Chapter 32
Donavan
She’s annoyed with me for some reason, and that annoys the fuck out of me when it shouldn’t bother me at all.
It’s honestly all too damn familiar, making me wonder if women get a fucking crash course in how to be passive aggressive in their anger.
Maya did this shit. She’d be close but not speak, forcing me to be the one to pull information out of her.
I hate that the silence is familiar, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be the one to ask the questions.
I know where the conversation will lead, and I don’t have any fucking desire to go back six years to Chicago.
I left all of that shit behind. I knew it was a mistake to take her there.
I knew Madelene would be there. She’s been working for Lauren at the office for months.
I knew before I joined Angel and the other guys that there was a chance my sister would stick her fucking nose where it didn’t belong.
I should leave. I should just cut ties with all of them and start over again. Florida sounds really fucking good right about now. At least the weather would be nicer.
Alani looks up at me as I enter the room, and I don’t miss the twitch in her cheek as if she was going to smile or speak but forgot she was ignoring me.
I swear every fucking woman is trained the same. Either that or it’s ingrained in them at birth.
Maybe I should’ve left her at the fucking office with her sister. Let her be Nash’s problem rather than mine.
Instead of speaking, she stands from the couch and heads into the kitchen, checking in the cabinets for food. I could offer to order something. Hell, leaving the house long enough to go grab something to eat would probably be less icy than the temp inside the house from her being so distant.
I’d like to bend her over the couch and fuck her until she screams or shove her to her knees and choke her with my dick.
I watch her back, wondering if she’s going to find some way to poison me if she cooks. Hell, that would be working under the assumption that she’ll even offer me anything.
I pull out a chair from the small dining room table and just watch her.
As cold as she’s been to me today, I’ve also avoided her.
The last thing I want is a million questions, mostly because if she asked, I’d probably tell her.
It’s just one more thing to add to the list of what makes her so dangerous.
I couldn’t talk to Maya about what I did with the Severino brothers.
Alani is different. She didn’t cringe or turn white as a ghost when she found me hurting him. Hell, she used the knife against that man herself.
“My parents died in a car accident when I was fifteen,” she says, her back still turned to me as she grabs a pack of pasta from the cabinet.
I got over the part of me that turned my nose up at ready-made pasta. I imagine my Italian mother and father would turn sickly green at the idea of eating it.
“Ayla was away at nursing school, but she dropped everything to come back home and take care of me. She was barely an adult herself and in the blink of an eye, she became a parent.” Alani bends, that perfect ass almost enough to distract me from listening to what she’s saying.
“I did my best to be good. I followed the rules. I wasn’t allowed to ride with anyone but her.
It really put a damper on my high school years.
I mean, what was the point? Our dad was a safe driver, but that didn’t stop both of them from dying. ”
Even years later, there’s still a hint of anger in her voice, but I know it can take years to work through the other stages of grief. I’m no fucking expert, nor do I have any room to criticize how she deals with her pain.
There’s still a twinge of my own pain at losing my mother, but it’s encased in so much guilt, I’ll probably never unpack those feelings. I’ve gotten pretty fucking good at shoving them down and ignoring them for the most part.
I swallow against the threat of the memory of Madelene being so angry when she saw me at Angel’s office.
She blamed our mother’s death on me. If I hadn’t been to blame for so many other crimes against people I loved, it might have hurt a little more.
What Madelene couldn’t see was that if my mother truly died of a broken heart, she did so because her only daughter wasn’t worth living for.
I don’t think my sister could deal with that if she actually sat down and thought about it.
I don’t feel a thing about my father’s death.
Even knowing how brutal it was, I couldn’t care less about the man.
I might’ve left Madelene to the wolves, but as her father, he should’ve done something to at least attempt to get her away from those monsters.
Somehow, my sister still managed to be a functioning fucking adult, and it was from no help of our father.
I can’t say the same for myself. I can’t imagine a day when I’ll ever be normal.
Hell, I don’t even think I want that. I know I’ll die from the same violence I was born into, but at least with the decisions I’ve made, I’ll die from my own mistakes and not because some piece of shit got annoyed with me or with any little thing, and I’m the way they decide to deal with their irritation.
