CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rush
T here’s a moment.
One brief black moment where I consider letting her go.
Not out of any spurt of anger or anything, but a spot of goodness.
Unlike my cousin, I’m not about to let the most profound thing in my life walk out the door.
I’m not about to let the woman who’s climbed inside every fucking part of me go.
What the fuck was Nikolai even thinking all those years ago when he not only let Rose go, but pushed her out the fucking door?
I was young, still a punk, but I never got it.
But maybe I do now.
This is different, but I think I get it.
The darkness in him allowed him strength to push Rose from him, give her what he’d robbed. Freedom.
She came back.
Would Jessie?
I want to say yes.
I do. But as I watch the cops stop her, as I planned, from the safety of my car, I know I can’t say yes.
Not for sure.
Jessie’s too damaged in a way. It’s that damage that makes her fucking beyond strong. It makes her able to walk into a room full of murderous, organized assholes and try to bluff them so I’m okay and to rescue her brother.
It makes her able to walk away from me.
She loves me.
I feel it everywhere, in my bones, my soul, my heart.
She fucking loves me.
Like I love her.
And, if I was a better man, I’d set her up with money, a new life, without me. I’d let her walk the fuck away.
I’m not.
I know all this about her and I’m angry. Fury spits acid in my veins.
Someone that strong, someone who holds damage of a fucked up life at her core and can be so amazing, can do what she did to me earlier and walk away because emotions are messy. Those are both things that make you stronger and vulnerable.
Fuck. She reminds me of someone.
Fucking Nikolai.
How the hell are Rose and I so much more together and mature?
Okay how the hell is Rose so much more mature and together, and how the hell can I see this but not Jess?
I bet Dante can see that, too.
Of course he can. He’s a cat.
And I’m not anywhere near man enough to let her go.
No. I’m man enough to fight to the death for Jessie.
I’m man enough to fight her for us to be together, for her to admit how she feels.
I’m just not a good enough man.
Maybe I’d be good enough, weak enough, stupid enough, to let her go if she hadn’t come into my room tonight and done what she’d done. Because how the fuck do I see it and she doesn’t?
She gave me her love.
Cracked herself open.
“When her brother gets here, Fred, take him back to the estate.”
His eyes meet mine in the mirror. “And you?”
“I’m good.”
“Uh, Sir…”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, we’ve been out picking up chicks together, years ago, don’t sir me. I know you’re under Nikolai’s employment, and you always have been, so shove the sir up your ass.” I pause. “Unless it’s in front of Nikolai, then you can sir away.”
“He wants you under watch.”
“Do I look like I need it?” I glare. “Take him back. I got this.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Ass.”
I get out of the car and head up to the police car and Jess starts vibrating the moment she’s aware of me.
“The car,” I say to her brother. “Now.”
He mutters something, pats her shoulder and swings the bag up, loping to where the black car is. The cop’s on the phone. I don’t know his name, just that he works for Nikolai.
“And you can go, too.”
The cop hesitates.
“That him?”
The cop nods and I pluck the phone from him.
Nikolai sighs on the other end. “Get the fuck back home.”
“I do all that, dude, and you don’t trust me?”
There’s silence. “It’s not that. I want to make sure we got them all.”
“I need to sort this, Nikolai.”
My hard ass cousin hears something in my voice, or maybe he’s feeling…I don’t know…soft in the fucking head. We haven’t talked about it, just Rose, and one reason they went away, a reason she hadn’t spoken to him about. And that scares me how they can still miscommunicate and mess up when they’ve been together so long, when they love each other so much.
Then again, if that’s all their issues are, I’ll welcome my own if that’s all they are.
Not that I intend on getting the snip. I’m not broody, but I’m young and… Fuck, what am I thinking? I’m going to need a shower. I swear.
“I can do this. And congratulations on your super swimmers.”
“Fuck you.” He sounds chuffed. “And I’m proud of you.”
“You’re not going anywhere?”
“Fuck no. Rose is too murderous to want to leave her role as emerging queen. And now she’s knocked up—”
“The only man who can defy medical science,” I say. “And you’re really old.”
“I’m allowed to fucking kill you and feed you to the cat,” he mutters. “It’s just a one in a million chance, that’s all. Maybe it’s Rose. Maybe she’s—”
“She didn’t cheat.”
He starts laughing and it’s a good sound, something I don’t hear enough. “Rose wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. Fuck.”
“Nikolai, you’ll be a great dad.” I stop. And I say it. “You already are.”
He goes silent.
