A Twisted Love Story by Ace Gray (3)

“What has four legs, a tail, whiskers and flies?” Cole’s question held none of the lightness we’d walked into Mickey’s house with. It was as gloomy as the faint raindrops highlighted in the flickering streetlamps.

“I dunno, what?” My thumbs circled concentrically on the smooth leather of the steering wheel. My voice was almost exactly the same.

“A dead cat,” he spat out the words as he twisted, resting his gun between his forehead and the window. Cole rocked back and forth on the barrel ever so slightly as his eyes closed and his eyelashes kissed his cheeks.

“That was morbid as fuck.” I could barely take my eyes from the severity etched on his face.

“Seemed pretty appropriate,” he murmured and those eyelashes seemed to fan out further on his cheeks as he squinted his eyes shut.

“And the chickpea joke earlier?” I tried to lighten the mood, even though a pain shot through my chest at the idea of his eyes hardening to match the annoyance radiating off him.

“Was totally hilarious.” Mercifully day broke across his face, sun and smiles and twinkling green.

“You want a chick to piss on your face?” I asked, quirking my eyebrow up from the driver’s seat.

“Shut the fuck up.” His smile was enough to light up the car.

“Essie into that?” I couldn’t help but keep up the taunt.

“No,” he said warmly but then his face fell. “I don’t know what she’s really into these days.” He blew out a deep breath. “It was so much simpler when we were kids and we were playing at Ms. Pac Man and house.”

“She’s still around.” I smiled even though I could only think of her that night when I’d finally come home. That night when her soul looked hollow where it hung on her outsides.

He stared out of the window, his eyes focused on the barrel of his gun but so obviously lost to thoughts that made them swirl.

“She used to look at me like I was worth something. She used to make me feel like I wasn’t just a street rat.” He sat back and pulled his gun with him, studying the hashmarks of the handle where it rested in his lap.

“First and foremost,” I took a deep breath. “You’re a hell of a lot more than a street rat.” My fingers itched to reach out for him, to skate along his neck but I simply readjusted on the steering wheel. “Second, you’ll fix it. You always do.”

“Like this?” He gestured around. “I don’t think so, Horse.”

The directions we’d been given ran out, leaving a white barn bathed in my headlights.

“Let’s find out,” I said simply as I turned the keys and the engine went still.

He nodded but there was a heaviness to it as his shoulders slumped in. I got out of the car but Cole took his time. Each of our footsteps padded on the pillowy brown dirt surrounding the back barn we’d ben sent to. A puff of dust curled up with each stride as it deadened each of our steps. My heart seemed to follow suit. And Cole…

“You Mickey’s boys?” An oily voice asked from the deepening shadows beside the building.

The man that stepped out was stuck in the sixties and still dying to be part of the Rat Pack. His polyester suit was opened at the chest, curled hair sticking out and fluffing up around the gold chain that hung low below his collar bone. His hair was greased back like he’d combed it moments before stepping out to greet us. His freshly lit cigarette agreed.

“Don’t be mean Jimmy.” A soft and seductive voice wove out of the shadows. “God, they’re just boys.” A woman appeared by his side, wearing the silky Michelle Pfieffer slip dress to his good ole days gangster suit.

She moved like moonlight herself as she stepped into the light. Her big Bambi eyes studied us with a mix of wonder and worry. Shadows danced in the hollows of her slight bones as she took a deep drag off the Cruella Devil length filter on her cigarette. Franky Wannabe wrapped himself around her, clinging to her waist as if it was his life raft to stay afloat. She kept her eyes on us.                                      

“Take them to the stalls,” Jimmy jerked his oily head toward the white wooden building.

“Jimmy, they’re kids. They’re…” She didn’t finish but something in her eyes glistened. Something motherly.

“Simone, I know.” He sighed as he pushed his fingers through her hair. “These aren’t our choices. They haven’t been in a long time.” His words echoed in my bones but I couldn’t figure out why. She nodded as she clutched at his lapels. “Keep on the path,” he added.

They stepped aside and the well worn trail around the back seemed all the more distinct. Cole led, casting a single glance in their direction before skulking down it then turning the corner of the building. I followed with only a momentary glance back at the bewitching woman.

We followed the dusty rut until the tell-tale grunts and groans of a beat down drew us in. Cole’s spine automatically straightened before we stepped into the rickety barn at that back of the property.                 

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” His deep, dangerous voice that had only developed in the past few weeks, echoed through the stable. It sent my stomach tumbling into knots. “This looks like something Mickey Maloney wants cleaned up,” he said, still rumbly as he leaned up and over a stable stall.

His lats flexed into the thin fabric of his shirt as he leaned forward onto his forearms on the metal edging of the half door. My groan caught in my throat.  

But a very real groan replaced it. I stepped up to the gate and slumped over the railing, letting my elbow graze Cole’s. There before us were two crumpled and bloodied men. The each wore matching shiners, broken spewing noses and roped wrists behind their backs. Two guys our age that I recognized from the recesses of Mickey’s basement circled them, each puffing their chests as they cracked their knuckles.

This time I had to swallow my laugh.

They were teaching a kickboxing class compared to the battering Cole and I usually laid out. Feather punches and teasing jabs made them look like cats playing with barn mice.

“We don’t look like that, do we?” I let the humor filter into my voice.

“There’s usually a lot more blood.” Cole’s devious laugh peppered his words.

“What are you guys doing here?” One of the wannabes took a break and looked up, his shoulders shaking with his deep draws of breath.

“Taking out the trash it would seem.” Cole twisted side to side, his chin digging into his muscled forearms.

“We got this.” The miniature muscled sidekick piped in.

Cole didn’t answer. Instead he turned just far enough to shoot me a look. The way his face split pulled laughter from my lips. His whole being lit up and came alive with the prospect of violence. It was downright infectious. And that laugh…

“You guys suck.” One of the small fries in the stall shouted at us.

“Obviously we don’t, or we wouldn’t be here.” I couldn’t help myself. Cole just laughed harder.

The boys in the stall humphed, and one kicked the bound man bent on the straw but they walked toward us then slunk out. We stepped in, both puffing up in the single suspended tin light. The door clanging shut behind us still rattled my bones. 

My shadow obscured the man before me, spreading out and devouring the small, folded body as I loomed over top. I stepped sideways, partially for a better view of the mouse I was supposed to play with and partially to see Cole as he batted at his prey.

“They stole from, Mick,” Jimmy said, suddenly behind us, free of the moonlit woman, oil still thick on his tongue. “And no one steals from Mick.”

Cole’s jaw was clenched so tight, the muscles of his neck flexed and rolled. Only I could tell he was biting his cheek beneath it all. He barely moved as he studied the man at his feet. Small shifts of his weight, slight tilts of his head. And those eyes tornadoed green and something so much darker. His usual wicked savagery rolled off him, his sheer invincibility.

But something else too. Something only I saw on dark and lonely nights. Something that reared it’s head on quiet rooftops or beneath the sullen flip of streetlamps and telephone wires hung with hightops.

My stomach started to roll.

“Mick thinks they’re better than us?” One of the men scoffed from his perch on the railing.

Cole’s whole body rolled and he shivered as if shaking an invisible skin from his muscled frame. Whatever man was left underneath was suddenly and infinitely different. He looked far bigger, stronger than a moment ago. Red radiated from him where he now stood almost unnervingly still.

With only slow, deliberate and measured movements, he reached for the gun tucked in his waistband. He leveled it at the hunched man before him and cool as a mother fucking cucumber he pulled the trigger.

“Fuck,” I swore under my breath and all but lurched backward.

For a split second, I couldn’t look at him. At the him he’d morphed into in front of me. This Cole was…different. Hell, he wasn’t even human.

I looked down at the man beneath me, all too warm, fleshy and decidedly alive. He wreaked of what Cole had shed in that second skin. The salty tang of desperations and fear stung the corners of my eyes and they started to water. It was a man in front of me. One that had made mistakes and already started paying for them. It was a man with a family he wouldn’t see again. It was family that spurred me on and had me reaching for my gun. 

My eyes left the pitiful mess on the straw floor and found Cole. My Cole. My family.

A warm calm still hung on his features where he stood over top of the pooling blood. He jerked his chin at me then raised his eyebrows expectantly. I pressed my gun to the man’s temple, refusing to look at the sorrow and panic decimating his features, instead staying locked on Cole’s face instead.

When his bastard-ass smile pulled into place and his dimple hollowed out, I blew out a deep breath and pulled the fucking trigger. 

 

 

 

 

      

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part Four

 

The Wandering Path

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d done a lot of drugs in my day—cocaine, acid, ecstasy, moly—but none of them were as heady as power. And power was what coursed through my veins the moment I’d taken my first life. Power to judge good or evil, to dole out life or death.

Each time I’d done it since that first time, killing amped me up, and at this point, two years later, I was mother fucking Superman.

The way I trained now didn’t hurt either.

“Jesus Christ, Horse, were you just flipping a nine hundred pound tire down the yard?”

I brushed the chalk off my hands, then wiped them on my shirtless washboard as my husky laugh rumbled my chest.

“What? Like it’s hard?” I shot the kid next to me a big broad smile, then shook my head as my eyes swept back to the concrete floor.

He was hot. Blonde shaggy hair fell into his blue crystal eyes and brushed his ripped superhero shoulders.

“It’s impressive, actually.” He stepped closer and the way the edges of his eyes crinkled told me he had a few years on me. I highly doubted that meant anything about experience. The things I could do to him…

“Horse? You done?” Just that deep voice and it’s hint of Irish sent shivers down my spine. The blonde beside me faded into the sunshine and I turned to find him.

