“Fuck,” Smoke curses, standing from the chair with such force it falls forward onto the ground. “You pissed off the wrong people, Frankie.”
“But hopefully I saved the right ones,” I defend. “I couldn’t stand by and NOT do anything.” I stand and face him. “Anyone in my position would have done the same.”
Smoke scoffs. “No, they wouldn’t. The people you pissed off wouldn’t. Iwouldn’t.”
“Any DECENT person in my position would have done the same,” I say, staring him down.
“Decent?” Smoke asks with a laugh.
I feel the corners of my mouth turning upward as Smoke walks up to me and cages me against the wall. He looks me in the eyes. I meet his gaze. Challenging him.
Always challenging him.
“My little hellion,” he murmurs. “But tell me something, Frankie.” He brushes his lips over mine then pulls back, teasing me. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Do all decent people bend their dead father’s corpses like a pretzel before shoving it in the motherfucking freezer?”
“That’s unfair,” I say, talking through my teeth, barely moving my lips.
“That’s what you don’t understand,” Smoke explains. “In this dangerous game, the one you’ve decided to play alongside some of the most dangerous people in the world, there are no rules. There is no fair and unfair. There is only dead and alive. Black and white. That’s it.”
“Exactly, and a lot of women would be dead if I didn’t do what I did. Now, they’re alive.”
I push against his chest and make a move toward the stairs, but he pulls me back. A million emotions are running through my mind along with a million worst-case scenarios.
“What else you got?” Smoke asks against my neck. My pulse begins to race.
“What do you mean?” I ask, sounding breathless.
“Tell me what other secrets you’re keeping from me.” Smoke nips at my earlobe, and I can’t help the full-body shudder that erupts from within. I unwrap myself from his hold and turn to face him. “I can see there’s more.”
Smoke watches as I go back to the desk. I lean over and hit a few keys. I’ve already cued up the surveillance video. I press play, and Smoke watches as Morgan is surprised by someone before it all goes blank.
“My father was a lot of things,” I continue, reaching in my pocket I pull out the USB drive Nine gave me and plug it into the port. “But a cold-blooded murderer wasn’t one of them. At least, not in this case.” I point up to the screen at the still image that shows a very different picture than the one Smoke had showing my father walking away. I keep my cursor over the lower right-hand corner, blocking the full view of the photo. “Someone wiped the feed, then altered the photo. Do you know this man?”
“Fuck, that’s Griff,” Smoke’s face reddens as his knuckles whiten. “Are you sure it’s real? That this one isn’t the fake one?”
“I’m sure.” I say. “As I said, my father died five years ago. That I’m sure of. It couldn’t be him who killed Morgan. It wasn’t. It was Griff.”
“How sure?” Smoke yells.
I stand tall and refuse to recoil. “I’m positive.”
Smoke exhales.
“The white tux my father was wearing in your version of the picture? It was a rental that he wore once, to his own wedding to my mother years before I was born. It also happens to be the only photo that even the best hacker would ever be able to find of him.”
Smoke turns and punches his fist through the drywall. I jump at the sound, my heart breaking for him over and over again. I’m in tears as I watch him crumble before me. My chest swells with both love and despair. “All this time. All this motherfucking time! I’m gonna rip his goddamned head off!”
“Smoke!” I yell, frantically trying to get his attention.
He looks at me, but he’s not seeing me. He punches the concrete wall over and over again. His knuckles are bloodied. His arms drip with red. The skin torn but he keeps going and going.
“Stop!” I yell.
“Why?” he grinds.
“Because we need a plan,” I say, not backing down. “What happens now?”
Smoke closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again, he’s refocused. He smirks and lights a cigarette. “Now?” he chuckles wickedly. “Now, Griff and everyone he’s ever known and loved dies.”
“Smoke look at me, look at me!” I yell, getting in his face. Needing him to see me. To hear me.
He looks over my head, but I pull his face down and press my nose to his. “Smoke, calm down.”
“There’s nothing anyone can do or say to get me to calm down now.”
I step back, rip off my shirt and shove my shorts to my feet.
“That’s not a fucking good idea right now, Frankie,” Smoke warns.
“I’m a big girl. I can take it.” I step closer, pressing my body to his. He needs to feel our connection. I know sex won’t make the anger go away, but it could take it down a notch.
“Frankie,” he warns. His pupils dilate. His nostrils flare.
All I know is that I feel an overwhelming need to lift off some of the rage weighing on him so heavily, and I’ll gladly use my body to do it. I need to ground him to me. “Well, someone once told me I was dumb. Seems fitting don’t you think?”
Smoke
My hellion. My ballsy fucking hellion.
Frankie has taken away my revenge then handed it back to me all in a matter of minutes. I’m a disaster. A swirling fucking hurricane about to unleash on everyone in my path and right now it’s Frankie who’s foolishly standing in the way.
There’s no turning back. No going back to pretending that I don’t want this girl more than my next fucking breath. I don’t want to be careful with her. She’s not going to break although the thought of breaking her, breaking her IN, makes me salivate.
“I’m not going to be gentle. I don’t think I can be,” I rasp, pulling her slender body to mine. I place my hand at the delicate curve of her hip and splay my fingers out on the pert top of her high round ass. I dig my fingers into her flesh, and her mouth opens and her eyes close. “Not now. Not after what you just showed me.
Frankie doesn’t say anything. Instead, she presses her lips to my neck.
My little fucking manipulator.
“Look at me,” I demand, needing to see her face.
Frankie opens her eyes and blinks rapidly. She looks deeply into my eyes and shakes her head from side to side. “I don’t want gentle. I just want you,” she whispers. “All of you.”
I growl, and then my lips are on her. She wants all of me, so I give myself to her. All six foot three of barren soul and misguided morals. All of my broken, black heart.