The back of my neck burns. Jess is glaring, and I can picture Nikolai doing the same fucking thing, but before I sort this out with the girl my heart’s defected to, I need to say this.
“You raised me like your own, Nikolai, so yeah, I know what a great dad you are.”
The silence stretches longer and I hear liquid hit glass. He’s gonna have a drink and wish the ground could open and eat him because that’s preferable to emotions, but too fucking bad.
He has to get used to this all over again. Luckily, he’s got me and Rose to remind him he’s human. And old. I half-smile.
“I mean, you raised me right, dude, and I’m pretty fucking great.”
“Want me to list all the shit you’ve done that should have earned you a bullet?” Then he sighs. “I did do pretty well, Rush. Now, are you going to talk to me or go get that damned trouble maker?”
“Going. I love you, too.”
“Fucker.”
I hang up and give the cop back his phone. “You can both go. I got this.”
Jess stares at me as they take off, and we’re alone. The anger, the fear that she could run off, slams back into me and I look around, picking the guest house. I point to the big driveway as I pull out my phone and type in the address and the app to turn on the lights and unlock the door.
“I don’t want to go with you.”
“Too fucking bad, Jessie, you’re not in charge here, I am.” I look around.
“Are you breaking in somewhere?”
“Don’t be stupid. We own everything in a two-block radius. Everyone who works for Nikolai lives here. The guards, drivers, his personal staff of ass kickers. I mean the estate’s fucking huge, but this is all essentially ours. Including those bikes you were trying to steal. Mia and Tony live somewhere near, too.”
“Oh, so you’re just going to park your ass in someone’s place?”
I grab her elbow and steer her forward with me. And yeah, it feels good touching her, even if she decides to get stabby.
“Not everything needs to be fucking hard work, Jess,” I mutter.
We reach the door as the cheery lights that come along the path end and the porch ones spring to life in a soft glow. The light at the windows is inviting and her face is a little mutinous and a little of the kid seeing a happy Christmas setting for the first time.
I’m talking tree, presents, cookies, Santa and family.
She wants the inviting.
Even as she pushes away before it rejects her.
“This is ours. Wilder, I mean.” But it could be ours. “A guesthouse, and you and I need just you and I time.” I open the door. “Inside.”
I smack her ass, loving her growl of annoyance.
She stops in the foyer and crosses her arms. “Maybe I want to go.”
“Yeah? I don’t believe you.”
“You’re supposed to let me go. And then if I want, I’ll come back.”
“Will you?”
Her eyes narrow. “No.”
“Then I’m not letting you go. I saved you.”
“So?”
I grab her, turn her, and walk her back until she hits the door. Then, I cage her in. “So? You’re fucking scared of a happy ending.”
She blinks rapidly, and her gaze darts everywhere but at me. “No, I’m not. I’m realistic. There is no happy ending. Not for you and me. You need a female Rush. Someone with long hair, someone not tattooed up the ass.”
“I’ve seen your ass, and I’m pretty sure there’s no tattoo up there.”
She clamps those lips together. “You need someone who fits your world.”
“Want to know something? I hate the world you think I inhabit. I don’t like the girls I’ve been sleeping with, and I haven’t looked at anyone and wanted them since I first kissed you. The world I want is the one where you fit. Our world. No one else’s. You think sweet, delicate Rose was the same as the dark, deadly and dangerous Nikolai? No. Not when they met. They shaped each other, and made their own world.
“Ask me back then if I thought Rose was capable of ruling as a mafia queen and I’d have laughed, but now that’s who she is. She’s the light to him, and she wears the emotions so he doesn’t have to.”
“Well.” Her eyes glitter as she looks at me. “Great for fucking them. But I’m nothing like pretty Rose.”
“But don’t you think we’re made for each other, Jessie?” I shake my head. I’m so close to her and I want to kiss her, hold her like that’ll make her see. “Does it matter if I think you’re beautiful? That you’re smart and strong and fucked in the head the right way?”
“Are you insulting me or complimenting me? It’s hard to tell.”
“I’m giving you some truths. You might see a God in human form before you,” I say, leaning in, needing to be closer to the heat of her, needing to breathe her in, “but I’m just a man.”
“Thank fuck for that.”
A thrill rides my veins. “I’m just as fucking scared as you. I fuck up a lot. It’s taken me too long to see what it is I want. And that’s my own role in my own way in the family business, and you.”
“You can’t have known you wanted me before you met me.”
“I think I did. Not you, like you , but there’s been something missing, and I’ve chased the girls that I know Nikolai liked. The type, not the women. But it took seeing you to realize I didn’t want that. I wanted wild, unique. You. And you fit that space so perfectly.”
