Chapter Fifteen

Colleen

 

Gabriel sleeps with his hand hanging off the edge of the bed, right near his pistol. It’s early morning, around five a.m., but it feels like dead night since it’s the middle of winter. There are no lights outside except the small flashes of passing cars, which only ever reach this room when they pull into the motel. Otherwise it’s utterly dark, the only sounds Gabriel’s breathing and the humming of the radiator … and my footsteps against the carpet as I pace up and down the room, opening and closing my hands.

 

Gabriel said I should try and get some sleep. If we’re going to work on this together—which he agreed to—then he wants me awake, alert. I get that, but I also can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see him, the blood pouring from his face, but more and more as I laid there, I started to see Gabriel choking on the floor, gasping for air, looking up at me with wide, panicked eyes. I was going to kill him just like I killed the driver; perhaps seeing death in reality has made me realize what was at stake, when at the time I only had the vaguest idea. Now I can’t seem to settle down, my head full of the past and the future, thoughts scattering uncontrollably.

 

I drop into the corner chair and grip my knees, staring at the shadowed silhouette of Gabriel. My heart thumps into the back of my throat when the idea occurs to me. It’s out of the question, certainly, but then it is also out of the question to align myself with my kidnapper and to kill a man. Apparently being out of the question doesn’t mean much to me these days. I think back to the way he thrust into me, the nerves, but then the pleasure: pleasure unlike anything I ever dreamed of; and, most amazingly, pleasure that took away all these warring thoughts. I always wondered what sex would be like, but I never guessed at that part. All my life, my mind has been a warzone of resentment and anxiety and panic, but when he was inside of me, when my hands were on his naked, muscular shoulders …

 

My pussy aches now just thinking of it. It’s still sore from his massive cock, but that doesn’t stop the ache from spreading. My legs twitch without my say-so, my clit throbbing as I stare and stare at his silhouette, and then—as my eyes adjust—at the hazy form of his bare chest. His muscles are crunched together, his pectorals tight, his belly a sheet of hard rock. In the half-light he could be a statue, all smooth carved marble.

 

I stand up on legs that feel like jelly, part of me screaming that I should stop. This is too far. I’m a virgin. Maybe not in real life, but in my head I’m still partly a virgin. What if he wakes up and tells me not now, he’s not in the mood? What if he laughs at me? What if he—But none of that matters, I realize. All that matters is that he’s here and I’m here, and that there’s something we can do to cease the fire in my mind.

 

I fall to my knees at the edge of the bed and reach my hand out toward his pants, the outline of his bulging cock. Even soft and in his trousers, it looks huge. I keep my hand near it for a time without actually touching it, my breathing getting more out of control and my pussy aching even more fiercely. He makes growling noises in his sleep, the kind a resting wolf might make.

 

Finally I lurch forward, knowing I have to act soon or I’ll lose my nerve. I grab onto his cock and squeeze it, smiling reflexively when it immediately starts to get hard. I rub it from the outside of the trousers. It gets even harder and Gabriel half-wakes, but he doesn’t speak or opens his eyes. He mutters something unintelligible, a twisted smile on his face; maybe he thinks he’s still dreaming.

 

I’m spurred on now. I undo the button on his pants, slide down the zip, and then take his cock from his underwear. I move carefully at first, as though afraid I might hurt him. But when that massive cock springs out, all ten-plus inches of it, rock-hard now, I know that that’s stupid. I can’t hurt him. I grab it harder, jerk it faster, and then bring my mouth to it and tentatively lick up and down the side.

 

“Fuck, fuck …” He opens one eye and the other. “Fuck, yeah, suck it, suck it.”

 

He softly touches the back of my head, guiding me to the tip. I follow his lead. I’m already feeling it: the distancing from the real concerns; the welcome disconnect between who we are when we’re intimate and who we’re forced to be otherwise. I open my mouth wide and this time, instead of him fucking my face, I suck on his cock. I suck as deep as I can, but I don’t force myself, and after the initial touch, Gabriel lets his hands fall away. He stares down at me, his whole body shaking, as I bob my head up and down. If his growls are anything to go by, then I must be doing a good job!

 

“Fucking hell,” he mutters, when I finally stop. “Fucking hell, Colleen.”

 

“Yeah?” I moan, cupping his balls, rubbing them. “Do you like that?”

 

“I fucking need you,” he snarls. “Get up here.” He rolls onto his back, waiting for me.

 

“Up … there?” I ask, full of buzzing lust but also uncertain. I’ve obviously never been on top before.

 

“Come on.” He waves at me, the other hand stroking his cock. “I’ll show you.”

