Gant
“Hale’s work. My work…” she whimpers to herself as the pretty gold trim on the ceiling turns darker by the second.
I lean over the bar, a few meters away from the downpour. “Come with me, and I’ll make it all stop.”
I swear I can hear each water droplet fall between us before she finally releases her bottom lip that she’d been biting. Blood coats her teeth when she rasps, “You win. You always bloody win. Call Bae off.”
“Once you get in the car.” I nod to the exit. How I was going to drive is another story.
“My coat,” she says, attempting to get to her feet. “Let me get my coat. It’s freezing outside.”
I slide around the bar, slip my arms around her waist and beneath her knees and haul her against my chest before she can let out a useless protest.
“I can walk to the car just fine.”
The car.
The car…
The car Aria had to stop every half kilometre to let me out. Eventually, I walked the last few blocks with her driving slowly beside me. She’d ignored the blaring horns, urging her out of the way.
“Put me down .”
“All you’re doing is exciting me,” I say, holding her tighter as her ass bumps my cock as she attempts to get to her feet.
It’s either my words or the flashes of cameras that make her grow rigid in my arms as I follow her instructions to a backroom where her coat’s hanging beside one that looks like a dead bird. Rie Rie’s, no doubt.
I make it halfway to the exit when I find Aria and pull her car keys from a hidden pocket in the cape draped over her shoulders. She doesn’t say a word but gives me a curious look before her eyes shoot to Elle.
She knows I can’t get in a car, much less drive one. She also knows not to fuck with me right now. Not like how’s she fucked with Zedd. Although, I suppose I’m at fault for that too.
We brush past a middle-aged woman, the only patron allowed into the club, despite her lack of a ticket and the mandatory vintage clothing. Her dark, permanently smokey eyes, no matter the time of day, search the club for her son. Instead, they land on the dripping ceiling.
“Better than Pierrot’s?” she snorts.
I don’t have time for greetings. Swerving around Hale’s mother, I step into the cool night air, and the tension is back, pulled twice as tight as I stare at Aria’s sleek, chocolate brown sports car waiting by the entrance.
The keys feel weighty in my fingers.
I can do this.
I can put my baby in the car and take her home.
Take us home.
With the flashlight on my phone, I signal to the dark shadow on the roof to seize his waterfall. Elle sighs in relief behind me, and I squeeze her fingers tighter, keeping her close.
Just a few more steps to the driver’s side, but I can’t move despite the stares of the unlucky club-goers trapped in the queue. But then I feel Elle’s warm breath on my sleeve from how close we are, and my feet move again. Closer and closer.
“?” Elle whispers, utter confusion lacing her tone.
She doesn’t know about this secret. I don’t want her to know about it.
I open the door, and she slides into the passenger seat, and I follow her, the door closing halfway on my back.
“?”
I slide her seatbelt across her chest and watch her breasts devour the strap with shaking fingers as time stands still.
“I need you,” I breathe finally. “Just let me look at you. If I can look at you…at your green eyes that are alive and...”
Understanding slips into her eyes as she holds my gaze steady. Her lashes rustle in the wind drifting through the cracked door, her pupils widening as she focuses on me in the dark. Those green eyes are filled with liquid. Filled with a soul.
Alive.
She’s alive and here with me.
I lick my lips and stare at her full ones that part ever so slightly. I just need to kiss her and feel her breath again.
I snake my fingers into her hair and tip her head back, and she lets me. She lets me melt into her, massaging her tongue against mine, and when I tug her hair, she leans back, granting me more access. More of her.
When we pull away, I savour her wetness still on my lips. My dove. She’s here. I just have to get her home. Haven’t I been waiting for this moment for days? Weeks. Months. Years.
I tear myself away from her and walk around to the driver’s side with numb legs. When I slip behind the wheel, time freezes again.
Suddenly, the night’s back, and I can hear more than the club's music and drunk patrons on the sidewalk.
I can hear her . Her laboured breathing doesn’t last for more than a few seconds.
Hrssh. Hrssh… the death rattle.
No, . Don’t go, my inner voice chants. The past is the past. Stay in the present.
But the blood and glass…
So much shimmery blood.
A click brings me back to reality, and when I glance over to see what caused it, Elle’s gone, darting through the darkness and into the surrounding wood on a hobble.