Legacy (Sociopath Series Book 2)(44)

I paw at the back of his shirt, silently begging. Harder, faster. Make it harder or just make it stop.

Aeron’s thrusts turn shorter. Sharper. He’s trying to hold off. “But you’re mine, Leo. You come when I say you come. You don’t have a choice.”

My thighs go lax around his waist. Maybe if I pretend I’m not present in this body, he won’t—

“Come for me.” He draws out all the way and then slams back in, biting his lip as my cry steams into his palm. “It’s all I want to see, baby. Fuck, just—”

I can’t contain it any longer. I come in long shudders, pleasure blooming through my pelvis to kiss every sore nerve and bruised muscle; there’s relief and denial and triumph, and they stutter out in a series of rough sobs.

“—Good girl.”

Then he’s back over me. We’re united in this black brand of bliss, and he’s utterly unashamed of his bitten-out curses. He spits each f*ck across my shoulder, letting them skid along like bullets until they bury themselves in his spotless white pillows.

We slow. So quiet together. His breath simmers against my ear.

After a moment, it becomes obvious that “Let It Go” is playing loudly in the next room.

“Jesus,” Aeron mutters, pushing his face into my hair. He eases himself in and out of the soaked, sticky carnage between my legs, like some curious school boy. “I swear to God, if I hear that song one more time, I might actually kill someone.”

“You’re not funny.” Yet I’m barely restraining my own giggle. This whole thing is absurd. “I hope…I hope nobody heard us.”

“We were wrestling.” He hauls himself up and inspects the crushed mess of me. Strokes a strand of hair behind my ear. “Obviously.” In another second, he’s on his feet, already fastening his pants and straightening his shirt, our shared orgasms evidenced only by the flush smeared over his cheekbones. Nobody would guess what an anxious heap of nerves he’d been when I arrived.

Cold without his weight, I twist experimentally on the bed before reaching underneath to peel off a couple photos that are now welded to my ass.

“I feel like I’ve been fisted,” I manage, wincing.

He snorts. “That can be arranged.”

“Ha.” I glance at the photos—grainy old Polaroids, one of which is some yellow beach and foamy marshmallow tide, and the other, a startlingly young Aeron, flanked by two adults. His watchful half-smile is unmistakable, even though he’s blowing out the candles on a chocolate cake that declares him to be just five years old. His mother is brunette and beautiful, but already fading. Her brown eyes—Aeron’s eyes—have dulled, and though she smiles for the camera, there’s something broken about her. What haunted Emily Lore? I wonder if it was her son, even then.

The other adult, Aeron’s father, Jacob, is genuinely beaming from ear to ear. He’s wearing a piano key necktie—a sly wink to his vocation as a music teacher—and bends beside his son, pointing to the camera as if to whisper, say cheese. He and Aeron share the same shade of dirty blond hair, warmed by sun-bleached streaks of butter. Aeron never talks much about his mother, but I know he treasures memories of his father’s music, of the way they’d sit at the piano together and talk in silly voices.

“Leave it,” Aeron says sharply, tugging the photos from my grasp and tossing them aside.

“It’s a lovely picture.”

“It’s the past. Dead and buried.” He bends to gather my panties and dress, and hands them to me. “We leave tomorrow night.”

I blink at him. “What?”

“You’ve seen the mob outside. It’ll only get worse. It’s not safe, Leo—not with everything that’s gone on.” He stands tall and stiff in the pale streetlight pouring through the window. “So we’re gonna lay low for a while. Gwen made all the reservations earlier.”

“I’m sorry—what?” I can’t get my questions out fast enough. “We as in, you and me? Or other people? Where? You…you let Gwen do that?”

“Me, you, Ash, Ethan, Harvey and Gwen. You’ll find out where on the plane. And yes, I allowed Gwen to do the job you hired her for—is that not to your liking, Miss Reeves?”

“I have a business to run!” I splutter. And God, I hate planes at the best of times. “I can’t just go waltzing off to wherever because you feel like it!”

“You can and you will. We’ll be away for at least a fortnight, so pack accordingly. Gwen will help me manage Lore Corp from our location; she can help you too.” He swallows, a grim expression tugging his features down. “You think I want to be the little * who runs away?”

“No,” I say meekly.

“You’re the one who was so afraid of Blood Honey, you were quaking in your La Perla panties.”

I jerk up to stare at him. “You really think…you think we’re some sort of target?”

“No. Not for him, anyway. But we need to be somewhere else until the shitstorm blows over.”

“I can’t just leave, Aeron. I have things—”

“We all have things.” He pads over, tips my chin up with a firm thumb, and peers down, his features unreadable. I hate it. “Would you rather stay here alone?”