Chapter Ten

Colleen

 

I lie in the king-size bed in the penthouse suite, one of the fanciest hotels in Queens. When I asked Gabriel if it was smart to stay here, he told me to let him worry about that and that I should just relax. He also threatened to handcuff me to the bed if I tried anything, but there isn’t much I can try. Getting to the elevator means walking through the living room, where Gabriel is, and I don’t like my chances of scaling twenty floors down to the street below. So I’m stuck, just lying here and not doing much of anything except trying to get over my shock. I’m left with a cool, hard-to-identify ache, as though parts of my body are covered in local anesthetic.

 

I roll over and pick up my e-reader, trying to force myself to get back into the novel. But the words shimmer across the page like light on a pond; every time I think I’ve caught it, the water shifts and the light dances someplace else. I grind my teeth and try to focus again, but it’s useless. So instead I lie on my back and stare up at the ceiling. I’ve showered and changed, but I can still smell the gun smoke and the blood.

 

At some point I must fall asleep, because when I open my eyes the murky sunlight is gone and the world is dark. I switch on the lamp to find Gabriel in the corner, sitting on the chair with a whisky in his hand.

 

“Watching me sleep?” I ask, trying to sound annoyed but coming across as flirty. It’s difficult to come across as anything else with Gabriel. “Don’t you know how rude that is, Gabriel?”

 

“Rude.” He smiles, small. “Maybe I do. But you were making some pretty damn fine sounds in your sleep. Moaning.”

 

“Not everything is about sex.” I roll my eyes, and then roll my body away from him, lying on my side.

 

“Not everything,” he agrees. “But this is. You’re my prisoner now, Colleen. Which means I can do any damn thing I want with you.”

 

A shiver runs up my spine and around my body: a traitorous shiver. It seems that my entire life since meeting Gabriel has been a game of my body telling me one thing and my inner voice—Alma’s voice, too—telling me another. I bite down on my lip, almost on reflex, watching the way he grinds his teeth as his eyes move over my body. I’m wearing shorts and a tank top without a bra, which feels natural when it should make me feel exposed and used and offended. I find myself batting my eyelashes at him as though I’m trying to seduce him. Am I? Do I want this? The answer rests within my body, and every single piece of me is screaming out: Yes, yes, yes.

 

“I don’t understand.” I whisper the lie.

 

He drains his whisky and narrows his eyes at me. That same small, twitching smile passes across his face. “Don’t you?” he says, laughing. “Are you sure about that? Because looking at you, I think you understand just fine, Colleen, and I think you want it just as badly as I do.”

 

“Are you sure?” I counter. “What if you’re wrong? What are you going to do, force yourself on me?”

 

“I would never force myself on a woman,” he says, placing his glass on the floor and then slowly walking across the room. He stands at the end of the bed in his T-shirt and his shorts, his muscles on full display, bulging, his biceps so tight it looks like they could burst from his skin. “I still can’t get over just how damn sexy you are, Colleen. Fucking hell.”

 

“Really?” I whisper, finding it difficult to catch my breath. His cock is hard; I can see that clearly in the way his shorts pitch up. It’s exciting to be able to make a man so hard so quickly. I roll over, onto my back, and look between my legs down at him.

 

He half-grins, but mostly he is dead serious. “Yes,” he says. “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on. And I want you. I want you fucking badly. And you want me, too.”

 

“How can you be so sure?” I’m panting now, my sex—no, not my sex, my pussy—my pussy is wet, aching, hot, more than willing: hungry for him. Screaming at me for him. My whole body turns into one singular sensation: a confluence of my pussy and my clit, a brand of urgency that completely captivates me. I open my legs even wider, the fabric of my shorts rubbing against me, every sensation heightened with Gabriel staring at me with such wild passion.

 

He shakes his head slowly. “I’m done playing these games, Colleen. Take off those fucking shorts and finger yourself for me. Now.”

 

I let out a gasp. My first instinct is outrage, but I want to obey him, as I’ve wanted to obey him since the moment he took me from that restaurant. I can choose to obey him, which seems like a contradiction, but right now—who cares about contradictions, anyway, when I have the hottest man in the world standing at the end of the bed?

 

I pull my shorts and my panties down at the same time, revealing my bare pussy. Nerves try to stab at me but then I clamp my hand down on my pussy, bring my finger to my hole and slide it in softly. I’m so wet, it aches, and I’d much prefer for Gabriel to be the one touching me. But the look on his face is all the motivation I need; his eyes are completely locked on my pussy, on my working fingers.

