Blood to Dust (29 page)

The bodies will be retrieved soon after dark falls.

“Why should I believe you?” Godfrey’s voice is dripping doubt. There’s shuffling over the line, presumably the sound of the men producing the chunk of Prescott’s hair which we plucked out of her skull—from the root, we simply had to—smeared in their own blood. And I know they must be showing him one of her stress balls and a slice of my black jeans. “We’ll go back up to Martinez and get the rest at night. We couldn’t do it in broad daylight.”

“My people will handle it,” God growls. “You better not be lying.”

More whimpers. “Godfrey, we’d never.”

“I know, because then you’d be dead.”

No, motherfucker. By the time you figure out we’re alive, they’ll have already packed up their shit and their loved ones and have run away from your claws, I think to myself.

The phone conversation doesn’t end until they crawl back to the hole where they came from, but I’m not worried about them coming back to warn Godfrey. He may be powerful, but not as powerful as their love for their families. We disconnect the phone call that had us sitting in thick silence for hours, our only form of communication was our eyes. The minute I click the line dead, Prescott turns to me, pink on her cheeks.

“I was going to tell you sooner,” she mumbles, staring at her hands resting on her thighs. “About being broke. What was I supposed to do? Let you hand me over to Godfrey?”

I shake my head. It’s not an answer, but it’s the only thing she’ll get right now.

I’m about to head into the bathroom to try and finish that shower I started a few hours ago. Prescott flings up to her feet, standing in front of me. I scan her, my lower lip pulling my upper one in frustration.

“You’re in my way.” I warn.

“Baby. . .” It’s the first time she’s called me that, and her hazels are two pools of misery. They beg me for something. I’m not sure what, but know that it’s already hers. “When this is all over, I’ll give you everything I’ve got left. I’ll walk out of this with nothing but my bag. I promise you, Nate. Just please forgive me. I can’t bear the thought of you hating me.”

That’s another problem I’ll have to deal with. I can’t let her walk away penniless. She’s a lone, beautiful girl in this dark world, and she’s as poor as my fucking social skills. She’ll have to pay her way through her next meal somehow.

I know exactly how.

And I’d never let it happen.

“Where the fuck did all your money go, huh?” I push her away, angry heat rolling from my body. “You sure as hell were able to afford a glitzy-ass apartment in Danville, and last time I checked, the crack business ain’t exactly in recession.” She looks away, embarrassed. Her eyes catch a glimpse of the outside through the filthy window, following the graceful movements of a tiny bird.

“Private investigators.” She swallows. “I wanted to find out what happened to my brother.”

“Goddamn,” I groan, rubbing my face with my palms.

“They all came back with the same conclusion, either he left the states or he’s dead.”

Whimper. Sniff. Less storm. More heartbreak.

I have to tell her.

“Look, I didn’t bring it up until now because I didn’t think it meant shit, but when I was working in Blackhawk, I bumped into your old man at a grocery store. He’s been telling people your brother went to college on the east coast.”

Her brows knit together. “My brother dropped out of high school,” she tells me, and I nod. That’s what Mrs. Hathaway said as well. There’s a second in which her eyes flicker with understanding, and she realizes what this means.

“He’s covering up something.” Her jaw clenches. I drop my forehead to meet her blonde little head. She knows the drill. Plot threads connect. Pieces fall together. He’s probably not alive, and if he is—he’s not well.

“Whatever happened to him, my father knows.”

I tug at her blonde locks softly, planting a kiss on her head. “What else did he say?”

I’m not going to tell her what he said about
her
. The way I hurt her. . .it’s different. I don’t want to break her, I don’t want to cut deep. I just want her body to feel what I feel when I see her come alive in my hands. No. Inflicting real pain on her, the kind that stays under your skin, is something I’m incapable of doing.

“Nothing,” I lie. “Overheard him making small talk with some dude in a bowtie.”

“Mr. Simpson,” she gasps. “How did he look? My dad?”

“Like a sack of shit who created something beautiful and doesn’t know how to take care of it.” Raw truth leaves my mouth. “Forget about him, Cockburn. He’s a nobody. But what else are you hiding, Pea? Godfrey said something about you having a kid.”

Her eyes narrow and she takes a step back. “I don’t.” She shakes her head, fighting more tears. “I don’t have a kid.”