 

I stand up and look down at him, lying there with his cock pointing straight up to his belly button. Then I take off my clothes, quickly, because his eyes seem to be willing me to. When I’m naked, he shoots his hand out and grabs my wrist and pulls me over to him so that I’m forced to climb onto the bed. I split my legs, straddle his belly, and then inch down toward his cock. It brushes against my ass cheeks and then past, to my hole and my clit. I don’t know what I was worried about; all I have to do is sit up and then sit back down. I’m so wet, he slides right into me, fast, because I sit down heavily, right up into the deepest part of me.

 

“Oh fuck,” I whisper, and then moan quietly as I shift around on his balls, the tip of his cock moving around at different angles. “Fuck, fuck …”

 

“Put your feet here,” he commands, showing me with his hands. “Sit up, bounce on that fucking cock. Bounce on it, Colleen.”

 

I do as he says, placing my feet at the spots he indicates and then sitting up. I giggle as I almost fall and then rest my hands on his bare chest, squeezing into the muscle. My nails gouge into him but he doesn’t flinch; his eyes are locked on my breasts, full of wild hunger.

 

“Fucking bounce,” he growls, cupping my breasts softly.

 

For a short while I’m worried that I won’t be able to do it, but I just feel the pleasure, quiet my mind, and feel the searing heat between my legs. It’s different this time because I have control over it. Before, it was a heat that just barreled into me; now I’m the one who decides the speed. I lean up slowly and then sit down just as slowly, letting out a shuddering gasp and stroking my hands down his immense muscles. Soon I forget altogether that I’ve never done this before and I just ride him, driving my hips down with everything I have and then squealing as he grabs my ass to help me on the way up.

 

He leans forward, crunching his belly muscles, and grabs my ass cheeks so hard it hurts a little, but more than that, it feels good, incredible, the pleasure burning through me. We rock like this together, him driving up as I sit down. And we stare into each other’s eyes. I find myself getting nervous at first and I think he is, too, but then he thrusts up so hard, with such incredible force, that I forget that being nervous is even an option. That one thrust breaks something inside of me; hot magma flows throughout me, burning everything. I can barely breathe; his features distort. I’m nothing: just a ball of hot pleasure rocking atop another ball of hot pleasure.

 

“Fuck,” he snarls, and then slaps my ass. “You fucking like that?”

 

“Yes!” I cry, honestly. Maybe normally I wouldn’t, but right now—“Fuck! Yes! Yes!”

 

He spanks me again. I gasp; the gasp breaks off in a choke. It’s like my body is waiting for the third spank, which comes harder and quicker than the last two. When he hits me this time, a domino effect moves through me, each domino triggering a miniature wave of pleasure, right until the last domino: my clit erupts with pleasure and my deepest part, the part that the tip of his huge cock drives into, implodes in wet, intense pressure. My whole body vibrates like crazy as I bury my teeth in his neck, biting down as the orgasm twists and turns inside of me.

 

“F—f—f—fuck!” I scream, letting his neck go. I bounce up and down like we’ve done it a hundred times before now; I bounce like this is a competition and if I bounce any slower, I’ll lose the prize. Because this is something worth living for. His intense eyes, his messy bed-hair, his tight body, and most of all his massive cock, buried deep inside of me. I float atop his cock as wave after wave of the orgasm breaks inside of me, filling me wetly, and then come for a second time when he brings his mouth to my breasts. He sucks my nipple hard, and then grabs on it as he throws his whole body into the next upward drive.

 

I meet him in the middle, letting all of my weight fall down onto his balls. In a crazy flurry of pain and pleasure, he comes as my orgasm twists out its final moments of heat. Our eyes lock in the final instant, when both of us are at the peak of our mountains. I shift forward; so does he. And then we’re not on two separate peaks but on one together. I throw my body into him, find his lips, and kiss him deeply. I return to myself as though from a distance, my muffled moaning the first thing I hear. Then his growling, his heavy breathing.

 

Finally, we fall away from each other, his come wet on my thighs, his cock wilting but not going completely soft. I crawl away from the wet patch and lie down, completely naked but not at all ashamed or nervous or embarrassed or—anything. I feel at ease, completely fine.

 

I feel just like I’m lying in bed with my boyfriend.

 

“Is that what you want?” he asks quietly.

 

Did I say that out loud! Idiot!

 

“I don’t know,” I whisper. I try for a laugh. “It would beat being your hostage.”

 

“I don’t think you’ll ever be my hostage again, goddamn.”

 

“You sound annoyed,” I point out. “Isn’t this better?”

 

“I …” He sits up, his back to me, and sighs heavily. “I never planned for anything like this, Colleen. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on between us. We hardly even know each other.”

