31. Riley
“So we’re goingto check around the bus station again?” I ask Logan the next morning, biting back a smile when he hands me a travel mug with another perfect cup of coffee inside.
He doesn’t smile or say anything about it, but he’s so intentional and precise about everything he does. Taking the time to do that for me means something, even if I’m only just starting to trust what that “something” might be.
He nods in answer to my question, ushering me into the sleek car he seems to favor over the Escalade Maddoc always picks. It’s way too fucking early again in my opinion, but I’ve got no complaints because we’re going back out to look for Chloe.
Every day she’s out on her own makes the knot of worry in my stomach twist a little tighter, but I’m feeling weirdly optimistic about things today. I’d blame it on a good night’s sleep, but I know it’s not really that. Something’s shifted between me and the men here—something’s shifted inside me—and it colors everything a little bit differently now.
I don’t feel like I have to walk on eggshells with Logan today, so instead of sitting in the car in silence, I reach over and poke him lightly in the shoulder.
“That’s all I get?” I ask when he glances over at me quizzically before quickly returning his eyes to the road.
His brow furrows, ever so slightly, and I can tell he has no clue what I’m talking about. He probably doesn’t even realize I’m teasing him.
“The… coffee?” he asks after a moment. “Did you want breakfast as well? Yesterday, you didn’t want to eat this early.”
I grin, hiding it behind another sip from the travel mug. It’s true. Not being a morning person, I’ve generally got no interest in food until I’ve been awake for a bit.
And Logan noticed because Logan notices everything.
“I don’t need anything to eat yet,” I reassure him. “I could definitely use more of an answer than just a nod, though. You know, conversation?”
He gets a tiny line of frustration between his eyebrows, and I think about the little I already know about him. Not just what he’s told me, because that’s not much at all, but also everything I’ve seen during the time I’ve lived with the Reapers.
Opening up obviously doesn’t come easy to Logan, and he probably doesn’t even know where to start. But he’s not telling me no—or threatening me with bodily harm, the way he would have in the beginning—and that alone has me hiding another smile behind a sip of coffee.
“How did you and Maddoc meet?” I ask, holding my breath. Not because I’m scared he’ll lash out at me this time, but because I know it can’t be a pretty story. Logan already told me he was living on the streets by then, and he’d already survived the horrors with his mother too.
But I don’t back down even when he takes a while to answer, because I genuinely want to know. I want to understand him. And I also figure a direct question is going to be easier for Logan to answer than something as open-ended and foreign to him as the idea of just making conversation while we drive for the heck of it.
“I used to pick up work for Maddoc’s father,” he finally says.
“Hm,” I say, taking another sip of my coffee. Hopefully, the sound will encourage him to tell me more, but this hit of caffeine is also exactly what I need right now, so I don’t push it. Not right away. I just close my eyes and enjoy the way it flows through me like liquid sunshine, feeling almost relaxed around Logan for the first time since I met him.
I take another sip. It’s still early enough in the day that the warmth is as welcome as the caffeine. Still, even though we’re not that far into summer yet, I know it’s going to be hot as fuck later. It’s why I threw on a short skirt and a thin top under my jacket this morning. Anything else will be torture if we’re going to be walking the streets all day… and the way Logan’s eyes dip, just for a second, to my bared thighs when he glances over at me is an added bonus.
I do affect this man.
I also want to know more about him. I still don’t know exactly how far I can push since he’s such a private person, but I give him an encouraging smile, and it seems to work.
“I was just running errands for him at first,” he goes on telling me about working for Maddoc’s father, the words coming out a little stilted, like he’s genuinely not used to talking about himself. Or, from what I’ve seen, talking much at all. “After a while, he started giving me a little more responsibility. A few small jobs here and there.”
Errands. Responsibilities. Jobs. Logan doesn’t elaborate, but I get that it’s all part of Halston’s criminal underground. A world I’m familiar with since my own father has always skirted around the edges of it. One I know just enough to realize the dangers of. Some of which, over the last few weeks, I’ve seen firsthand.
And it would’ve been way too easy for Frank to have sucked Chloe into that shit as a kid—as young as Logan was when he got stuck in the middle of it—if I hadn’t been there to keep her away from those dangers.
Something I failed to do in the end.
It makes my heart hurt, and I’m not sure if it’s for my sister or for what Logan went through or both at that age. What had he said yesterday? He’d only been twelve when he started working for Maddoc’s father.