She suddenly moves into me, tits pressed to my chest and her hands on my face. “But I don’t.”
I hate that broken, ragged sound.
“You do, Jessie.”
“No, I’m just… I don’t let anyone in. Other than my brother, and you’re in further than anyone, and it cracks me apart, shows all the ugly and it means…” She gulps in air. “It means you can hurt me. Destroy me.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?”
“Because you can?”
“I love you, Jessie.”
Tears trickle down her make-up free face and I want to lick them away.
“Don’t say that, Rush. It makes leaving harder.”
“Good. I want it to be hard.”
“Rush, you eat hearts for a living. You’ll be sick of me after a while.”
“Not even in four hundred years.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she says.
“Not as easy as it is for you to reject me to avoid the possibility of getting hurt.”
We’re so close, and her hands on me are short circuiting so many parts of me. Except my heart. And the one thing I know’s true.
“I’d never be sick of you in four hundred years. I’ll haunt your ghost, baby bunny.”
“Don’t.”
So I lay down the truth. Naked to the bone.
“I love you, Jessie, and you love me.”
My words hang and there’s just the sound of our breath.
“And if I’m wrong about your feelings…” I say.
She searches my face. “You’ll let me go?”
“Fuck no, Jessie. I’ll badger you until you change your mind.”
She tries not to smile. “There are laws about that.”
“Just call me Wild Bill Hickock of Hearts.” I kiss the side of her jaw. “I’m a criminal, Jessie, I don’t care about laws.”
She groans. Her fingers move back to my hair, and she digs them in against my scalp and I welcome that pull. “See? That’s utter flirt boy bullshit. What if I get sick of you?”
“Flirt boy? I’m moving up in your world. And that’d never happened. I’m a flirt boy, I know how to entertain.” I stop. “I fucking love you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I know how I feel, Jessie.”
She lets out a shuddery breath. “You’re too good for me.”
“I told you, I’m exactly the right good for you and you’re the right good for me. You’re my caliber, Jessie. The whole fucking package. C’mon stay. Be an aunt. Love me. Take a chance.”
“Again, if I don’t?”
“You gave it all away earlier when you came to my room and—”
“Blew you.”
“Yes, no. Not that.” I kiss her cheek. “Christ. I mean when you came to me and gave me yourself. You seduced and melded your powers and mine, strengthened our hold over each other. I like to fucking play, you know that. I like kink, and more specifically our brand of kink, but you brought that element in on your own when you went down on me and gave me something I’ve craved, and you held me prisoner all while submitting. That’s fucking beyond special.”
“Rush—”
“That’s us in a damn bottle of the most expensive and rarest drop. We work. And it was the most mind-blowing experience of my life.”
“You’re saying it all wrong,” she says, shaking.
“I meant you holding me, the way you put your arms around me and held me.”
Her mouth trembles. “I think you do love me. What if I screw it up?”
“We’ll recover. Fuck, look at you, hot, sassy, sexy. Lots of tats and an attitude that’s ten feet tall. You do love me, right?”
“I’m so in love with you, you jerk, that I can’t stand it. I went to save both you and my brother. I’d go to battle for you, Rush. And I’d fight alongside you, but love is scary. I…”
“You just said you love me, Jessie. Fuck, like I said, don’t you want to be an aunt?”
She frowns.
“Nikolai knocked Rose up,” I say. “That kid’s gonna need us. Not to mention Dante.”
“Are you bribing me with a baby that isn’t here yet?”
“And Dante.”
She starts crying. I expected laughter, but she’s in tears, big, ugly sobs, and I wrap her tight. We sink down to the floor, and I just hold her until she stops.
“If I’m with you, what do I do?”
“Anything you damn well want, but there was a deal made with Lucy and Rose and there’s room for you. If you want it.”
“I don’t know what it is.”
“A way to use your skills. I love you, Jessie. Marry me, don’t marry me, but live with me, be mine and we can battle over who gets control of the sex toys.”
Now she laughs and rubs her head against my chest, hands resting on me, letting me hold her. “Do I get to put on a strap-on and peg you?”
“Fuck no. But I’ll get you handcuffs you can use on me.” I brush my lips over her red hair. “Stay?”
She’s quiet for a while, and my heart clenches.
“Stay, Jess,” I whisper against her hair and breathe her in. “With me.”
After a long moment, she looks up at me, blinking back anymore tears, and smiles. “ Okay. I’ll stay.”