Without tearing my gaze away from hers, I lift my hand and flick the very visible nipple piercing outlined under the dress’s thin material.
“Thefuck?” She gasps, her entire body jerking as if experiencing a seizure. Her hands fly to her breasts, covering them.
But I’m faster.
Cuffing her wrists, I snatch her arms down, transferring both to one hand in front of her. A snarl curls her full, fuckable lips and she twists and bucks against my hold. I shift forward, crowding her, corralling her with my bigger body. Ruthlessly and shamelessly using my strength to subdue her struggles.
And gotdamn.
It’s a mistake.
I’m not Jesus; I’ve made a few errors since sitting under Marcus and learning the reins of running HoC and the Cross empire he left in my hands. And I’ve learned from every one of them, never repeated them. But a mistake I’ve never committed was touching Ember in a sexual manner. Have I aggressively handled her? Snatched her up? Bullied her in all the ways she listed? Yeah, and in more ways she left unsaid. But get so close my thighs cradled hers? That my chest and shoulders curved over her, providing a safe space for her to ply her teeth and nails? That my dick finally feels the soft give of that sweetly rounded stomach? Nah. I’ve never been that close to her. And there’s a reason.
I was protecting her.
Protecting myself.
Because now that I have the most minimal glimpse into hearing what kind of raspy sound she might make as I finally grind and thrust into that pretty, wet pussy… have a nebulous idea of how all those sick-ass curves would bear my weight… possess the barest sense of how that badass body could fuck me back… Now that it’s all branded in my mind, imprinted on every cell in my body, I’m wide open. There’s no forgetting.
There’s no turning back.
I fucked up.
So we’re both fucked.
“Look at me, Ember.” I grab her chin, pinching it between my thumb and forefinger, giving her head a small but firm shake when her gaze rests north of my nose and not on my eyes. “There you are,” I softly praise when she obeys. The lush curves of her mouth are flattened into a firm line, as if she’s biting back a vitriolic tirade aimed directly at me. If only the frantic flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat didn’t telegraph something altogether different than anger, then I might take my hands off her. Might. “You’ve been keeping secrets, ma. When did you get this done?” I ask, dipping my chin toward the hoops with the little balls pressing against the dark blue dress.
“Fuck you,” she hisses.
I cock my head, studying her for a long moment. “If you want. Is that your dying wish, ma? Because I can tear that little pussy up before I slowly watch the life drain out of you.” I shift my hand from her chin, lowering it to her throat and squeezing. Hard. “You keep poppin’ off like I’m one of those mark-ass mu’fuckas you used to dealing with, and I’ll make it happen. Last time I’m warning you about disrespecting me. You got me fucked-up, ma.”
I give her neck another squeeze, and just as my grip loosens, something… dark flashes in her eyes. Not rage. I’m very familiar with the sting of her fury. But that glint—I know it. Have seen it before. Just not on Ember.
Never on Ember.
It’s lust. Need. Confusion and resentment swirl there as well, but…
My stomach clenches so tight, pain mauls me like a rampaging beast, and my hold on her wrists almost slips. For a moment, I’m so caught off guard, the same bewilderment in her gaze trickles through me. What the fuck did I just see? It couldn’t…
Desperate to see more of that emotion—desperate to convince myself I didn’t imagine its presence—I flip my hand and trail the back of my fingers down the front of her neck and over her bare shoulder…
Got.Damn.
I release her as if her skin suddenly resembles a biblical plague, and my flesh is in danger of bubbling up and peeling away. For the first time since my father died, leaving me and Kareem victim to Michelle’s tender mercies, fear skulks through me like a starving rat. I believed grief, hate, hypocrisy, and resentment had cauterized that part of me capable of feeling that particular emotion.
But here I stand, in this gourmet chef’s dream of a kitchen… retreating. Physically frozen but on the run.
If I followed the first rule taught to me by Marcus, I’d reach over to that butcher block of expensive-looking, sharp-ass knives, pull the biggest, longest one free, and slice the blade across herthroat. Eliminate all threats. Expeditiously. As the new head of a crime family, that rule isn’t a suggestion, it’s a mandate. It’s the difference between power and insurrection.
And Ember… She’s a weakness. A fucking phobia.
That makes her the biggest gotdamn threat of all.
“Answer me,” I say, not letting the subject of the piercings go. This isn’t why I sat in her apartment for hours waiting for her to arrive. Still… As it is, I want to hunt down the body piercer, take the same needle he or she used on Ember’s nipples, and drive it through their eyes and then crucify their hands for seeing and touching her. “When did this happen?”
Her teeth sink into her full bottom lip, and I almost introduce her flesh to the edge and bite of my own teeth. We can nibble together, because this is the only situation in which I’m willing to share what’s mine.
Her shoulders draw back and she tilts her chin up, her breath a soft pant, but nothing other than steel runs through her. “A year ago.”