Smoke & Metal (New York Crime Kings Book 3) (4 page)

Recovery

Jai

Steam billows from the unclosed bathroom door, followed by a womanly sigh. I smile. I don’t think she’s ever stayed in a room that has a bathroom connected to it before. I glance down at the handgun I’m carrying and swiftly tuck it into the back of my towel.

After I’d showered and thrown my clothes in the washing machine, Emily called out for me. Over a roaring shower and through foggy glass, she told me her bathroom didn’t have any towels. So, holding my own damp towel around my hips, I rushed down stairs to the towel cupboard to get her one…and that’s where I found the guns. I pulled on a floral towel wedged at the bottom of the stack. When I finally got it free, my elbow snapped back, hitting the side wall of the cupboard. Aside from the obvious large crack I noticed the wall was hollow. Sure enough, I pulled open the panel and there they were—two handguns, a shotgun and a rifle. Most people would cower at the sight of the aggressive hunks of metal, but I revel in it. It’s a welcome discovery considering our situation.

I tuck the handgun further under my towel until the cool handle is the only part of it touching my lower back. Since there’s no telling how long we’re going to go undiscovered here it’s a good idea to stay vigilant—even if that means carrying a gun while wearing nothing but a towel.

I push open the bathroom door and step inside. The hot, wet steam envelops my body and clings to my skin.

“Here’s your towel.” I call out. “Do you need body wash? Shampoo?”

“No. I found some under the sink.”

I turn and head for the door.

“Wait.”

My stomach does a barrel roll. Stopping, I look over my shoulder. Her hand rubs at the glass, exposing her pink face and slicked hair. Most of it sticks to her skull, but the thinnest strand of it is caught on her cheekbone.

“Are you going to sleep?”

Unintentionally, my eyebrows furrow. “That’s the plan.”

“Alone? In your own room?”

I nod.

Alone.

In my own room
.

It almost sounds intimidating like that…has a few weeks really made us that dependent on each other? Like young children attached to their mother?

“I’ll be in the room downstairs, by the front door…if you need me.”

Emily glances down—a shy movement I’ve never seen her do before. A second later, the glass in front of her face becomes unclear once more. The only thing still visible is the pink in her skin. Her eyes are on me, I can feel them, but she doesn’t speak…

So I leave.

I want to stay. I want to ask her what she wants…but I don’t.

Because I’m a pussy.

Because the thought of hearing her tell me she wants me to share a bed with her absolutely terrifies me. It makes it real. It was one thing being stuck in a tiny hole in a wall with her. We had no choice outside of each other for company. It’s another thing entirely to do the same out here in the real world. If we start something, how does it end? Would it end? I don’t know how to answer that. One thing I know for certain is; the possible romantic relationship budding between Kitten and me is a bad idea and for three major reasons. One: distractions in this revenge business are fucking dangerous. Two: how can I save my brother when my brain and my heart are focused on keeping her safe too? I don’t have the strength to keep two people alive. Three: I’ve never invested myself in another human being romantically before—and it’s not because I don’t want. I do…I’ve just never felt a connection on a level that runs deeper than the physical aspect of a relationship.

Only one girl has caused fire to flow in place of my blood and my bones to ache under my skin.

And she’s showering upstairs.
Alone
.

I drag my feet over the beige runner in the hall, ten feet away from my room. When I get there, I grip the metal door knob in my hand, turn it, and push it open. It’s empty, void of any other furnishings except a double bed and a wooden night stand. I crinkle my nose as a distinct storage smell tickles my nostrils. It smells nothing like the sweet berry and clean flesh that fills Kitten’s room.

I force out a heavy exhale and, with heavy feet, I carry myself over to the blanket-less bed. I’ve spent so long sleeping with her on me or next to me, do I even know how to sleep by myself anymore?

I pull my gun from my towel and sit it on the wooden bedside table. On the surface is a red wine stain from the bottom of a glass.

Exhaustedly, I run my hands over my face and drop onto the bed.

I hate it.

It’s too soft, too empty.

“Fuck.” I swear under my breath.

Am I too tired? My chest tightens, squeezing me with its anger.
I want to sleep!
Is that so fucking hard? I push myself back onto my feet and storm from the room.

“Unh.” I run into Emily with a grunt in the hall.

