Chapter Nine
I blinked at the darkness and tried to make sense of the bed beneath me. My mind moved slowly, slower than my lazy limbs nestled in the comfort of luxury. Where was I?
Then it all came back at once, a bucket of cold water on my head. I reached out, struggling to make sense of the room. My hands bumped into a body, a tiny body. Juliet.
I pulled her close to me, wrapping my arms around her once again. She made an adorable noise of protest, but didn’t wake up.
My mind started to think more clearly as I struggled to shake off the heavy drowsiness. We fell asleep in Sayer’s car on the way back from Central Detention. She was here. She was safe.
Oh, thank God.
Holding her even closer, I let my mind sift through the events of the day and what had been asked of me. DC, the pakhan, Atticus… All of it conjured from my worst nightmares.
This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen.
This was the exact scenario I’d fought so hard against.
And yet here we were.
I licked dry lips with a tongue made out of sandpaper and grimaced at the awful taste in my mouth. Leaning up on my elbow I saw that it was close to midnight. I’d been napping for something like six hours, but I felt better than I had in weeks, ever since Sayer had shown back up in my life.
The worst had happened and I was still here, Juliet was still here. We weren’t exactly safe in the grand scheme of things. We weren’t as far away from this ugliness as I’d preferred, but both of us were still alive.
Sliding my arm carefully from underneath her, I slipped quietly into Sayer’s bathroom and used the toothbrush I’d left out earlier. Then I washed my face and tied my hair in a messy bun on the top of my head. Peeling off my chambray shirt, I traded my street clothes for a pair of sleep shorts and a sweatshirt that hung off one of my shoulders. Much better.
Except now I was hungry.
With the bathroom light on behind me, I stood in the doorway a few more minutes watching Juliet sleep. Her chest moved rhythmically and her hands curled beneath her cheek. She was an angel like this, complete perfection in human form.
My heart squeezed again with the painful reality I had almost lost her. This was why I would go against everything I knew to be right and smart and wise and do what the bosses wanted me to do. She was why I would risk my life again, and my freedom, and my nearly perfect criminal record (at least on paper) to steal from the FBI and destroy precious evidence. She was the reason I would ignore common sense and what it would mean to have the pakhan back on the streets. I would do anything to keep her safe.
Finally believing she was safe enough to leave for a few minutes, I tiptoed to the hallway and crept quietly to the living room. The TV was on, casting the room in shades of blue.
I noticed Sayer on the couch and my chest tightened all over again. He was reclined awkwardly, with his long legs stretched in front of him and his elbow resting on the armrest, his open palm propping up his head. His eyes were closed and his mouth slightly ajar, letting out the softest sleeping sounds.
Noticing his bare feet, I retrieved a throw blanket and stealthily laid it over his legs. He barely stirred as I slunk away to the kitchen.
Sayer’s apartment was fairly gigantic and all wide rooms and impossibly high ceilings except for the two bedrooms and office tucked toward the back. But the rest of the wide space was all open. The entryway fed into the dining area. That was connected to the kitchen and opened to the living room where workout equipment had been set up in the corner to look out at the city. A door in the corner of the room led to a long balcony suspended high above the busy DC streets.
As soon as Sayer had turned eighteen, he’d left Gus’s house and moved into a place of his own. During the next few years, while he made his way up the ranks of the syndicate, he had moved several times. He was always getting a better place, moving to a better part of town. It had been extremely important to him to have the nicest home he could afford. He’d gotten this apartment at the pinnacle of his success.
I couldn’t help but wonder how he’d managed to keep it during his years in prison. I knew this building was pricy and he obviously hadn’t been making any money while he was locked away. And according to Gus, he’d sold all of his savings to find me. It wasn’t like Sayer to waste money on a space he couldn’t even use. He was meticulous with spending. Yes, he bought the nicest things he could and spent money when he wanted to. But he also saved and saved and saved.
I’d recognized his secret fear of returning to the streets early on. But it had evolved into a fear of needing someone else to provide for him, of relying on someone else to take care of him. He wanted to be totally self-sufficient, that meant having the kind of deep bank account that would make his lifestyle possible without worry.
He didn’t want to need anybody.
I wondered now if that included me.