Callum stood with his hands across his barrel chest making my fingers itch to trace the ink underneath. Somedays I wondered if I’d ever tire of exploring his body. Or the way he devoured mine.

“I can be done.” I mean, when he looked at me like that, I could be just about anything. Including semi-hard.

Callum didn’t soften as I walked across the open warehouse floor toward him. Matter of fact, every single inch of him seemed to harden. I couldn’t help but keep an eye on a very particular set of inches.

I didn’t stop walking, or staring, until there was less than an inch between my chest and his roped arms.

“I can think of a better way to get some cardio in.” I arched my eyebrow and leaned in.

He tensed but I didn’t miss the way he looked at my lips from under his eyelashes. I made sure to wet them then bite down on my bottom lip. When I let it slip out I couldn’t help myself.

“I mean I’m already hot and sweaty.” I leaned in closer, letting my deep breaths rustle his wild, dark hair. “And I’m well on my way to being hard,” I whispered.

He cracked, letting his brash smile split across his face. It made the golden embers behind his eyes smolder. He let one single finger travel up the valley of my abs then sucked his sweat-soaked finger between his lips.

“Goddamnit, Horse.”

His tattooed hand snapped up and reached for the back of my neck, pulling me down to his lips. For about a year, I physically could have resisted him. For the last six months he’d had to reach up to kiss me, but neither mattered. I still caved to him each and every time.

I reached for his sides and balled the fabric of his tee in my hands as we crashed into each other. There were a few coughs from around us but I didn’t give a damn as I tasted his cinnamon toothpaste still fresh on his lips. My tongue wandered along the seam of his mouth and my hands dropped his shirt in favor of walking leisurely up his stellar lats. Our tongues tumbled, my hands stroked, and my cock…

“Shit,” I swore under my breath as I pulled away and leaned my forehead down to his.

“I don’t think your gym buddies liked that.” His breathing hitched up, his chest rising and falling a little too fast against mine.

“I don’t think I care.” I bent down and kissed along the curve of his neck. “Dare them to fight me,” I purred just before I nipped at his earlobe.

“You saying you’d kill for me?” Callum’s hand skated up and fisted into my hair. He yanked my head back and kissed down my open throat.

“Fuck yes,” I hissed.

He bit down hard on my collarbone and his teeth ground against my skin. I whimpered as he sucked my skin into his mouth. Blood flowed into the spot and thrummed in time with my hummingbird heartbeats. I couldn’t do anything but surrender, desperate to see where he marked me for the next few days. My fingers dug into him, praying I did the same.

“Let’s get out of here.”

His fingers found their way into my gym shorts and I let him lead me out by the crotch. I twitched beneath the silky fabric and couldn’t help but look down. If he wasn’t careful with the way he handled me, he was going to show the gym exactly how much I wanted him.

The little red truck I’d first kissed him in had turned into an Escalade a few months ago and it was tucked in the alley behind the gym. He dropped his hold on me and took two steps before I stopped him.

“You’re gonna drive home like this?” I angled my hands down to frame my growing hard-on, knowing damn well his matched.

“Three limbs are better than two.” He stroked himself through his denim fly.

“I can’t Callum.” I let the M of his name buzz my lips.

He froze. And for a moment, I watched his shoulders quiver. But then he spun on his heel toward me.

“You can’t?” he asked. “You can’t?” He emphasized the word. “I show up to find my Hulk of a man half naked, flipping tires like a goddamn monster with sweat glistening all over him like he’s a fucking mirage, and you can’t make it home?”

Every muscle went rigid in his body. Particularly my favorite one.

I didn’t even hesitate. I swaggered toward him and fell to my knees in the alley. Grit dug into my knee caps but I didn’t care. My hands gravitated to his fly, making quick work of his button.

God his dick was beautiful. Was beautiful the right word? Delicious. Scrumptious. fucking perfect… It sent blood running through my body and tightened my balls. I needed that mushroomed tip hitting the back of my throat, the taste of him coating my tongue.

“Right here?” Callum asked, but when he shoved his hands into my hair and fisted on my short strands, I knew how hollow his question really was.

I just purred as I swallowed him whole. My tongue wrapped up around the underside of his cock as I hollowed out my cheeks as I started moving slowly up and down. Torturously slow, inch by long hard inch, I relished that dick. Velvet salt filled my senses, both soft and hard in my mouth then sharp and tangy on my tastebuds and in my nose.

My fingers took their time wandering along his thighs and dug in. Every single muscle beneath my palms went rigid even as I pushed him up against the side of the car, still working on his erection. Each thick, roped ridge rippled beneath my hands. I couldn’t help but groan, mouthful and all.

“Jesus Christ, Horse.” His hands clawed into my hair just before the telltale thump of his head crashing back against the car echoed through the alley.

I pulled back and popped my lips when Callum slipped from my mouth. I glanced up to find the man above me gasping, his chest rising and falling all to fast. A small and breathy laugh against his exposed skin made his dick twitch.

Mine too.

He groaned again, and I chuckled a little harder as I pulled his hands from my hair and flattened his palms to the car behind him. I shook my head as a warning and I reached for his cock and squeezed. I twisted a little as I pushed his cock up against the soft tank covering his taut abs. My mouth watered as I ducked down to pull his balls into my mouth. His fingers tried to dig into the car door.

I sucked on them and squeezed on him, rolling with my tongue the same way I rolled with my hand. His noises above me just egged me on, each guttural, wild and heady wonderful cry was in perfect time with my moves. Each one made me harder, made me hungrier.

“Horse, babe,” he pled.

The rumble in my stomach was a combination of so many things but every one of them came from, or was fulfilled by, the man in front of me. I let his balls drop and pulled his dick back to my mouth and swallowed. My throat rippled on him as my hand replaced my lips on his balls and damn did I go to work. He banged his hands on the steel behind him, once, twice and then balled his hands, highlighting muscles and veins. 

I found a rhythm, arching and thrusting. Over and over and over on his shaft. My hands kept moving, drumming on the skin between his legs, rolling his balls.

And the best part was every taste, every touch and tease, every tempting sound was so intoxicating. He may have been the one getting the blow job but I was the one about ready to explode. The way someone could relish in my affection, and be consumed by me, was annihilation to my insides.

Fucking cats.

It was too damn good. Callum was too damn good. In bed. In life. And of course to me. I sucked and slobbered then pulled him all the way to the back of my throat. When my eyes fluttered shut I pictured the outline of his dick imprinted between the muscles of my neck. The skin on the tip of my nose tickled where it brushed against him.

He started quivering, his hips rolling to meet my face. Each shaky thrust was as decimated as the whimpers coming from his lips. He either wanted to push into me deeper, or fall out of my mouth all together, I couldn’t quite tell. He seemed like he’d short circuited, unable to figure anything out at all.

“I’m gonna come,” he gasped and I just let a husky chuckle rattle down his rod. “I’m serious, Horse. Aghhhh.”

With the first spurt of his cum in my throat my dick jerked. He moaned as he shot a second time and it rattled my insides. When his knees faltered the third time and he slid down the car far enough to brace them against my chest, my orgasm hit like a thunderclap.

My whole body contorted as the silky fabric of my shorts went sticky where it rubbed my tip. My name dripped from Callum’s lips exactly as his jizz dribbled from my tongue. I roared his against his flesh the way my orgasm barreled from me. The taste of him, the way he coated every one of my tastebuds in salty, musky and manly all at once kept me shooting into my shorts.

I didn’t mind in the fucking least that I’d walk around with that patch on my crotch for the rest of the whole damn day.

When my body surrendered the last little bit that it had, I sagged back onto my heels. My mouth was bone dry and I tried to lick my lips. Callum’s semi hung in front of me, framed perfectly by his denim fly, and it just made my mouth go that much drier.

I looked up at him, my body swaying with the effort I’d just put forth. He was a similar mess against the shiny black door. The whole world stood still for a moment between us. The only sound that existed were fluttering heartbeats. The only feeling, sparking electricity. And the whole world tasted and smelled like salty, man-musked cinnamon.

But then Callum lunged at me and I swore to God the world started spinning unchecked and the heavens opened up, washing us in brilliant sunlight as his lips assaulted mine. His knees crashed down to the bumpy pavement on either side of my thighs as his kiss kept exploring, never stopping even when he tasted himself on my cracked lips. 

“Callum,” I breathed when we split apart.

“Horse, I…” His words were ragged and stuck in the back of his throat. “I…” His full-fledged flaming eyes searched my face.

“This is what happens when Mickey makes you fuck in front of people,” a mischievous voice laced with honey gold laughter interrupted Callum. “You just start fucking like rabbits all over the place, public scenes be damned.”

Both Callum and I twisted to find Cole leaning over the hood of the Escalade. His blond hair was slicked back and his green eyes twinkled with the same bastard-ass laughter as his voice. That damned dimple hollowed out his cheek and the fresh ink on his forearms flexed along with his sculpted muscles.

“You’re a prick,” I spat.

“You’ve seen me fuck, I’m way more than a prick.” He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.

I rolled my eyes as I shook my head before turning back to Callum. His face was pinched in Cole’s direction, dark and sharp like the stone cold killer I knew he could be. It sent a rush of blood through my semi. It also drew my lips to the scruff covering his clenched jaw. I kissed him once then grazed my teeth through his beard, keeping my eyes fixed on Cole.

