Fallen (6 page)

I start off slow. She’s so wet now, and she tastes fucking incredible. I groan, trailing my tongue over her pussy, around her clit, circling and flicking the tip over her so that she starts to tremble. She’s already good and ready, but I give her a minute to settle in before I press the narrowest end of the vibrator against her pussy. This isn’t your average vibrator, though. It’s a tens vibrator—the kind that not only vibrates but produces an electrical charge. I’ve got it on the lowest setting to start with, but it won’t be staying there for long.

Sloane rocks her hips against my mouth, moaning under her breath, and I slide the thing inside her, slowly, waiting for her to tense. She does stiffen slightly, but then a low groan emanates from the back of her throat and her body arches toward the ceiling—
yeah that’s what I thought.

I want to fuck this girl so bad. I want to tie her up and tear into her so fucking hard that she can’t walk straight for a week, but it’s just not on the cards. More’s the pity. I can’t carry on without something, though. Something to quench this fire raging inside me. There’s only one thing that can immediately do that.

I’m quick when I find the knife in the duffel. It’s out and the business end is gripped in my fist before Sloane has chance to check out what I’m doing. Her head kicks back straight away when I start flicking my tongue over her clit again. Her breath starts to come in stuttering gasps now. I want to taste her. I want to taste her as she comes all over my tongue, and I want it now. I put down the knife long enough to crank the setting on the tens vibrator, turning it up to the next level. Sloane’s legs kick out straight, and she lets out a startled cry. “You got this,” I growl. “You can take it.”

And she can. She does. My balls are drawn up and tight next to my body, furiously demanding that I do something to release the tension I’m almost crushed under right now, but I put that out of my mind. This is her. This is just for her.

“Come for me, angry girl,” I tell her. “Do it for me.
Now.
Don’t make me fucking wait.”

As soon as the words have left my mouth, she’s obliging my request. I get what I want, and at the same time I tighten my fist around the blade of the knife, feeling something as powerful and intense right along side her.

And then Sloane does something that makes the feeling transform into something else entirely. She screams as she comes, but she doesn’t scream for god, or
fuck
like most people might. She doesn’t scream that.

She screams
my fucking name
.

I let go of the knife and hiss a little at the release of pressure. The cut in the center of my palm’s pretty deep, but I’m not gonna hang around to investigate it right now. We’re down to our last minute before Lacey starts leaning on the car horn. Plus, I don’t know why but Sloane calling out for me has made me want to completely forget the timeframe I gave Lacey and stay here with Sloane all fucking night. Make her call out for me again.

I get to my feet and Sloane remains on the floor, naked, in a tangle of arms and legs. She looks like she can barely move. Her eyes seem glazed, as though she can barely see. I feel an immense surge of pride. Yeah. I make that puddle of a human being. I place the vibrator back in the bag, along with Sloane’s panties—I said I was going to keep them—and she raises an eyebrow at me. She doesn’t object, though.

“You’d better hurry,” she says, her eyes focusing on me. I love that she doesn’t cover herself up from me; I love that we’re past that.

“Don’t worry. I’m gone,” I growl. I clench my fist into a ball, letting the pain rattle through my nerve endings. Enjoying it. I feel like telling her I’ll see her later, but Sloane doesn’t know she’ll be calling tonight and asking me to get her, so I don’t say that. Instead, I say, “Where’d you learned to clear a building like that?”

She laughs, closing her eyes. “Where d’you think? Call of Duty.”

Ha! This girl is one of a kind. I let out a sharp laugh, and then I turn and I go. My hard-on is causing me some serious fucking grief as I walk away from Sloane’s naked, perfect fucking body. It’s killing me, but when you’re out of time, you’re out of time. Besides, being denied the opportunity to sink your dick into a girl like Sloane can only make the waiting sweeter. She’s a girl worth waiting for. I mean, come on. Call of fucking Duty? I don’t know a single girl on the face of the planet who plays CoD. That last little tidbit has me entertained right up until I get outside the house and I see that Lacey is pulling a sour face at me out of her window.

“You’re nineteen seconds late,” she informs me, as I get in the car. Despite the front seat now being vacant, Lacey’s remained in the back as always. “You’ve never been late.”

“I’ve been late plenty of times, Lace.” I turn the engine over, pulling in a sharp breath when I forget all about my hand, which is bleeding copiously everywhere, and I try to grip onto the steering wheel. Looks like I’ll be one-handing it back to the warehouse.

I know Lacey notices that I’m bleeding; she notices everything, but she doesn’t say anything. Not until she comes out with this little gem.

“You are so in love with that girl.”

I glance at her in the rearview, intending on sending her the most hateful look ever concocted by a man, but instead I catch sight of Sloane’s house disappearing into the trees behind us. My stomach twists a little as it vanishes from sight.

“I don’t love her,” I say. “I don’t love anyone.”

Lacey makes a soft sound of laughter over my shoulder. “Of course you do. You love me. And now you love Sloane, too.” She sighs softly, finishing her outrageous statement with a few distracted words that make my head spin. “You see, once you open up your heart to
one
person, Zeth…it’s so much easier for others to slip in unnoticed, too.”

There’s a note taped to the warehouse entrance when we get home.

The prodigal son returneth. Come by whenever you’re ready. We’ll kill the fatted calf.

C.

I have no idea how Charlie knows I’m back already, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide it. The bastard never showed an interest in where I was living once I moved out of his place twelve years ago, but if he’s been fucking spying on me then it’s reasonable to assume he’s known about the warehouse for a long time. Years, I’m sure. I rip the note from the door and go inside, fuming.

Come by whenever you’re ready.
Yeah, right. That’s clearly an invitation. Charlie letting me know he’s ready and waiting for me. Well, guess what, asshole? You won’t be ready for what I’m fucking bringing.