Opening the refrigerator, I realized there probably wasn’t any food in a kitchen that hadn’t been used in years, but to my surprise I found takeout containers on every shelf. They must have ordered in when Juliet and I had been conked out.
I pulled out a white box and sniffed the contents. Oh my God, my favorite. Peanut Butter Chicken from House of Lee. I popped a piece of cold chicken into my mouth and groaned at the rich, delicious goodness.
Frisco had given us a life I could never have gotten here, but they didn’t have House of Lee. I mean, there were decent Chinese places in Summit County. Then again… they didn’t have House of Lee.
I dumped rice and sauced chicken into a pan and turned on the low heat. Sayer had a microwave, but I’d only just gotten House of Lee back. I wasn’t going to ruin my first meal by zapping the flavor out of it.
Digging through the other containers I found Kung Pao and Spicy Lo Mein. I found myself smiling for the first time in at least forty-eight hours—it felt like longer than that. My facial muscles stretched to make room for real happiness and I couldn’t stop myself from snatching bites out of the pan before it had fully heated.
“Oh my God,” I moaned around a spicy bite of Kung Pao.
“We thought the food would rouse you earlier,” Sayer said from across the island.
Whirling around and wielding chopsticks, I scolded him. “You should have woken me. I’m starving.”
He spread his hands on the tall counter and bowed his head, stretching his back. “Nah, you needed sleep.” His head lifted and hit me with a staggering look from beneath his long lashes.
I remembered to breathe and turned back to my food. “So did you.”
“It’s been a long day.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. “Where is everybody?”
“Frankie’s in my guest room. Gus took Cage back to his place.”
That news surprised me enough to face him again. “You both kept apartments? Why?”
“I kept my apartment. Gus uses his dad’s old place.”
“Are both of his parents dead?”
He shook his head. “No, his mom is still alive. She just doesn’t spend very much time in the city. She prefers to travel. And I think she has a place in Martha’s Vineyard. Or near there. Anyway, I can’t even remember the last time Gus flew out to see her. She’s… the same as she was when you knew her.”
Vindictive. Petty. Bitter. I didn’t blame Gus for not spending more time with his mother. She was tough to take. “I’m surprised his dad left him the house though. I thought for sure Atticus would get it.”
“Atticus has his own. Besides, Gus bought it from his mom. It wasn’t like his dad left it for him.”
That made more sense.
“She was probably anxious to get rid of it.”
Sayer made a deep humming noise, agreeing with me. “Is, uh, Juliet okay?”
I turned back to the stove, scraping at the bits that were beginning to stick to the bottom of the pan. “Physically, she’s fine as far as I can tell. Emotionally? Time will tell. It had to be a totally traumatizing experience for her. I would give anything to take her back to Colorado. She needs her home, her bed, things that are familiar.”
“She’ll be all right,” Sayer countered. “Kids are resilient.”
The Chinese became a little less appetizing as my stomach churned with all the possible ways she could be screwed up forever now. “Oh, yeah? You know a lot of resilient kids?”
“I used to be one.”
His letters came back to me like a punch in the face. I turned the stove off and faced him. He’d made his way around the island and stood just two feet away. He wore his version of pajamas, navy blue sweat pants and a worn t-shirt with bare feet and adorably disheveled hair. His jaw had a shadow of a beard and his eyes were still sleepy. His glasses had been discarded somewhere.
Butterflies took flight low in my gut and I struggled to swallow at the sight of him leaning against the opposite counter. I lifted a hand to pat my messy bun, feeling unsure of my own sleepwear.
“D-do you want to talk about it?” I asked him, afraid he would say yes. Afraid he would say no.
He shook his head, his eyes moving over me, drinking in the sight of my bare legs and naked shoulder. He was all masculine mystery, quiet strength. And I was nothing but a trembling wimp.
I lost the ability to breathe when he crossed his arms over his chest, pushing his biceps out. The light over the stove cast him in golds and smooth skin, highlighting the best parts of him, making my body ache with a new kind of hunger.
“What did the pakhan want today?” he asked, diverting my attention to more important matters than lust.
“They want me to clear their name, get all the charges dropped.”
He nodded, probably already suspecting as much. “It’s not going to be easy. I built a pretty airtight case.”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know what else to do. I have to try.”