“If you’re not done, I’ll wait. I’m happy to watch. Picked that up from Mick, too,” Cole winked. I flipped him the bird.

“What do you want, Cole?” Callum asked, his fingers digging a little too roughly into my sides.

“Now that you mention it…” he stroked himself and laughed.

“Cole,” I warned.

That damned laugh of his echoed off the brick of the alley. “You two just got off, ya think you’d be a little more relaxed.”

Callum shot off my lap and charged at Cole. He hadn’t even had a chance to button up. Heat rose in my cheeks and pooled between my thighs as I watch him hunt Cole. Cole stood still even as Callum barreled at him and crossed his arms on his chest.

“Someday you’re gonna learn not to run your mouth.” Callum pressed his chest to Cole’s then poked a pointed finger into the well of his toned pecs. “You’re gonna learn we’re not all at your beck and call.” He jabbed his finger into Cole’s chest again and I stood, knowing exactly how dangerous a game he was playing. “Mickey’s going to make you sit down and shut up.”

I expected Cole to erupt into the violent ball of fury I recognized barely contained behind his manic eyes. Every muscle in his body tensed and his fresh ink seemed to raise up from his flesh. His fuse was notoriously short these days and when he blew, his willingness to snap bones and break rules was something closer to unadulterated glee. But he looked at me. His electric green eyes narrowed, and whatever he saw made him grit out a smile.

“We need to go, Horse.” His words dripped with venom as he turned from me to Callum. His wicked gaze shifted down to where Callum’s finger still lingered at his chest. “And someday you’re going to learn not to poke the bear.”

 

*****

 

“What the fuck was that?” I smacked Cole’s shoulder as he settled into the driver’s seat.

“You’re fucking in an alley, and I’m the one being asked that question?” He shot me a look from under those damned eyelashes.

“I mean the shit with Callum. What’s your deal?” I asked as I pulled my shirt on.

Cole fumbled for a cigarette, still preferring to roll them between his lips then ever light them. “I don’t have a thing with Callum.” He let his cigarette bounce on his lips.

“You get in his face every single time we’re together.” I quirked my eyebrows up. “Imagine if I did that to Essie.”

His head whipped toward me and his steely Cole glare took over. “Don’t bring her up,” he snarled. “Besides it’s different. We’re different.” He reached for a lighter and actually put flame to his cigarette.

I thought about a retort. About telling him how, fuck yeah she was different—I’d been with her when he’d stayed far from Callum’s cock, she had no idea where we went at night and Callum rode in the backseat, sadness hung heavy on her when Callum was wild and alive. But I kept my mouth shut. The same way he’d kept from being an angry wave breaking on Callum’s shore.

“Are you guys gonna be okay this time?” I asked quietly, watching the smoke rings he was blowing out the window.

“Fuck if I know,” he grumbled. “It feels different than the last two or three times.” He pulled the cigarette from his lips and let it smolder where it was laced in his fingers at the steering wheel. “But I can’t lose her. I love her.”

The manic look that sometimes clung onto Cole’s features was back in full force.

“Do you ever think that you’re in love with the idea of her, not really her?”

Cole didn’t move for a long time but then he drew his cigarette to his lips and inhaled big and deep, stretching his strong chest to the size of a hot air balloon.

“Is it so wrong to want to be loved? Even after all the really fucking terrible shit?” He flicked the butt out the window.

“No, Cole. It’s not.” I reached over and rubbed on his shoulder. “It’s not at all.”

*****

 

The first thing I noticed when I clipped down the stairs into Hell were Mickey’s eyes. The usual glassy, ruthless calm had been replaced by feral bloodshot cracks. One was squinty and wouldn’t unscrew, sending wrinkled crows feet off in jagged directions. His jaw clinched too tight, highlighting muscles in rigid pillars down his neck as he ground his teeth. Something wildly unholy radiated off him, and for Mickey Maloney that said something.

“Mick,” Cole started soft and low like he was approaching a wounded animal. “What’s up?” His head turned just the slightest bit, and mine automatically mimicked his.

My eyes swept around the room, surveying the usual landscape. Automatically my breathing hitched up and a tightness fisted in my chest. For the first time in many years, no one else lounged around baked on weed, numb on quaaludes or waiting for some easy pussy. I tried to swallow but my throat didn’t quite work.

“What can we do for you, Mick,” I asked the mirror of Cole’s easy, calm tone.

Mickey’s shoulders heaved, rolling in then back, in then back, and for a second he coiled as if he might pounce. I felt as if I was rooted down in concrete. The way Cole’s whole body went rigid said he was too.

Finally the all too animated corners of his wicked grin curled up exactly like the Joker, all too big, all too insane.

“I want to throw a party laddies. Something wild. Something that speaks to my inner heathen.” His words lisped together making for a Satanic hiss.

I couldn’t help but shiver.

He still fisted his hands and rolled his joints, each movement not really belonging to him. His ribs started hitching again and his tongue wagged with excitement.

“We always like a good party, Mick.” Cole’s throat bobbed a little too forcefully.

“It’s not a party, it’s a bacchanal.”

“What’s that?” I asked, trying to keep the terror from creeping in. 

“It’s hedonistic and wild pagan savagery,” Cole answered me.

“That it is m’boy,” Mickey purred as he stepped toward us. He wrapped his quivering hands around Cole’s neck and leaned his forehead down to Cole’s. “You wouldn’t let me down now would you?”

“Never, Mick,” Cole answered unwaveringly as if there was another choice.

Mickey pressed his lips to Cole’s skin. For a second it was the chaste kiss of proud father to favorite son. Mickey’s manic lips devoured Cole. Then he went lower and as a lover unable to hold back, took his mouth. And though Cole let Mickey have free reign of his mouth, every muscle in his body fought silently against it. His hands jutted out to the side and curled into gnarled claws, his forearms had deep wells and valleys highlighting them. His hips shoved back and the tightness in his lips spoke of fury and fear. Mickey’s worked to explore all the same.

I couldn’t do anything but swallow even when everything in me was itching to rip Cole from Mickey as he licked and lapped.              

When they broke away, Mickey whispered, “Bacchanalia,” then drug his nose up Cole’s jaw. Cole shivered hard enough that I reached out for his body to hold it steady but Mickey’s barbaric swat stopped me.

Cole drew in a deep breath as he turned toward the stairs. He jerked his head toward the well and I followed him foot by foot to the fresh air on the surface. Each stair seemed to take a six years and a Herculean effort to raise up. I couldn’t even begin to guess how Cole felt. Mickey’s strung out lips had devoured his…     

Violent heaves and the splatter of vomit on the concrete sidewalk grounded me back in the moment. Cole was doubled over, wrenching onto the street.

“Hey, hey, hey.” I ran over him and my big ape hands automatically started rolling across his back. “It’s okay.” I kept rubbing along the wide expanse of his back.

He stayed curled over his knees even after he stopped puking, gasping as he stared into some ghost peering back from the concrete below him. I kept rubbing on his shoulders. He didn’t stop me, he just crouched down closer to his heels, bouncing as a bulky ball near his Chuck Taylor hightops.

“He’s a fucking monster.” Cole shoved his hands through his hair.

“Yeah,” I answered softly, careful not to stray too far from his shoulder blades. “Aren’t we all?”

“It’s different with him.” Cole spat on the sidewalk then wiped his mouth with the side of his hand. “So different,” he murmured as he stood. “I mean I’m still capable of feeling something. Aren’t you?” His green eyes begged me to say the words, begged me to agree, but they didn’t need to. Just falling into those soulful pools did me in. 

My voice was hushed, even a little choked when I managed, “Sometimes I think I feel too much.”

*****

 

“I bet you feel too much now.” Cole’s voice was wondrous as he inspected his hand out in front of him and started to rub the callused tips of his fingers together. His mouth dropped open as he watched them circle, circle, circle on themselves.

My gaze focused in on his fingers and my mouth fell open. Each breath I took rattled my rib cage and my mouth went dry. My fingers started to mimic his, pretending, yearning for them to be his. To have the bumps and calluses of his. The warmth of his skin against mine.

Fuck. 

I was high as a mother fucking kite. Part of me realized as soon as I pictured climbing the microscopic ridges of Cole’s fingertips. Part of me couldn’t have cared less. I mean, I couldn’t do anything but crave the feeling of flesh against flesh. The velvet, the smooth, the rough, the cracks, the goose fuzz, the thick curlies… I was yearning for skin more than water to cool the heated desert of my skin.

And the fireworks that would explode if I touched him.

The fireworks that always exploded when I touched him.

I started to reach out to Cole where he was melting down the couch next to me when a full, plump naked breast slipped in between us. My hand was all too happy to grope that paper thin and silky smooth skin instead.

“Horse,” Siobhan groaned, her bloodshot and wild eyes fluttering shut before she shoved her naked torso further into my hand.

Some small voice deep in the recesses of my brain told me to pull away. To stop touching the woman that had punctured my throat twice and left a furious and jagged scar along Callum’s shoulder. But that damned ecstasy urged me to feel. Feel anything. Feel it all. Feel her flesh, feel the sex, feel the heartbeat thump through the haze of the hash smoke filled room. 

Bacchanal.

The word was everything and nothing at once. It had been whispers while Mickey forced the chalky white pill onto my tongue and burning champagne bubbles down my throat like some twisted Eucharist. Now it was swarming like bees on the honey of a wicked hive.

“Horse,” Siobhan begged as she rolled her tit in my hand.