I’m pretty sure Logan doesn’t want my sympathy, so I tuck it away. I definitely want to know more though, so I also clear my throat and prompt him with, “So, you met Maddoc through his father?”
He nods, then tips his head toward the intersection we just drove through. “It was there.”
“What, right here?” I say, twisting around to get a better look at the bleak corner. “Seriously? This spot is where you and Maddoc met.”
Logan shrugs, but an almost-smile graces his lips as he gives me another teaspoon-full of information about his past. “Jonas sent him to collect a package from me. That was the drop spot.”
“Small world,” I mumble, since we’re only a few blocks away from the bus station we’d checked the other day.
Logan nods and slides into an open parking spot on the street.
I follow him out of the car. “So, Maddoc was working for his father, too?”
Logan nods again, then darts a look to me, the faintest flush on his cheeks like he just remembered that I asked him to talk, and gives me some actual words. More of them than I expect. Speaking in fits and starts, he tells me a bit about his life on the streets as we start working our way through the rundown neighborhood, looking for any sign of my sister.
His childhood on the streets sounds bleak, dangerous, and just fucking hard, but when I say so, Logan shrugs again.
“No. It was… better.”
“Better than…?” I start to ask, but I drop the question immediately when his eyes shutter.
And then I remember what he told me.
His mother. Right. She was a true monster, the kind I want to punch the world for letting her exist if I let myself think too hard about what else he must have gone through.
But I don’t want to lose the unexpectedly relaxing vibe between us by dwelling on that, so I quickly change the subject.
“So you and Maddoc were kindred spirits right from the start?”
Logan gives me such a patronizing look that I can’t help but laugh.
“Okay, okay, so how did he get you to warm up to him?” I press.
We’ve reached the bus station by now, and Logan opens the door, holding it for me. “He killed someone.”
My eyebrows shoot up, but I clamp down on my curiosity as we walk inside. No way is Logan going to continue this conversation in front of other people.
He gives me the barest hint of a smile, his shoulders relaxing a fraction of an inch, when he sees that I understand that and won’t push him. Not in here. I smile back and then move to question the ticket seller, showing her Chloe’s picture while Logan prowls around the lobby quietly questioning people and staring intently in every nook and cranny, as if he sees the world differently than the rest of us and might actually suss out a clue from those scuffed, empty places.
But just like everywhere else we’ve checked so far, the bus station feels like just another dead end. It would be depressing as hell except, when we walk back outside, to my utter shock, Logan picks up where he left off without any prompting. Almost as if he wants to open up to me.
“There was a girl who Jonas used to use for deliveries sometimes,” he says, staring straight ahead as we cross the street. “She was—she would have been Emma’s age. We called her Petal.”
Emma… that was Logan’s little sister.
I swallow hard, but he doesn’t give me a chance to accidentally voice my sympathy. I’m not even sure I’d know how, not for something so horrific. Losing my own little sister is literally my worst nightmare. One I’m currently living.
But thankfully, not the way Logan had to.
He continues his story, speaking in short, jerky sentences. “Petal couldn’t talk. Or just didn’t. Not sure why she was out on her own, but there was a drug dealer…”
Logan trails off, darkness descending on his face for a moment. But then he shakes it off and goes on, his voice harder.
“Jonas should never have let Petal get near him.”
“Jonas.” I repeat the name. “That’s Maddoc’s dad?”
Logan nods, then corrects himself. “Was. Jonas was Maddoc’s father. He was killed before Maddoc pulled us together and built the Reapers into what we are today.”
It suddenly hits me that we’ve all lost parents. Maddoc, Logan, Dante, me. And Chloe’s lost two, she just doesn’t know it yet.
It’s a pain that never stops hurting, but maybe it hurts a little less to know it’s shared.
“What happened?” I whisper, absently rubbing at the sudden ache in my chest.
I’m not sure if I’m asking about how Maddoc’s father died or asking Logan to continue his story about Petal, and when he answers me—scanning both sides of the street we’re walking along and carefully checking each alley we pass instead of making eye contact—I can’t tell which direction he’s taking the story in, either.
“Jonas had his fingers in a lot of things,” he says in that quiet, controlled way he has. “He wasn’t the leader Maddoc is, but he managed to build up a loose organization of people he worked with, although none of them truly had each other’s backs. And with all the things he tried to get into, he also managed to piss off quite a few big players in Halston, long before one of them finally took him out.”
