Chapter 6
Questions spin in her mind, unanswered. There’s no limit to how many puzzle pieces one might find while engaging with those close to one’s lover.
As Gage is tossing his jeans into a haphazard pile in the corner of his chaotic bedroom, Minnie leans against his headboard, clothed in one of his big shirts. “You’ve never told me about your mother,” Minnie says carefully, watching his demeanor.
He stills only for a moment. Eventually, he joins her on the bed, clothed in only his athletic shorts.
The muscles of his chest flex, making the ink there morph with his every move.
“I’ve never told you because it’s not a happy story.
She did her best, but her best wasn’t…” He bites his lower lip, allowing the words to die.
Minnie can fill in the blanks. Her best wasn’t enough, is left unsaid.
“Did you ever…?” How to ask the delicate question without offending? “Were you involved with drugs because of her?”
He shakes his head, a twist of disgust shaping his lips.
“I think she was the best warning a kid could have had against the dangers of that poison. When my dad left her, she found her solace in the Church of H instead of the Church of Christ.” Gage’s hand is holding Minnie’s as he sits against the headboard with her.
He traces the lines of her palm as she listens intently.
“She lived for her next high, her next escape from reality. Except, I couldn’t escape reality, could I?
Nah. I had to suffer through it and roll with the fuckin’ punches that life had in store for me.
” His voice cracks. “I tried to take care of her. I really did.”
The pain in the undertone of his voice claws at Minnie. How could he have never told her about any of this? The struggles of his childhood?
Probably the same reason you’ve avoided talking much about your own past; shame.
There’s so much about him that Minnie doesn’t know.
“What happened to her?” She squeezes his hand, clutching it with both of hers, watching his face for every microexpression. He’s carefully blank, hiding behind his mask of indifference as he stares forward.
“I’m sure you can imagine what her end looked like,” he drawls without any real emotion. Carefully detached. “Despite the temporary refuge it brings, heroin is merciless.”
There’s a reason he’s so cagey. Why he’s the way he is.
He’s not a bad man, but he certainly had a bad past. She plays with the edge of his bedsheet and contemplates how she wants to say it.
She doesn’t want to make him defensive about something he’s already on guard about.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to explain. It’s just not…
not a side of life I’m familiar with.” Not with her perfect upper-class life in Uptown Gold, where everyone has everything they need and more.
She leans her head on his shoulder, wanting to be close, not knowing how to comfort him.
Something dark crosses his features, but in the end, Gage blinks the emotion away. “She died when I was twelve. I went into foster care. It wasn’t great.”
Overdose. Minnie winces, knowing that there’s nothing she can say that will make it any better. Saying ‘sorry’ just doesn’t cut it. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Nah,” Gage pulls her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her affectionately.
“My roommates have loose tongues and shouldn’t have brought up such a shit subject.
‘sides, it ain’t your fault. My ma was what she was, nothin’ will ever change that.
She didn’t win against her own demons.” He pauses to brush hair out of her face, giving her a smirk.
“That’s all past. It doesn’t matter anymore.
I don’t blame myself for it. I know now, after seeing all those bastards in prison stuck on it.
It’s a hard battle and sometimes, there is no winning. Not if the addict doesn’t want to win.”
There are so many questions that Minnie wants to ask him.
Does he miss his mother? Does he resent her?
What was she like when not consumed by the drug?
In the end, she recognizes that pressing him to talk about something he isn’t proud of never leads anywhere good.
It is no different than Red cruelly asking her, What other masks were there?
Do you remember? “I’m sorry that happened to you.
Because if it hadn’t, you might have been a different person. ”
His eyebrow cocks as he looks down at her, cuddling her closer. “A better one, you mean?”
She flushes, hand against his strong pectoral. “I only mean that perhaps you wouldn’t have felt the need for a life of crime if you grew up in a stable home. From the sounds of it, none of you in this house had stable parents.”
Gage gives her a bitter little grin. “Such is life. Not all of us are dealt nice hands in the game of cards.” He rolls her underneath him in one smooth shift of his body, pinning her.
As always, he is good at distracting from something he doesn’t want to discuss further.
He growls against her throat lustily, “But never mind all that. All that matters is now.”
Minnie can’t help the giggle that escapes her lips, feeling the tickle of his stubble against her neck. Sensation whispers dirty things to her body, igniting the warmth between her thighs. Her want for him seems insatiable. She doesn’t want to fight the distraction.
Their bodies press together, a sensual dance of their hips as they taste each other’s tongues.
Minnie brings one of his hands to her breasts, indulging the aching need to feel him palm her globes of flesh, leaving her panting with want.
He plays her body like a violin, effortlessly growing the coil of need within her center.
She wants him, and the feel of his growing desire makes her mind spin.
Minnie needs him inside, wants to feel that perfect stretch. The silver balls on his cock piercings always deliver the sweetest sensation within her, delivering her to greater heights. Each nodule sending shivers of pleasure down her spine…
“Yeah?” He utters huskily against her lips as he grinds his burgeoning erection against the slot between her thighs. Her panties scoot up between her lower lips, getting stained with desire. “You like that?”