That voice of reason was dying in the faint recesses of my mind, wisping into nothing more than a thin tendril of smoke while fire, bright red and burning filled my vision. The warm jumbly breasts in front of my squished in my hands and everything tightened beneath my belly button. Her rose pink nipples peeked up between my big paws. The textures of both, creamy, strokeable velvet and firm rippled peaks was enough to make me surrender to the flames.

To the X.

To the bacchanal.

I let my hands travel her milky white skin, everywhere I could, anywhere I could. Sweet Jesus, she was satin, silk, downy feathers and the warm, supple feel of her was a magnet for me. Her bouncing tits, her waving, stoney ribs, each razor fine vertebrate of her spine, and the demon wings that spread from her shoulders. Each texture was new, terrifying and pure temptation for my fingertips.

The drugs were fucking with my brain, begging me to bury myself in her, to lose my soul to her. And when I reached up to bend her neck down, to bring her lips to mine, I swore I saw fangs jutting out of her lips and horns framing her full crimson curls. For a heartbeat, I wanted nothing more than to sell my soul to Satan.

And then I kissed her.

Fireworks exploded but rather than the bright white shimmering kind that blinded me when I touched Cole, or the rich golden kind that consumed me when Callum and I wrapped around each other, this were bright bloody red. Whether my eyes were open or closed furious red was all I could see. That skin, those wild savage scales was all I could feel. And keeping up with plump lips was all I could talk my body into.     

Until her teeth cut into my bottom lip. A snarl started in my chest, rumbling my bones before it vibrated my throat and let lose into her face where she was trapped. She just bit in harder, letting hot iron salt pour into my mouth. I growled again.

Rather than shove her away, I ripped my lip away and bit her back. Her full blood red pout went even darker as I ground my teeth in. She shrieked but every dark, sharp note was pleasure, sinful and savage.

I launched up from the couch I’d been slowly disintegrating into and drove her slight body into the floor. Her bones crunched but all she did was dig her catlike nails into me. This time I kept her lip trapped between my teeth and shoved back up into them, letting the pain of puncture points root me in the room, in the moment.

When I finally let her lip go, I dove down to her tits, taking them in my mouth only to find them coated in streaky crimson a moment later. The moon rocks I’d taken not too long after the ecstasy made the bright red trails sparkle. The animalistic need to mark her further was the only thing existing within me.

Kisses. Everywhere.

Untamed tracks crisscrossed her skin, her skin that still tickled my lips like the feathers of some fallen angel, the tracks of blood that still sparkled in the low lighting.

“Arrgghhhhh,” I bellowed as I fisted at the high waist of her skirt and pulled. Her body lifted from the floorboards for a moment before the fabric split the smallest bit. Both my hands fisted into opposite sides and started yanking. Each of my muscles rippled beneath my skin, desperate to split their confines as I tore it down the center.

“Horse!” she screamed at me when she laid bare in front of me.

“Horse,” a ghostly voice mimicked from somewhere to my side.

I couldn’t pull my eyes from the sloppy wet slit in front of me. The sparkle my drugs gave her body seemed to focus and shine from her pussy, pulling me forward, unable to stop.

Not even when I recognized the tattoos looming over me. The tribal bands seemed to let loose from Callum’s skin like brutal whips, snapping against my skin. I looked up to find his eyes, neither of which were the hazel fire I’d come to burn for. They were vacant, fixated as much on the demon spreading itself out on the floor beneath me as I was.

His hands went for the hem of my shirt and pulled. When I was bare something wet poured across my skin, and each bubble trapped within it popped against my skin, heightening the moment and stinging every single thing inside me. Callum held a green bottle upside down above my chest, letting champagne flow across the sculpt of my body. It pooled for a moment at my denim waistband and my hands couldn’t move fast enough to expose more skin to the fire bursts on my sensitive skin.

The second I shoved my jeans far enough away, my dick sprung free. The cat claws beneath me reached for it and between her, her squeeze and the wild bubbles Callum kept pouring over my bare chest I was going to erupt.

I looked around hoping for something to cool me, to calm the urgent ache inside me but all there was in the deep dark recesses of Mickey’s den was sex. Strippers on poles. Strippers on dicks. Men. Women. Anyone and everyone. Undulating bodies, moving flesh, wild and rabid. With Mickey sitting on his throne jerking off to it all.

My eyes met his vicious gaze as Siobhan palmed me and pulled me lower. His smile quirked up and he jerked his chin to my side. I was a slave to looking every bit as much as I was to the demon beneath me. I turned only to have another pill shoved in my mouth.

Mickey’s laugh resonated from where he sat and all I could do was swallow as I shoved in.

Slick. Wet. Tight.

Siobhan bucked beneath me, her cries strangled as I really shoved into her. This time they didn’t sound as pleasure filled and that drove me all the more, made me all the harder. One of my hands moved to her torso and slid in the blood I’d tracked around. She gasped as if she really couldn’t breathe beneath the weight of my body.

Lips found mine even where I was arched above her. They were soft and strong and knew every single contour of mine. My hips rolled violently into the pussy beneath me as I let the man above me take everything he could from my mouth. Over and over. His tongue danced with mine and skated over the angry welts from just minutes ago. Any ache mellowed with it and every fire within me ignited.

But then he pulled away.

I whimpered just before more champagne poured over my face, filling my desperate mouth then cascading down my body to where I kept filling Siobhan. I swallowed and shook my face in the sticky waterfall, never once slowing my thrusts.

Wild sounds—wicked laughter, feral moans, passion, pleasure, pain—radiated from every inch around me. The word bacchanal shook my bones and I was a heathen worshipping at the alter of pleasure. Every single hit into Siobhan’s deepest parts liquified my insides but not one of them made me explode. It was this massive Jell-O mountain that I kept climbing but could not reach the summit of.

“Cole’s all left out.” Mickey’s wicked whisper surprised me when it danced hot against my ear.

My head whipped so fast to Cole, I paid no attention to Mickey when he trailed his lips down my neck. Or couldn’t. The fucking ecstasy wouldn’t let me feel anything but the neon goosebumps lighting up my skin beneath touch. Any touch. All of them. 

The mewling and trembling beneath me faded into the background as I searched for Cole. His jaw was snapped shut and his teeth were so clenched that it hollowed out his cheeks. His feet were planted on the floor and his hands clutched the velvet couch beneath him so hard it turned his new black cat tattoo, white. Every few seconds his hips would flex as though they were trying to join in. He wouldn’t let them, and from here, it looked like the restraint was what would finally kill Cole.

I reached for him without thinking about it or what it might mean. Not even how it might fuck up our friendship. My addled brain wouldn’t let me think in practical avenues anymor. It looped and spun and thumped with lust. And when I wrapped around his calf, still thrusting away, my whole world glittered.

When he rose everything went white. The velvet around my dick and the strong sturdy anchor in my hand were the only things left as the word melted away. It may have been seconds, minutes, hours, eternity…but when my eyes finally found shape again, a shirtless Cole was hovering, dick out over top of Siobhan’s lips, Callum no where in my tunneled sight. Twinkling stars still showered from the corner of her mouth as Cole pressed in. He looked up at me as that dimple split his cheek and something new danced behind his eyes.

Unlike everyone else I’d seen tonight, Cole wasn’t bloodshot or vacant. His eyes were deep wells of watery green that seemed to be open for the first time. I wanted to swim in them. Or drown in them. Maybe die and live forever with that specific color filling my lungs rather than air. All I knew in this whole world was that green. I trembled beneath the weight of it and threatened to shatter. A million Horse shaped fragments were going to blanket Siobhan’s taut stomach and I wanted it. I wanted to die that way. To fragment apart for Cole and never piece back together.

Instead, I reached across, grabbed his neck and brought his lips to mine.

Thank fucking ecstasy that he kissed me back.

His lips found mine and while Callum had soothed the welts Siobhan had left me, Cole ripped them back open. His teeth dug into me as his hand came to my shoulder and clenched in, coaxing my body to move at the same pace as his. And damn did I. Each hip roll, each thrust timed with his.

When his tongue shoved into my mouth and twisted upside down my breath caught and my few shotgun puffs warmed his face. My pace finally faltered and Siobhan cried even as she choked on Cole. I jerked again when I fixated on the fresh rose tattoos adorning his hips and the way they waved against Siobhan’s face. On the way his thick, pink, perfect dick drove into her throat. I was a puddle of shit on his shoulder, my cheek collapsed to his collar, frozen.

“Show him, Cole. Remind him how to move inside her.” Mickey once again was close enough for his words to rush out in small bursts of warmth against my skin.

I still couldn’t do anything but rub against Cole, my nose along his throat, my lips anywhere they could reach. The drugs were still sending electric currents to short circuit me.

But then Cole disappeared beneath me.

I fell toward Siobhan’s empty mouth for a split second before I caught myself. She was blitzed out beneath me, her mouth still hanging open waiting for Cole’s return. Her hips still bucked up and down on me but I got the sense she didn’t realize that I’d stalled out. I let the bastard-ass smile spread across my face as I watched her buxom form work on me. 

Then I felt callused fingers slip in beneath my jeans. The way jagged lightening bolts shot through me and left singed spots on my heart, I knew exactly whose fingers they were. I desperately searched for breath, trying to suck anything into my lungs and failing miserably as my ass was exposed to the man behind me.

When I was bare, Cole’s hands roved up along my spine torturously slow. Each inch threatened to obliterate me. Goosebumps blanketed skin. His big, tattooed hands rolled over my shoulders then down my arms. They laced in with mine and for a moment, we traced the blood I’d smeared on Siobhan.