Clenching her towel hard against her chest, Emily gasps and I take a step back.

“Jesus. You scared me.” She says, her voice soft underneath her heavy breathing.

“Sorry.”

I rake my fingers through my hair as her large, doe eyes divert from my face and scan awkwardly over the old photographs in the hallway. Diamond-like drops of water fall from the tips of her hair and roll down her milky, porcelain skin before disappearing between her breasts. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d moisten my suddenly dry mouth by collecting the drops off her wet skin with my tongue. Fuck yes I would. She looks different—almost an entirely different person. In this light, I see a sparse spattering of light, caramel freckles over her cheeks and golden flecks of light floating in her chocolate eyes. They’re mesmerizing.

“Don’t like your room?” I ask.

I know. I want to kick my own ass.

Her bright brown irises meet mine. “I like it just fine…”

“But?”

Say it. Say it so I don’t have to.

“But there’s something missing.”

I open my mouth, but Kitten cuts me off in a flurry of embarrassment. A pink hue spreads from her wet chest, up her neck and nestles in her cheeks.

“I’m sorry. This is stupid. I’m a grown woman…I should be able to sleep on my own.”

She goes to turn away from me, but I snatch her wrist before she’s able to complete the turn and take a single step away. I don’t like her far…I like her close. Close enough to smell. Close enough to touch.

The tips of her ears are red too, a testament to just how embarrassed she feels.

“You want to sleep with me?”

Her brown eyes meet mine. Uncertainty is there. Fear is there. There’s also a flood of relief. Why are the two of us acting like dependent children? I have no fucking idea.

“Just this once.” She states, a blatant lie falling from her tongue.

A beautiful, enticing lie.
Just this once
. How can I dispute that? I want it too. I’m dead tired, but I know I won’t sleep peacefully alone.

Turning on my heel, I pull her into the bedroom and over to the bed. Choosing the left side, Emily clenches her towel to her body and climbs onto the bed. As I sit down, she digs her knees into the mattress.

“Ugh. It’s so soft.” In unison, our exhausted voices tangle, her light tenor complementing my deep.

“Who would’ve thought you’d miss lying on those uncomfortable mesh cots, huh?” I say.

Kitten smiles before dropping her head against the pillow, the side of her body resting flush against the mattress. She tucks her hand under her cheek and suddenly, the bed looks like it’s the most comfortable bed in the world. Her face, beautiful deep brown eyes, and the sweet, subtle curve to her lips could sell a mattress with busted springs to the person who threw it away in the first place. If I wasn’t so tired…the things I would do…

But I am tired and this isn’t peacetime. I need to be alert—as alert as humanly possible. Our lives depend on it.

Lying down on my back, I tuck one arm under my head and let the other fall to my side. Without prompting, my heavy eyelids drop shut and the last thing I feel before a black oblivion claims me are warm, soft fingertips as they glide down the inside of my wrist and into the palm of my hand.

***

“Aaaahh!”

Panic electrocutes my system, jolting me awake.
What the fuck?
I barely have time to register if my eyes are open before I reach for my gun and dart out of bed. With an outstretched arm and a twitch in my trigger finger, I check all corners of the room with the point of my gun. It’s as empty as it was when we fell asleep. I look for Kitten and find her wide eyed and worried, clenching her heaving chest sitting in a heap on the floor.

“What is it?” I pant. “What’s wrong?”

It’s dark—eight o’clock maybe. If it weren’t for the light of the moon filtering in through the window I wouldn’t be able to see a thing.

“Uh,” She swallows hard as her body quakes with an obvious shiver. “A spider. It ran across my shoulder.”

She rakes five anxious fingers through her hair and I lower the gun. Guns make her nervous. Guns make most people nervous. Not me. If a fair chunk of time passes by and I haven’t fired a gun, I get withdrawals. I need to hold a gun. I need to feel the weight in my palm and the metal against my skin. The way the air smells after a gun has been fired and the way it vibrates through my flesh, turning my blood into hundreds of tiny ripples. Yeah, there’s nothing like it.

“A spider?” I repeat, unconvinced.

She nods quickly and with a hard swallow. “I’m gonna get dressed. Maybe get some air.”

Emily is pale, paler than she’s supposed to be, and I’ll bet my life savings that it wasn’t a spider. I’ve seen where she lives. I’m sure a spider isn’t a freak occurrence.

