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I scoff. “Who knows,” I tell him. “I never met my father, and judging by the way my mom would talk about him, he was a man-whore who took off the second the pregnancy test came back positive.”
“Shit. What about your mom?”
“She, umm . . . I don’t really know how to sum up my mother,” I admit. “I have mixed feelings about her. There were a lot of good times before the bad ones came along. She was a good mom for the most part, you know, when it mattered the most. We didn’t have much. Most of the time she struggled to put food on the table, but in those early years when I was just a kid, she did what she could to give me a good life.”
“But?” he prompts.
I shrug my shoulders. “I suppose she got exhausted from always trying to pretend that everything was going to be okay. I got older and could see through her act. After that, I think she just kinda gave up. She stopped smiling,” I tell him, letting out a heavy breath. “Then she stopped asking me how school was and stopped caring who I was hanging out with until eventually, she just stopped coming home altogether.”
“Fuck. How old were you then?”
“Seventeen,” I tell him, trying to keep the hurt out of my tone. “But it’s fine. I remember when Mom stopped paying the rent. I came home to find the eviction notice stuck to the door. It’s the first time it really hit me that my mother didn’t give a shit about me anymore, but Nat’s family had pretty much taken me in at that point.”
Alex leads me away from the East River and across the road as we get closer to our building. “So, how’d you end up at High Voltage Ink?”
A fond smile stretches across my face as I recall the day so perfectly. “Nat and I had been getting into a little bit of trouble, and her parents were at their breaking point. They told me it was time to go. I was walking the streets, terrified that I was about to spend my first night on the street when I walked past High Voltage Ink. It was a stormy night and it was the only storefront that offered a little bit of shelter from the rain, and before my ass could even hit the front stoop, Big Jim was hauling me inside,” I tell him, pausing a moment as the memories come flooding back.
“Viper had only recently been promoted to Vice President of the Grim Reapers and was just starting to really experiment with ink. Big Jim had been working on him when he dragged me in there looking like a drowned rat,” I say, a stupid smile resting on my lips. “Crew had been there that day too, though despite what he always said, it took him a little while to warm up to me, and as Big Jim worked on Viper, he gave me something to eat and demanded to know why the hell someone as young as me was wandering the streets so late at night. The rest is history. He gave me a job, and I’ve just recently learned that Viper is the reason I have my apartment. They looked after me. Big Jim, Viper, and Crew, they’re my family. At least . . . Crew was.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, pulling me in closer as we near our building. “Losing family is never easy.”
I glance up, meeting his gaze. “Are you referring to your mom?”
Alex scoffs. “Fuck no,” he says. “My foster brother, Landon. We were together for a few years when I was around ten or so and got really close. He was being abused by our foster father, and I didn’t find out until I was reading his suicide letter.”
I suck in a gasp, horror spreading through my veins, unable to imagine just how terrible that would have been. The guilt for not having known or being able to do anything to help him while so young . . . shit. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper, my heart breaking for Landon.
Alex nods as we reach our building and he reaches out to hash in the access code. “It was a long time ago,” he tells me as if trying to shrug it off, not wanting to linger on something so painful.
Not wanting to push him on it, I let the topic fall away, hoping that one day when he’s ready or if he feels he needs to talk about it, he’s comfortable enough to open up to me. Instead, I give him a beaming smile as he holds the door open for me.
We make our way into the apartment complex and immediately turn to the right, heading for the stairs. Alex takes my hand again, and as we start to climb, I’m hit with that familiar disappointment that comes every time my night with Alex is coming to an end.
The walk to the third floor is quiet, both of us clearly lost in our thoughts, and as we reach our landing and make our way toward our doors, I find myself clutching his hand just a little tighter. “What is it?” he asks, those dark eyes lingering on me.
“I don’t think I’m ready to tell you good night.”
“Good, because I had no intention of ending this here,” he says. In a blinding flash, Alex grabs me by my ass and lifts me into his strong arms. His lips crash down on mine, sending a low groan rumbling through my chest. Before I know it, my back slams against my door, and I lock my legs around his waist as my short skirt rides up.
His tongue plunges into my mouth, and my eyes flutter closed as his rock-hard cock grinds against my pulsing core, my panties already soaked with need.
God. It’s everything, and when we pull away to catch our breath, his lips trail straight down to the sensitive part of my neck. My fingers knot into his dark, unruly hair, and I groan with hunger as I tilt my head to the side, needing so much more. Hell, I need all of him.
The anticipation of waiting is surely going to kill me. I can’t stand it a second longer.
“Alex,” I pant as his lips come right back to mine, cutting off whatever I was going to say. But it’s fine because I really had no idea what the hell I was going to say.
He keeps me pinned to my door, taking full control, and as he continues grinding against me, showing me just how ready he is, my core begins to throb. “Tell me to stop,” he growls against my lips, but I shake my head. That's the last thing I want.
“Mace,” he warns. “I can feel how fucking hot you are for me. If I don’t stop, I’m going to fuck you right here in the hallway. Tell me to fucking stop.”
I shake my head again, not giving a flying fuck if he wants to tear my clothes off my body and bend me over right here where we stand. Hell, I’ll start taking my clothes off for him if it’ll save us some time. All I know is that I need to feel him inside of me.
“Please,” I groan, jolting my hips to get more traction against him. “Don’t you dare walk away leaving me this fucking desperate for you.”
“Ky,” he groans, his lips furiously moving against mine as his hands roam over my body. “I don’t want to take you like this. Not the first time.”
“I’m not a wine and dine kind of girl. I don’t need the romance,” I pant, my fingers tightening in his hair. “I just need to come.”