“Fucking glistens,” Cole whispered in my ear just before he traced it with his nose.

“Yeah,” I barely mustered as his cock notched between my ass cheeks.

“Your skin’s so soft.” He kissed the knot of muscles coiled at my shoulder. “And Jesus, you’re so…” Another kiss detonated on my other shoulder. “Is this okay?”

I couldn’t find my voice. Or the ability to shake my head. There was nothing but the hot poker that was splitting my skin into those ridiculous fragments.

“I say it’s okay,” Mickey murmured. “I want this, I want to watch this almost as much as Horse does. Show him, Cole. Show him.” His last command was enough to make the man coiled around me shiver.

It was Cole himself that made me tremble.

His hands left mine, left Siobhan, and slid down my hips. They gripped at my ass and pulled. A moment later the dick I’d watched too many time slipped into place and pressed against me.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here, Horse.” His voice cracked just before he bent and kissed in the hollow of my spine.

“Yes, you do,” I managed, desperate to urge him on.

And before I knew it, he was pressing into me. And whether it was the ecstasy or just Cole, I saw shooting fucking stars.  

 

*****

 

“Holy mother of fucking cats,” I groaned as I coaxed one eye open.

My head was going to explode and my jaw was so tense and achy, I couldn’t open it. I wanted water but I could barely get my cracked lips apart to wet them. I didn’t remember getting home, or having Callum join me in bed but now his burly body made me so hot, puke churned in my throat.

I shot from the sheets and sprinted to the bathroom. My feet slid on the bathroom tile just before I reached around the toilet bowl to stop myself. I gracelessly heaved over the porcelain the moment I got my face overtop.

As soon as I slid down between the bathtub and the toilet my mind wandered to what I did remember.

Cole.

God we’d been rolling so hard… I mean, I was still in the withdrawal sandwich—somewhere between slitting my own throat and hurling up everything I’d ever eaten.

Mickey had urged him into me for whatever drug addled reason but I wouldn’t have resisted. I wouldn’t have protested. The drugs I regretted. But Cole… Damn did I remember every kiss, every caress despite the drugs. I even thanked whatever unholy god had blessed me with the memories.

Flashes of last night strobed before me. Cole inside me, stretching me. His skin against mine where the sweat started to build. His hips urging mine to move. Us moving into Siobhan. Feather kisses along my shoulders. The way we fit together.

And the orgasm.

Jesus Christ I still wasn’t put back together after that life shattering thing. I’d roared as I’d emptied into Siobhan who’d become little more than a sleeve. Fourth of July had nothing on the show behind my eyelids. My bones had unhinged and reorganized into some fucked up puzzle. I shuddered.

Sitting on the tile felt different. Foreign.

“Hey.” A warm cinnamon voice filled the bathroom.

“Hi,” I answered as I rubbed at the scruff of my short beard and looked up.

“Rough night?” Callum asked as he stretched out in the doorway, putting his full glorious body on display.

All I could do was cock my eyebrow in his direction. His warm laughter filled the room and wrapped around me like a blanket. A smile spread wide across my face as I laid down along the rim of the bathtub.              

“Not the worst one I’ve had.” He walked toward me and ran his knuckles along my cheek. “But not great.”

“Didn’t have fun?” I groaned.

“Not really a fan of watching you with other people,” he grumped as he cupped my jaw and ran his thumb across my lips. “But fuck is it fun to be on fire.”

My first reaction was to snarl at him, even punch his beautiful, lickable torso, but I couldn’t blame hime. What had happened between Cole and I couldn’t have been easy to watch, not if it was half the show outwardly that it was inwardly. And being on fire… I’d been engulfed. Completely. And I wouldn’t take the burn back for anything.

“I’m gonna go get takeout and we’re gonna watch an entire season of something on Netflix, okay?”

I nodded only for the world to tilt and sway on its axis. My hands shot for the toilet bowl and clung tight.

“Assuming you’re feeling up to it.” He bent down and kissed the crown of my head and my stomach turned for a whole other reason.

“It’s gonna be great, babe,” I forced the words out.

His warm chuckle danced against my ears just before his soft footfalls left. The second he wasn’t in the room to light it up, the dark of guilt swept over me. Cole was who I hoping to smell on my sweat coated and sticky skin. Cole was who I wanted to Netflix and chill with.

Cole who, if the time I kissed him was any indication, was so fucking furious, I’d have a gun pointed in my face the next time I saw him.

I blew out a deep breath pushed my disjointed body to standing. Nothing worked right inside me and my broad shoulders crashed into the doorframe hard enough to shake the house.

“You gonna make it?” A haggard voice called up from the kitchen. A haggard but warm voice.

I stumbled down the stairs drawn to that voice like a moth to a flame despite the fact that it could torch my very insides.

Cole was wearing nothing but black boxer briefs as he bent over the sink, cradling a cup of coffee. His perfectly sculpted back was the only spot not covered with his new ink obsession but I could see where my hands had marked him.

I was sucked back to the memory of cum spilling out of Siobhan while he turned and crashed down to me, pinning me to the floor. My dick had twitched painfully hard where it laid next to his, rubbing, gliding, and I’d jerked uncontrollably beneath him. When I dug into his back, it was to anchor myself to earth, to him, to anything. It had only taken a few minutes of that blissful grinding for heat to cover my chest, bursts of Cole’s cum splattering across my stomach.

My fingers ran the length of my washboard hoping to find some left. When the memory of Callum washing it off in a four a.m. shower session hit me, I tried to calm my confused boner starting to pop. I blew out a deep breath only to suck it back in.

“How you feeling this morning?” I asked, my voice wavering for a shit ton of reasons.

“Like the inside of a fucking trashcan.” He turned, a bright smile hanging on his lips despite his words. “You?”

The tightness in my chest eased with the appearance of his damned dimple.

“Like I’d love to be that trashcan,” I laughed.

“So that I’d be inside you?” He cut right to it with a simple sip of his coffee.

My dick answered when the words stuck in my throat. I wished on every star I’d ever seen last night that I’d put on something before coming downstairs.

“It’s okay, Horse.” He shrugged. “I’ve never been that high in my life. I needed to release some of it. I vaguely remember being desperate to.” He squinted a little like he was looking back in time. “When I looked around at all the shit going down in that room, how fucking primitive everyone had become, I would’ve chose you anyway.”

My heart slammed into my chest.

“And don’t make this weird, specially not today…I mean I’m hungover as fuck and Essie somehow ended up in my bed…” He took a big breath. “But I kinda liked it. I mean, even fucked all to hell, I still remember you. Us. And it was a really weird comfort to be with someone I love when I couldn’t feel my face.”

I couldn’t breathe. My brain wouldn’t work. Not even the images from last night would play in my mind. The fog inside me cleared and I knew one thing—I began and ended with those words. I began and would likely end with Cole.

He smirked again and started toward me. That beautiful dimpled hollowed his cheek further as he stopped right next to me on the way out of the kitchen. A warm honeyed laugh rapped around my throat and choked me. My breathing mimicked my heartbeat, wild, and every bit as primal as the bacchanal had been.

Cole leaned in, pressing his freshly inked sleeve to my chest. The vomit pulled back up in my throat from nothing more than butterflies. His warm breath danced on my ear just before he whispered, “Down boy,” batted at my suddenly rock hard cock then skipped down the stairs, laughing as he went. 

 

*****

 

The night of the bacchanal hung on every single one of my heartbeats even though I did everything I could to shove it down. The way he’d dangled that carrot in front of me—dangled his big, beautiful, pink carrot—haunted me.               

  “Let’s go, Horse.” Callum nodded toward the car door and I automatically shook the ghost of Cole away. As soon as the cab pulled away, he joined me on the curb. “I can’t believe you’ve never been to a Cubs game.” He smiled just before he fisted into my shirt and pulled me to his lips.

His kiss more than anything helped Cole evaporate. All too soon my big paws found his cheeks and captured him against my mouth. His tattooed hand slid up my neck and cradled my throat as if he may squeeze. For the first time in weeks it wasn’t the thought of another inked up hand choking me that made my dick pop in my shorts.

“Let’s get in there before I have to get in here.” I pulled back just enough to let my lips brush against his as I grabbed for his erection.              

“I don’t mind.” He tightened his grip on me. “I’ll fuck you here in front of Wrigley with everyone watching. I’ll show them you’re mine.” He snarled on his last words and it sent shivers down my spine. “You like that don’t you, Horse? You like it when I take what’s mine. When I claim it.” He spoke through gritted teeth, the reckless murderer he hid away peeking out.

“You wanted to go to this game,” I managed to gasp.

“I want you back,” he all but bellowed.

My face fell and I used my grip on him to push him back, startling a few of the passersby.

“I haven’t gone anywhere.” My eyebrows scrunched together and I cocked my head back.

“Yeah. You went with him and I can’t get you back.” Callum dropped his hands and spun away from me. “I see it. When you’re gone. When you’re back with Cole.”

I sucked in a deep breath.

“Deny it, Horse.” he crossed his arms on his barrel chest.

“I’m not with him. I’m not ever going to be with him.” Each word dripped venom while sorrow shot through my heart.

“But you wanna be.” Pain zigzagged across Callum’s face and he faltered.

