One by one.
I recall what he said last night.“Do you remember when I told you to hide your vulnerabilities behind your smile? Se? You are very good at doing this. . . but not today.”
“All these years,” I say through a bitter chuckle. “That sly bastard hasn’t missed a thing. He’s been watching all of us. I don’t know what he has on you, Xan, or on Clay, but he’s been keeping our vulnerabilities at his fingertips.”
I fix my eyes on my dad, who is reining in his anger. He’ll head straight for the gym soon, beat the bag until his knuckles shift and ache more than they already do because of serious arthritis. “Konnor was yours,” I say to him. “Shoshanna. . . is mine.” I mean that last sentence in more ways than one.
Dad stands up at his desk. “If Jimmy is coming apart, I need to see it for myself. To assess the danger. We have too much to lose now. Jimmy knows it. We are no longer impenetrable. We have Kelly. Cassidy. We are in fact far more vulnerable than we have ever been.” He presses the button on his phone for the intercom, speaking into it. “Get Carter to call me. Contact my son, tell him we need him here as soon as he gets back from Bali. Bring the girls too.”
He shifts his gaze back to me, and I see his eyes blaze. The flames excite me. I take a step towards him, waiting with bated breath for his approval. I want Jimmy’s blood on my hands. I want to see fear in his eyes for the first time. . . and the last. Dad nods at me, seeing my blood lust shift across my face. “Soon, son. It will be soon. We don’t act without Clay. Jimmy has sent him to Darwin. He’s meeting members of their city and appearing to be searching for Salvatore. He’ll be back in a few days.”
So we wait.
Until then, I have my beautiful distraction.
Shoshanna
Present day
When I open my eyes,there are three seconds when everything is as it was the day before. Average. Normal things fill my senses: my stomach growls with hunger, my body writhes on the soft sheets, a hot hard wall of muscles holds me from behind. . . Then the fourth second comes and with it, reality crashes down on me. Images of what happened mere hours ago assault me. I squeeze my eyes shut, fending them off, but that only makes it worse. I open my eyes again and look at the unfamiliar wooden floorboards and white blinds. In the corner of the room is a small teepee displaying the characters fromFrozen. A large television hangs on the wall directly opposite the foot of the bed. The furniture is a light oak and adorned with scribbles and stickers.
A kid’s handiwork, for sure.
It is all too strange.
And the emptiness in my stomach and rip through my heart, remind me again why. . . I grip at the thick, fully tattooed arm draped over my waist. I squeeze harder, silently begging him to wake up because I’m awake and aware, and I don’t want to be alone in this state.
Perry is dead. . .
“It’s okay, baby,” Bronson mutters, his voice gravelly and deep in his sleepy condition. His fingertips trail the length of my side, provoking little goosebumps all over my skin. I spin to face him, to find his beautiful, turquoise-coloured eyes batting back from slumber.
He leans in and draws little circles on my nose with his. My heart aches. Eleven years apart. Eleven years wasted. “It’ll be okay. Don’t think about it.” He crawls down my body slightly, bracing my breast in his palm, licking at the tight bud on top. “I missed your tits.” I feed my fingers through his hair. The dark-brown strands are exactly what I want coiled around my fingers. The colour I want.
He mouths my nipple softly. “I was rough yesterday,” he says between breaths and kisses, loving my body worshipfully.
I breathe the words through a moan. “I needed it.”
“I want you now. I want you slow.” He rubs his face between my breasts, groaning as the soft flesh jiggles. He rubs his rock-hard cock into my thigh. “I want you bound to my bed. I want you writhing beneath me. I want to take my time.”
I sigh through the emotions he brings. “But it’s not okay. I’m not okay, Bronson. I’m not okay with anything that happened.”
Continuing his reverent caresses of my breasts, he speaks against the soft, supple flesh. “We’ll work at it. Work through it together. Remember? You said that to me at the lookout that day.”
‘Then you let him touch you," Dad spat out. “So that you both felt better about what happened? About murder. Is this all true?’
The vision of him fingering me after he killed that boy comes back. Of him making me come with his gun moments after Jimmy shot Perry in the head. Of us in the bathtub in blood-dyed water. I cover my face, escaping into my palms. “There is something very wrong with me.”
His lips still on my nipple. Shifting until his hands cup my face, his tattooed fingers knotted through my hair, he stares at me. “There isnothingwrong with you. Trust me, I see you.”
I exhale in a rush, lost in the tempestuous waves of green and blue pinning me to the bed. “Okay, Butcher. Tell me. . . what do you see?”
His palm moves to cover my face, his fingers stroking the contours and curves adoringly. I close my eyes, holding them like that, still feeling his gaze moving around my features with a scorching intensity. “You areperfect. My perfect Shoshanna. I’ve seen the bitch and angel in you, baby. I’ve seen you crazy. Sexy. . . Kind. I knowyou. And you know what you are. . . someone whotries.Someone whofights.No matter the obstacle. No matter the damage. Youfight.”
He moves his hand back into my hair, and I open my eyes to find him staring down at me. Dipping his head, he takes my lips softly, sucking and pulling on the top pleat. I slide my tongue out and into the gap between his mouth, licking his as it moves out as well. It’s slow and sensual, and sailing through every motion are our feelings for one another. His fingers make circles in my hair while his legs cage me between them. His long muscular body presses down on top of me, stealing a tiny bit of air, enough to warn me of his strength, his possession. . . ofhim.And his cock is hard and pulsing between our mashed bodies. I lift my hips into him, my breath skipping around between our kisses.
His mouth leaves mine in a slow, teasing way, drawing down my lower lip until he releases it. He moves to my chin, his tongue leading, licking me in an animalistic way that no other man has ever done before. No one has evertastedme like Bronson Butcher has.
I can’t get swept away. Can’t allow myself this moment of pleasure until I know what to expect when I get home. “Akila,” I whisper. “Akila.”