I blink. That’s more words than I’ve heard Logan say at once in… ever. But then understanding clicks into place, and I can see it.
Logan doesn’t let anyone in, and it sounds like Maddoc’s father, Jonas, didn’t trust anyone to get close. So of course Logan would have felt comfortable working for him, if “comfortable” is even a word I can use for a traumatized kid trying to survive on the streets.
But somehow, Maddoc changed all that for Logan. He broke through and got Logan to let him in. Logan said Maddoc did it by killing a monster, and I’m suddenly ravenous to know the rest. To know everything.
Before I can ask, Logan leads me into a narrow building with poor lighting. “Shoe Repair” is printed on the weather beaten sign above the door.
Logan shows the man working there Chloe’s picture.
It’s another bust.
When we walk out, I grab Logan’s arm, stopping him before the self-preservation instincts that would have once kept me from grabbing him can kick in.
“What happened with Petal?”
Logan doesn’t lash out, he simply shuts down. It makes my heart pound anyway.
He’s so damn self-contained already that it’s a subtle shift, but I’m paying close enough attention that I see it as clear as day. His body goes unnaturally still and his pale eyes lose all their brightness… but then I see the moment he pushes through that and decides to share some more of himself with me anyway.
I drop my hand, but I still feel connected to him, and it’s a gift I really need right now. A spark of warmth to fight off the cold despair trying to creep over me as we run into dead end after dead end in the endless hunt for my sister.
We start down a different block.
“Jonas was… selfish,” Logan says, hesitating over the last word as if it’s not the one he’s actually looking for. “I mean, he wasn’t like Maddoc is.” He shakes his head with a tiny sound of frustration. “In some ways, he was. Jonas taught Maddoc a lot. But Maddoc is who he is because of their differences just as much as because of what he picked up from Jonas about…” He flicks his hand in a way that makes me feel like he’s taking in the whole city. “All of this.”
I think I understand what he’s trying to say. He means that Maddoc became the man he is because of his father’s example, and that at least some part of that example was Jonas showing Maddoc who he didn’t want to be.
Selfish. Maybe Logan means self-serving?
Maddoc isn’t that.
He’ll never be that.
“What happened with… the guy Maddoc killed?”
“Come on,” Logan says, turning away abruptly and taking off in another direction. “We need to keep looking for your sister.”
I follow, wondering if he’s changed his mind and decided to shut me out again. But to my surprise, after a moment, he starts talking again.
“Petal shouldn’t have been on the streets. Someone should have been protecting her. But Jonas didn’t care about that. She was small and quiet and couldn’t rat him out. All of that made her useful. She could get in and out of places where no one noticed her, but after the first time he sent her to the monster—”
“You mean the drug dealer you mentioned?”
He nods. “She didn’t want to go back. She couldn’t say why, obviously, but I could tell the fucker had scared her.” He pauses, his voice dropping almost too low to hear. “I could tell he’d… hurt her.”
My stomach clenches just to hear it, and my hands curl into fists.
I protected Chloe from our father when she was that age, but there had been other shitheads who tried to hurt her over the years. There always were.
And I agree with Logan. They’re all fucking monsters.
“I told Jonas I’d take that job instead,” Logan goes on, “but he told me to stay the fuck out of it. Said if the dealer thought I was getting interested in his business, it would hurt Jonas’s arrangement with him, and I’d be the one to pay for that.” He pauses, then says, “Maddoc overheard us talking.”
“And he did something about it?” I guess aloud when he doesn’t go on. Even though, shit, Maddoc must’ve just been a kid at the time too.
After a moment, Logan nods. “I didn’t expect it. Everyone looks out for themselves out here. I figured that out fast, and Jonas lived and breathed it too. So it was stupid of me to follow Petal the next time he sent her.”
“But you did.”
He nods. “But I did.”
Of course he did. She must have reminded him of the little sister he wasn’t able to save. But he isn’t telling me this story to remind me how fucking shitty the world can be. He brought it up when I asked how he met—
No, not how he met Maddoc. Why he let Maddoc in.
How they became as close as brothers, like they are now.
My steps slow as I connect the dots.
“Maddoc got to the dealer first,” I breathe.