A snarl rattled at the back of my throat.  “I want to be with you. I want it not to be a big deal. I want to go to this baseball game. Together.” I rubbed on the scruff of my beard then the back of my neck. “He fucked me. I can’t change that. I’d fuck him given half a chance. But I was inside Siobhan and have been in countless other chicks. This life isn’t normal Callum but it’s ours. And what I really want is to build it up to be something bigger. With you no less!”

I’d picked up pace at the end. Crescendoed too. Until I was screaming at him, my hands waving as exclamation points.

“You wanna build a life with me?” he asked, his voice quiet and laced with the warm cinnamon I knew and loved.

“Yeah.” I sighed and let the adrenaline crash down around me. “I fucking do.” 

Callum’s rich smile started to curl on his lips but his bottom one stayed trapped between his teeth. The longer I stared at him, the harder it was for him to keep his blistering smile at bay. I leaned in reaching for that hostage lip with both of mine. I sucked hard enough for it to spring free and let my lips rub and caress on his. When I finally stepped away, nothing could contain his radiant smile that was a beautiful mirror to mine. 

His voice was barely his own when he spoke, the soft to my strong, the warmth to my icy heart. “Well hot fucking damn, Horse. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks.”

*****

 

Luke warm beer and nacho cheese were almost as satisfying as sex. Almost. And the roar of the crowd made me feel alive and apart of something that wasn’t wholly wicked.

“Cold beer for ya.” Callum tapped my shoulder with the plastic cup and I snatched it to take a deep pull.

I popped my lips when I finished and slouched down in my seat, stretching my arms out along the backs of  the neighboring unoccupied seats and propped my feet up in front of me.

“I could get into baseball.” I closed my eyes and tipped my head back to bask in the sun.  

“Here. Have a peanut. Suck the shell then crunch it. Part of the fun is throwing them on the ground.” A shell brushed my lips a moment later and I didn’t bother opening my eyes as I sucked the nut into my mouth.               

“Warm and salty,” I purred. “Just the way I like it.”

“You’re filthy,” Callum laughed beside me, knocking my spread thigh with his.

“Just the way you like it.” I loaded as much sex and silk into my voice as possible.

“Since the first time I saw you.”

“Pedophile,” I teased.

He laughed louder, accented by the crack of the bat. We both shot up to watch as the Cubbies third baseman sent a ball hurtling toward us. The two of us started scrambling down the empty seats in front of us to try and catch it. At the last minute Callum zagged in front of me, then threw his beefy frame front and center so muscles were all I could see. The ball sped toward us then disappeared behind the same pile of man meat. It hit the concrete with a thud then sprung up into his stomach. He grunted as he caught the ball and pulled it into his body.

“Fuck yay!” I shouted as I reached for his shoulders and rubbed on them.

He got a handle on it and shoved it skyward just before the jumbotron swung to him. Each and every one of his muscles was outlined by his thin t-shirt but it was the sheer joy crinkling up his face that trapped me.

It took a moment for us to settle back into our seats, and Callum kept studying the baseball in his big hands.The aggressive alpha that came out to murder from time to time had morphed into the gentle love I’d fallen for all those years ago. He was sunshine and tenderness personified as his thumb brushed the dark marks marring the leather. My heart stopped.

“Move in with me?” I asked before I even realized the words were coming out.

“What?” His eyes snapped up to mine.

My mouth went dry under the laser beams he shot me and I had to take a swig of my clutched beer to wet my mouth enough to ask again.

“Move in with me,” I repeated, conviction settling on my bones.

“What about Cole?” His eyes were wide, watering, and his words were soft and small.     

“Fuck Cole.” I blew out a deep breath and my free hand found its way to the back of his neck. “He has Essie and has for years. That’s the life he’s building. You’re mine. He doesn’t get a say.” A wildfire was burning in my belly. “He can’t come between this.” I gestured between us with my beer.

“Are you kidding me right now?”

“Nah.”

“Yes,” he yelled. “A thousand fucking yeses.”  He launched himself at me, sloshing my beer as his body crashed to mine. The baseball still in his hand crunched against my jaw where he help me, but the corner of his lips pulling up into a massive smile made every single bit of pain fade into the black he chased away.

His plump lips danced with mine, his scruff the most delightful raw brush on my face. The slow dance of his tongue against my lips and then it’s tango with mine never got old. My pulse raced, my fingertips dug in, and new life rushed in with his breath to my lungs.

“Callum,” I breathed into that kiss and he shuddered.

“You can’t do that to me here.” He pulled back the slightest bit only to drag his bottom teeth along the curve of my jaw.

“Why not?” I tossed what was left of my beer, totally unconcerned with the splash as I fisted into his chest. My lips found his again, only to explore every single inch. I clung to him, I even nuzzled into the baseball since it brought me closer to him. “Why would I stop? Ever?” I breathed. “Callum,” I purred his name against his lips again, knowing exactly what affect it had on him.

“I’m gonna kill you, Horse,” he groaned.

“No,” I laughed returning to kiss and caress his lips. “You’re going to fuck me.”

He snarled, just before he renewed his intensity on me. 

“Get a room you fucking faggots.” The grizzled voice behind us interrupted and we both froze.

“Excuse me?” I swept my gaze from Callum and let it fill with ice as it landed on the piece of shit behind us.

“You heard me. Take your filthy fucked up beastiality somewhere else.” He spit sunflower seeds when he finished.

“The only person fucking a pig is your wife.” I said each word slow and distinct as I unwound from Callum. “I’m gonna guess she’s not satisfied,” I added as I stood and rolled my shoulders back.

“Just what would you know about a woman’s satisfaction?” He laughed and playfully smacked the man next to him.

I took the liberty of stepping onto my seat and over the back to loom over him. That detached but savage look fell all too easily in to place. His laugh choked off as his eyes swept up my body.

“I know how to make her quiver like your friend here.” I jerked my head toward the man at his left who was decidedly trying to move away from me. “I know how to make her scream exactly like you’re going to do when I pummel the ever living shit out of you.”

“Oh yeah?” He shot up and tried to stand level with me.

“Yeah,” Callum added from beside me, just as icy cold as me.

“Do we have a problem here gentlemen?” A security guard sidled up to us.              

“If you call a piece of shit homophobe a problem, then yeah, yeah we do.” I kept my even, glacial tone as I stayed staring down the asshole in front of me.

“I’m going to need you gentlemen to return to your seats,” The security guard was still trying to diffuse the situation.

Callum nudged me with his elbow and I didn’t need more encouragement. I turned and stepped over the seats from which I’d come. I plopped back down and stretched out the way I’d been comfortable before. Only this time the rage that the jerk off behind me had pulled up beneath my skin was clawing at my fight instinct.

“As sexy as furious Hulk is, calm down,” Callum whispered as he leaned in.

I blew out a deep breath and tried to refocus on the game. I wished I hadn’t chucked my beer so I could slam it and let the suds wash away the fury. Well, really, I wished that I could nuzzle into Callum and let him trace the edges of my hair in that way he had, but the ignorant monkey shit behind me…

Out of nowhere something squished against the back of my head and ice started dripping down my neck and into my collar. The whole world froze with that slushy. My heart stopped and my bones when so rigid I thought they’d shatter. Callum jerked beside me but didn’t move. Fury caught in my throat.

Then with one deafening roar everything restarted, hurtling out of control.

Callum was up and over the seats just before me, his tattooed hand reached the ignorant pig’s throat just before mine smashed into his face. Blood gushed down his face and quivered on his lips as he wailed. Callum’s hand crushed on his throat and cut off the sound just before he suckered into his stomach.

I took the opportunity to uppercut his chin, sending blood spattering onto my face. The warm iron on my skin made me smile something wicked. And the need to slam into his jaw had my fist flying before I even sucked in a deep breath. His bones crunched and the sound sent pure joy shooting through my veins.

“Whose the fucking faggot now,” I snarled as my elbow drove down into the curve of his neck.

He screamed as Callum landed a knee to his groin.

“Hey, hey, hey.” All too quickly big roped arms were caged around me. “You will cease and desist or you will be detained.” The surly bark roared in my ear.

“Like hell.” I struggled hard enough to get loose and crash my giant foot into the fucktard’s kneecap.

“We’re calling the cops.”

“Good.” Callum shrugged out of the hold they had on him. “Tell them Callum Black and Mickey Maloney say hi.”

Everyone froze except the wounded prick as he tried to ease the bruise and batter of his body. He rolled around like a wounded animal and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You two are Maloney boys?”

I didn’t answer beside arching my eyebrow up at the security guards. The corner of Callum’s smile turned up.

“We don’t want any trouble.” They backed away, their hands shoved in their pockets. “If you guys just leave, all of you, we can forget this ever happened.”

“I wanna press charges,” the man on the floor howled.

Callum and I glanced down then shrugged. I turned toward the stairs before Callum did but he followed behind casually throwing his baseball up into the air then catching it with his big bear hands. We heard the guards ask, “Press charges for what?” just before we turned toward down the concourse.

“Catch,” Callum shouted when we were out on the street beside the stadium. I turned fast enough to snatch and cradle his baseball. His big beautiful smile sparked the wildfire in his eyes. “Now you’ve really got me by the balls.”

I couldn't help but smile in return and I waited for him to catch up before melting into him completely and sliding my arms around his waist.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” I arched back far enough to kiss his forehead.

“I’m gonna kill you,” a haggard voice interrupted from behind us.

“Fucking cats, not again,” I murmured as I laid eyes on the dirtbag from the game, swaying on his feet behind us.

“What you are goes against God.” His words were still punctuated by oozing blood on his face.