 

“Faster,” he commands.

 

As though my fingers are a machine, and Gabriel is the operator, I slide my finger in and out, quicker and quicker, the heat building to a bursting pressure deep inside of me. I gasp, moan, and then slide another finger inside of myself. There is no guilt now, not like the other time I did this; I’m doing it for his pleasure. And it’s working. He takes down his shorts, freeing his unbelievably big cock. It springs up and stands tall and hard. He strokes it as he watches me, growling, and then he lets it go and leaps forward like a pouncing predator.

 

“Turn over. I need to see that fucking ass.”

 

Before I can do as he says, he grabs my hips and flips me. I let out a squeal and a giggle and then push my ass out on instinct, looking over my shoulder to watch as his face distorts in lust. He just stares at my ass for a moment, and then he brings his hands to my cheeks and squeezes down on them so hard that I let out a wail of pain. But it’s pleasure-tinged pain, something I did not know existed until I met Gabriel.

 

“Get on your hands and knees,” he says, in a tone that does not expect argument.

 

I climb up and stick my ass out, and then almost scream the walls down when he brings his tongue to my clit. His hands working on my ass, pressing it, squeezing it, he licks around my clit with aching closeness, but never quite touches. He tortures me with this, the tip of his tongue occasionally brushing my clit. I bite down to stop myself from crying out in pleasure and frustration. My legs are trembling, and it feels like an orgasm might just burst from me at any moment. I’m so wet I can hardly believe it, my entire body honed down to the tip of his toying tongue.

 

“I’m fucking you tonight,” he tells me, his breath on my pussy; it goes into my hole and nestles there, spreading out hotly. “I’m fucking you, and you’re going to come on my cock. Do you understand?” Suddenly, he presses his tongue firmly against my clit.

 

“Y—yes!” I cry, as a buzzing feeling erupts between my legs. “Y-y-y-y—”

 

The orgasm tears through me like a wave of fire, starting at my clit and then surging through my belly and into my chest. I collapse forward, my whole body trembling as he licks my clit with insane speed, over and over, licking it until all I know is that I never want this to stop, this unbelievable feeling that ricochets around me and slams into me and tosses me all over the place. I bite down on the sheets, close my eyes, and see red. I push my ass out, pressing my pussy hard against his tongue. I can’t think; feeling is all I can do. I gasp, cry, and moan, as my legs shake like crazy and the orgasm fires its last sparks into me. In the end I collapse entirely, lying on my front with the bedsheets sticking to my skin.

 

“Oh God,” I whisper, as the pleasure seeps out of me, leaving me feeling drained and yet still wanting more. “Oh, oh …”

 

“Turn over,” he says. “And take off your top.”

 

I roll onto my back with an effort and wriggle out of the tank top, exposing my naked breasts. Gabriel pulls his shirt over his head and stands there, naked, his chest muscles covered in a fine layer of sweat, and heaving; his whole body is heaving, even his cock, which looks fit to explode. He moves slowly, like a cheetah judging the perfect moment to sprint. He leans over me, the heat of his body enveloping me, and then props his arm beside my head. I reach up and grab it, squeezing the muscle hard. There is no give to it whatsoever. He is all muscle.

 

“Are you ready?” he asks with surprising tenderness. His eyes are fixed on me with the most attention anybody has ever shown me, in all my life. The way he looks at me makes me forget about everything else and focus only on him, this moment, and I can tell that he’s doing the same. This room becomes our own world, this bed our island. He leans down and kisses me with shocking softness on the cheek. “Are you?” he urges.

 

“Yes,” I whisper. It’s the truth; I’m readier now than I’ve ever been.

 

He reaches down with his free hand and grabs his cock, guiding it to my pussy. When the tip touches my hole, I can hardly believe that he’s going to fit inside of me. I open my legs wider, nerves attacking me now as he presses against me. The feeling of vulnerability does not surprise me. I have felt vulnerable my whole life. What surprises me is that I do not hate it; I love it, want more of it. Because even if I feel vulnerable, there’s nobody better to feel vulnerable with. He pushes into me so, so slowly that I feel every single movement, every tiny shifting in his body.