All of the nothing I am is now hers.
She’s my victim, and I’m her tormentor.
She’s my prey, and I’m the predator.
She is mine to do with as I please.
And what I please right now is to make her come. Make her scream my name. Make her feel every inch of my desire for her and show her she’s always belonged to me.
I want to see her tears of pleasure. I want to hear her screams of pain. I want her moaning my name.
I want it all.
I have it all, and right now there’s no going back. I’m going to take it. Take HER.
Because she's mine.
* * *
There’sa tug of war going on between us, and I’m losing my grip on the rope.
I’ve been at the wrong end of a gun, but this? This…whatever it is between us? That’s new for me and far more frightening than a bullet to the fucking head.
But what’s even more terrifying?
Not acting on it.
Not feeling her skin on mine.
Not plundering her body like the half-starved man I am. Starving for her. All of her.
It’s like my body is no longer my own when I take her hand and pull her to me. When I press my lips to hers. When I peel off her clothes, lay her down like she’s mor
e precious than a ten-pound diamond. She’s the sky, and I’m the wind. We’re a matching set.
We fucking belong together.
I’m tired of fighting it. Tired of being alone. Tired of not getting the revenge I crave. Tired of not being inside of her again.
I’m. Just. Fucking. Tired.
Yet looking at her beneath me on the cement floor of the basement with her father’s frozen corpse only a few feet away, I feel a new energy coursing through my veins, and I know that energy is courtesy of Frankie.
I fuck her hard. With my entire being, I fuck her. The pleasure is enormous, and it’s not just in my cock; it’s everywhere. It’s not knowing where I end and she begins. It’s some otherworld shit I never thought could exist.
Everything with Frankie is new.
Fucking is new. Kissing is new. This feeling in my gut like I could break her in half and break me along with her is new.
It’s because I fucking love her.
The very thing I thought I was incapable of has been given to me by this girl. A gift I won’t ever be able to repay.
I thank her for it. Not with my words, but with my body. I thank her in every way I can. Fast. Pounding hard. I make sure she understands the depth of my gratitude before sending her soaring into an orgasm that has her digging her heels into my lower back and screaming my goddamned name.
In the end, I’ll have both Frankie and my revenge.
Chapter Forty-Four
Before I shut down ‘the monster’I send an untraceable message to Nine and hope he understands what I’m asking him for.
“Aren’t you going to send the text to Griff?” I ask Smoke as we ascend the stairs. It’s already light out. We’ve been in the basement all night.
Smoke tucks the phone in his pocket. “Not just yet. We’ve got a little time. I’ll send it later. Griff can wait to find out Frank’s dead while I decide how to go about killing him.”
“I don’t suppose you’re hungry,” I say.
Neither of us has eaten since the day before.
“Fucking ravenous,” Smoke rubs his stomach, his abs flexing under the thin material of his t-shirt.
I lead him to the kitchen and find dried pasta and a jar of marinara in the pantry. I take some ground sausage from the freezer, which thankfully was still frozen even with the power off, which means it must not have been off that long. I defrost it in the microwave.
Smoke watches me as I brown the meat and add it to the sauce to simmer. When I’m done and set the plate in front of him, he leans in and smells the food like it’s something to be savored. “It’s not much, but it’s all I could manage with what’s here,” I explain.
Smoke digs in like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted, and something about that makes my heart flutter. He moans in pleasure while he chews, and I lean forward on the counter to hide my hardened nipples.
“By far, the best I’ve ever fucking had.” Smoke says, but he’s not looking at the food.
He’s looking at me.
I blush, then feeling uncomfortable under his unyielding gaze, I go back to my own food and change the subject. “I’m sure there are plenty of other women out there who’ve made you better food than this.” I stab at a rigatoni and pop it into my mouth.
It is good. But as I suspected, it’s not great by any means.
Smoke’s answer surprises me. “I’ve never had anyone cook for me before, besides Zelda.”
There are wounds peppered in his voice. A vulnerability in his eyes. It makes me want to take care of him. Cook for him something better than dried pasta and canned sauce.
“I’ve never had anyone cook for me either,” I confess. “At least, I don’t think. I don’t remember much about my mom. I was too young when she passed so I’m not sure how she was in the kitchen. And well, my Dad, you know that story now.”
Smoke’s hand slides across the table and briefly covers mine. He squeezes my hand then slides it back and returns his concentration to his food as if nothing had happened.
As if he hadn’t just wrecked my entire world with one fucking touch.
Chapter Forty-Five
Smoke’s upstairsin the shower.
I’m in the kitchen having stayed behind to wash the couple of dishes and throw away anything in the fridge that could be rotting. I open the refrigerator and realize my concern was pointless.
“Can beer go bad?” I mutter to myself, grabbing a bottle from the six-pack, popping the top off against the edge of the counter. I take a sip. It’s not super fresh, but it’s not completely skunked either. I shrug and take another sip before setting the bottle down next to the sink.
I turn the radio on and grab a sponge to scrub out the dried marinara sauce from the bottom of the pot. I’m singing along to “Stupid Girl” by Garbage when a hand covers my mouth from behind, muffling my scream. I drop the pot into the sink, water spills over the edge onto my feet.
“Shhhhhh, Sarah, it’s me. It’s Duke. Don’t scream.” Duke releases my mouth and spins me around.
I’m breathing hard. I lower the ladle poised above my head in strike position. “What are you doing here?” I whisper, glancing up the stairs. I can still hear the water running from the bathroom.
“I was delivering groceries next door, and I saw you through the curtains. I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay. I haven’t seen you in school. Not since the day the cop dragged you out. What was that all about, anyway?”
“This isn’t the time or the place for that story,” I say, “You’ve gotta go.” I shove him toward the door then stop. “How did