“God and I aren’t on speaking terms,” Callum answered. “But it’s for very different reasons than who I love.”

“Don’t engage him.” I let one hand fall from his body, and used the other to pull him down the street.              

He stayed rooted.

“God will smite you.” The belligerent jerk off picked up an errant rock from the street and launched it at us.

It strayed to the side but it still had it’s intended effect. I felt the switch flip in Callum’s body the moment he decided we’d be doing the smiting. He tensed but it wasn’t with fear, it wasn’t even a coiled spring ready to launch, it was as if all of Satan’s vast power filled him up and made him hard. Made him a weapon.

When he got like this, Callum was the most beautifully savage sight, raw, rigid, his tattoo seeming sharper, a feral hunger in his eyes. Each and every time it got me hard.

There were no more words between the prick and us, though part of me wanted to tell him this was his last chance at going home rather than receive a permanent one courtesy of a concrete slab or the bottom of the fucking lake. But before I could, Callum had him by the blood soaked shirt and was pulling him into the nearest alley. His fist crashed into the dead man’s teeth and loosed a handful of them before I could even taste the warning words in my mouth. The feral roll and heave of Callum’s muscles made me all too happy to bite my tongue.

Mine.

The beast delivering blow after blow was mine. I craved his destruction every bit as badly as I craved his absolution. The monster in me recognized it’s mate, as lustful and murderous as my own. A monster that only I could tame. Each punch, each kick, spoke to me of shared darkness. The bright droplets of blood glimmered with life and rage and, as twisted as it was, love. I relished each little bit as it painted the street. His screams were positively mouthwatering.

“You’re gonna kill him, Callum.” I couldn’t hide the hunger from my voice.

“Yeah, I am.” His was the perfect mirror.

I palmed my phone in my pocket, knowing who I’d be calling soon enough, and couldn’t help but graze my dick where it was starting to harden. It didn’t take too many more punches for the man before us to be reduced to a bloody, barely recognizable lump. Or for me to forget about calling in a Cleaner completely. My breathing had gone shallow, that tingling beneath my belly button amplified, and my heart raced. I had to pin my hands at my sides, not to keep from adding in my two sense, but rather to keep from caressing Callum as he worked.

I waited until he reached down and snapped the corpses neck before I lunged at him. His bloodied hands crashed into me, groping at any skin they could find. Each of his touches became hot, sticky. Our lips frantically tumbled over one another as his hands came up and cradled my face. Mine dug into his broad back as I twisted to kiss his big open palms.

They were salt and sin personified. I let my pointed tongue trace the rough contours of his hand, clearing a trail through the blood as I went. My body shuddered as the taste spoke to something downright primal inside me. I couldn’t help but moan, pained but sensual, into the street.

Callum simply used it as a chance to hook his thumb into my mouth and keep it open, panting. He used his hold to pull me away from the corpse as he slid behind me. The soft sound of a zipper was the only sound beside the scuffling of our feet and the muffled roar of the baseball crowd.

He kept his thumb in my mouth as he shoved at the back of my pants. When my ass was exposed to him, he shifted just enough to jerk my head down. His feet lined up with mine just a moment before he shoved in. I cried out but the way he held me made the sound even more mangled.

It took him a few brutal thrusts to settle inside me but then the adrenaline he'd built up exploded. His hips started pistoning against mine. His body shook my very skeleton as he thrust hard and deep into me. Over and over. My body felt as if it might crack like the surface of the earth, desperate the let a fiery core spill out and consume the world. As if I was going to be split apart then be destroyed in rolling fire and ash.

His other hand came to my other cheek and latched into my mouth much the same as the first. He owned me completely and I did nothing but sag into his furious embrace as he took exactly what he wanted from me. What he needed as we stood with a corpse behind us. My head fell to the brick in front of me and my hands found his hips for no other reason than I needed to feel every inch of him that I was allowed, for however long I was.

Pain and pleasure intertwined in my body. Each thrust sent me soaring then his hold or the brick against my face would cut in and keep me grounded in the alley with him. It was the pain I deserved and the pleasure I was a junkie for. There was no denying that fucking with brutal Callum was bliss because it was a combination of both. We were a combination of both. He gave me the punishment the beast deserved and the love the man craved. It was everything.

He was everything.

“Don’t you dare come,” he snarled behind me as if he was reading my mind. “Don’t you fucking dare.” 

“Please.” The word was little more than a gasp, a prayer.

“I said no.”

My body crumpled beneath his command, needing the brick in front of me just to stand. Without warning he dropped his hands from me and pulled out unceremoniously. I couldn’t stop myself as I slowly slid to my knees or as I heaved and gasped balled as I was.

He bent down and tugged on the waist of my pants, covering my ass partway, then pressed a feather light kiss to my temple.

“The first time we get off after you asked me to move in isn’t going to be in an alley. It’s going to be in our bed.”

He bent further and kissed the same sweet kiss to the side of my mouth and my smile pulled wide. It was the most beautiful coincidence that the stadium behind us erupted in cheers.    

*****

 

A dumbass smile stayed plastered on my face as I slipped into the backseat of a cab, only wincing the slightest bit when my ass hit the seat. Callum had sent me on my way while he hung back and waited for the Cleaner. I’d wove my hand into his and insisted on staying but then he told me he was gonna go home and pack the essentials, that he wanted to sleep in our bed tonight, and I melted like silly putty left in a summer windshield.

Hope bloomed in my chest where I hadn’t felt it flower before. Love had come into my life after so many years of a barren field in place of my heart.

Sure there was Cole, the first person to ever care, to ever love, but both unrequited and brotherly love were different. Long ago he’d become the force that kept blood pumping through my veins rather than the bright shining source from where it came.

He wants to live with me.

That damn dopey smile spread further across my face even though my cheeks hurt. I felt like sunshine, warm and wonderful and good as I got out of the cab. For a second it seemed like there was something pure inside me. 

“Hey Cole,” I shouted into the house as I opened the door to a dark house. “Cole?” For a second there was no answer, not even a sound.

I shrugged it off, and decided he wasn’t home, but that it really didn’t matter, until a vicious, hollow snarl echoed through the house and chattered against my bones. In that moment, I knew what a caged animal fighting against the throws of death sounded like. My body started moving toward Cole’s bone chilling sound without my brain really processing anything but pain. Untamed, unmasked and all too real pain.

I sprinted up the stairs, hearing the beastly roar again, having it wreak havoc on my insides, on my sanity. Acting only I instinct, I flung open Cole’s bedroom door and flipped on the lights.

His naked tattooed body shook violently, both from the tremors quaking his spine and the downright brutal thrusts he was handing the the woman beneath him. Every single muscle in his inked up arms was rigid and defined from choking her.

The longer I stayed frozen, the more I focused on the girl. She was a brilliant shade of red, so deep it was almost purple. Her eyes had glazed, tears dripping down her plump cheeks. A matching trail of spit hung from her lip.

My face fell.

I swept over her body and noticed how limp her limbs were. None of them moved beyond the bump and grind of the mattress, let alone wrapped up and around Cole. When her eyes closed then reopened, the full weight of the world tried to keep them down. She wheezed a death rattle. I’d seen enough in my time to know in just a few moments Cole would be fucking a corpse.

“What in the fuck are you doing?” I shouted as I took two quick steps forward and shoved him.

He was so focused, so steadfast and rigid, I crashed against a brick wall instead of a man. The woman wheezed again, this time her eyes fluttering shut and staying there.

“Cole!” I screamed as I bear hugged his jack hammering body and refused to let go. I shifted so that my hands were at his elbows and made fists just before I crashed down at the joint. He snarled again, his wild beast still lose and reigning over the room. “Stop.” I crunched at the joint again. “You’re going to kill her.”

Those words flipped some switch and his hands loosened on her throat. I shoved at his body again and all too easily he slid from inside her and tumbled with me off the mattress. His body hit the floor beneath mine as she started gasping for air behind us.

“What the fuck, dude?” My voice was barely contained fury buffeting his face.

He stared at me with wide eyes and a flopping fish mouth. I studied him for a second then twisted back to the naked girl on the bed. She’d curled into the tiniest ball but her shoulder still shook with short jerky breaths.

“You were going to kill her.” My voice was soft, maybe even scared, as I pushed off him and turned back toward the woman on the bed.

I reached out for her only to have her jerk wildly, spin and try to bat my hands away.

“Shhhhh. It’s okay,” I cooed. “I’m not going to hurt you.” I tried to smile weakly. “Are you okay?”

Full blown sobs racked her shoulders as she crumpled back in on herself. I reached for her again and this time she let me pull her tiny body to my chest. I rocked her gently and let my thumbs trace circles on her cold waxy skin. She shook almost uncontrollably in my arms.

“Cole, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I spat out the words over top of her, trying to stay as soft against her as I could.

His streaming tears were the only answer I got. Green seemed to leak from his beautiful haunted eyes but it was the wounded black leaking from his soul that I finally caught sight of that made my heart crack.

“What happened here?” I barely breathed.

“She’s pregnant,” Cole managed.

I looked down at the tiny body in my hands, searching her face for some small sign that I recognized her. For some larger indication that Cole had marked her as his own. I couldn’t find it.

“Essie’s pregnant and it’s not mine,” he sobbed. “She said she hasn’t been mine for a long time.”

“Damn. I’m sorry man,” I murmured, still stroking the woman in my arms.

“I loved her. I loved coming home to her. To the family we were.” Another wild sob shook his entire body. “And it meant nothing to her. I meant nothing to her.”