“He was already there when I showed up,” Logan confirms. “Even before Petal arrived.” And then, for the first time since I met him, he suddenly grins. Teeth bared and lips open wide. It’s a vicious, dangerous, beautiful thing. “Maddoc made that fucker pay for his sins in blood.”
Maddoc did more than that. He cracked through Logan’s shell and showed Logan that he wasn’t alone. He also earned one of the few, guarded places in Logan’s heart with that act.
No wonder their bond is so strong. Logan isn’t incapable of love, but after everything he’s lived through, I can understand why he opens his heart so rarely. Rarely… but completely. He’s totally committed to the bond he has with the two men he’s found worthy of calling his brothers, and I have no doubt at all that he’d both kill and die for them without any hesitation.
Fuck, I’m so screwed.
I already feel something for him, something more than just darkness recognizing darkness, but seeing him in this new light leaves me with a deep yearning for more of him that I’m not sure what to do with.
That I’m not sure what he’ll let me do with.
For now, I set it aside to focus on canvassing the city with him and enjoying the fact that he’s decided to share anything at all with me. Especially because it feels like he’s the only one.
Someonehas to have seen Chloe. She must have left a clue somewhere. But by the end of the day, we still haven’t found anything, or anyone who’s willing to admit it.
I rub the center of my chest as we arrive back at the house, an ache there that I can’t seem to shake. It’s getting really fucking hard to stay optimistic when we keep coming up empty, but I refuse to believe anything bad has happened to my sister. I would know. I have to believe that, or else it will drive me crazy.
I don’t know how Logan survived losing his own sister.
And selfishly, I hope I never do.
He hesitates when we reach the front door, blocking my way for a moment. “We’ll find her.”
“I know,” I say, swallowing hard. Hearing it though, having him take the time to say it, just like he took the time to make my coffee this morning, eases the ache in my chest a little. “Thank you.”
For a moment, Logan looks like he’s going to say something else, but then he just nods and turns away, leading the way into the house. Dante and Maddoc are both there, going over some paperwork at the kitchen counter when we walk in.
They look up.
“Anything?” Maddoc asks.
I shake my head, my throat getting tight. Logan starts giving him a more detailed report of the area we checked, and who we talked to, and other random observations I didn’t pick up on while we were out today, but it all still boils down to a whole lot of nothing.
“You okay there, princess?” Dante asks softly, coming up next to me.
“Sure,” I lie.
He looks me over, his eyes warm in a way that has my throat tightening again. Then grins, bumping his hip into mine. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
I laugh despite myself. “I just got back here! And aren’t you and Maddoc in the middle of something right now?”
I wave a hand toward the papers they were looking at.
“Nah, we were just wrapping up.” Dante holds out his hand. “Come with me.”
I hesitate, glancing over at Maddoc and Logan. They both look up as if they feel my eyes on them, and Maddoc gives me a small smile. Logan doesn’t, but I still feel the way things have shifted between us. Between all of us.
I think I was right last night. It’s time to believe in them.
“Okay,” I tell Dante, my stomach getting a little jittery when he grins again and tugs me out of the kitchen. But this time, it’s with anticipation instead of the sick dread I’ve felt all day.
With Dante, we could be going anywhere. Up to his studio, out to breakfast-for-dinner, or hell, all the way across town to run naked through the fountain in the plaza Chloe and I used to get lunch in for all I know. Trusting him is always an adventure… but it suddenly hits me that I do.
I’m not sure when that happened, and it’s definitely not without some reservations, but somehow, it did. I trust him enough to follow him, even now that I don’t have to.
That doesn’t mean I’m not curious, though.
“You’re really not going to tell me where we’re going?” I huff after he drags me out to the Escalade, acting far more annoyed by that fact than I actually am.
He raises one eyebrow. “Why tell you when I can show you?”
I shake my head and roll my eyes, but I’m smiling. He keeps me distracted from my worries on the whole drive, and when he finally stops the Escalade I realize we’re at…
“A tattoo studio? You’re getting more ink?” I ask, unexpected excitement surging through me as I follow him inside.
He laughs. “I’ll be getting more until the day I die.”
I bite my lip. That sounds hot.
Dante nods a greeting to the heavily pierced girl at the front, and she points us toward the back of the building like she’s expecting us. Well, him.
He puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me to a small room that would have looked sterile and cold if it wasn’t for the fact that the walls are all painted black and covered from ceiling to floor in framed art prints.
Wait, no. Not art. Tattoos. Fucking gorgeous ones.
