Chapter 18 Mateo #2
I’m coming up to get her as soon as Emory quits bitchin at me.
ZERKOS
Don’t be an ass. She’s asleep
álvarez U good?
Yeah…
áLVAREZ
Lock my door for me will ya? I can’t get up. *Tongue sticking out emoji*
I leaned back onto the headboard, a few minutes went by and I heard the creak of my door opening followed by the click of the lock and a soft shut.
I already knew without a doubt it was Santos because there was no way in hell Zerkos would have come in here without ripping her out of my arms. I made a mental note to thank him in the morning.
I knew the only reason he locked the door was to keep Zerkos from blowing a gasket and throwing her back down in the kennels tonight, but I was grateful for it either way.
The morning came fast and abruptly, the sun was shining through the glass of the exterior facing wall and painting the room with a kaleidoscope of reflective colors.
I reached over for the remote to close the automatic blinds and soreness hit my entire body like a freight train.
I was still leaning against the headboard, neck bent to one side and her head on my lap.
I looked over at my phone and it read four-forty-eight, so I decided to slide my body all the way down the bed, as I wrapped my arms around her fully and curled myself around her. Somehow the pressure in my head wasn’t as intense this morning as usual, and it was easy to fall back into sleep.
“Is that a sledgehammer in your pants or are you really happy to see me?” her voice was so smooth it was practically dripping in honey as she woke me up from my sleep.
There was a firm round ass pressed against me as we lay on our sides, and I could feel my cock growing to attention.
My arm was already draped over her, so I took her hand under mine, lacing my fingers through hers.
I brought them just over my cock where it rested on my leg so that her hand was touching it over my boxer briefs.
“Find out for yourself,” I dared her and to my surprise, she squeezed her fist around me.
Even though her hand was too small to connect all the way around, the quick firm touch was enough to drive me insane, wanting for more.
“Oh,” she breathed out heavily and pulled her hand back quickly, making a chuckle escape from me.
I liked that she could be dirty, daring, and somehow shy all within a matter of seconds.
“Yeah, oh,” I said, pulling her hips back towards me, she ground her ass against me, forcing a growl out of my throat.
“Why Santos?” I asked the question that had been circling my mind for nearly the entire last day.
She let out a heavy exhale before speaking.
“Because I don’t think you’re someone I want to be indebted to,” she stopped for a second and shifted to her back and groaned a little. She looked at the ceiling and continued, “Because you’ve hurt me.”
She finally looked at me when she said the last bit, “Because I know you’ll probably hurt me again.”
“You think you’d owe me something for getting you out of there?” I narrowed my eyes at her but tried to hide the offended tone in my voice.
“Wouldn’t I?” she asked me, and I didn’t answer.
“Do you think I’d hurt you again?” I asked her instead.
“Wouldn’t you?” she asked again.
“Only in the ways that count,” I murmured.
The real truth was that I didn’t know. I couldn’t predict my moves at all anymore, not that I ever really could. With her around though it was like I was a stranger to myself these days.
My phone buzzed and I picked it up.
Tech got back to me, the car that picked Anya up from St. Murphy’s is registered to Alisher Sokolov.
áLVAREZ
As in, the Head of the fucking Bratvas?
ZERKOS
The one and only.
áLVAREZ
So, either our little guest is somehow involved with the head of the Bratvas, or they’re tracking their merchandise hard. This is gonna blow the fuck up.
ZERKOS
You think Sokolov collects all his products personally?
áLVAREZ
Fuck. Why the fuck is Kane not answering yet?
ZERKOS
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP
Zerkos’s heavy fist slammed against my locked door and Cecilia pulled the comforter over her head, cocooning herself in with a groan of dissatisfaction.
“I saw you two together the other night before I came back,” I told her, pulling the cover from her face, and revealing the wide-eyed reaction that I loved to draw out of her.
I pointed to the surveillance camera mounted in the corner of the wall on the ceiling and her mouth parted in an ‘O’ shape and I barked out a laugh.
“Yes, I’m very good at making bad decisions. I thought we already covered the obvious,” she said, covering her face again but with her hand this time, making me laugh.
“So, Zerkos is a bad decision?” I asked her.
“Ronan is all of my bad decisions, coming back to haunt me full force,” she stated, all amusement stripped from her face and her voice. “Love is fucked,” her accent slipped out a bit with the words that ran through me like an electric current.