Gathering her towel around her body, she leaves room.

The Dock

Emily

With a shiver I pull the blue knitted blanket I found on the couch around my shoulders and sit down on the edge of the dock. As soon as I stepped out into the freezing night air I realized it was way too cold to be out of the house—and especially too cold to be sitting over the water on a rickety old dock—but it’s the only place I can get maximum fresh, crisp, clean, cold air on my face.

I lied earlier. A spider never ran over my shoulder and I think Jai knows it. What kind of grown woman has nightmares? What adult wakes up screaming? As soon as I saw the panic on Jai’s face when he sprung out of bed and watched it morph into confusion when he realized nothing was happening, I knew I had to lie to him. I don’t want him to see me as weak…I don’t want him to see me as someone he has to protect. I know I’ve seen some shit. I’ve seen throats spill blood as they were sliced open and I’ve seen bodies get absolutely pummeled. I’ve smelt death…I’ve touched it.

Skull.

Every time I close my eyes I see that skull tattooed so menacingly into his face. In my dreams I feel his murderous hands on me, grabbing and squeezing whatever they want, and I smell his expensive cologne, mixed with the musky scents of mold, rust and blood. If he finds us…what will he do? If, by some miracle, he has kept Jai’s brother alive what has he been doing to him this whole time?

“Emily?”

I gasp as my heart jumps into my throat. Somehow, I manage to keep it down. Internal actions are easy to hide, but my external ones betray me.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” Jai’s voice echoes over the still water.

“You didn’t scare me.” I state, ashamed of the defensive tone my voice takes on.

“All right.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see his bare feet as he stops beside me. His calf muscle tremors and I follow it up his leg until it disappears under his now dry and clean shorts. A second later, it hits his spine and his whole body jolts with a shiver.

“You want in?” I ask, opening my blanket with a sniffle as the cold makes my nose run.

“I was kinda hoping you weren’t planning on staying out here too long and we can go back to bed.”

I smirk. Bed sounds nice and snuggling sounds better, but there’s no way I’m going back to sleep—not after sleeping all day and especially not after the nightmare I had. No way. It’s the kind of nightmare you can’t shake. The kind that follows you into your waking life.

When Jai sees I’m not going anywhere, he exhales heavily, his breath visible as it swirls through the night air.

“I’ll sit with you.”

I shiver violently as a cold whoosh of air blows across the back of my neck. Though it was humid underground, it’s freaking cold up top. Luckily, I packed some longer, warmer clothes. Jai doesn’t own anything besides his black shorts and green t-shirt. I feel bad for the guy. It’s damn cold.

Jai sits beside me and his hard, toned body rests against mine as he wraps the large blanket around us, blocking the cold air from hitting anywhere but out faces. I sniffle again.

“You wanna talk about it?” He asks, his stare cast out over the lake.

“About what? The spider?”

His head snaps in my direction and his dark eyes bear down on me. Who am I kidding? I’m a fucking sheet of glass when it comes to him. It’s scary that someone, who is virtually a stranger, can see straight through me. I guess what’s more unnerving is the fact someone finally wants to.

“Cut the bullshit, Emily. I’ve seen where you live so it’s obvious spiders aren’t a problem for you.”

Ass
.

He takes a slight pause. “What’d you dream about?”

Just like that, he sees through my charade and cracks me open like a coconut.

“What makes you think it was a dream?”

A friendly smile curves his lips. “Tell me it wasn’t and I’ll drop the subject.”

I shiver. “It wasn’t.”

Jai chuckles and the beautiful, throaty sound echoes around me. I fucking love the sound. It fills me with an insane urge to kiss him.

“Okay. Now say it with absolute honesty.” His smile falls away and his face becomes serious.

Strangely enough, the slightest, pleading curve softens his eyes.

“Don’t lie to me, Kitten.”

“Why is it so important to you? Why do you want to know what’s going on in my head? Most people run at the thought of a meaningful conversation, but not you.”

“Because I care about you.” He responds without a single moment of hesitation. “Because you’re family.”

My heart swells dramatically and presses against my lungs. In turn, they crush themselves against my ribcage and force excess saliva up my throat, creating a lump I can’t swallow. If that isn’t bad enough, my tear ducts begin to stir…which is fucking weird. I hate crying, especially in front of
him
. I’m staring and my mouth is agape with the slightest part.