 

My pussy aches painfully as his massive length slides inside of me, an intense pain that forces me to shut my eyes tightly and wonder if this is what sex really is. Is this pain what making love consist of? And if that’s so, why do people even bother? I’m thinking that when something shifts; the pain starts to slowly drift away. Five minutes, ten … I don’t know how much time passes, only that at some point the pain goes away and an intense, wet pressure takes its place. His cock completely fills me, touching places nobody, not even myself, has ever been.

 

“Relax,” he whispers, again with that shocking tenderness. “Relax, Colleen …”

 

He slides out of me and then back in, this time slightly quicker. The wetness implodes, fixated on the end of his cock. I move down when he thrusts up, meeting him, and then he does it again and I do the same; like this, we find a rhythm that gets steadily quicker the longer we go. After another minute or two, the out-of-body disbelief goes away and I just sink into the feeling, grabbing his muscular back and running my fingers down it, scratching him near the bottom by accident, drawing blood. But he doesn’t even notice; he is entirely captivated by me, sliding in and out with more speed now.

 

I sit down heavily on his cock. I feel it then, the first whispers of an incoming orgasm, but a different kind of orgasm to any I have ever experienced. It starts somewhere deep, deep inside of me, even deeper than his massive cock. It feels like it starts just behind my belly button, an insanely dense point of pleasure, all captured in one spot. I grab onto his shoulders and bounce up and down quicker, the bedsheets sticking to my sweating back. I grind my hips, lose myself in the motion; he does the same, matching my pace, and then he leans down and kisses me on the lips. We slip, our teeth clattering together. I giggle, and he grunts out a laugh.

 

I didn’t know it was possible to be with intimate this somebody—

 

His cock explodes inside of me, sending shrapnel of euphoria scorching throughout my body. I lean up and bite down on his shoulder, tasting sweat and feeling hard muscle. But most of all I feel that explosion within me, wetly grinding between my legs, my pussy going tighter so that he has to push with even more force inside of me. I let go of his shoulder, gasping and moaning and then screaming. I’m vaguely aware that I’m being loud but I don’t care, not right now. Modesty can go to hell!

 

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I scream, bouncing up and down as he fucks me harder, faster, pumping his hips as I angle mine, his cock finding ever more irresistible points of ecstasy.

 

The orgasm fades away only slowly, and then I return to the thrusting motion of our lovemaking. I feel exhausted, hardly able to draw in a full breath. Gabriel’s eyes are wide, his jaw set, his lips twisted; he stares down at my breasts and then grabs one, tweaking the nipple.

 

“You done?” he growls.

 

“Y—yes!” I cry.

 

“Thank fuck for that,” he snarls, and then he arches his back and thrusts into me one final time. He comes. I grab onto his shoulders, sitting down hard on his groin, grinding my soaking wet pussy against his wilting cock. His eyes are locked on me as he finishes. For a moment he is the most intense I have ever seen him, his entire world reduced to us and us alone. Then he pulls out and rolls aside, collapsing onto the bed.

 

We lie like this for a long time, as though neither of us wants to move, just in case we break the mood, and then Gabriel climbs to his feet and starts to slowly get dressed. I go into the bathroom and wash myself off and then return and get dressed as well. A few minutes later he’s in the chair and I’m on the bed.

 

I offer him a smile. “Well, that was …” I raise my eyebrow, hoping I didn’t do it wrong; hoping, too, that he’s not going to lose interest in me now that we’ve had sex. That was always what Alma said when she warned me to never ‘give myself away.’ She said that if I ever stooped to having sex with a man, he would no longer want me, and that the only way to stop this from happening was to remain celibate until she said so. As Gabriel sits there, looking down at his hands and not up at me, I wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.

 

Guilt stabs at me. I hate the guilt. It’s unfair. I have no reason to feel guilty; I haven’t hurt anybody. Yet a lifetime of Alma telling me I’m a whore, slut, bitch, etc., if I ever have sex … it’s hard to shake.

 

“Gabriel?” I ask. “Is something wrong? Was something wrong with …”

 

He looks up at me, eyes narrowed. “What?” he says, as though only realizing I’m here. “No, nothing was wrong. Fuck, Colleen. That was the best goddamn sex I’ve ever had. You were … Nothing’s wrong.”

 

“Then why are you sitting there like that?” I slowly move over to him, sliding into his lap. He smiles sideways but makes room for me, propping his hand on my back. “You seem angry.”

 

“I am angry,” he mutters, “but it’s got nothing to do with you. These bastards, Colleen, these fucking bastards. You give your life to the Family and the Family tries to give you a bullet in return. I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill them all.”