His chin jerked again, accepting this to be true. “You’ll have to face your dad at some point.”
Turning back to the cupboards, I found the bowls right where he’d always kept them. I pulled two down and divided the heated Chinese evenly. “What did the pakhan want with you?”
“It wasn’t so much what they wanted. More like threats of what they’re going to do. Kill me slowly. Watch me suffer. Cut off my hands and disembowel me upside down. That kind of thing.”
He was purposefully avoiding the meat of their meeting. I saw the secrets swimming in his liquid gaze. So, I worked harder to push him into telling me what happened. “You’re still alive, so that’s a good sign?”
He didn’t take the bait and instead changed the subject back to my dad. “When Leon hears you’re in town he’s going to come looking for you.”
Fine. If he was so set on talking about this, we could talk about it. “Let him. It will only lead to more disappointment for the man.”
“Are you going to let him meet Juliet?”
A bitter taste coated my mouth. “I wasn’t even going to let you meet Juliet. What makes you think I would let him meet her? He’s an addict and a scumbag. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her away from him.”
“I think you said the same thing about me.”
I shot him a sidelong glare. “Careful, Wesley. You’re skating on thin ice with me already.”
A warm hand moved over my back, sliding down until it rested on ass. His lips pressed a trail of kisses over my bare shoulder. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” But the breathlessness in my voice ruined my threatening façade.
His teeth sunk into the side of my throat, quickly soothed by the heated touch of his tongue. His mouth moved up to my ear, nibbling and kissing and all in all driving me crazy. His hands landed on my hips, pulling me back into the impossibly hard length of him.
“I, er, heated up some food for you,” I squeaked. I tried to organize my thoughts and get a grip on all the reasons I was keeping my distance from him, but they were slipping through my fingers.
“We’ll eat it later,” he rumbled against my ear.
He spun me around and my butt hit the counter. My hands landed on his shoulders, staying him. I jerked my head toward the hallway. “Frankie,” I whispered desperately. “Juliet!”
He made a dismissive noise against the hollow of my throat. “I kept my distance till we found her, Six. She’s here. She’s safe.”
I stood up straighter. “That was so thoughtful of you,” I said in a dry tone. “Our daughter had been kidnapped and you were able to keep your hands to yourself for a whole twenty-four hours.”
“It’s been longer than twenty-four hours,” he reminded me.
“Not by much—” My sentence ended on a gasp when his hand found its way under my sweatshirt and up to my breast. He slipped it inside the cup of my bra and squeezed, brushing his thumb back and forth over my nipple.
His other hand tugged at the waistband of my shorts, pulling them down over my hip on one side. His free hand played with the seam of my underwear and I shivered at the barely-there touch.
He lifted his head and stilled me with a dark look. “I’ve been starved for you, Caroline. For five years, I have been desperate for you, famished. And now you want me to wait?” He rolled my nipple between his thumb and forefinger as if proving a point.
My thoughts bumped into each other, trying to make sense of what he’d said. “Not wait. But what if we took things slow? Eased into this?”
The hand at my waist dipped lower, between my legs. My underwear was still in place, but the thin layer of protection didn’t seem to matter with his expert touch burning through my entire body until it was a blazing fire of want and need and desire.
“Is that what you want?” he asked without removing his wicked fingers from either place on my body.
I shook my head—no. I didn’t want to wait. Or go slow. Or stop. This was Sayer. He had been famished for this for five years? He wasn’t the only one.
There had been no one but him.
It had always been him.
Sensing my hesitation his mouth crashed down on mine, annihilating whatever caution I had left. His lips consumed mine, tasted and licked and bit while his hands moved over my body, building and building and building the fire inside me to a frenzy.
He moved my panties to the side and plunged his fingers inside my most intimate place, pushing and pressing and sliding until I dropped my head on his shoulder and gave in to the inferno only he could stoke.
His other hand tugged at my nipple, a bite of pain only increasing the pleasure his other hand was orchestrating. I clung to his shoulders as the rest of my body became wobbly and unsteady. He pulled back just long enough to tug my sweatshirt off, tossing it somewhere behind him.
