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Chapter Twenty-five
V
After a number of hours on the road, we finally reached New York. We drove through the city, my heart lodged like a chunk of ice in the base of my throat.
I kept my head down, not wanting to see anyone, or for anyone to see me. I couldn’t imagine what people would have been gossiping about us. As far as they knew, my sister and I had just vanished one day. Did they think we’d been killed and dumped somewhere, or that we’d simply run away? Or did people wonder if we’d been moved into Witness Protection, and perhaps suspected I was a rat? The idea made my cheeks burn with shame. It was the one thing you were taught growing up in the society I had—rats were the scum of the earth.
I’d only been away a matter of months, but everything felt different, as though I’d never lived here at all, and I was now trespassing. Even the accent sounded harsh upon my ears. I’d done my best to speak without my Brooklyn accent since we’d been put into WITSEC, knowing people would immediately be able to place where we’d come from. Instead, I tried to smooth the accent so I was able to say we were from New York State, rather than the city.
X’s cell phone rang and he answered it, listening without needing to speak. He hung up again.
“Okay, we can pick up your visitor’s form. Looks like we got lucky and your name was still on the approved visitors list. Your father must have added it before he found out you were testifying, and just never bothered to take it off again. I guess he figured you weren’t going to want to see him any time soon.”
“I guess he was wrong. So when is my visiting order for?”
“Eleven tomorrow morning.”
My heart sank. “Tomorrow morning? I can’t wait that long. What about Nickie?”
“There’s nothing more we can do, Vee. Unless we hear something different from Tony the Hound, we’ve got nothing to go on. We know he’s somewhere here in New York, but if we go around asking questions of the wrong people, we’re both going to end up dead.”
“But you know people. You have contacts.”
“Not to ask those kinds of questions. I’m a hired killer, Vee. If I start asking where I can find Tony, people are going to think I’ve been paid to take him out. Nothing will get us killed quicker.”
My frustration mounted. It had already been too long since Tony had taken my sister, and I tortured myself with how frightened she must be, and all the terrible things they might have done to her. I would happily have taken risks if it meant getting Nicole back sooner, but I knew X was right. I wouldn’t be any good to her if I ended up dead.
Plus, we needed to keep our heads down. If someone recognized me, I didn’t doubt that word would get back to either my father or Tony. I wanted the element of surprise when it came to approaching my father, and I didn’t want Tony to find me before I found him. I thought if that happened, I was as good as dead.
With no other options, we got ourselves another motel room. We didn’t even bother trying to get separate rooms this time, the question hanging unasked between us in a silent agreement. I thought both of us knew there was little point. Perhaps I was using him, using the sex as a distraction from worrying about my sister, and also from worrying about the meeting with my father the next day, but I didn’t care.
As soon as we stepped into the room, X pulled me toward him and kissed me as though he’d spent the whole day trying to hold himself back from doing so. I didn’t know. Maybe he had, and I certainly wasn’t complaining. His kiss was forceful and hungry, owning my mouth. I felt myself involuntarily melting against him, my body turning to liquid at his touch. He was all solid muscle and hard lines, and it made me feel soft and feminine in comparison, the total opposite, yet working so well together. His hands slid up under the back of my t-shirt, his big palms spanning the small of my back, before sliding up over my ribs. His touch tickled slightly, making me smile against his mouth, and then his hand navigated between us to cup my breast. His thumb grazed over my nipple, causing it to pucker and peak, and I pressed myself harder against him again, moaning into his mouth. He squeezed the mound of my tit over the top of my bra and then slipped his hand inside the cup to roll and pinch my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. My insides turned to liquid, and that now growingly familiar feeling of tingling pressure flooded down through my lower belly to settle with a pleasurable throb between my thighs.
I didn’t want the clothing between us. Both times we’d fucked, he’d been fully dressed. I longed to have him naked, to run my palms across every inch of his hard body.
I pulled his shirt out of his pants and slid my hands up under it, the heat of his skin against my palms. Smooth skin, but then ridges and bumps and swirls. I hesitated. Tattoos, perhaps, though I hadn’t seen any on him so far.
Continuing to kiss him, I removed my hands from beneath his shirt and started on the buttons at his throat instead. I only managed to undo three before his hand closed over my wrists.
“No, Vee, don’t.” His voice was a growl.
I blinked in surprise. “What?”
“Don’t undo my shirt.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve asked you not to.”
I knew nothing about him. I’d told him some of my deepest, darkest moments, and yet everything about who he was remained a secret to me. I didn’t even know his real name. And now here was another secret, standing right in front of me, hidden beneath a swath of fabric, and I knew it had something to do with the blemishes I’d felt when I’d slipped my hands over his skin the previous night.
“X,” I started, “it’s all right. I want to know.”
I sensed him retreating from me, so I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and pulled him in for another kiss. His body was tense, but a flick of my tongue across his lower lip, followed by a nibble, and he quickly melted into me again. I reached down to the front of his pants and cupped the hard length I found there.
“Ah, fuck, Vee,” he groaned as I stroked him firmly.
I undid the zipper and slipped my hand inside to find him gloriously hot and hard in my palm.