Dante pulls his shirt off and tosses it onto a small rolling cart, then drags me toward the back wall, jerking his chin toward one of the prints. “Look familiar?”
“Oh,” I say, my fingers reaching toward it before I catch myself. It’s a jaguar. Gorgeous work. Bold and bright and fucking beautiful, but I’ve already seen the original. It prowls across Dante’s left shoulder, its tail wrapped around his bicep and its eyes—the same vibrant green as Dante’s are—promising danger. They practically glow, staring out from the solid curve of Dante’s bulky shoulder.
“I found Nico a few years ago. He’s done a lot of these,” Dante says, turning his upper body this way and that to point out the rest of the art that’s laid out around the big cat like a riotous jungle of color.
The whole effect is sexy as hell, and when I look up and catch his eye, I can tell he knows it.
He cups my face, and a warm flush moves through me.
“Tease,” I whisper.
The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles at me. “Nah. Never that. I’ll always follow through for you, princess.”
Fuck, that’s a tempting thought.
The door opens behind me, a man’s deep voice calling out a greeting.
“Dante.”
I whirl around, my heart beating fast in my chest and my whole body filled with the need to have him follow through on that promise.
Dante catches my eye and smirks like he knows it, then steps around me and settles onto the padded, adjustable, clinical-looking chair in the middle of the room.
“Hey, Nico,” he greets the man who walked in. “Thanks for fitting me in tonight.”
“Anytime,” Nico says, his eyes flicking my way with a questioning look as he drops onto a rolling stool and adjusts some lights.
“This is Riley. Riley, Nico,” Dante says, filling in the introductions. Then he nods toward another stool. “You wanna have a seat there, princess?”
Nico mumbles a greeting as I take a seat, then he does something to lower the back of the tattoo chair so that Dante is lying flat and starts asking him about the new ink he wants.
I’m only half listening, too absorbed in drinking in the sight of the art that’s already on Dante’s body as it moves and flexes with the subtle shifts he makes in the chair. I still want to lick it. All of it. But then I noticed Dante tapping his chest as he discusses the new piece with Nico, his fingers skimming the empty skin right over his heart, and I’m suddenly all ears.
All ears plus a stupid surge of possessiveness.
That’s my spot.
Dante chuckles, a low, throaty rumble, and when my eyes jerk up to meet his, I see that he’s noticed.
“You wanna chime in here, princess?”
“What?” I ask, feeling like I’ve missed something.
He shrugs, the casual movement belied by the intensity of his gaze. “Since you’re the original artist and all, we gotta make sure Nico’s work meets your standards. It’s why I brought you.”
Nico snorts without looking up as he cleans and then carefully shaves Dante’s skin. “Should I be nervous?”
I doubt the lanky, heavily inked man has ever been nervous in his life.
I also have no idea what they’re talking about.
“What are you having done?” I ask, careful to stay out of Nico’s light as I roll my stool closer to see.
Nico carefully presses a translucent piece of paper over Dante’s heart, patting it into place. I can easily make out the lines traced on the other side that will transfer to his skin, and the shape of it reminds me of… flying.
It looks like a messy, chaotic bird, soaring free.
Then Nico peels the paper away and I recognize it.
A lump forms in my throat. “I made that.”
“And I’m gonna fucking keep it,” Dante says in a husky voice. “Do you remember the colors you used?”
I nod. I do. Vivid red and deep blue, lush purple and brilliant green. I’d marked him with all of them. I’d left my mark on him, dipping my fingers in the paint in his studio the last time we fucked. Claiming a piece of him with it.
And now Dante is making that mark permanent.
“Are you sure?” I ask as Nico gets to work.
Nico chuckles. “He better be.”
He touches the first needle to Dante’s skin, and Dante’s eyes flare with pain.
Pain… and something hotter. Something I feel too.
I can’t look away, and Dante’s eyes stay locked on mine too as the image I first smeared across his skin takes a more permanent shape under Nico’s hands.
I don’t have any tattoos of my own, and I had no idea that the process would be such a fucking turn on to watch. Or maybe it’s just Dante. He holds perfectly still, his breath smooth and even, giving nothing away. His body tells a different story, though. One that has a deep, urgent heat pulsing between my legs as I watch.
I squirm, then shrug out of my jacket and lay it on an empty shelf.