Essie appeared in my mind, the slowly hollowing girl I’d seen recntly. Cole hadn’t loved her. Callum had slowly shown me that. Cole loved the idea of being normal and playing house. Of being worthy to. But I couldn't say that now.

“I am nothing.” His shattered whisper broke my heart into glass shard pieces. 

I kissed the girl in my arms on the forehead then gently deposited her on the bed before kneeling down beside Cole.

“You’re not nothing.” I stared intently into his eyes.

“You’re right. I’m a demon of destruction straight from hell. I ruin everything!” he screamed and his words from that feral animal that had drawn me up here in the first place.

“You don’t, Cole. Not even remotely.” I uncoiled my body to lay on the floor next to my best friend. “You’ve only ever built me up. Sometimes you’re the only thing that keeps me standing.”

“What did I do wrong? I mean, honestly, what did I fuck to hell?” Pain tinged his words and flexed his body up from the floor. “Why do I deserve this?”

I twisted toward his broken voice. I couldn’t help it. Or that my eyes swept up his beautiful body and lingered on his still-present boner.

“What happened?” I asked softly as I crossed my arms on my chest to make sure I DID NOT touch him.

“She came to get her things. She said that if I had eyes for her, or a heart that beat for her, I would’ve known.” He twisted to meet my gaze head on, his body moving like mouthwatering sinew as he shifted. “I thought my heart beat for her, Horse,” he whispered.

“Hey.” I finally reached out and cupped his cheek. “Your heart beats for you. For no man. I admire that about you.”

“Don’t. I’m not worth it.”

“Fuck you,” I said as softly as I could manage.

“I… I…” he stammered, words caught in his throat. “She left me hollow.” his words were a ghost in the room.

“Don’t say that.” I brushed away his lone tear.

“I wanted to make him feel better.” A small cracked, voice pulled my attention from the fragile man in front of me.

The woman I’d cradled minutes ago sat on the edge of the bed, gently rubbing her neck with one hand, and shoving her other through her long rose gold locks.

“That’s very sweet of you.” My smile pulled up easily for her.

“Up until the end, he was…” She took a deep breath that seemed to make her throat seize. “He was everything.”

I reached out for her for no other reason than it seemed right. Her words warmed something deep inside me and I wanted to return the favor. She was all too eager to curl into my side. Something about the spark in her eyes was so reassuring that I pulled her in tight.

“You’re not a bad guy, Cole,” she leaned toward him and planted a kiss on his chest.

“She’s right,” I seconded only for him to scoff.

Her dainty hand pressed into his chest directly over his heart. Mine couldn’t help but follow over top.

“This is a man I want to know.” The woman leaned in to kiss his collarbone. “This is a man that can have my throat. Maybe even my heart.” She pulled back enough to trace our palm prints with entwined fingertips.

“What?” Cole pulled back as if her words stung.

“Show her what you have to give, Cole, not what you want to take. Feed the side of you that loves, not the one that hates.” I placed our hands back on his body, hoping to keep him from shaking out of his skin.

The girl twisted between us and before I could react planted a sweet, tender kiss to my lips. She tasted like honey and the sweetest forgiveness. I couldn’t help but kiss her back.

“I see your heart,” she whispered against my lips. “And your light.” She twisted toward Cole and her lips grazed his.

Everything in me seized. All the lust Callum had me bottle up was barreling back through my body. I tried to scoot back, knowing that was the right choice, but Cole grabbed behind my neck and kept me close. My skin tingled beneath his, my heart hitched the way it always did.

“I need your heart.” His green eyes found mine and locked on. “It’s the only thing that keeps me standing.” He leaned in and instead of tucking in to kiss the girl he planted his lips to mine.

They were soft and salty with tears and each small taste liquified my insides. My mind was shouting to pull back, to get up, get out of the room and wait for Callum, but my body just wouldn't cooperate.

“I need you,” he whispered as his nose traced down mine then brushed through the scruff of my mustache. “You’re the only that can fill the void.”

The world fell out from beneath me but I didn’t plummet. I knew I should feel the wind ripping past me, tearing at my flesh but I stayed frozen, suspended in time and space. Until I kissed him back with every single ounce of the weight I’d been carrying around for him.

This wasn’t the frantic heathen kiss we shared in front of Mickey from time to time. This was a timid, sweet exploration of my mouth. His sorrow dripped onto my lips and I did what I could to breathe love into his lungs.

A small frisky hand started stroking over my shorts at the same time Cole’s tongue traced the seam of my lips. I couldn’t help but buck into her hand as her kisses started fluttering between Cole and I. 

“Show me I’m not hollow. Show me someone can love me,” he begged. “Sometimes I think you’re the only one who can.”

The giant gaping maw that had opened up beneath me grew wider. The forces drawing me to it, to the darkness and flame at the very center of the earth, overpowered me. My life wasn’t my own to live rationally again. It was a jumbled, spiraled mess of want and wonder and animal instinct drawn to the puzzle piece of me I always missed most.

I surrendered to the burn, the madness, and with those words, I fell.   

 

*****

 

“I love you, Horse.” They were Callum’s first words on the first morning we spent together but I could only hear Cole’s rasp from the shadows last night.

I swallowed the memory and turned over to smile at him. The sun made him that much more beautiful, showering him in the golden halo he deserved. The one that should burn my fingers for how far I’d fallen last night.

“You okay?” He reached out and cradled my face, a gentle touch I didn’t deserve.

“Just didn’t sleep well.” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to shake the ghostly silhouette of Cole laying next to me.

“Not me, right?” He moved closer, tangling his legs into mine. “I know me putting my stuff in the drawers, hanging up some pictures last night freaked out you. Don’t try to deny it.”

Freaked out hadn’t been the way to describe it when Callum showed up ten minutes or so after Cole had come inside me. Sober. And of his own choosing. I wanted Callum—in my bed, in my life—but Cole was kryptonite. I had to fight against it until it killed me.

“I just never got to talk to Cole about it. You know how he can be,” I said soft and warm as I let my fingers travel up his thigh. God, he was going to be a wreck now. Now that I was getting a happy ending and he…he had cracked. “I’m going to go talk to him, preemptive strike.”

“Stay in bed with me.” Callum’s husky chuckle accompanied his tattooed arm reaching for me.

“I’ll be right back.” I smiled and made a point of adjusting the celtic cross he’d hung up last night.

He flopped back and sighed, contented. The second I was out of the room, I flopped against the wall and blew out an equally deep breath, laden with oh my holy fuck. When my heart calmed down, I padded down the stairs to his room.

I cracked the door, and only a crack of light from the kitchen washed over his body. That body that I could picture beneath mine, between my thighs. That body that I had worshipped.

“Hey,” he groaned but there was a smile underneath his voice.

“Morning, Cupcake.” The nickname just came out but I kinda liked it.

He patted the bed beside him and I laid down, a slave to his small commands. “Thank you for last night,” he murmured. “Thank you for saving me.” He pushed up onto his elbow and looked down on me.

“Cole, I need to ask you something, and you gotta promise not to jerk me around.” I looked up at his beautiful tormented eyes.

“Anything.”

“Are we…?” I couldn’t figure out the right words. “Would we…? I mean, is there even a we.”

He blew out a deep breath and flopped back to the mattress beside me. “There will always be an us, but not like that.” His hand found mine and for the first time ever, he held it. “I love you, but not like that.”

I nodded even though he couldn’t seen in the dark his curtains kept deep. I nodded as a single tear rolled down my cheek. What I’d been expecting—or hoping—had changed never could, never would.

“Callum’s moving in.” I choked on the singular sob in my throat.

“You deserve him. You deserve something good.” He squeezed my hand.

“I don’t. I slept with you minutes before he came home for the first time.”

“It’s shitty timing, Horse, nothing more, nothing less.”

I considered his words and felt the guilt flutter in my chest. I couldn't decide if it wanted to fly away or root down in. I couldn’t decided if it was over what I had done, what I was doing to Callum, or because of the other unspoken tremble in my heart.

“Don’t blame yourself, Horse. You always blame yourself.”

As soon as he said it, I knew. Yes, there was a twinge in my heart for Callum but I could set that right. The other thing was so much bigger. And the guilt for even wanting it threatened to crush me.

“I don’t want to lose you.” I had to say it. I had to face the fear before it consumed me.

He shook his hand free of mine and reached between my thighs, palming my dick then squeezing. His big inked hand wrapped around it and he started stroking. Firm twists, long strokes, tugs. I threw my head back in a silent moan as he got me hard. So damn hard.

Cole didn’t say a word but he hummed a delicious sound beside me as he went over and over and over on me.

“I’m gonna come,” I whispered.

“Good.” He dropped my dick then kissed my shoulder. “Now go upstairs and tell him that I was happy for you. Happy to have him. And it got you so hard you have to fuck him right now.”

I gritted my teeth to hold back the snarl but once again I did as I was told. Just when I reached for the door, ready to slither out of the dark and back into the light, he spoke.

“I like the name Cupcake, kinda like the icing on top. A treat from time to time.” He laughed darkly but for the first time since last night, I brightened. My insides were lighter.

He was telling me I wouldn’t lose him. Hell, after what he’d just done and the way he’d just phrased that, I even knew he was saying I wouldn’t lose that. It made me that much harder.

Sporting a rock hard dick, I took the stairs two at a time back to Callum and did exactly what Cole told me—I fucked my boyfriend as hard as I could, knowing that my best friend and guilty pleasure was downstairs and just fine listening.