Mallicks: Back to the Beginning (Mallick Brothers Book 5) Page 8

  "More?" I asked, fingers sliding down to tap on the entrance to her body for a moment, waiting for her throaty gasp of Yes before pressing in, feeling her tight walls close around my finger as it slid deep, claiming her.

  And it was fucking cheesy and romantic and sappy as all fuck, but I knew in that moment, that exact moment when I had claimed her body that there was no going back.

  Everything about me was screaming it.

  Mine.

  She was fucking mine.

  And that, yeah, that was a clusterfuck of a problem, now wasn't it?

  But this wasn't the time for those kinds of thoughts.

  This was the time for other things.

  Better things.

  Things that would make her pussy spasm around my fingers, her breath hitch, her voice scream out my name.

  Her body responded to the smallest of thrusts, walls tightening, getting wetter by the second until I could feel her need down my palm, mingling with the cold water as I thrust faster, harder, slipping another finger in as her breathing got ragged, as her moans became cries.

  My thumb found her clit again as my fingers curled inside her, stroking relentlessly across her top wall until I felt her clench around me, her head lifting from my shoulder, her eyes wide and hooded somehow at the same time, looking a mix of turned-on, confused, and worried all at once, making me all-too-aware that had she ever known the touch of a man at all, he had no right to consider himself one because this woman didn't even know what it felt like to be about to come.

  "Relax," I told her, my free arm moving up around her back, steadying her. "I got you. Let go, baby," I demanded, fingers working her harder and faster until she did. She let go.

  And she came, crying out my name so loud her throat must have hurt.

  Her legs gave out, making her fall against me, head tucking into my neck as she shuddered through her orgasm, holding on like her life depended on it, raking claw marks across my back that I would feel for days. Maybe liking that idea far too much, the proof of what we shared etched across my skin.

  My finger slid out carefully, slipping back to rest on her ass as she struggled to find her breath again, still giving me all of her weight.

  I wanted more.

  I knew, if I tried, I could have more.

  I could have it all.

  But you didn't fuck a girl for the first time on a beach.

  Not a girl like this anyway.

  Not a girl who was starting to mean something to you.

  You waited that shit out.

  You gave it time.

  You made sure the moment was right.

  You made it something more memorable than sand getting stuck in intimate places, or burning across your skin to be uncomfortable rashes there even days later.

  "You alright?" I asked, giving into the uncharacteristic urge to press a kiss into the side of her head. She gave me a nod and some garbled noise that I shouldn't have smiled at, but absolutely did, not so good of a man as not to admit that it stroked my ego a bit to realize I had reduced her to incoherent noises with just my fingers.

  Just wait until I got my tongue on her.

  Got my cock inside her.

  In due time, I reminded myself as my balls throbbed with the need for release.

  And that time wasn't that night.

  Or two nights later at the movie theater.

  Or the next week at the park.

  The bowling alley.

  The carnival.

  She changed slowly over those weeks, too.

  Became less timid, less easily cowed.

  She grew bolder around me, unafraid to speak her mind, to tease me, to take risks, to live a little finally.

  She talked more too, opened up about her upbringing. About their neglect, about how she was invisible to her father until she did something that displeased him, for which she'd earn a vicious beating.

  I wasn't against a swatting here or there when it was earned, had known the feeling of a tanned hide more than a few times growing up as well. From a father or grandfather who loved me, who wanted to mold my behavior into that of a man, not a little boy, who would not abide disrespect or bad behavior.

  But it was different for Helen.

  It wasn't a hard lesson out of love.

  It was pure punishment.

  It was a grown man's rage against a little girl who had no power to defend herself.

  I had to physically curl my hands into the steering wheel to avoid hitting something when she told me about the time she came home late, was caught by her brother, and her father had come into a teenaged girl's bedroom, yanked down her pants and underwear, and whipped her ass so badly that she couldn't sit down for days.

  There was discipline and there was abuse.

  It wasn't a thin line.

  It was a very fucking defined one with caution tape and goddamn barricades showing you where one ended and the other began.

  And Christopher Eames disregarded all of them to viciously abuse his daughter.

  I worried after about how she explained coming home late since meeting me, how she managed to stay under their radar.

  Some nights, Helga would simply cover for her, say she was in bed already with a migraine when we had the sense to drop her car home, then have her sneak out with me.

  Other nights, she boldly walked in the door, telling her fucking nosy ass brother that she was an adult, and didn't have to answer to him.

  I liked that she was coming into her own, finding her spine, finding her voice.

  I wasn't so sure that I liked that she was using it to stand up to her brother - this man who made her father look like a goddamn Good Samaritan.

  She assured me it was fine, that he had stopped even saying anything, that he was just letting it go.

  He wasn't letting it go.

  And that was what had me worried.

  But I was too goddamn selfish to do anything about it. She should have been long gone. I should have been the one demanding it, if I claimed to care for her at all - and I did - but I couldn't make myself do it.