“Another lie?” I tilt my head down, inspecting her. She’s hiding something.

“I swear, I’m not a mother,” she finishes quietly, looking away.

I make a move, resuming my quest for the shower, but her hand ghosts over my abs, stopping me. Then she goes and does something completely unreasonable.
She hugs me
. Straight up embraces me with both her arms. I don’t think I’ve been hugged in, well, ever? So I just stand, rooted to the ground, not sure what to do, my arms flailing at the side of my body. She squeezes harder, burying her face in my chest, the scent of her coconut shampoo drifting into my nose.

“I’m sorry. And I’d completely understand if you abandon ship. You have a fake passport, you have the Beatmobile. I’ll give you my money. All yours. Just please. . .forgive me. That was
before
.”

Before we found out we were more than just fugitives with the same hit list.

I peel her away from my body, keeping her a step away from me by holding her shoulders.

“You fucked up,” I grunt.

“I know,” she murmurs, but her chin is up, liquid fire in her eyes.
Still my fucking fighter, ready to break some bones
.

“But here’s the thing, Pea,” I rub her split lower lip, the one that keeps healing and breaking again and again, before I plant a kiss on the dry scab. “You’re a shit person. You’re a liar, a con and a witch. You’re a storm, and you want to hurt those who hurt you. You’re bad. And when you’re mad? You’re even worse. Capable of lying. Of deceiving. Even, I suspect, of killing. And I love you. I’m wholeheartedly, desperately, unapologetically in love with your sorry ass.”

Her mouth falls open, probably because I just made an already complex situation even more explosive, but I continue, undeterred. “You know why? Because you pulled laughter out of me like no one else has. You made me smile more in three weeks than I’ve smiled in my entire twenty-seven years. That’s enough payment, in my opinion.”

“You love me?” she whispers, pointing to herself, disbelief coloring every corner of her face. I nod once.

“I do. I love you.”
I love her
.

“Say it again.”

“I love you,” I say louder, understanding her need to hear it.

No mom. No dad. God knows where her brother is. She needs it. She’s getting it. I’m going to give her everything she wants before we say our goodbyes.

I erase the space I created between us—I hated it anyway. “I love a chick named Cockburn,” I admit, “and even more embarrassing, I love a girl named Prescott. I love you, Pea. I love you, Miss Burlington-Smyth. Who else?”

Her arms circle around my neck, our bodies sticking together. There’s that smile. That beautiful, confident smirk that even Sebastian couldn’t wipe off with his fists and pointy shoes. “I’m sure you can think of a few other things to call me. Words are your trade.”

“I love you, Hot Ass.” I grab her butt and crush it, until she flinches in pain, and release slowly, knowing that she clenches from the inside every time I hurt her. “I love everything about you. The sun-kissed freckles on your shoulders and your taste in books and music and the way you laugh, that angelic blonde hair, and the way you let me lick your crack when you know I’ve had a long, stressful day.”

She laughs, but her face coils in agony. We’re either not getting out of this shit alive, or if we do, we’re going our separate ways. I can’t stay in the states and she has nothing to do in Mexico. Besides, I know her by now. She’ll try and find her brother, dig until the truth hits her in her pretty face with a fucking shovel.

Her hands roam my chest and when she looks back up, her eyes are menacing.

“I miss the feeling of your cock filling every space in my body,” she admits.

“It misses you too,” I breathe, pulling her to the bed and yanking her into my lap. She sits on top of me like I’m Santa and she’s a shy kid, but my plans for her are the kind of shit children under eighteen aren’t supposed to see.

“Maybe it’s time him and I get together again. Release some of that tension. Tonight is a big night.” She wiggles her brows. I pat my junk.

“Show me what you’ve got.”

“Prepare to be amazed, Mr. Delaware.” Her husky voice trails downwards, kissing its way from my throat to my chest. She stops with her lips on my neck and pushes me back, until I’m lying down, then continues her journey south.

“Just don’t suck Delaware Jr. You’re terrible at giving head,” I warn when she unbuttons my jeans. Who am I shitting? I’m dying for those pinks to meet my dick again.

My jeans are tossed aside and she peppers my groin with wet, starving kisses, her eyes are closed, and she looks
pained
. Not the kind of pain I want her to be in; not the kind I can control.

