“I need you so bad,” I breathe out, helpless. I feel myself clenching around him.
“I need you worse,” he replies, his voice broken.
This is it. This is us. It might sound insane, but when he comes inside me, just as I claw his back with my nails, screaming from the top of my lungs, I know one thing is for sure.
I don’t want to die. Not really. Because Carter has shown me that I can find happiness, even in the darkest of times. Because even though he thinks that he’s a monster, he’s not. Far from it.
He’s my savior. My angel. My light.
“Shut your bake, already, Cole. It was a relapse,” I insist, referring to my shagging Quinn again. My jaw is set and my eyes are dark as I use the adjustable wrench to disconnect the Italian wise guy’s finger from the rest of his hand. It’s actually pretty easy to do. The secret is to catch the finger from its base and twist real hard. I’m good at that. The guy yelps in pain, throwing his head back to the ceiling and roaring from the top of his lungs.
Like it’s going to help him. This is Hot N’ Bothered’s basement. It is padded, secluded, and there’s loud music upstairs. I raise one eyebrow and stare at him silently. I’m not sure what pains this sorry-arse lad more—the fact that I’m breaking him piece by piece or the fact that I’ve just burnt down the restaurant he was supposed to keep an eye on because it pays the Lucky Lucianos’s good protection money.
“Yeah, a vagina relapse.” Cole rolls his eyes and chuckles, slamming another Italian wise guy’s head against the padded wall and growls into his face.
“I’m gonna ask you one more time, and this time I won’t be so nice about it. Where is Stefano?” Stefano is the boss since Lucky’s untimely death. Death caused by Savages, of course. It wasn’t pretty, but then what in this world is? What do I care? My head hasn’t been in the game lately. Not since everything between Quinn and me got so…complicated.
“A relapse,” I repeat, pivoting in place and making my way in the darkened room toward the mini fridge, from which I retrieve a bottle of water. I unscrew the top and take a generous gulp, clucking my tongue. The sex with Quinn after I came to save her was a mistake, a beautiful disaster, but a mistake nonetheless. I just need to keep my distance. Watch her from afar.
Every time I thrust into her, all I thought about—all I saw—were the marks on her neck. The marks I made. Not her dad. Not that wanker Murray. Me. Part of me is repulsed by my actions, but another part of me, that I don’t want to acknowledge, realizes that it satisfies the beast inside me when I see her pretty, pale skin marked by my touch. I’ve never felt so out of control before. Never felt the need to ravage a woman. Sex was mechanical at best. A way to release tension. With Quinn? I need claim her, mark her, make her feel me for days afterward.
I need to protect her. The price is irrelevant.
Which is why, after I made sure she was out of harm’s way, I bolted. Again. She’s got to fecking hate me by now, maybe she does, she said so herself, but that’s a good thing. If I have to make her hate me to keep her safe, then so be it.
“I’m thirsty.” The guy Cole is torturing is whining like a little pussy. Feck that. Ma was wrong. These guys are not more dangerous or sophisticated than us. Not at all.
“Please tell someone who cares, because I’m not the guy,” Cole answers him, his voice cut and dry.
I walk over to the man I just fucked up. His eyes are swollen. Lucky for him, I’m about to remove his eyeballs and he won’t have to worry about all that. Unless he cooperates, of course.
“Where is Stefano?” I ask again. He doesn’t answer.
“I’d really rather not get dirty if I can help it. Eyeballs get messy. But, that’s your call.” I hate this part. I’m good at it, no doubt, but I’m itching to get home so I can scrub away the germs in the hottest water I can stand. The thought has my mind drifting back to Quinn for the thirty-seventh time in forty-five minutes. I counted. Not that she’s ever far from my mind in the first place.
“Please.”
“Answer me,” I bark.
“Why are you even fighting this thing with Quinn in the first place? Are you still having issues about your performance in the sack?” Cole inquires from the other side of the room, and my head twists in surprise as I take him in, wide-eyed.
&
nbsp; Is he fecking mental?
Why would he breach this subject when we’re torturing our enemies?
“Go feck yourself,” I mutter.
“I have a wife for that. She is pregnant and hormonal as fuck, by the way, so we’re at it all the time. I think my dick might fall off if she doesn’t give it a day or two of rest. You didn’t answer my question.”
“Because it’s none of your bloody business.”
“Like hell it isn’t.” He gets frustrated, slamming his fist in his guy’s gut. The guy yells out loudly and starts crying. Producing actual tears. What the feck? We haven’t even gotten started yet.
“It is my business since you used my wife to help you get over your issues. It’s my business because you’re my motherfucking brother. You’re not going backwards, man. You got this. Don’t shut me out.”
“It has nothing to do with my performance,” I finally bite out. Jesus. This lad. I don’t even care that we’ve got company anymore, because this heart-to-heart he’s so insistent on having will not leave this room tonight. These guys will be dead before dinnertime.