Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes)

And with that he explodes inside me, wild, hot cum shooting into me.

I hear him breathing hard. With me still speared to his body, he leans forward, his body barely brushing my back. He kisses me on the base of my neck where there is a little nerve that makes me shiver, and whispers in my ear, his breath hot and moist, ‘You can keep all the money you can hold in your hands.’

Baffled, my spine prickling, I turn my head back to look at him. Is he…?

But his face is innocent.

He moves back and pulls out of me. My body immediately misses him. I watch his eyes latch onto the blood-engorged, reddened flesh between my legs, his milky seed seeping out.

I can read his mind. If I stay in that position one moment longer he will slide his fingers into me. I crawl forward and sit cross-legged on the money. There is a note stuck to my calf. I peel it off, thinking of Melanie, thinking of her saying, ‘I take their money and spend it and that is my revenge.’

Dust motes are swirling magical specks in the last rays of the evening’s sun pouring in through the windows.

I let my gaze travel over the notes. They are mostly tens and twenties. There must be at least fifty thousand pounds I am sitting on. I could ask where the money has come from, but I remember Robin saying, Let some chances to ask for information go by. Don’t even appear curious. Lull him into a place of complete trust before you sink the hooks in. So he wants to play the games low-level gangsters employ to show off to their women? When again our eyes clash my face is calm, my thoughts hidden.

‘Do I have a time limit?’ I ask.

‘Nope.’

‘OK.’ I start gathering the money, carefully, in bricks. Afterwards, without looking at him, but knowing he is watching me, I slide the bricks together. Six bricks. I double them so their height will be slightly higher than my palm and fingers spread to their fullest. I push them together and notice a note lying on the floor. I look up at Jake, standing with his arms crossed over his chest.

I arch an eyebrow. ‘Do you mind?’

Wordlessly he bends, picks it up, and holds it out to me. I take it and, putting it on top of my pile of bricks, lift them all by pressing them together on either side of the tower with my spread palms. The whole thing comes up in between my palms.

I look up at him, fifty thousand pounds richer.

He grabs my hand—the bricks fall down on the bed in a heap—and pulls my naked body to his. ‘Do you know what I am thinking?’ he mutters.

My heart somersaults. I take his lower lip between my teeth and pull it experimentally as far away from his face as I can while my hands start undoing the top button of his shirt. He drags his lips in a trail of fire along my throat and my chin and catches my mouth with his. His tongue delves in, seeking mine, like a grounded child whose friend has come to knock on the door to ask if he can come out to play.

‘Someone should bottle you,’ he says softly, much, much later.

NINE

Jake

The sound of a bird chirping wakes me up. Shit. That’s no fucking bird in my bedroom. Immediately I tense. It can only be bad news. I feel Lily moving in the pitch dark. Her bedside lamp comes on. She blinks and squints blearily against the glare of the light. I lay a hand on her shoulder.

‘Go back to sleep,’ I say softly, and quickly go out of the room holding my phone. The light clock flashes 3.50 a.m.!

‘What is it, Dom?’ My voice is not sleepy. It is a bark, at once urgent, worried and irritated. I run down the stairs.

‘They’ve only gone and torched Eden, haven’t they?’ He sounds like he has been drinking.

My stomach lurches. My first thought: ‘Where’s Shane?’

‘He’s all right,’ my brother says instantly.

I feel almost sick with relief.

Without drawing breath Dom carries on ranting, ‘It was the Pilkingtons that did it. I fucking know it was that big bastard. No one else would dare.’

I get into the living room and start walking toward the window. ‘Calm down, Dom.’

‘Calm down? Calm down?’ he bellows. ‘I’m gonna kill him. I’ll fucking kill the ugly vermin. These motherfuckers need to know who they’re messin’ with. I say I get some of our boys to Red Ice and turn it into a nice bonfire tomorrow night.’

This is not good. Dom is in one of his volcanic rages. I can picture him, his lean, wiry body crashing about whatever room he is in, his neck popping with purple veins, his mind an unthinking red mist. I need to calm him down. The situation is bad enough without another bonfire. Outside it is beautifully still.