Chapter Eleven Cam
A pleasant buzz hummed through my veins as Lakey glanced down at our clothes, spattered with crimson evidence of our latest indulgence.
"Well, this is a mess," she giggled, her light blue eyes bright with an innocence that had no business being on the face of a woman who'd just twisted a man's balls until he cried. But that was Lakey. She could do the worst things and look like she was narrating a children's show while doing them.
I couldn't help but smirk. Here we were, covered in the Rat King's blood, and she looked as carefree as if we'd just spilled ketchup on ourselves at a picnic. The casualness of it all was fucking hilarious.
"Think we should get these off and in the washer before it stains?" Lakey asked. "Blood's such a pain to get out of fabric, you know."
I nodded. "Wouldn't want to ruin our Sunday best," I drawled, setting down my empty bottle next to the sink and opening the drawer where we kept the washcloths. No rush, no panic. Just another night for Cam and Lakey.
As I rummaged through the drawer, I caught sight of my reflection in the stainless-steel vent.
Dark eyes stared back at me, alive with satisfaction and hunger.
The rush of the interrogation was still running through me, but a different kind of want was building.
The kitchen sink ran hot as I pushed my hand through the water.
I wet the towels and headed back into the living room.
I turned toward Lakes, washcloths in hand, drinking in the sight of her.
The way the blood accentuated the curve of her neck, how it made the scar on her collarbone stand out.
The one from Carmen's cigarette. The one I'd memorized the shape of years ago and could trace with my eyes closed.
Christ, she was a work of art. Not the kind you find in museums behind velvet ropes.
The kind you find in crime scene photos that make detectives quit.
"Your wish is my command, darlin'," I said, tossing her a cloth. "Let's get cleaned up."
She caught the washcloth. She slowly peeled off her blood-splattered top, revealing the scars across her torso.
The surgical ones on her abdomen that she still couldn't explain.
The cigarette burn. The thin white lines on her forearms that she'd stopped adding to years ago.
Part of the missing pieces she needed to string together.
She turned and stripped off her leggings, wiggling her ass as they dropped to the floor. No underwear… my fuck.
"Like what you see, Cam?" she purred, trailing her fingertips down her body, pausing to squeeze on her small tits before pinching a nipple between her thumb and forefinger.
I didn't answer, just started stripping off my own clothes.
As I wiped the blood from my chest, I noticed Lakey's gaze following my movements, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.
She watched the way the cloth dragged over my tattoos, over her name inked across my chest, over the hearts she'd carved into my skin one drunken anniversary at a time.
Her eyes tracked the cloth the way her eyes tracked everything. With total focus and zero subtlety.
"C'mere," I growled, closing the distance between us.
I ran the damp cloth along her collarbone, down her body.
Each stroke was deliberate, slow. Lakey's breath hitched as I cleaned her, her skin rising in goosebumps under the wet fabric.
I took my time with it. Traced the line of her ribs.
Wiped the blood from the hollow of her throat where her pulse hammered.
Dragged the cloth down her stomach, over those scars, and watched her eyes go dark.
"You missed a spot," she whispered, guiding my hand lower.
My cock twitched in response. The room suddenly felt too small, too hot. I could feel the burn of desire building in my gut, my cock already straining for her.
Lakey must have sensed the shift because before I knew it, she was on her knees, looking up at me with those big eyes that were anything but innocent.
"Let me take care of you, Cam," she said.
I tangled my fingers in her hair as she took me in her mouth.
Fuck, the sight of her like this. Her lips stretched around my cock, her cheeks hollowed, her eyes looking up at me through her lashes while Skeeter's blood on the bathroom tiles ten feet away.
This was our bond, twisted and dark as it was.
This was home.
She started slow, the way she always did when she wanted to torture me.
Just the head, her tongue circling, tasting, her lips barely closing around me.
She knew what she was doing. She knew that starting slowly made me grip harder, push harder, lose control faster.
It was a game she always won because she had more patience than me when it came to sex and we both knew it.