“Where’s the oregano?”
“Probably isn’t any. Wouldn’t know. This isn’t my house.”
For the first time since I entered the room, she turns around to look at me. Did she really think this was my house? Killing someone in your own home is like What Not to Do 101.
She frowns at me before turning her attention back to the jar of spaghetti sauce she pulled from the cabinet.
“My parents were great. They were supportive and helpful, but not overbearing. They’d let us make our own mistakes and more often than not, they wouldn’t come at us with I told you so. Were your parents like that?”
I knew it wouldn’t take long for the questions to start. At least she did it the right way, offering parts of her life because she thinks it would make me feel obligated to do the same.
“No.”
She huffs a humorless laugh as if she expected that response.
“Where do they live?”
“They don’t,” I mutter, fighting the urge to get up and walk out of the room.
She turns to face me once again, a look of pity in her eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I lost them long before they died.”
She carries on, talking more to herself it seems than to me, as she boils the pasta before stirring in the sauce.
There isn’t much here in the house that would have a close expiration date.
I didn’t go shopping. This is one of the locations that Angel keeps in case any of us need it.
I hadn’t planned on staying past Alani waking up from being drugged and killing the guy who hurt her.
She dishes the spaghetti out on to a plate, and walks it toward me, dropping it in front of me with such force that I feel some of the fucking sauce land on my cheek.
I grab her wrist before she can walk away.
“This childish fucking behavior is exactly what I’d expect from a fucking brat,” I growl, standing from the table.
“I bet you aren’t thinking I’m such a brat when you’re fucking me.”
The gleam in her eyes tells me exactly what she’s doing. I think I might hate her as much as she intrigues me with the way she’s attempting to force my hand.
The little minx likes it rough. She wants to be mistreated and called a whore, but it goes against how she acted in the truck when I mentioned not being able to suck my own cock.
“I always think of you as a brat,” I hiss as I work open the snap and zipper of her jeans. “Especially when I’m fucking you.”
Her eyes shine, making me think this was her fucking plan all along. I can’t ever remember a time when anyone had the power to make me act any other way than how I wanted to in the first place.
“Kick off your shoes,” I growl, but before she can obey, I spin her around, placing her face right next to the fucking plate of food she dropped down in front of me.
A whimper escapes her mouth when I grasp her hair, holding her in place with a grip on the back of her neck as I get my cock out.
I press into her without warning. Any worry I might’ve had about her not being ready fades away when I slide home without much resistance other than the tight clamp of her pussy around my cock.
“Fucking bitch,” I grumble. “Is your pussy always ready?”
She remains quiet, the push back of her hips making demands of my body.
As much in control as I’d like to think I am where she’s concerned, I know I’m wrong.
I grip her harder, slamming into her with more force, and she fucking takes it and begs for more.
Her pussy tightens, and I know what’s about to happen.
Just the promise of it forces my own hand, but before she can open her mouth and declare the arrival of her own orgasm, I pull from her body and force her to her fucking knees.
It’s about fucking time I get better control of myself and this entire fucking situation.
“Open your mouth,” I growl, painting her cheek with her own arousal.
She doesn’t hesitate, and it feels less like a punishment for her, and more like torture for me when she wraps her perfect fucking lips around my cock and sucks me to the back of her throat.
I fucking lose it, my orgasm pulsing through my body.
Her eyes flutter closed as she finishes me off, and I swear my brain fucking refuses to come back online for a long moment.
I want to offer her pleasure, to spread her back out on the table and eat that sweet pussy of hers until she comes on my mouth, but she stands and walks away before I can remember that speech is a skill I possess.
Going to her would be a weakness. I’ve created this routine of getting away from her after I’ve come, needing the distance because resisting the urge to pull her to my chest has become harder and harder.
I zip my jeans back up and take a seat at the table. I eat the meal she made for me, realizing a little too late it’s the only time I’ve had food cooked for me by someone who wasn’t being paid to do so.
When I head back into the bedroom, she’s already on the bed.
I can tell by the thickness in the air that she’s only pretending to be asleep, but I let her have it, stripping down to my boxers and climbing in beside her.