  I didn't want to lose her.

  That selfishness would be my undoing.

  I didn't think anything of it.

  When the meeting was called.

  The orders were the same as any I had ever gotten.

  I got a date and a time and a description of a man to beat the shit out of as a warning. Second warning, so it was going to be pretty brutal.

  I'd say I had to steel my stomach for it, but that would be a lie. I wouldn't try to make myself sound like a better person than I was. I beat the shit out of people for a living. And I did it without remorse or a guilty conscience, or even any hesitation at all.

  It was a job.

  That was all.

  If you didn't want your ass beat, you shouldn't get involved with people like Christopher Eames.

  But I had no idea, no gut instinct, no nothing that something was wrong as I drove to the location, parked my car, got out, and walked into the abandoned warehouse out on the outskirts of town.

  This was just another job.

  Just another abandoned building where some guy would be tied up for me.

  There was nothing unusual.

  I didn't hear anyone.

  I didn't see anyone.

  But I sure as fuck felt someone when there was a sudden explosion of pain to the back of my head. There was enough pressure behind the strike to make me fall forward, my knees crashing down onto the crumbling, uneven cement floors, sending another type of pain ricocheting through my body.

  "Fuck," I hissed, trying to think past the pain so I could push up, get up, turn around, fight.

  You knew you had been in the business for a while when you knew the exact sound of a metal pipe clattering to the ground behind you.

  A metal pipe.

  I was lucky to still be conscious.

  And even then, I didn't know.

  I figured the mark had gotten free, gotten some balls, gotten
a weapon, decided to fight me off and run.

  It wasn't until I saw feet moving toward me that I knew.

  Because they were familiar feet clad in familiar expensive Italian loafers that were brushed by the cuffs of designer suit slacks.

  Two sets.

  Only two people in the world they could be.

  Even as I slowly got to my feet, my eyes found their faces.

  Christopher and Michael.

  Their faces were identical indifferent masks, giving nothing away as they watched me find my feet, as two men moved in from my sides.

  That was when I knew what was going to happen.

  I was surprised it wasn't worse, wasn't an execution.

  But there was no need for so many men for a simple execution.

  One would do.

  So I wasn't going to die.

  I was just about to wish I'd been blessed with a short, merciful killing.

  Because I was about to be beat-out.

  "Did you really think you could get away with it?" Christopher asked, tone cold as it often was.

  I smirked at that, figuring if I was going to be in pain regardless, there was no reason to feign penitence, to kiss his ass.

  If I was going to go down for this, at least I would get some words in.

  "Got away with it for two months," I told him, smirking at the way his eyes got smaller. Helen's did that too when she was irritated. But it was cute when she did it. It was just pure ugly when he did.

  Matched his soul, I guess.

  "Had suspicions for a while, Mallick," Michael spat, ever the more prideful one, the one with the fragile ego.

  "And yet you did nothing," I said, shrugging.

  "In what universe did you think I would let you have my daughter?"

  "The one where you clearly don't give a flying fuck that she even exists, let alone who she dates."

  He ignored that, clearly not in a talking mood. He really never was. He was more of an action man. So he could get back to spending his endless piles of money on stupid shit.

  "You're out. Obviously. As soon as you pick yourself off the floor, I want you to drag your ass out of my town. Got it?"

  He didn't wait for an answer.

  He turned, waved a hand, and walked away.

  It was a split second before the pain started.

  It was everywhere at once. Six fists pummeling into unprotected spots. And since I only had two arms, that was a lot of them.

  It was half a minute before I took a fist to the liver, having me on my knees in another fifteen seconds, unable to think through the pain.

  And once I was down, there was no hope to fight back.

  I just had to block my head and neck and wait for it to be over as the feet started slamming into my stomach, chest, back, side of the head.

  Blood was filling my mouth when someone finally found an opening and slammed a foot into my head.

  Everything went black.

  When I woke up, I was alone, a tooth loose in my mouth, blood puddled on the floor from my mouth and nose.

  I tried to push up, hissing out a string of curses as my ribs screamed in pain.

  "Fuck," I growled, rolling over to yank up my shirt, finding my skin mottled with bruises already, and pressing my hand into my ribs.

  Just bruised, I decided with a small exhale of relief. Broken would mean I needed an X-ray. And there was no time for that.

  I needed to get up, get in my car, and find Helen, tell her she had to run.

  It was easier said than done, taking me at least half an hour to get from my back on the floor to my car in the lot.

  Sweat dappled my brow, slid down my back with the effort as I kept swallowing down mouthfuls of my blood from the missing tooth and split lips and gums.

  I drove to the diner, cursing when I saw her car wasn't in the lot yet.

  She was always on time.

  "Jesus," Vicky's voice called a she looked up from the ground, a cigarette hanging from her lips. "What happened to you?"