But then he was right back over me, his hand disappearing again, diving deeper, adding a second finger to an already overwhelming touch. His head dipped and he lifted my breast to take it in his mouth. His tongue flicked over my nipple, teasing at first, moving slowly. Then he sucked the entire thing into his mouth and I let out a cry, bucking against his hand.
He quickly picked me up, wrapping my legs around his tapered waist. I grabbed the sides of his face to balance and took his mouth in a long, delicious kiss as he carried me to the couch and tossed me onto the cushions.
The falling and landing sensation was so familiar my heart kicked with the memories of all the times we’d done this before. Lazy Saturdays when we spent the entire day inside, wrapped up in each other. After late night events when we were too greedy and impatient to make it all the way to his bedroom. After a near death experience with the Italians. Once when we’d barely escaped the DC police after a heist.
We’d made love on this couch as many times as in his bed.
Yet this time was still different, still notably unlike any time before. For one, our bodies had changed. I wasn’t twenty anymore. I’d had a child. I’d become a woman in the time we’d been apart. Yes, my boobs were bigger, but I also had a few stretch marks. My thighs weren’t lithe and tight anymore. Everything about me was… softer.
On the other hand, Sayer was nothing but hard muscle. He loomed over me, all biceps and abs and dark desire. His hands moved over my bare stomach, taking hold of both my underwear and shorts and yanking them off in one fell swoop.
Then he was over me, settling his knees between my thighs and tugging my legs around his waist again. Only it was much more intimate now that I was mostly naked and lying down.
“This is where you belong,” he murmured between wet kisses along my collarbone, his body pressed against mine, heating me from the inside out. “With me. Only with me.”
His possessive words pushed me beyond the ability to think. I wrestled his t-shirt over his head, and then moaned when his bare torso rested against me. God, had anything ever felt better than his skin against mine?
Together we got rid of his sweatpants and boxer briefs. “I can’t think straight when I’m around you,” I growled at him, blaming him and worshipping him all at once.
He made a sound of approval and spread my thighs wider, stretching them until I was completely bared to him. His fingers found my core again. He tortured me by moving impossibly slowly. In and out. In and out. Until my nails had dug into his shoulder blades and I was a panting, heaving mess of pleasure.
“Sayer, please!” I gasped, knowing I couldn’t last another second without him inside me.
“You’re mine, Six.” I nodded against his neck. He removed his fingers and pressed the part of him I needed most to my entrance. “Say it.”
“I-I’m yours.”
He plunged inside of me, sinking deep, with force. My legs tightened around his hips and my back bowed. “Oh god!” I cried.
That’s when he started to really move. He thrust into me in time with my gasping breaths. The spiral started low in my belly and spread through me, heating and tightening and tingling.
“Don’t stop!” I ordered him.
He lifted his head, a half smile on his beautiful face. “Never,” he promised, pushing in deeper, reaching the place I needed him most. My head tipped back, my eyes fluttering closed. “Fucking beautiful,” he murmured. “And you’re all mine.”
That was all it took to push me over the edge. Everything inside me tightened all at once, shooting fireworks off behind my closed eyelids. He swallowed my cries with a kiss, curling my body toward him and increasing the pleasure in impossible ways.
When I came back down, he was still moving leisurely, pulling every last drop of sensation out of my body. He hovered over me, braced by his strong arms, watching me.
I smiled up at him. “That was amazing.”
“Because you’re finally where you belong, Six. It feels good because this is how it was always meant to be.” He pressed another lingering kiss to my lips before he stood up, disappearing into the bathroom to clean up.
I stayed on the couch not moving. My thoughts were already racing again. Had he meant with him? Or in the bratva?
A flashback of earlier this afternoon invaded my mind. What secret was Sayer keeping from me? Why hadn’t the bosses punished him? Or killed him?
Why couldn’t I say no to this man that was keeping so many secrets from me?
The answers were too terrifying to entertain.
I threw my arms over my face and decided tomorrow I would do better. I would keep my distance. I could learn to tell Sayer no— at least until he spilled his secrets. And I would get the pakhan what they needed so Juliet, Frankie and I could disappear again.
For good this time. And whether or not Sayer came with us? That was an impossible question to answer at the moment.
Maybe tomorrow, I would be able to finally sort through my feelings for him and figure out what they were. Maybe… I wasn’t holding my breath.