 

“How’s that?” I snap, hearing Alma in my voice but not caring. “You know pretty much everything there is to know about me.” I lean up and grip onto his shoulders. “Maybe you should tell me something for once!”

 

“The fuck do you want to know?” He sighs again, stands up, and paces to the window, naked. He stands there in the lowlight, his muscle outlined so alluringly that I have to fight the urge to go over to him and initiate something else. But this is more important, somehow; he knows about Alma, Father, my closed-in life, but all I know about him is that he can be mean and he can be kind, and that most of the time, he’s somewhere in the middle. “Eh?” he goes on, turning to me. “Maybe you want me to sing some fucking song about how hard my life was. Is that it? I’ve had an easy life compared with most, Colleen. I’ve had an easier life than you.”

 

“Okay.” I sit up, pulling the sheets around my breasts. His cock is already going hard again; showing him my breasts will be enough to drive us into mad, mad lust. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

 

He pulls on his jeans and drops into the chair with the button undone, some of his pubes showing. Running his hand over his jaw, which has a few days’ growth of a beard on it now, he shakes his head slowly. “Women,” he mutters, as though to himself. “This is what I’ve been avoiding my whole damn life, Colleen … ever since I became a man, I knew that there’d be women trying to scratch just that bit deeper, just that bit deeper, until there’s nothing fucking left. What do you want?”

 

“Why are you getting so angry?” I counter, putting on my clothes beneath the blanket, and then pushing the blanket aside. “I’m just asking you a question! You kidnap me, you fuck my face, you get me into situations where men are shooting at me, trying to sell me. And you won’t even answer a single fucking question!”

 

A small smile flits across his face. “How often did you swear before you met me, princess?”

 

“Don’t be a jerk!” I snap.

 

“Goddamn. What is there to tell? I was born right here, in New York, and my dad got shot to death in some bullshit gangland stuff when I was three or four. The don’s family took me in, since he’s my cousin but he’s older’n me, but I didn’t see the don much. My mom was never in the picture. She was a whore.” He nods matter-of-factly. “All right? Are you done now?”

 

“That must’ve been awful,” I whisper.

 

He rests his head in his hands. “It was just fine,” he mutters. “Awful? The fuck does that even mean in this life? Awful is having your guts spread across the sidewalk like goddamn Christmas decorations. It wasn’t awful, ’cause I was breathing. Any situation where a Family man is still breathing isn’t awful. It was just fine.”

 

“What was it like, the don raising you? It must be horrible now.” I lower my voice. Part of me wants to stop, but I’m also urged on by how much he’s revealing. Not just with his words, but with the look of pain on his face as well. He tries to hide it but he can’t, not completely. “The man who raised you wants to kill you …”

 

“He didn’t raise me,” Gabriel says. I detect some sourness in his voice, even if he tries to hide it. “Do you really wanna know the truth? I looked up to that bastard for years, until I was in high school, looked up to him thinking he was going to be my dad. But he never showed any interest in that, and I don’t blame him, not now. I was just his little kid cousin. The fuck did he care? He wasn’t the don back then; he had shit to do. It’s not a man’s place to baby a kid, especially one that isn’t even his.”

 

“But that doesn’t stop it hurting, does it?”

 

“What good does this do?” He looks up at me with cold eyes. “Can you explain that to me, eh? I’m trying to figure out what possible fucking good dredging all this up can do.”

 

“It helps,” I tell him. “Talking about it. Getting it out. How can you live with every bad thing that ever happened to you locked inside?”

 

“Jesus Christ. What is this, a fucking romantic comedy?” He laughs bitterly. “I wanted that old bastard to show me some attention. He didn’t. I grew up. I learned how to fight. I learned how to stop caring whether or not some old bastard gave a damn about me. I learned how to take care of myself. That’s all there is to it. I’m not about to sit here and tell you the names of every teacher I ever had.”

 

“I can’t imagine you in high school,” I admit. “I just sort of assumed you sprang up from the ground with a stern look on your face and too much muscle.” I grin at him, jabbing. “I guess I thought they made guys like you in factories. Order number twenty-four, a tough-looking—Hey!” I squeal as he dives onto the bed and pins my arms at my sides, grinning down at me now.

 

“You were saying?” he says, his face close to mine, the smell of sex still heavy in the air. “I thought you were saying something, princess?”

 

“You’re a savage,” I tell him. “A complete savage.”

 

“Then I guess it turns out that the prissy little princesses likes savages.”

 

He kisses me. For the next however-long, our world is pleasure. But once the sex is over, we roll aside, aching and panting, and I’m still hungry for something else: for more Gabriel. Battering past his shield feels good because it lets me know that it’s possible, that this man is just that: a man. And not a machine who wouldn’t care about me if he could.