She worked her tongue along the underside, that move she did where she swirled the tip and then pulled back just enough to make me chase her mouth.
I gripped the back of her head and pushed deeper.
She took it without flinching, her throat opening for me, her hands bracing on my thighs.
She gagged once, pulled back, spat on my cock, and took me deeper the second time.
No hesitation. No pause. Just Lakey doing what Lakey did best, which was making me forget my own name.
"That's it, baby. Just like that."
She moaned around me and the vibration went straight through my cock and up my spine.
Her hand came up to grip the base, stroking what her mouth couldn't reach, matching the rhythm of her head bobbing.
Spit dripped down her chin, and she didn't bother wiping it.
She never did. Lakey didn't do dainty. She did messy and thorough and committed, and the result was that my vision was already going white at the edges.
I looked down at her. At the blood still streaked across her shoulders.
At the scars visible on her body. At this woman on her knees for me, not because I'd told her to but because she wanted to, because taking care of me was how she showed the thing she couldn't say in words that weren't wrapped in profanity and threats.
"Fuck, Lakey," I hissed, feeling the pressure building. "You're gonna make me—"
I pulled away abruptly, my breath coming in short pants. Lakey looked up at me, confusion and desire on her face.
"Cam?" she questioned, her voice breathy.
Without a word, I hauled her to her feet and bent her over the arm of the couch. She went willingly, her body folding over the cushion, her back arching, her ass pushing up toward me. She knew what was coming. She'd been waiting for it since the interrogation.
"Hold on tight, sweetheart," I murmured, positioning myself behind her. I ran my cock along her slit, feeling how wet she already was. Soaked. The violence always did this to her. The killing, the blood, the power. It wound her up until the only release that worked was me inside her.
I thrust into her hard and her scream bounced off every wall in the apartment. Raw, unrestrained, the kind of sound that would make our neighbors call the cops if they weren't already terrified of us. My hands gripped her hips, fingertips digging into her flesh as I set a punishing rhythm.
"Fuck, Cam!" she cried out, her voice breaking. "Don't stop!"
The sound of her desperation pushed me deeper, harder. I leaned over her, my chest pressed against her back, my mouth against her ear. "You're mine, Lakey. All mine."
She whimpered beneath me, her body trembling, her hands gripping the couch cushions so hard her knuckles went white. I could feel her tightening around me, her pussy clenching with every thrust, her body chasing the same edge I was racing toward.
I slowed down. She made a noise that was half sob, half snarl.
"Cam, I swear to God, if you stop—"
"Oh, my girl..." I pulled almost all the way out and held there, just the tip, watching her squirm. Watching her try to push back onto me and fail because my hands on her hips were stronger than her desperation. "Ask nicely."
"Fuck you."
"That's not nice." I pushed in an inch. Pulled back out.
"CAM."
"Try again."
"Please." The word came out strangled, furious, but she said it. My girl said please. I drove back into her so hard the couch scraped across the floor, and her scream turned into my name turned into sounds that weren't words anymore.
I fucked her with everything I had. Every thrust was an answer to something.
To Skeeter's lies. To the list of names on our kitchen table.
To the years of damage that lived in both our bodies and only went quiet when we were connected like this.
I wasn't gentle. She didn't want gentle.
Gentle was for people who hadn't earned the right to be rough with each other, and we'd earned it in blood and years and scars.
I neared the edge, and reached around to stroke her clit, determined to bring her over with me. "Come for me, baby.”
Her body went rigid, her back arched, and she shattered around me with a scream that probably disturbed Skeeter.
Her release triggered mine and I buried myself as deep as I could go, my cock pulsing, spilling inside her while my hand gripped her hip hard enough to leave bruises that would bloom purple by morning.
Afterward, I pulled out and patted her pussy with a satisfied smirk. "Hold it in, doll," I commanded.
She rolled her eyes but clenched obediently, turning around to sit on the couch, sticking her legs in the air sarcastically. "You're such an asshole," she muttered, but there was no real heat in her words.
I chuckled, running a hand through my sweat-dampened hair. "You love it."