Come To Me (Owned Book 3) (25 page)

“If I hadn’t done it you would all be dead.” The words were starting to feel like my religion. And I hated religion.

“You could have told me!” Lenny yelled, rounding on me. “You could have let me know instead of…instead of…” Her chest started to rise and fall and she sat down. I went to her but she smacked me away.

“What am I supposed to do now? Pretend you’re dead even though I’ve seen you, heart beating and all?”

“Well, Grace and Eli know, so that should make—”

“Grace knows?” Lenny cut me off. “You told Grace before me?”

“I didn’t tell Grace,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “She found me. What was I supposed to do, pretend I was the ghost of Marley or some shit?”

“No,” Lenny said, her voice a dangerously low decibel. “You do not get to talk to me that way. I just found out you have been lying about your death and who the fuck knows what else. I get to be angry. You don’t get to be anything but contrite.”

I exhaled, running a hand through my hair. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Folding her arms, Lennox regarded me. “How the fuck did Grace find you? Aren’t you supposed to be in hiding?”

“I was in your—her room, watching you sleep.”

After a few moments, Lennox responded, “That’s a little creepy.”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t stay away.” I gently tugged her chin to mine. “You’re mine, Lenny. You’ll always be mine.” Her eyes crinkled. Pain, longing, confusion, a mirage of emotions flitted across her face. I wanted—no, I was compelled to erase every negative one.

I was back now. I could cure her of the pain I’d caused. As I leaned in to capture the lips that had already captured me, I knew my motives went beyond selfless amelioration. Her pouty lower lip beckoned for me. I’d watched Lenny for weeks as if locked in my own personal hell.

I needed her. She was my lifeblood.

L
enny backed away, nearly running into a pile of trash. “No! I’m not doing this. I’m not kissing my dead boyfriend in an alley.”

“I’m not dead,” I reminded her.

“Semantics,” she hissed. I came up behind her and slowly trailed my fingers down her front, resting my palm just below her belly.

“I’ve missed this,” I whispered, taking her ear gently between my lips.

“
You’ve
missed this?” Lenny spun out, furious, but I held on to her wrist gently. Her eyes were red with unshed tears. “You don’t
get
to miss this. You’ve been alive and watching me.
I’m
the one who’s been missing you.”

“I never thought I’d get to be with you again, Lenny. For all intents and purposes, I was dead.”

Lenny jerked on her wrist. “Let me go.”

“Never.” I yanked at her, pulling her back to me. “Do you have any idea what I’ve wanted to do to you?”

“No, because I’m not a fucking psychic. I can’t commune with the dead.” She jerked her head away, the motion whipping her hair across my face. I tugged her back, snaking my fingers into the red hair I’d been using as a beacon for weeks. It was smooth as silk and thick between my fingers.

“I’ve dreamt of feeling you against me. Of having you pressed against my body once more. Even if only for a few moments.” Lenny didn’t say a word, but I could feel the blood rushing through her body. As I moved my other hand against the skin of her throat, her heartbeat was a drum against my fingers. She still hid her face from me and her body was coiled tight.

“Lenny you were my north star. Through all of this, you guided me.”

She whipped her head back again and I could see the tears undulating on the surface of her lids. “That’s not fair.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.” I dragged her back across the alley until my back hit the wall.

“You don’t get to die. You don’t get to disappear and shatter me to pieces and then…and then…” I wiped the stray tear off her cheek. She slapped my hand away and yanked herself free. I pushed her back, rushing until she met the opposite wall. Then I pinned her.

“I wanted this to be gentle,” I said to her back, then spun her around.

Lenny laughed. “We aren’t gentle. We’re nuclear. We aren’t roses and lilting music. We’re broken bones and graveyards.”

“Every day I’ve been gone I’ve thought about you.” Our gazes were pinned but her eyelids were drooping, and despite the fact that her lips were currently ripping me apart, she licked them.

“Me too.” She glared at me, but I could see beyond that glare to the lust she was trying to hide. “The only difference is I never once dreamed you could come back.”

“Well, I did.” I crushed my mouth against hers. She fought, but I’d expected that. I pressed her harder against the bricks and parted her leg with my knee.

I undid my belt and she said, “Since when the fuck do you wear belts?”

“Since I can fucking do this.” I wrapped the belt around her wrists and then held the leather up, forcing her arms above her head. With my lips on her neck, I made her succumb to me. I ripped the moan out of her body the same way she’d ripped into me. I knew the love she felt for me wasn’t gone, it was simply buried. She’d had to bury my body, and in order to survive, she’d buried our love with it.

Well, I was back now. I wasn’t going to leave again. I would stay. I would fight to make her feel safe for the rest of our lives. I was going to prove that to her day in and day out, starting right now, in this fucking alley.

Letting the leather slip between my fingers, I fell to the ground.

Fuck me.

She was wearing a skirt. I pushed the material up until it bunched around her hips. Nothing but a small scrap of fabric separated me and her taunting, lovely, fucking maddening, cunt.