As Nico drags the needle over Dante’s skin, small beads of blood well up and along the smooth, curving lines. A thin sheen of sweat appears on Dante’s sculpted body as Nico works, and Dante’s eyes burn into me like they’re a direct conduit to every single sensation.
The bite of pain accompanying the whir of the needle.
The ache in his flesh as the new image is forced inside it.
All that color and chaos, contained and captured.
I’m flushed and hot and don’t even realize I’m panting until Nico finally throws me an amused look over his shoulder as he lays down the final line.
“Virgin?” he asks, raising his eyebrows as he quickly scans my exposed skin for any sign of ink. “Everyone cleared out of this place when we closed about half an hour ago, but I don’t mind staying a little longer if you want me to—”
“Nico,” Dante interrupts him, slowly sitting upright with his eyes still locked onto mine. “Get the fuck out.”
Nico laughs, but gets to his feet and gathers up the tools he used. “Maybe another time then,” he says, tapping a packet near the door. “Don’t forget your aftercare.”
“Out,” Dante repeats, his cock a thick, throbbing line of temptation pressing against the denim of his jeans as he continues to stare at me.
I lick my lips and Dante smirks, and I don’t give a shit whether Nico is out of the room yet.
When he reaches for me, I almost come just from the brush of his hands over my skin.
“Did I mention how fucking hot you look in this little skirt?” he whispers as he pulls me onto his lap in the tattoo chair, his big hands sliding up my thighs and pushing it up to bunch around my waist as he cups my ass and encourages me to straddle him. “Fuck, you’re practically bare,” he breathes out, running his fingers under the thin g-string of the thong I’m wearing. “Have you been walking around like this all day?”
“Does it matter?” I settle on top of his erection and rock against him. “You weren’t with me then.”
“I am now,” he mutters, his hands tightening on my ass and encouraging the motion. And then he’s kissing me. Fucking inhaling me. Biting at my lips, then whispering sweet lies and filthy promises against my skin as he yanks the thin straps of my top down and lifts me up to give my breasts the same treatment.
His jaw is rough with a five o’clock shadow, scraping against my sensitive skin as he nuzzles between them. Then he palms my left breast hard, turning his head to suck my right nipple into his mouth like he’s trying to swallow it, and pleasure arcs through my body like lightning.
“Fuck. Dante.”
I arch against him with a gasp, remembering his fresh tattoo just in time to avoid touching it. I tunnel my hands through the back of his rich brown hair, holding him in place instead as pure, primal need takes over. Dante groans, his jaw rasping against me again as he switches to the other side, and I grind down on his hard length, riding his trapped cock like a woman possessed.
My thong is soaked through and my pussy is fucking aching. I need relief like I need air. I need his cock.
“Shit, you feel good, princess.”
“Yeah, I do,” I pant, tugging on his hair until he lifts his face back toward mine. “But I’ll feel better once you make me come.”
He smirks, sliding one hand down my body to grab my ass in a punishing grip. “Is that a request?”
“You said you weren’t a tease.” I slip my hand between us, popping his fly open. “Prove it.”
His eyes go molten, and he yanks my g-string to the side as I flex my thighs, lifting just high enough to pull his cock out and impale myself on every last inch of it.
“Fuck,” he groans, the tendons in his throat standing out as he throws his head back and sucks air in through his nose. Then he tangles one hand in my hair, wrapping the soft length hanging down my back around his fist, and squeezes my ass with his other one, staring into my soul. “Do it. Ride me, princess. Take what’s yours.”
His cock flexes inside me and I’m fucking lost. He feels so damn good that I can’t stand it, can’t stand to be still and have no patience for waiting. I do exactly what he said and ride him hard, slamming down on his cock over and over as he attacks my mouth with his and swallows down all the filthy sounds that spill out of me until, with no warning at all, I shatter. Coming so hard on his cock that all the chaos and color of the bird he just branded himself with takes off inside me and flies.
Dante grips me tight and takes over, fucking up into me so hard the tools laid out on the table next to the tattoo chair start to rattle and bounce. “Fucking gorgeous. Jesus, princess. Nothing’s as good as fucking you. Fucking nothing,” he groans, pushing me even higher until, with a gritty curse, he shudders and slams up into me one last time, filling me with everything he has.
And even then—with long, open-mouthed kisses and slow lazy thrusts that push his cum out of my pussy until my thighs are coated with it—he doesn’t stop.
I don’t want him to.
