Chapter 8
Eight
Onyx
Rule number one of investigative journalism: never become part of the story.
Well, I broke that rule on a rooftop chaise nearly twenty-four hours ago.
Monday morning light filters through windows I don't remember closing, casting gray stripes across the exposed brick ceiling of my room.
The pillow smells like cedar and smoke and him because I fell asleep in his shirt, and that pisses me off almost as much as the fact that I buried my face in the collar before I drifted off.
I walked away before anything soft could happen.
Before the post-sex haze could trick me into staying, into curling against that furnace of a body and pretending this is something it's not.
I sit up and every muscle in my body files a formal complaint.
My inner thighs burn from being spread open wider than my legs have ever gone.
My hips throb where his fingers dug in hard enough to leave bruises I'll wear for a week.
My scalp tingles where he fisted my hair and pulled my head back to expose my throat.
And my shoulder. I touch the spot where my neck curves into muscle and wince at the sharp sting.
The skin is tender, swollen, already darkening into a bruise the exact shape of his teeth.
He bit me. While he was buried inside me. While I was screaming his name loud enough for the entire city to hear.
And I liked it.
My thighs press together and the slick heat between them confirms what I already know. My body is a traitor.
I need a shower.
The bathroom is already warm from the hot water I let run, steam clouding the mirror as I strip off the t-shirt I slept in. His shirt. The fabric carries his scent and my stomach does a low, tight flip that pisses me off.
Get it together, Malone.
The shower spray pounds against my shoulders, hot enough to redden my skin.
Water sluices down my spine, washing away sweat and sex and the lingering sweetness of rooftop roses.
But it doesn't wash away the memories. His mouth on my throat.
The stretch and burn of him pushing inside me.
The way he growled my name when he came.
My hand drifts down my stomach before I can stop it.
I shouldn't. This is ridiculous. I spent an entire afternoon wrapped around the man. My body should be wrung out and wholly satisfied.
My fingers find the swollen bundle of nerves between my thighs and I circle it once. Twice. The orgasm hits so fast it catches me off guard, punching through me in sharp, bright waves that have me gasping against the tile with his name on my lips.
Embarrassing. That was embarrassingly fast.
I stand there for a long moment, water beating against my back, staring at the drain and questioning every life choice that led me to coming in a mobster's shower forty-five seconds after touching myself.
When I step out and wipe the steam from the mirror, the woman staring back has flushed cheeks and swollen lips and a bite mark blooming purple on her shoulder. I look thoroughly wrecked. Because I am.
I dress in armor to keep myself from crawling back under the Bratva Beast. I know myself and with how my body is still humming, I'll want a replay of yesterday.
The best way to do that is to put layers on my body.
I opt for a pair of black jeans that hug my curves.
I match the jeans with a cream-colored blouse with a high collar that hides the mark on my shoulder.
Boots are next. I grab a pair with a low heel I can run in because a woman in my situation should always be able to run.
I find an assortment of makeup in the bathroom drawers. I pick some powder, mascara and a nice lip balm that smells like vanilla. Once I’m done, I practice a neutral expression in the mirror until none of my inner chaos shows on my face.
I grip the edge of the bathroom counter and lean in. Ugh. Dark circles mar the skin beneath my eyes. I grab the concealer and work on those, but I don’t hold out any hope of erasing them when the source of my stress hasn’t changed.
He didn't come to my room last night. Nor did he knock on my door this morning.
I grab my computer bag and pull out a burner phone. There’s no way he hasn’t logged all three numbers from all three phones. I check each of them but there’s no text. I look toward the door to my room.
There’s also no note slid under the door, either. Nada. I don’t know what I was expecting from him, but… But nothing. I’m not here for some love story romance. And yet, my heart squeezes. “What kind of message is he trying to send me?”
There’s no message, Malone. It means you held up your end of the deal and he's moving on to the next item on his agenda.
I tuck the blouse into my waistband, smooth the high collar one more time to make sure the bite mark stays hidden, and head for the kitchen wearing the most unbothered expression I've ever manufactured.
