?” Ransom asks, chuckling. “A house fire. We don’t have time to look for a new place to live. I think I’m with Vic on this one. Sorry, Mal.”
Malice rolls his eyes so hard I can almost hear it, although he doesn’t seem pissed off.
I’ve heard the brothers banter like this before, and I’ve always felt a spark of envy at their easy camaraderie.
But today, it seems a little forced. I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but the vibe between the brothers seems different somehow.
Something has them tense. Everyone seems a little on edge, but I don’t think their agitation is directed at me.
If anything, they seem more relaxed with me than they’ve ever been before.
As I watch Victor finish up my peanut butter and banana sandwich, insisting on making his own pieces of toast for it after Ransom finishes with the toaster, it occurs to me that this strange warehouse/garage/apartment feels more like a home than my mother’s house ever did.
And what’s even more strange? I’m starting to feel at home here.
Ransom is right. This feels so different than what it was initially meant to be. But that doesn’t scare me as much as it used to.
We all settle around the table with our breakfast choices after a few more minutes, eating in silence with the sound of Victor’s keyboard typing for background noise.
Ransom takes a sip of his coffee, making a contented sound of pleasure in his throat, and it reminds me so much of the noises he made upstairs that I flush.
He catches my gaze and winks, which only makes the heat creeping up my chest and cheeks burn hotter.
Before I can say something to try to distract myself from the frustrated arousal still smoldering in my veins, Victor straightens up suddenly.
The movement is so sharp that it draws all of our attention, and everyone looks his way
“What is it?” Malice demands.
“I got a match.” Vic’s gaze tracks across the screen. “On the face of the guy who visited Carl.”
“Fuck,” Ransom leans across the table, excitement glinting in his eyes. “We got a name?”
“I think so. Give me a second.”
Vic’s fingers fly across the keyboard, typing faster than I’ve ever seen anyone type. His brow is furrowed, and I can’t help but watch him at work. Something changes in his expression when he’s on his computer, some of the tight control leaving his features as he gets absorbed in his task.
No one interrupts him while he does his digging, and the second half of my peanut butter sandwich sits untouched on my plate as I wait with anxious anticipation. I’m just as invested as the brothers are in finding out who this mystery man is.
“Okay,” Victor says after a few more moments. He blinks, like he’s coming out of an information fugue state, and shakes out his fingers. “Fuck.”
“What?” Malice makes an impatient gesture. “What did you find out?”
“This isn’t some random guy looking to stir up shit,” Victor says quietly. He turns his laptop around so we can see the picture of the man on the screen.
I shiver at the sight of him. He looks harsh and brutal, like Malice, but scarier somehow. There’s something dark and haunting about him, even in the slightly blurry image on the screen.
“This is Ilya Petrov,” Vic informs us all. “Nikolai’s brother.”
“Fuck.” Malice and Ransom both curse at the same time.
I look between the three of them, but I don’t really need anyone to spell out for me why this is worse than someone random doing the snooping. The proof of what brothers are willing to do for each other is right here in front of me. These men have lied, blackmailed, and even killed for each other.
“Makes sense for him to want to get to the bottom of things,” Ransom says. “He must be pissed about Nikolai dying. Maybe they were close.”
Malice shrugs a shoulder. “Even if they weren’t, it’s not like he can just let the fact that someone killed his brother go. He probably wants revenge. At the very least, he likely wants to make sure he’s not next.”
“Now that we know who he is, I can work on tracking him down,” Vic says. “If we work fast, hopefully we can deal with him before he figures out who killed his brother.”
“What else do we know about him?” Malice asks. “Anything else?”
Victor holds up a finger and then spins his laptop back around. He types a bit more, his eyes bouncing back and forth as he scans through whatever site or database he’s searching.
“He has ties to the Russian mafia,” he says after a few beats. “So he’s either ex or current. There’s not much else about him here. He’s almost as much of a ghost as Nikolai was.”
“Probably just as skilled,” Malice mutters. “Or close to it.”
“We’ll need to be careful,” Ransom puts in. “If he’s still trying to track down who killed his brother, we have a small window right now where we can act. He doesn’t know who we are yet, and we need to make use of that. Act quickly.”
My stomach flutters as I process his words.
Act quickly.
If they move on this new information fast, then that means this could be over soon. I won’t need to stay here with them any longer. If they take out Nikolai’s brother, then it’ll be safe for me to go home.
I’ve wanted that ever since the night they first brought me here.
To be free of being a pseudo-prisoner, to be able to go back to my regular life and everything that entails.
April stopped texting me about that group project for Walsh’s class days ago, but I could try to double down and catch up on all the school work I’ve missed so far.
It’ll be hard, but since I don’t have to work late nights anymore, I can do it.
I can manage to scrape by this semester and then really throw myself into the next one.
All the things I’ve been working toward so hard are still right there, and I could go back to focusing on them and not all the unnerving things that happen around these men.
I should be excited about that. It’s what I’ve wanted since the night they crashed through that door and shot Nikolai: to just go back to being normal.
And some part of me is excited, already thinking about the future and my life course correcting. But another part of me is less happy. That part feels strangely… heartbroken to think that this might be over soon.
I don’t want to think too hard about why that is.