She sighs, reaches a hand between them, cupping his thick sex through his athletic shorts. Up and down she strokes, watching him throw his head back with hunger, muscles flexing. He rocks his hips into her grasp, seeking that sweet friction.
His tip, wetting the fabric.
Using her free hand to scrape her nails down his back playfully, just to watch him shiver, Minnie arches against him, pressing her breasts to his chest. Months ago, she would have never felt so sexual, so confident with a man.
But Gage is hers, and he’s made her this way. The knowledge excites beyond measure.
“Please,” she whispers to him sweetly, knowing what her soft tone does to him. His cock twitches against her. “I want you.”
“You don’t care if they hear?” He’s teasing her now, but his eyes gleam with hunger.
Minnie’s face reddens, even as her nipples harden, pressing against the thin shirt she’s wearing. She squeezes her thighs together, gasping lightly at the brief flicker of pleasure. “It’s nothing they haven’t heard from me before…I suppose.”
Gage chuckles low in his throat. He digs around in the drawer and pulls out an item that glints in the low light. Handcuffs- and not the fuzzy kind either.
“What are you going to do with those?” She asks, eyes wide. A thrill races through her. A moment of fear, of apprehension. It mixes with want, because she knows he’d never hurt her.
The handcuffs dangle in his tattooed hand.
“Do you trust me?” Gage asks her carefully as he leans over her. His presence is intimidating, like a muscled predator crouched over her in bed, and yet Minnie doesn’t feel afraid.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” Minnie stares up at his intense, dark eyes. “Don’t you know that by now?” The air seems to freeze in his lungs when she speaks those words. Perhaps he didn’t think it was possible that she, being as damaged as she is, could ever truly trust him.
For a moment, a flash of pain crosses his features. Hoarsely, he says, “I guess. It just doesn’t feel like something I’ve earned. Or deserve.” He brushes the back of his hand across her cheek, a gentle, sweet caress for so harsh a man.
“Why wouldn’t you deserve my trust?” Minnie asks him softly, catching his hand against her cheek to kiss it.
He leans in and presses his lips to hers, kissing her deeply instead of answering her.
How effortlessly he hides behind his passion, leaving her breathless in the wake of its intensity.
Instead, he suckles on her lower lip, nibbling as she sighs against him.
“You’re perfect,” he rasps against her lips, tasting her desire. “You’re everything I could ever want.”
He’s so good at evading questions he doesn’t like…and Minnie is hungry enough for him that she allows it to slide by.
The handcuffs go around her wrists, keeping her hands above her head, exposing her body to his mercy. The restriction gives only a hint of unease to Minnie, because in the end, she wasn’t lying; she does trust him.
Gage’s tattooed hands travel her form, hiking up the baggy shirt of his that she’s wearing, playing with her breasts until she tosses her head back and forth, begging for more.
Her globes of flesh bounce and shift in his grasp, nipples singing with sensation.
His tongue comes out to dance over the sweet nubs, sending a rush of tingles to her heated core.
Oh, his mouth, the things it does to her!
“Please, I need you,” she whines, trying to wrap her legs around his hips.
Every brush of his erection between her thighs has her gasping. Her panties grow sticky with her immeasurable want. She pulls at her restraints, wanting to get her hands on him.
He gives her a shit-eating smirk and slowly grinds his clothed cock against her center, saying, “When I say, naughty girl.”
Minnie growls at him, rubbing her clit against his erect endowment. Jolts of heat work their way through her, nipples swollen, needing attention as he teases her body relentlessly.
Despite all the red-hot desire, the warmth of his body beside her is a comfort she never knew she needed in her life.
Now, she doesn’t know what she’d do without him by her side.
Who else but Gage would be there in the middle of the night when she has terrible dreams of the past?
Who would tease her for her goofy love of houseplants?
Or roll his eyes without any malicious intent when she has to check the locks three times each?
Gage has fallen into her life, and Minnie doesn’t think she’d have had him any other way.
“You ready, princess?” The heel of his palm grinds against her clit, sending jolts of heat throughout her body. His cock strains against his athletic shorts, tenting the fabric. He’s ready for her, ready to plunge deep within Minnie.
Minnie opens her legs wider, pushing her hips up into his palm, seeking delicious friction. Yes, yes, please, I want you, only you, she thinks lustfully.
The loud sound of someone banging down the front door on the first floor is a bucket of ice water for them both, making them freeze in place. Minnie’s eyes go wide as she takes in the alertness of Gage’s body language as he sharply looks to the bedroom door. “What was that?!”
Minnie tries to situate herself, but her cuffed hands make it impossible. She struggles, feeling her nerves begin to rise, blocking out the arousal that had previously been in her blood.
Loud, disruptive noises begin to fill the room, full of disharmony.
Gage sits back from her, brow furrowed as he listens. Then, wordlessly, he reaches for where her hands are playfully cuffed to the headboard, freeing her after a few fumbling motions. His hands are shaking.
“Gage?” Minnie asks, frightened by his sudden actions. She sits and rubs her wrists nervously before fumbling for her glasses on the nightstand.
The sound of heavy boots and loud shouts filters up from the floor below, filling the house with unrestrained chaos.