I slid it to the side, exposing her. I blew a slight breath and watched as her skin rose to meet my whispers. She whimpered and her arms, still tied, fell to my shoulder. I gripped her with one arm, keeping her steady, because you could bet what I was about to do would rock her.

Taking my time, I placed a long, leisurely lick from the bottom of her slit to the top. God, she had the most perfect cunt. It separated as if Moses himself was there, parting to let me taste how ready she was for me.

I felt like a fucking monk the way I restrained myself in that alley. All I wanted to do was dive into her cunt, suck her in, and make her come until she screamed so loud people ran back thinking she was dying. There would be a death all right,
le petit mort
as the French called it. She was going to come so hard she joined me in the afterlife.

What? I’m not a poet, but I’m not a complete cultural dumbass. Anyway, back to Lenny’s cunt, because by the way her legs were clenching, and the way her eyes were fluttering, she needed something bad, and I was the one to give it to her. I placed an open-mouthed kiss, covering her entire pussy.

“Vic!” she cried, just as I tonguefucked her entrance. I gripped her ass tighter, forcing myself as deep as I could get, and Lenny obliged, wrapping her leg around my back. She was fucking my face in a fucking alley and it was perfect. It wouldn’t be much longer until she was coming—I could tell by the way her nails dug into my neck and the way her cunt quivered around my tongue, as if afraid I would leave. I’d never leave again.

When Lenny’s body calmed like leaves settling after the first autumn breeze, I placed one final kiss on her cunt. Then I tried to put her thong back in its place, but it was stretched and probably trashed. Lastly, I pulled her skirt back down and stood. Then I crushed her lips against my mouth, making sure to violate and tame her mouth in the exact fashion I had her cunt.

I pulled back, keeping her lip between my teeth. She blinked, eyelids heavy and eyes blurry. Fuck, I loved the way she looked when she was coming out of it. In a few seconds though, she was gonna look at me like I was the devil. I let go of her arms and…

“Fuck you!” She slammed her arms into my chest. I definitely deserved it, didn’t mean I wouldn’t go back in time and do it all over again.

“You taste just as good as I remember, Lenny,” I said, giving her a lazy grin.

“You’re just as much of an asshole and you’re never touching me again.” Lenny attempted to brush past me, but I grabbed her by the wrist. She looked down at my hand like it was a slug. I pulled her close to me and reached into her pocket, making sure to go extra slow so she could feel every finger. She shivered, and I smiled again.

I pulled her phone out and typed in my new digits.

“This is my new phone number. Call me whenever you need me, only you have the number.”

“Not even Grace?” she asked skeptically.

“Not even Grace.”

She shrugged me off and glared. “You should give it to her.”

“I’m dead, Lennox. I’m not available for dinner.”

“You just said you weren’t dead.”

I shrugged, and repeated what she’d said to me with a wink. “Semantics.”

H
ours later, I could still feel Lennox on my lips. I wasn’t ready to go back to the hotel I’d rented now that GEM and Alice were out of the picture, so I found myself walking through Santa Barbara, feeling instead that I was walking through memories.

I’d moved to Santa Barbara the month after Alice and I ended, wanting a fresh start. We’d been East Coast and cold, what was fresher than West Coast and warm? Truth was, I ended up doing the same thing just with a beach front view. Nothing between Alice and I changed. My job was the same. I was the same.

For years I lived with one foot in the grave, then Lennox showed up. She ruined everything, because she made me want to live. She lit me up inside out, and that light spread to every corner of my life. I looked at who I was and started to question it.

Stepping over a pile of sand, I stared out at the ocean.

On the days I thought on our beginning, I wondered if I was stupid or cocky. Probably a little bit of both. I’d never imagined I’d meet a girl like Lenny, that I’d be brought to my knees by one person. Up until her, the only person I’d ever shared more than a toothbrush with was Alice. I was naive, which in my business was unheard of. I was unprepared, but if you had tried to tell me that, I would have laughed in your face.

I was Vic Wall, after all—stoic, steely, always prepared, never flinching. I didn’t have thoughts that extended beyond the job. Then Lenny showed me the roses were red. Once I started to see in color, I had to know what I’d been missing—no matter the cost.

After a few months with Lenny I was borrowing company resources. I was exposing my safe-house for some kind of fucking romantic getaway. A few years in and I was up shit creek without a paddle, making mistakes the old me would have balked at.

And I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

“J
ust…start from the beginning.” Lenny wouldn’t look at me, but at least she was there, in my hotel room. Facing the window, she looked out at the blue expanse of the ocean. She hadn’t said a word since we fucked in that alley. There’d been no texts or calls, not even to call me an asshole.

I followed her everyday, still dead despite our sexual necromancy.

Then one day almost two weeks later, when her silence had me on the brink of insanity, she sent me a text. She wanted to meet up. Now in my hotel room, it had taken an hour for her to say those words. The clock had ticked by while she stood unmoving, unflinching. I’d been patient as I waited for her to speak, to revive me. She deserved that much.