“Yeah. It’s him. He’s the one supplying the Cutters.” I rub my face. “It’s not as simple as we thought.”
“I wasn’t thinking it was simple but… shit.”
“Yeah. Shit doesn’t cover it.”
“And I was worried about him recognizing me,” she starts, her voice quieter now.
“Who?”
“Lowlife shit bag Whistle.”
I look up. “Whistle?”
She nods, a grimace twisting her lips. “Yep. He was the one giving out the orders. Looks the same, like exactly the same. Same creep.”
She starts to lay down. “That’s not even all,” she adds, her words starting to slur together as she stretches out across the bed like a cat in a sunbeam. “The drugs were there, like we thought. But there were other containers being brought in. Foreign ones. They were arriving to get dumped.” She settles deeper into the mattress, the fight draining out of her. Scotch circles before collapsing beside her.
“I’m really tired though,” she murmurs, her voice already thick with sleep. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? Danner was happy to see me though, I think. Anyway, tomorrow okay?”
Before I can answer, her eyes close. Her breathing evens out. And just like that—she’s asleep. Leaving me standing herewith a family curse, a drug-running grandfather, and a goddamn government conspiracy. Fucking perfect.
* * *
Sleep’s a fucking joke. My eyes are open, staring at the cracks in the ceiling I could map from memory. Every thought circles back to her. She’s right here, breathing slow and steady, one arm tucked under the pillow like she’s posing for a goddamn painting. Completely fucking naked, of course. She claims I run too hot, that she needs to sleep bare to not boil alive in my bed.The lack of underwear proves it’s about teasing me and nothing to do with temperature.
Tonight, Scotch got banished to the living room so I could have my goddamn bed back for one night. I’m pissed. Wired. My heavily pierced dick’s a steel rod, an idiot that hasn’t gotten the memo about tonight being a level-ten shitshow. My brain knows we’re doomed. My body knows she’s naked inches away, and all it wants to do is sink into her and forget the world.
I glare at the ceiling, trying to think about dead things, taxes, my grandfather’s face. Nothing works. I turn my head. The slow, steady rise and fall of her tits is goddamn hypnotic. I can see the darker peaks of her nipples, and my mouth waters.
Part of me wants to touch her, just a light finger on her shoulder, see if she’d roll over and open for me. But I’m not a fucking idiot. She’s wiped. I’ve seen the dark circles under her eyes she thinks she hides. The way she jolts awake at 3 a.m. She heard me say I’d burn the city down for her and her reaction was to ask if I was hungry. She’s running on fumes. Wake her up now and she’d probably claw my eyes out before she even realized why.
Not to mention, intercourse is no longer an option, not until… I don’t even know what. A miracle solves it all, probably.Which is exactly why I’m craving it so badly—always wanting what I can’t have.
I palm my dick, the rough drag a poor substitute for what’s right next to me. I should get up, take this to the shower like a civilized person, but fuck that. Looking at her helps—I think about her mouth, the way she looks up at me when she’s on her knees, the way her nails dig into my back when I’m balls-deep inside her. And especially the way she looks at me sometimes, like I’m not a complete piece of shit.
I grab the base of my cock, stroke myself, a steady, punishing rhythm and—fuck me—this isn’t enough.
My hand shifts against the mattress, the sheet bunching under my knuckles, but then I realize it’s not just the sheet moving.
I go completely fucking still.
It’s the tar.
It’s moving slowly under my skin, a sick, familiar crawl. It’s awake and it’s listening. It feels my frustration, my hunger, and it’s responding. The mark on my palm splits open, and the darkness begins to flow. It slips from my palm, stretching outward in thin black strands.
It moves with a purpose that chills me to the bone. It spills across my fingers, down my shaft, wrapping around my cock in a slick, impossible grip.
My breath hitches.This is wrong. This is insane.I should tear it off, scream, something. But I don’t. I lie there, frozen, watching the impossible happen. The tar moves, pulsing, contracting, stroking me with a perfect, liquid rhythm that’s better than my own hand, better than anything I’ve ever felt. It knows exactly what I want. It knows every dirty thought I’ve ever had about her.
It’s feeding on my arousal, amplifying it, sending it back to me tenfold. It’s a feedback loop of pure, unhinged pleasure,but then it splits off. A thin tendril of it, a glistening thread of black, has snaked across the small space between us and is now touching her too.
My heart stops. I watch, horrified and mesmerized, as the tar finds the bare skin of her thigh. It wraps around her leg and she stirs in her sleep. Another tendril, thicker this time, slides up her stomach, coiling around her ribs. Her body tenses, a soft, confused sound escaping her lips. She’s still asleep, but her brow furrows, her head shifting on the pillow.
It moves up on her body until it finds her nipples. The tar forms two small, sucking mouths, latching onto her peaks. I should stop it. I should tear myself away, wake her up, get this fucking thing off her. I can’t. I’m paralyzed by the sick, twisted sight of it. My cock throbs in the tar’s grip.
She jerks suddenly, the movement kicking the blankets off her completely, giving me a perfect, uninterrupted view of every inch of her. A muffled sound escapes her throat. Her eyes fly open, wide and wild with confusion and honest fear. My magic reacts before my brain does, a cold spike of terror shooting through me. “Don’t move,” I snarl, and the power lances out, freezing her mid-spasm. Her body locks solid, a perfect, terrified statue, except for the frantic, panicked darting of her eyes.
Her lips part, a choked, desperate whisper escaping them. “Jax… what…”