I play with her hair, admiring the view under my chest. She doesn’t stop kissing the swollen flesh of my cock, dragging her tongue and treating it like a lollipop. This is actually pretty good.

“I love your monster cock,” she sighs and I groan, letting my head fall back to the flat pillow. Her hand snakes under me, and she caresses my asshole with one finger while massaging my balls with her thumb.
Fuck
.

“Actually, I love this whole area.”

“It thinks of you highly, too,” I reassure. Her mouth finds my balls. I’m so turned on I might blind her with a shot of cum. She spends a minute or so sucking on them, licking them slowly, tickling, creating tension that’s begging for release, before I yank her up and throw her aggressively, her back slamming into the mattress.

“I love it when you’re rough with me,” she continues, but I shut her up with a kiss. “It reminds me of Beat. That’s who I’d like to have sex with tonight.”

I throw my head back and laugh. I’ll humor her if she wants Beat. Hell, I kind of miss him too. He liberated me from a face that’s been a distraction and objectified me like I’m a fucking Playboy Bunny for years. I prop myself up on one elbow and send my arm to her backpack on the nightstand, pulling the mask out.

“You sure about that? Nate was in the mood for slow, fun sex. Beat’s an angry motherfucker.”

She nods. “He has good reasons to be. You don’t let him loose too often. Tell him I want him to destroy me.”

“Message received.”

I hear the snap of the rubber against my skull as I put the mask on and arrange it so my eyes meet hers through the tiny holes. She curls into herself, looking scared in the best possible way.

I roll on a condom with one hand and pull her hair to yank her up with the other. My voice, which is always dry and low but is somewhat forgiving when directed at Pea, looms into something beastly.

“You scared?”

“Yes,” she says breathlessly.

“Good. At least your instincts are still in check.”

I drag her by her hair until she falls on the floor, her knees hitting the wood with a loud thump. I stand above her, my erection in her face. She whimpers in pain, rubbing her injured legs and looking up at me for further instruction.

“Take off your dress.
Without
standing up.”

She worms out of it quickly, her eyes still trained on the floor, too scared to look up.

“Now crawl to the window and sit your naked ass on the sill. Facing
me
.”

She starts crawling seductively, rolling her hips, a glitter of wetness sparkling at me from between her thighs. Her pussy’s already peppered with some hair that’s grown back. I kick her ass with a growl. “Faster, Country Club. We got business to attend to.”

By the time she waits for me with her legs wide open, sitting on the windowsill, her naked body pressed against the glass, with everyone in the fucking neighborhood watching her milky white ass, I’m just about ready to burst. The pink of her pussy peeks at me demurely between her dark blonde patch. I stride, completely naked except for my mask, in her direction. Every step I take, she shrinks into a smaller version of herself. Petrified. I love that. I crack my neck and my fingers like I’m getting ready for a fight. When I’m inches from her, I stop.

“You really did a number on me, didn’t you, Silver Spoon?”

Her gaze travels up and her chin sticks out. “Please hurt me.”

I allow her a small moment of silence and anticipation—and then I do.

I slam my sheathed cock between her thighs, finally feeling home again, and slap her ass with a whip that sounds like a scream.

Time.

I wish it’d freeze right now so I could have her this way forever. Nothing in the world will ever live up to this moment. I fuck her against the window and peek through the curtain of her soft hair as she moans Beat’s name again and again and again, digging my dirty fingers into her ass. There’s a small crowd forming under our window, a few Mexican men back from their day of work and two black teenagers. One of them sticks his hand inside his pants when he catches a glimpse of my girl rolling her head sideways, exposing those full pink lips and long lashes behind her long pale hair. With every thrust she bangs against the window, her silky flesh pressing against it for all to see and admire.

“Beat,” she wails, touching the mask, and I feel my cum making its way to the tip of my dick. I swat her hands away and use the base of my palm to bang her head against the window as a warning. “No touching.”

“But, Beat,” she sighs again, a little frustrated, her pussy clenching around me in a death grip. She’s about to explode on my cock. Pea thrashes and bucks, rolling her hips frantically, her inner thighs soaking and dripping with her want for whatever form of me she’s calling to. Neither of us answer.