I throw down my duffel and the bag I’ve brought in for Lace, and then I start stalking around the warehouse, calculating. I don’t realize the note is still screwed up in my hand until Lacey takes it from me. She carries it to the sofa, where she wraps herself up in her favorite blanket, and then she reads it.

“Do you know about the prodigal son?” she asks.

“Yes.” I keep stomping. Fucking prodigal son. Charlie thinks he’s so fucking smart, quoting bible references at me. He knows it’s a reference I’ll easily understand, too. The Duchess, his partner, always was quietly strong in her faith. Catholic. She read from the bible to me every night when I first went to live with them as a snot-nosed kid. She did it for years, regardless of whether I wanted her to or not.

“Charlie thinks you’ve taken something from him.” Lacey tells me. “Something that requires forgiveness.”

“What?”

She nods her head, golden curls bobbing around her face. “Yep. Sloane’s father explained it to me on the drive back from church camp. The prodigal son—he demanded his inheritance from his father before he was even dead. That was really rude, even back then. He took a third of everything his father had, and his father gave it willingly. The son went away and wasted everything his father had given him, and eventually he found himself starving and alone. He decided to go back home and to beg that his father allow him to be one of his servants. For his father to take pity on him. Instead of his dad being mad at him, he forgave his son and welcomed him home. There was a huge celebration and the prodigal son was given all these fancy clothes to wear. He was reinstated back to his original position as a son of the household.” Lacey carefully folds the piece of paper, blotting out Charlie’s handwritten scrawl. She looks up at me. “Charlie thinks you’ve asked for too much, and now he’s letting you know…if you come home and say you’re sorry, all will be forgotten.”

I just stare blankly at Lacey. When the hell did she get so goddamn smart? I wouldn’t have expected her to read that much into the note, even though it’s exactly what Charlie intended his brief message to convey. That parable is a metaphor for God’s unceasing forgiveness of the repentant soul. Only Charlie would be vain enough to cast himself as the character of the father in this story. Asshole. And there’s no way I’ll be given any fancy fucking clothes to wear if I go back to Charlie’s place when he’s expecting me. I have my throat cut for me and make no mistake.

“Are you a member of Pastor Romera’s flock now?” I ask, returning to my pacing.

Lacey slumps back into the sofa, rolling her eyes. “He’s a nice man.”

“He didn’t care that we’d found his daughter.” A fact that still strikes me as extremely fucking suspicious. I didn’t say anything to Sloane, but that shit was cold.

Lacey shrugs, picking up the TV remote. “I think he cared. He just couldn’t show it.”

******

Eleven fucking thirty. Eleven thirty at night, and Sloane still hasn't text for a pick up. The girl either has stones of steel, or she's prouder than anyone I've ever met on the face of the planet. Knowing her, I'm plumping for the stones of steel option—she was ridiculously, stupidly brave back at Julio's—but that doesn't stop me from pacing the warehouse, picking up random bits of Lacey's crap and putting them back down in pretty much the same place a few minutes later.

“Are you supposed to be tidying?” Lacey asks. She's still perched in front of the TV, tapping her fingertips against her knees—index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinkie. Pinkie, ring finger, middle finger, index finger. Wash and repeat. It's one of her things. This is the first time I've seen it in a while, though. The coping mechanism is an absentminded thing she does when she's already relatively calm. The coping mechanisms she had in rotation before I fled to California were the more drastic ones she employs when she isn't relatively calm at all—the ones that involve pills and razor blades.

"I can't help it if your shit is everywhere," I growl. It really is; Lacey's not the tidiest person I've ever met, but right now the warehouse looks like a bomb's just gone off inside it. That has a lot to do with the fact that she trashed it when she slit her wrists a couple of weeks back and I haven't been here to let a cleaning crew in. Letting strangers into my home is not a wise idea with Charlie on the rampage. I wouldn’t be surprised if that fucker’s already been in here, tossing the place, looking for a hint as to where I vanished for a week. Hard to know for sure with all the junk everywhere.

“You should wear an apron. Would suit you,” Lacey says, still tap, tap, tapping. She flicks over the channel as I gather up a huge pile of her clothes and dump them right on top of her where she sits on the couch. Right over her head. “Hey!”

“You have a bedroom, Lacey. And a wardrobe. And a bunch of other furniture used to house clothing. Use it. Use them. Don’t use the fucking floor.”

I’m in a foul mood. First Charlie’s pointed little dig, and now this. She should have text by now. She should have called me, even, begging for me to go collect her. So I can keep her safe. And yet the stubborn woman hasn’t made a squeak. Lacey burrows out of her clothes, throwing a pair of paint-stained jeans at me.

“I’ll tidy up my shit, Zeth, when you tidy up yours!”

I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about now; I lived like a goddamn monk before she showed up. Didn’t even own the TV. I had enough furnishings to make sure I had somewhere to keep my stash of aged whiskey and I had somewhere to sit and drink it, and that was about it. Suited me just fine. I indulge Lacey, though.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” she says, wrestling her way off the couch, snatching up her stuff as she goes. “That you should just quit pacing around this place and go and fucking get her! And after that, you should get an early night and not keep me awake with all your freaky sex noise. I have an appointment in the morning and you”—she stabs me in the chest with her index finger— “need to drive me.”

“What kind of appointment?” I already know what kind of appointment. I know exactly what kind—the only kind Lacey has ever had in the six months she’s been squatting like a vagrant in my living space. The kind that involves that Newan bitch.

“Don’t play dumb, buster,” Lace growls. She’s hilarious when she tries to act tough, but I approve of the attempt. It’s way better than when she locks herself in her room and stays so quiet that I think she might actually, really be dead. “It’s at ten am. I already got Sloane to make an appointment.”