Page 96 of Ricochet

“Oh, and just for shits and giggles, have someone film it. Perhaps we’ll send a message of our own to this cocksucker.”

Cox smiled at Brandon’s sneering laugh.

“Fuck, yeah,” Brandon said.

CHAPTER 44

Aubree

“My people of Detroit …” Onscreen, Michael’s lips formed a hard line, and the camera zoomed in on a slight quiver to his chin. “It is with a heavy heart and …” He cleared his throat. “… so much pain, that I …” Covering his face behind his hand, he shook his head in a way that had me shaking my own. “I’ve lost someone so … dear to me. My wife, Aubree Culling, was kidnapped, and is believed to be …” The asshole’s voice shook as he spoke. The theatrics must’ve exhausted him. “Dead. I’m offering a large sum of money to anyone who might have information on her kidnapper, believed to be Achilleus X. In a prior video, he threatened to take what I value most. And well …” Culling broke into a laugh-worthy sob. “… he did. And I want justice. My wife did not die in vain. She has brought so much to this city, and I’m asking you, my wonderful people, to help me find her killer. Help bring her the justice she deserves.”

“What a fucking fruitloop,” I said, lying beside Nick on the bed, as we watched the news report on his laptop. “As if he gave two shits about me!” Set against Nick’s chest, my hand balled into a fist. “Ooh! If I had a gun …” I drilled his stomach, but slapped my hand to my mouth when I realized what I’d done. “I’m sorry.”

“Easy, Pistol Lips.” His cheeks dimpled with a grin, eyes sparkling with humor. “I like when you’re pissed off. It’s like foreplay.”

I smiled. “You like aggression, huh?” I asked, stealing the opportunity to dig inside his head. “Want me to tie you up and beat your ass?”

He shivered, though whether fake or not, I couldn’t tell. “Don’t tease me.”

“Nick … when we were together the other day, I wanted to ask you. There was a point when …” My stomach coiled when his gaze fell away from mine. “… you seemed different. Like … something else … something darker was inside of you and you were … trying to keep it hidden from me.” Still, his eyes shied away from mine. “I sense there is something more to you.” Unfurling my tight fist, I clutched his arm. “I want you to know, Nick. I like what I saw. I’m not afraid of it.”

“What exactly did you see?” The interest in his voice told me I was on the right track, and the innocent sweep of his tongue across his lips had my predator sensors on high alert. I wanted to take those sweet lips into my mouth and bite down.

“I saw a tormented mind. Conflicted. I know a part of you wants to hurt me. Punish me for what happened. The other part of you … the calm, humane side wants to stuff those thoughts away and touch me with gentle hands.” I lifted his knuckles to my lips, closing my eyes as I kissed them. “I want both.” Perhaps bringing the two desires together might heal his torn mind.

“I told you, Aubree. You’re no longer my retribution. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m not saying you consciously want to hurt me. But I think, deep down, something inside of you craves an end to your pain.”

His chest heaved, and he cast his eyes away from mine as if the request made him nervous. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, I don’t want you to hide from me. If this is what keeps you at a distance. If it’s why you wore the gloves when you first touched me. Why you hold back when you’re inside of me. I want both sides to come together—the hate and the gentle. I want to show you that … I understand both sides.” I chewed on the inside of my lip for a moment, in an effort to choose my words carefully. “Whatever happens at the end of this … I gave you all of me. My fears. My desires. It’s all yours. And now I want all of you.”

He pushed me onto my back and straddled my body. Arms at each side of me, he caged me beneath his massive body, pinning me between his powerful thighs.

I didn’t fight him. Didn’t want to. Instead, I waited for him—whether he’d tell me to fuck off, or not, I waited for one shred of evidence that I was right. That he was holding back.

“I do have a darker side to me, Aubree. I’m not sure you want inside that shit.”

“But I do.”

Whether it was ingrained in me from the start, or the result of my fucked up life with Michael, a part of me was drawn to darkness. Craved the kind of sex that spiked my adrenaline. I wanted both of us to come undone, unravel, until we lay completely exposed. I wanted to breach the uncertainty with him, and fall into the intensity of his rough hands on my flesh. Sex with him was perfect, but I wanted his chaos. A moment of entropy. For him to abuse me with passion, unleash his wrath and let go. Not rough and cruel, as it was with Michael, or those men with their dirty hands all over me. I wanted raw sex. Primal. Powerful. Uninhibited. Beautiful, but gritty. I wanted to feel him deep inside of me.

His countering groan rumbled against my lips, growing louder when my hands drifted down his stomach. Pressing his chin into mine, he parted my lips, and for a moment, our breaths mingled. The anticipation of what was to come tightened my stomach. Gripping my crown, he traced my mouth with his tongue before pushing past my teeth to tango with mine, and waves of heat rushed straight to my core, as the man annihilated every bit of what I thought I knew of a kiss.

Buried beneath the armor, the steel that guarded his heart and caged his soul, was something deeper, darker. Painful. I wanted to tear him open and expose his secrets, stroke them so that I could lay them to rest.

The menace in his eyes exhilarated me. I had no idea what to expect. I’d opened a box with Danger! plastered all over it, and might’ve flipped the detonator switch, threatening to blow myself into a million pieces. Yet, whatever darkness lurked in his shadows, I wanted it. I’d caught a spark of it the night we’d first had sex. He’d bound my hands, then, as if something else battled inside of him, he released me, opting to have me touch myself, instead. I needed to know how far he’d go. How deep were his depths?

“Are you sure about this?” he asked.

Was the goddamn sky blue? Of course I was sure. I wanted him to see something more, something beyond the blurred edges of his future.

“Yes.”

My tongue raked against my back teeth, as he leaned over to the nightstand and produced a black cloth from the drawer—perhaps the same black cloth he’d used to blindfold me the night he kidnapped me.

“This violence, though … it’s in my blood. I don’t want to hurt you, Aubree.”