“Santos thinks you’re protecting Ronan, but he’s a big boy, sunshine. You still love him?” I asked even though I knew the answer.
“He hurts me more than anyone has ever been capable of doing. And that’s saying a lot.” She said with a pause that forced me to nudge her for more information. “But I don’t think I’ll ever know how to stop.”
Somehow, I had a feeling that was the most honest thing she’d said since she stepped inside of our little slice of hell.
I hooked my arm around her waist and pulled her closer to me.
She let out a startled breath from the motion, and I felt kind of like a dick when I remembered her stab wounds.
Her chest was practically touching mine as it heaved up and down with each inhale.
I thumbed the bandaged area on her stomach gently.
Her breathing was getting quicker, I could feel the nervous energy dripping out of her as she waited for me to respond but I didn’t, I knew if I stayed quiet, she’d eventually open up.
She gazed down at my hand and took blinks that were too long before she finally looked up.
Our lips were teetering the edge of kissing but never quite making contact, the two of us clearly so afraid of making the decision.
“I didn’t choose you because you scare the hell out of me. You’re erratic, impulsive, unpredictable, and all in all you’re bad for me.” She said each word describing me like they were curses but it just made me hotter for her that she already knew me so well.
“Yeah? And what are you, sunshine?”
“I’m careful, I calculate everything, every option, before I make a decision. I weigh out every possible path before I take it, always have and always will.” She blinked slowly as she looked into my eyes.
“That sounds boring. Maybe you need a little unpredictable in your life.” I smirked at her as I pressed our foreheads together.
“At least with Ronan I know that we deserve each other’s worst. We’re toxic, we’re killing each other slowly but I think I’m okay with that.
Toxic is all I’ve ever known.” She looked away.
“Worst of all is the way you look at me. I-I don’t want anyone to want me the way you think you do, I hurt people who get too close to me. ”
“Then hurt me too; I’d gladly suffer by your hand.” I whispered as my thumb rubbed against her bottom lip roughly, leaving it red and puffy.
She shook her head like I didn’t know what I was saying, and maybe I didn’t anymore. Maybe I was all the things she said I was.
Was that such a bad thing?
“Part of me is also afraid that letting anyone else in, might force me to stop loving him. I’m not ready to do that,” she confessed looking straight into my eyes, it was all I needed to hear to seal my lips around hers.
Her lips were soft, and I pressed into her firmly but felt her pushing back at me with just as much vigor as she parted them for me.
She tasted better than I could have imagined, like summertime and heartbreak.
I wrapped my hand around a cluster of her hair to contort her the way I needed her to be.
She gasped into my mouth as our tongues swirled together, but it was brief and she pulled back looking at me with confliction dancing over her eyes.
“And how is it that I look at you sunshine?” I asked her.
“Like I can save you, like I’m the answer to something you’ve been looking for.” She breathed out heavily.
Spot on, she had me figured out.
I was addicted to being around her because she fixed something inside of me. She was like being stabbed in the heart to distract from the pain of a knife in your foot.
“I’m not.” She said coldly.
“You are. I can feel it. Let me in.” I gritted out into her ears.
“Don’t you get it? Everyone who’s ever gotten close to me has ended up dead!” She cried out showing a sliver of her true emotions for once.
“I’m already dead anyways. I have been for a long time.” I whispered tracing her jaw with the side of my finger, “I know what you really fear. I won’t ask you to stop loving him.” I promised, shaking my head almost as if I was giving her the permission she was looking for.
I stared into her glossy eyes and this time she initiated the kiss, softly, and so timidly that it took all of my restraint not to grab her and bend her to my every whim.
I turned the sound system in my room up with a click on my phone so that a Gautier cover echoed through the speakers and into our bodies. I deepened our kiss as she parted her lips for me again and let me take charge of the moment.
There was a soft moan that came from her. It was barely audible, I swallowed it down my own throat while she ran her hands down my chest, exploring the ridges of my abs and trailing her hands up my chest and down my arms.
I touched her softly and with intent as I lapped up every second of being with her. All I wanted was to keep feeling her skin on me while I explored every curve on her body, mapping out her cartography and ingraining it in my memory in case this wouldn't last.