  "Where is Helen?" I asked, trying to take a deep breath despite the screaming in my side, knowing I didn't need a lung infection from the shallow breathing on top of it all.

  "She called. She had a flat tire. She had to get it fixed before she comes in. Is something wrong?"

  Was something wrong?

  No, it was every goddamn day that I looked like I just survived a plane crash.

  "What shop is she at?"

  "She didn't say. But she said they were pushing her up on the line because she's late for work."

  Fuck.

  There were at least a dozen places in town she could be.

  And I had no doubt I was being watched. If I didn't get myself out of town, I was going to be catching a bullet with my skull.

  "Listen to me Vicky, and this is important, got me?" I asked, voice steel.

  "I believe you," she said, nodding, dropping her cig and putting it out with the toe of her shoe before walking closer, the air around her rancid with smoke. "What do you need?"

  Aside from about a handful of pain meds?

  "The second you see Helen, you need to get to her, and tell her to get out of town. Tonight. Right that moment, understand? She needs to go. And she can't go home first."

  "Oh, God. What are you two into?"

  "Vicky," I snapped, voice a whip. "This is a life or death thing, okay? The second you see her, you tell her to run. Don't go home. Just run. Got it?"

  "Yeah, yeah. I got it. Should I tell her to meet you somewhere?"

  I'd put her in enough fucking danger already.

  My heart was ash in my chest as I spoke.

  "No. She needs to go without me."

  With that, I threw the car in drive before I could think better of it, before I could get selfish again.

  I went back to the motel I had still been calling home, cleared out my bags that I always kept packed save for some basic grooming products, snagged the cash I had taped behind the headboard, got in my car, and drove out of town.

  And prayed, fucking prayed that she knew me well enough to know that I would not send her this kind of warning without reason, that she would know how urgent this was, that she would fight the urge to go back home for supplies, to say goodbye to the only parental figure she had known all her life.

  I would call the diner, I assured myself as I stopped at a pharmacy for supplies to patch myself up, make sure Vicky gave her the message, that she got out of town, got as far as fast as she could.

  Then I could stop worrying, knowing she was on her way to safety.

  Even if it was fucking killing me that I didn't get to say goodbye, didn't get to hold her one last time, kiss her one last time, tell her something I had known for weeks, but had fucking stupidly kept to myself.

  That I was in love with her.

  And now, yeah, now it was too fucking late.

  SIX

  Helen

  It was one of those days.

  Those 'nothing can go right' days.

  There was no coffee left in the house.

  I couldn't get my hair to stop doing that ripple thing when I pulled it up for work.

  My tire blew out.

  The mechanic got handsy, and I had needed to slap him away from me.

  I was pretty much at the point when I pulled into the lot to find Vicky flagging me down where all I could think was What now?

  I could barely roll my window down fast enough for her as she seemed to frantically raise her cigarette to her lips.

  Her hand was shaking.

  Why the hell was her hand shaking?

  "You need to get out of town. Right now. Don't even turn off your car. Just go and get out of town."

  My heart plummeted down into my stomach as my pulse sped up, pounding in my throat and temples.

  "What? What happened?"

  "Charlie was here. He was in bad shape, Helen. Really bad shape. He was looking for you. Worried about you. He said to get out of town. Now. Don't come into work. Don't
go home. Just get out of town. I think whoever got him is trying to get you, Helen."

  Whoever got him.

  There were only two people on earth who could have gotten to Charlie.

  My father or my brother.

  Those bastards.

  Those fucking assholes.

  "How bad was he?"

  "Bad. Real bad, Helen. Bleeding out his mouth. Face covered in bruises. Swollen. But he was breathing. And he was driving. I think he will be okay. But he was worried about you. I'm worried about you. He's stronger. You wouldn't survive that kind of beating."

  She had no idea what I could survive.

  But the last thing I was worried about right that moment was myself.

  I was worried about Charlie.

  I was worried about how much damage had been done.

  Would he make it?

  God, he could not die.

  Not because of me.

  Not because he spent time with me.

  Not because of who my family was.

  Not before I told him I loved him.

  "Helen, go," Vicky demanded, snapping me out of my useless thoughts.

  "I'm going," I told her, throwing my car into drive.

  I was going alright.

  But I wasn't going out of town.

  I was going to Charlie's motel room.

  He'd asked me if I wanted to go there a few times over the weeks, when we had more than an hour to spare.

  He'd never pressured me to go there. Because we both knew why he wanted me there.

  And I wasn't ready yet.

  Don't ask me why.

  I'd lost my virginity as an act of rebellion.

  If that hadn't meant anything, I didn't know why this time did.

  Maybe because he meant something, because he was something special. And because I felt that way, I wanted it to be something special.

  We'd done other things.

  That night on the beach being the first, the first time I felt my body explode with pleasure like that, given so selflessly.

  There had been other times as well.

  My body, once awoken, was needy all the time. And Charlie's fingers were all too eager to bring me to climax time and time and time again.