10. Cruz
CHAPTER 10
cruz
My cock is so fucking hard that it lays painfully against the zipper of my denim jeans. Fuck, maybe I should reconsider this commando thing. I take a solid two seconds to contemplate the backlash from Dom and Aidan if I fucked the shit out of her on the floor right now. I don’t want anything more than to sink into her tight wet cunt and make her scream for hours, consequences be damned.
But I have to stick to the plan. God fucking help me. Not that the asshole exists.
“Too bad I can’t help you with your little problem,” I quip, motioning with my hand in her direction. “You can help me with mine though.”
If I thought my words would stun her, I was fucking wrong. They goddamn excite her. I find myself teetering on the edge here, and if it were anyone but Dom and Aidan holding me back, her ass would be crawling naked to me across the hard floor right now before gagging on my cock.
“As much as I love your enthusiasm and willingness . . . throw on some shoes and meet me in my garage,” I bark a little harsher than necessary before storming out of the room.
I stomp out of the house and across the gravel driveway to my shop. The place came with an old decrepit barn that had good bones. The boys and I worked our asses off to turn it into a functional repair shop. Took us over a year, but I’ve been running it for a few now. Business is good since it keeps the people of Aspen Ridge local and from having to drive thirty minutes to the closest garage in the next town over.
Once I’m in the office, I run the palm of my hand down over the length of my dick. It’s still raging hard and only wants one damn thing. No matter how many times a day I’m jerking it, it’s never enough. Ever since New Year’s, when Dom set this damn plan in motion, I’ve been ready for her. Green light means go and all that. Except he’s keeping us firmly in yellow and I don’t do slow. I conquer. Pillage. Degrade. Hurt. It’s all I know.
Being raised by two abusive parents will do that to you. If it wasn’t for Dom and his parents taking me in and giving me a safe place to hide out, who knows if I would have survived. But I don’t know how to be gentle or patient. Even if I’m enjoying the hell out of the edging.
I feel her before I see her, the air in the room ratcheting up several notches, thick with sexual tension. I pull out a joint from my desk and grab a lighter, needing something else to take the edge off. Turning, I see her leaning against the doorframe, still in my sweatshirt, a pair of leggings that hug her toned legs, and sneakers. She’s piled her hair on the top of her head in some swirled nest, rogue strands falling loose around her face and at the base of her neck.
“You ever smoke before?”
“Pot? Pretty sure that’s what got me through high school.”
I nearly choke on my own saliva.
“Don’t look so surprised. Our home lives were drastically different, Cruz, but don’t think for a second mine was all rainbows and butterflies.”
She’s got a point, and I know I shouldn’t throw stones of judgment. But it makes me pause and realize I don’t know much about her history.
“Point taken. Let’s smoke this and then you’re gonna help me.”
“I doubt I’ll be much help, Cruz. I don’t even know how to change a tire, let alone the oil.”
Not surprised, but that makes things easier. No bad habits to break her from. Even if I would enjoy it.
“We’ll start there, then. Now let’s go sit outside. Don’t need my office reeking of marijuana.”
She laughs a little under her breath but follows me out back where a few chairs are already sitting out. I light up the joint, taking two puffs and passing it to her. Gotta give it to the girl, she holds her own—not a cough, choke, or wince—and takes it like a goddamn champ.
It’s hot as fuck.
“You should see your face right now,” she laughs while relaxing further into her Adirondack chair. “You think I was lying, punk?”
Punk. God, I love how that sounds coming from her lips. Lips that are currently curled around the joint while she sucks in the smoke. Just as my cock had calmed down, he’s perked right the fuck back up. She passes it back to me and I take a puff, holding it in my lungs and enjoying the little burn it gives as the high starts to wash over me.
“You always wanted to work on cars?”
“Yeah. They were the only thing that made sense to me. There are too many variables in everything else. I like the quiet work, the math, that everything goes together perfectly unless it’s fucked-up. In that case, I love figuring out what’s wrong and fixing it. Cars make sense.”
She listens to every word, and I find myself easily opening up to her. Something I don’t do, not even with Dom and Aidan. What is it about this woman that pulls the long-buried parts of me to the surface?
We talk about life, how the boys and I met and got close, living in a small town, and how she grew up with two overbearing, demanding parents who always made her feel like she wasn’t good enough.
Her face falls slightly, and she shifts uncomfortably, I don’t push but I know something is on the horizon.
“You ever have this buildup of emotion, and it gets to this level that causes you to feel like you’re about to erupt? But there’s no eruption. No place to channel all that emotion?”
I answer honestly. Because that’s exactly how I ended up burning my parents alive in the hell they called a house.
“Yes.”
Her head turns to me, eyes facing down, nodding in collective understanding.
“I used to get so overwhelmed. And that’s not even the right word for it. More like, consumed? Like, I had to get whatever it was out before it ate me alive. I still feel it sometimes. The rapid buildup. Like a kettle about to blow.”
“I can relate to that more than you know. I think a lot of people can. Dom uses boxing as an outlet. Aidan runs.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing anymore, baby. I’m dead inside.”
Her face falls, her lips, tinted blue from the cold, turn down in a partial frown, and I find myself not liking it at all.
“I used to cut.”
I try not to react, but I can’t help it. I grip the armrests of the chair, my blunt fingernails digging into the wood. The idea of her being pushed to the limit and harming herself brings out a deep, feral response in me. I want to protect her. Save her. Erase all the painful shit from her past and carve out nothing but pleasure in her future.
“Where?” I grind out the words through clenched teeth.
“My forearms at first. Then the inside of my thighs. Those ones are much deeper than anywhere else.”
“They were easier to conceal,” I reply matter-of-factly.
Her eyes flick to me, making contact for the first time since the conversation started. I stand from my seat, walking the few steps to kneel down right in front of her. Pulling her arm out and holding it firmly in my hand, I push up the sweatshirt, finding the very faint scars crisscrossing and lining her forearm. I run my free hand over them, grazing her skin lightly. She sucks in a hard intake of air as the electricity jolts between us.
My words are barely a whisper, but there is no missing the seriousness of my tone when I say them. “The only release you should ever need from now on is from pleasure. But, if you ever need the pain, I want you to come to me.”
“Cruz . . .” she says on a rough breath.
“Promise me, angel.”
“I promise.”