“It’s always so damn good with you,” he finally murmurs, both hands in my hair as he rests our foreheads together, his thick length just barely starting to soften inside me. “You’re every color.”
I have no idea what that means. Except, looking in his eyes, knowing he chose the tattoo that he did, maybe I do.
I run my finger around the edges of it, careful not to touch. “I can’t believe you did this.”
His lips tilt up. “I like being marked by you.” He drags his hands down, resting them lightly around my throat. “Always thought it was fucking sexy to see our marks on you. I wanted some of yours too.”
A slow wave of arousal washes through me, and I shiver, then lean in and kiss him.
There are no words I trust myself to say in response, but he’s right. I feel the same. It’s sexy as hell, and for all the pain I’ve endured at the hands of these three men, I can’t deny how hot it is to see them leave something behind. Stripes from Maddoc’s belt on my ass. Bruises and scars from Logan. The paint Dante fucked all over me and taught me to use to deal with all the feelings I’ve never had a good way to let out before.
He licks into my mouth, the kiss slow and sensual. I’m exactly where I want to be. Where I want to stay.
But life doesn’t work that way.
Dante pulls back, tracing my lips with the rough pad of his finger and then helping me slide the straps of the thin cami I’m wearing back up over my shoulders. “Such a shame to cover you up.”
“It’s not forever.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, my eyes drop to his new ink. That’s forever.
Dante put a piece of me on him.
Forever.
He helps me off him and we finish cleaning ourselves up, he pulls me toward him for another long, drugging kiss.
“I like knowing your pussy is still sloppy with my cum,” he whispers as we break away, nudging his nose under my ear and breathing me in. “I wouldn’t mind sliding back in there when we get back to the house.”
Another delicious shiver goes through me. My body feels well-fucked and as relaxed as I’ve been all day, but now that he says so, I wouldn’t mind that either. I grab his hand. “Let’s go.”
He chuckles, but stoops to grab my jacket off the shelf I left it on before letting me drag him toward the door. “You want this?”
I shake my head. “You’ve got me plenty warm without it.”
“Fair enough,” he says with a cocky smirk, folding it over his arm.
My phone tumbles out of the pocket, and when I pick it up, there’s a message notification waiting. A text I missed a little while ago.
My pleasure fizzles, the sight of my father’s name on the screen leaving me cold.
Dante’s eyebrows draw together. “What is it?”
I hold it up so he can see. “Frank.”
Dante frowns as I open the message. But as soon as I read it, my heart leaps, tears springing to my eyes.
“Riley?”
I look up. “Oh my god. He heard from Chloe!”
Dante’s eyebrows shoot up, and my hands shake, making me fumble the phone as I try to hit the call button.
“Does he know where she is?”
“I don’t know yet. All he said was that he heard from her. I don’t… why couldn’t he just tell me more than that in the fucking message?”
I stab the red button to end the call when he doesn’t pick up after six rings, then hit the green call button again.
Dante moves behind me, pulling me back against his chest as it starts to ring again and pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
“This is a good thing,” he reminds me, his solid warmth grounding me.
“I know, I know.”
But that doesn’t stop my heart from trying to pound out of my chest as I wait for Frank to pick the fuck up already.
Dante’s got one hand on my stomach, holding me against him, and I cover it with mine, tangling our fingers together to keep mine from shaking as I wait through another six rings. Then it goes to voicemail again.
I end it and hit the call button again with a curse.
“I’ll drive you over there,” Dante says as it starts to ring again. “Let me tell Madd and Logan where we’re headed, then we’ll—”
Dante’s mouth snaps closed when Frank finally answers, his voice so faint I can barely hear him.
“Ri…ley?”
“Frank? Frank! What’s happening? What did Chloe say to you? Is she okay? Did she tell you where she is? Is she with you?”
All I get back is the sound of his rattling breath.
It sounds unnatural.
Broken.
I squeeze Dante’s hand so hard I lose feeling in my fingers, and he dips his head lower, pressing his cheek against mine, like he’s listening in too.
“Dad?” I blurt into the phone. “What’s happening? Goddammit, you piece of shit, answer me!”
Frank doesn’t, and after a moment, Dante pulls me around to face him, his face grave.
“He’s such a fucking asshole,” I whisper, still clutching the phone. “Why won’t he fucking say something?”
“He can’t, princess,” Dante says, his voice grim. “He’s dying.”