“Well," I say. "Maybe not. I mean, you don’t fuck your family.”

I cringe. Instead of thanking him for including me in his family, like a normal person would, I’ve gone and said something stupid. Jai chokes on a laugh and it’s a genuine, beautiful sound.

“Jesus Christ. You couldn’t just smile and say thank you?”

“I’m sorry!” I laugh, my cheeks burning with heat to rival the sun. “Thank you. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

He snorts. “I doubt that.”

“Why?”

“You might not have had any family growing up, but surely you had friends—boyfriends. I bet they’ve said some nice things.”

Thinking back on my life, I can’t remember a single time someone has said something so kind to me. In high school I was bullied for being a homeless, parentless loser. At work, the other students were assholes and the doctors fucked the nurses with the pretty blonde hair and shiny lips while I had my lubed, gloved hand shoved up someone’s ass. The closest I’ve come to being told nice things before I met Jai was the nameless, passionless men I’d slept with…and I don’t think compliments on my tits, ass and pussy count.

“No.” I utter as the sad realization hits me. “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met…which is weird because you can be kind of a dick.”

I notice the look on his face then—a look I’ve seen a million times.

And I hate it.

Scoffing, I look out over the lake. “Don’t give me that look. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me. I did just fine without the fake niceness and awkward compliments.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

His large, semi-warm fingers slide underneath my chin and guide my face back in his direction.

“I don’t feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for them.”

I swallow hard as he maintains his fierce eye contact. His breath is warm on the tip of my nose for a second before the cold air chills it.

“No one has ever commented on the golden specks in your eyes? The light spattering of caramel freckles on your cheeks?”

Ever so slightly, I shake my head.

“Not your lips?”

Again, I shake my head and that’s when I notice the nervousness in my chest and the tremble of anticipation in the tips of my fingers. I’ve never felt like this before…I’ve never felt like I need a moment to be perfect, but this…please,
God
, let this be a perfect moment. I want to commit it to memory forever because if I never have another moment like this, if all the encounters I have later in life crash and burn into a ball of disastrous flames, I’ll always have this moment to fall back on.

One perfect moment to last a lifetime.

“You’re lying.” He whispers, his voice almost carried away by the wind.

His face is an inch away from mine. His breath warming my lips now instead of my nose. I’m not cold anymore. I’m on fire…a metaphoric fire of the highest intensity and it’s burning me from the inside out.

“I promise you, I’m not lying.”

A deafening silence falls. The only thing I hear I the wind blowing past my ears. A million and one emotions fly between us and neither of us has a handle on them. Oh, how much destruction they could cause if we don’t reign them in right now.

“Idiots.” He spits out…and then I can’t breathe.

His mouth claims mine in a way that is so sinfully intimate. My heart pounds in my chest, my skin prickles with a million and one bumps and,
oh fucking hell,
he tastes good. My body aches all over from the running, but he turns the pain into a dull ache.

Then the pain returns and I barely have time to register the sudden absence of his lips before the cold air rushes in and sticks to my skin, sobering me up completely. The blanket falls from my body, allowing the icy breeze to drape over me. With an aggressive ‘fuck’ Jai is on his feet.

“Jeez, I’m not that bad a kisser.”

He begins to pace—back and forth—while raking his fingers through his dark, unruly hair.

“It’s not you—fuck!” He crouches low, covering his mouth with his hand. “How could I be so damn stupid?”

I grab the blanket and pull it up over my shoulders, holding it tightly against my chest. “You’re not very convincing.”

He exhales with a heavy blow. “It’s Jessica. She’s in the city staying with a family friend.” He stands up. “I gotta go.”

Jessica? His sister? Panic rises like fire in the pit of my stomach, but for the wrong reasons.

“Go? Go where?”

I should be concerned for his sister, but I’m more worried about being left alone. The wooden planks vibrate under my ass as Jai storms up the dock.

"Jai?" I scramble to my feet. “Where are you going?”

“To make a phone call.”

“So use a phone here." I call out. "I saw two when we arrived.”

“Can’t.” He shouts over his shoulder. “I cut the cables.”

I stop and slump in defeat. Of course he cut the cables.