 

“What about now?” I ask.

 

He hugs me closer to him as the sun rises outside, but it does so slowly, and with little impact on the light except from turning the black darkness into a gray glow.

 

“What about now?” he replies.

 

“How do you feel now? About … everything?”

 

He laughs, shaking his head. “I really thought I’d gotten out of this, you know. What more can you do? You fuck a lady, show her the best time she’s ever had, give her more damn orgasms than she knows what to do with. Make her feel sexy and special and all that romantic-comedy shit you women are always blabbing about. You keep her safe—”

 

“Ish,” I put in, giggling. “You keep me safe, sure, safe-ish.”

 

“That’s true. You did a pretty damn good job at keeping yourself safe.”

 

Suddenly I remember, in a stark flashback, the blood and the smell and the way he just flopped down as though all the bones had been stolen from his body. Gabriel must sense something because he hugs me even closer, almost pulling me on top of him.

 

“Don’t think on it,” he whispers. “You did what you had to do. What was the other option, eh? And what bad do you think you did by taking him out? Do you think he was some stand-up guy, some fucking gentleman? He was a killer, a rapist, a torturer, a fucking devil. Angels shouldn’t cry when devils die.”

 

“Wow.” I rub my eyes. I didn’t even realize I was crying. “You’re full of surprises, Gabriel.”

 

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” he mutters, sounding not too happy about it. “Maybe this room sits on top of an ancient burial site or some shit …”

 

“You think you’re cursed because you’re actually talking to me for once?”

 

“Not just talking to you. Talking.”

 

“I find it hard to believe that you’ve gone all these years without talking to somebody.”

 

“Well, you better believe it.”

 

“But you’re an old man!” I exclaim, trying for a joke. He’s right; I can’t let myself linger on what happened back there, because then I’ll be lingering on it forever. But that’s also easier said than done. “You’re almost fifty!”

 

“You cheeky little bitch.” He darts his hand down to my belly and tickles me mercilessly.

 

“Fine! Fine!” I cry, wriggling all over the bed but trying with everything I have to stay inside the covers. “You’re forty-nine—Okay, forty-seven!”

 

Eventually I admit that he’s thirty-five and he lets me go.

 

“I never had any reason to talk it out like this before,” he mutters, once again settling down. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a Family bar, but it’s not exactly a slumber party in there. Any man who shows weakness is considered weak, and rightly so. If you’re on a job, the last thing you want is your partner to start pouring his fucking heart out. We have enough of that, anyway. People pouring their hearts out … all over the fucking concrete.”

 

“Has anybody ever told you that you swear a lot?” I jab him in the side.

 

“Yeah, well, that’s another part of being in the life, princess.”

 

“Stop calling me that!” I slap his hard-muscled belly. “I’m not a princess anymore.”

 

“What are you then?”

 

“Well, what are you?” I counter.

 

“I’m just a man who fights and kills and is one day going to die.”

 

“But what if that wasn’t who you were?” I pursue, noticing a change in him. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed it before all this started, since it’s so subtle, but I see it clearly now. It’s the way his jaw tightens. It’s as though there is something he wants to say but is still worried about speaking his mind, even after everything. “Is there any life that would make you happy, Gabriel? Can you think of anything that would actually make life worth living—”

 

“You,” he says, stunning both me and himself. “It’s crazy to say it, maybe, but I think a life with you would make me—” He falters. “But I don’t need to go into that, eh? I don’t want to make you tear up.”

 

“I’ll go into it then.” I feel like my chest is floating. Making love to him twice within a few hours, my head feeling lighter than air, and now he’s telling me I can make him happy! Is that progress or what? “What about this? What about a little house all on its own, with big hedges around it, or a fence and a gate, and you’re sitting on the porch with a pipe and I’m sitting next to you with a book, and then you ask me what we’re going to do today and I say, I don’t know, maybe we should just sit here and enjoy the sun; we’ll be somewhere where it’s always sunny, like California. We’ll have a life.”

 

“Do you mean that?” he asks, dead quiet. “Or are you just talking?”

 

“I mean it,” I whisper, even quieter, heart thrumming in my ears. “But first we have to end this. Because they’ll follow us. You know they will. If the Irish follow me, then it’s not so bad. They would never hurt me. But if the Italians find us …”

 

“This is crazy,” he mutters. “This is fucking madness.”

 

“But it doesn’t feel like madness.” I lay my hand on his chest. “Does it?”

 

“No,” he admits, tracing my knuckles with his finger. “It doesn’t. Are you serious about helping me?”

 

“Yes,” I say at once.

 

He nods matter-of-factly, back to the old Gabriel now. “Then I’ve got a plan.”