The smell of coffee and something savory tickles my nose. I stuff one of the burners in my back pocket and head for the kitchen.
I round the corner to find him standing at that stove with his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of a black henley, dark hair pulled back, his trimmed beard catching the morning light as he works the spatula.
He doesn't look up when I enter.
"Coffee's ready."
My step falters. My stupid heart does the same.
So, that's it, huh? That's all I get from him.
No acknowledgment that twenty-four hours ago I was spread beneath him on a rooftop chaise, screaming his name while he fucked me into oblivion?
Not this man. He just stands there with his back to me, shoulders loose, spatula in hand, like this is any other Monday morning and I'm any other woman sitting in his kitchen.
Didn’t I just tell myself not to care?
Frustration and an unwanted hit of defeat settle over my heart.
"Thanks." I pour myself a cup and settle onto a barstool, wrapping my fingers around the warm ceramic and letting the heat seep into my palms. The coffee is just as bitter as yesterday and I drink it without flinching, holding the burn on my tongue like a small act of defiance he'll never know about.
"Sleep well?"
The question comes out casual, tossed over his shoulder without turning around, his voice stripped of anything I could read into. But his hand pauses on the spatula for half a beat before resuming its rhythm.
"Fourteen hours." I take another sip, keeping my tone light, breezy, the voice of a woman who absolutely did not fall asleep wearing his shirt with her face buried in the collar. "Apparently being deflowered on a rooftop is exhausting."
I try to keep the sass out of my voice, but I fail.
His shoulders tense, the muscles across his back drawing tight beneath the black henley for a fraction of a second before he forces them to relax. The movement is subtle enough that most people would miss it. I'm not most people.
"You needed the rest." His voice stays level, carefully neutral, but the accent thickens on the word rest, the vowel stretching just slightly the way it does when he's controlling something underneath.
"Is that concern I'm detecting, Beast?"
"That's an observation." He still doesn't turn around, but I catch the slight tilt of his head, the barest angle toward me, like he's fighting the impulse to look. "There's a difference."
He's making something with potatoes and onions, the sizzle of the pan filling the silence between us. I watch his hands work. Those scarred knuckles and calloused palms that mapped every inch of my body yesterday. Heat flickers low in my belly and I force my gaze to the window.
"We should do the debrief today." His voice is all business. "The more intelligence I can bring to Rafael, the faster we move against your uncle before he does the same to us."
"Fine."
He slides a plate in front of me. Potato hash with eggs and herbs, golden and fragrant. I take a bite and hate how good it is.
"Your family's shipping operations." He leans against the counter, arms crossed. "Walk me through them."
This, at least, is familiar territory. This is why I'm here. Getting rid of my virginity was a must. I took that card off the table to be used against me and I did it my way. Now it’s all about justice any way I can get it and that means making the enemy of my enemy my friend.
With benefits.
"Seamus runs everything through three shell companies.
Emerald Logistics, Celtic Transport, and Shamrock Shipping.
" I tick them off on my fingers, falling into the rhythm of reporting.
"All registered in different states with different dummy boards, but they all trace back to a holding company in the Caymans. "
"Routes?"
"East Coast primarily. Baltimore, Newark, Boston. But he's been expanding. Six months ago he started running trucks through Chicago, which I'm guessing is why the Syndicate started paying attention."
"Da. He was moving into our territory." Something dark flickers in his eyes. "What's in the trucks?"
"Officially? Restaurant supplies, industrial equipment, auto parts.
" I push a potato around my plate. "Unofficially?
Drugs. Weapons. And more recently..." The words stick in my throat.
"People. I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach he’s partnered up with Society 69.
I had no idea they existed, now that I do they sit at the top of my list along with my family to eliminate. "
He makes a sound of approval. “You’re in good company to find some help.”
“Yet to be seen.” Bad guys are bad guys, right? I don't say that out loud, but the black and white of it is simple. If you make your money through crime, you sit at the same table as my family.
“This society group seems to have a lot of claws into a lot of people.”
"Da, malyshka.”
I add the Russian word to my list of words to look up. But right now I’m more focused on his reaction to the mention of Society 69.