Coletrane (9 page)

“Those guys at Inksanity?”

“Yeah.
Those
guys.” I stood up and began pacing. “At first it was about looting, grifting. Stealing shit so we could sell it off. I can’t believe I’d ever felt proud about that, slapping a wad of cash on the kitchen table.

“We told Mom the money came from odd jobs.
Odd jobs
all right.” I pressed my fingers against my temples. “Then the drugs came into it. Meth. I told Brooke not to do it, but she wouldn’t listen . . . life was too hard . . . Curtis convinced her to give it a shot.”

“Jesus Christ, Cole!”

My head whipped around, my face a broken plane of features. “You want to leave now? Because I can take you home.”

To her safe haven, one I hadn’t known for a long time, and I wouldn’t begrudge her one little bit.

“No. No.” Sin moved toward me, slipping her arms around me.

“Please don’t. Don’t touch me. I can’t—”

She was beautiful and pure.

I was dark and dirty.

I pressed her away.

“I’m not gonna say I started drugging because Brooke did, or that she tried to make me because she didn’t.”

She wouldn’t have.

Grief over her death ate me alive.

“I tried a hit. Got a taste for it. We went from stealers to dealers to meth-heads overnight.” Rolling my shirtsleeve over my forearm, I showed Sin the marks that trailed fine white lines on the insides of my arms. I’d sucked meth up my nose, shot it up, smoked it in a bowl, gotten addicted to it. I’d been all about switching it up. “Dumbest thing I ever did. Biggest mistake of my life.”

I didn’t dare look at Sin. For all I knew she was disgusted with me.

She should be.

I was.

“Got worse after that, but we were so high we didn’t care.” Falling back to the couch, I covered my face with my arm, my words muffled, my heart still ablaze with pain. “Brooke started, but I should’ve ended it. I didn’t.”

We stole money anywhere we could, not to help out our mom, but to support our habits.

I glanced at Sin.

She sat with a pinched, pale face beside me.

The hot drop of a tear slid down my face. I brushed it away, hoping she didn’t see it.

“She died. Brooke OD’d.” My gut clenched. “I wasn’t there. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t help her.

“But I found her. Dead.”

As soon as I saw my sister, rolled to her side, foam at her lips, the usual junkie rush disintegrated. “I held her. Talked to her. Trying to force life back
into
her. She never laughed again. Never opened her eyes. Never joked.

“
She never breathed
again. She was empty. Just . . .
gone
.”

I rubbed the wet tears springing to my eyes. My throat felt like a stone stuck inside it. I couldn’t swallow. Could hardly push air in and out of my lungs. My voice sounded broken.

“I was her
brother
. I should’ve been protecting her, not letting her get involved in drugs.” I hung my head. “My mom lost it after Brooke died. She fell apart. It destroyed what was left of her health, her mind . . .”

Sin sat beside me, her hands folded in her lap. “Where is she? Where’s your mother?”

“In a facility close by.” I wouldn’t look at Sin.

I wouldn’t.

I didn’t want to disappoint one more person in my life.

I clenched my fists on my thighs. “Those cunts, in the shop. You need to tell me if you ever see them again.”

Sin draped her arms around me. “I will. I promise. But what about your mom? Do you see her?”

“Yeah. I visit her every week.”

She never recognized me. The break in her psyche too deep, I’d almost been there myself.

“Will I get to meet her?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I turned toward Sin. “You want to?”

“Well, I’m not just going out with you because I like the way you fuck me, Cole.” Interlocking her hands with mine, she said, “I like
you
.”

“What about what I just told you? Did you hear all that?” Yanking free, I stood to pace, pace, pace. I gripped my hair. “You understand I haven’t been a good man? You get that I’m bad news?”

She snuck up behind me, holding me to her.

“What are you doing?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Hugging you.” She held tighter.

“Why?” My jaw clenched. I didn’t want to give in to this feeling.

It couldn’t be true.

“Because you aren’t bad news. Because you hurt. Because you went through—lived through—something I could never imagine and became better.” She slipped a kiss to the back of my neck. “Because, Cole. I think there’s more to you than your past, more than you’ve already shown me.”

I turned in her arms, taking her hands off me. “What if I’m not worth it?”

She kissed my chin. “What if I think you are?”

“I’m not.” I slid away from her. “I want to be. But I’m not.”

“Can I ask you something else?”

I stood up tall, looking at her dead-on. I expected her to ask me to take her home. And if that was the case, I’d take it like a man, not the messed up teenager I’d struggled so hard to be better than, the guy whose sister had OD’d, his mom fall to pieces.

“Can we postpone the piercing for tonight? Will you let me take you to bed and just hold you?”

A sudden rush of tears made my vision wavy. I blinked them back. The hell I’d let them fall. All I could do was nod, let her lead the way to the bedroom.

Sin used the bathroom first. I went second, scraping my face with a washcloth and doing the two-minute tooth-brushing thing.

She stood beside my bed, still fully dressed. “Naked?” she asked.

“That’s the only way I do it.” Yet I faltered at taking off my clothes.

I was already naked enough before her.

She disrobed in front of me, set her clothes on the chair before folding back the covers on my bed.

“Well?” she asked.

I quickly got down to bare skin and slid in beside her.

Lights out.

In bed.

Her arms around me.

Me, stiff as a board.

“Tell me about the tats.” She slid against me.

“Ink. Memories on my skin.” I found her hand in the dark and kissed her palm before setting it on my chest. “The flowers are for Brooke. Dandelions. Weeds. But they were the brightest yellow, the only thing we had.”

I dragged her hand across the big designs decorating my skin, skulls, crossbones, guns . . . rites of passage and sad memories.

“The deck of cards is for my mom.”

The Joker was almost ghoulishly big on my abdomen, but my mom had been a shark back when Brooke and I’d been growing up. She taught us every game.

“And this?” I positioned her mouth at my shoulder where the jagged needle had been sheared apart by the gunshot wound. “A reminder to stay on the straight and narrow.”

“Did they hurt?”

I shut my eyes. The pain never left me. “You have no idea.”

“I think I do now.” Sin massaged my chest, her head tucked under my chin. “You were a kid. Don’t you think you’ve dealt with enough pain on your own?”

“I don’t know how you can be with me after what I told you,” I whispered.

“Well, I can. I am.” She rubbed my shoulders. “Now cuddle me. Shut up. And go to sleep. I’m in charge for a change.”

We both ignored the vibrant current pulling us together. Everything could wait but this acceptance. This intimacy.

Everything
was soft and silent and quiet and comforting . . .

And I just knew it was going backfire in my face.

I WAS UP AT first light. No way was Sin getting the jump on me again. When she showed up in the kitchen, freshly showered, wearing my shirt, she scrunched her nose at the egg-white omelet, but her eyes lit up when I waved a plate of crispy bacon under her nose.

More than a little ashamed after last night’s truth telling session, I kept my lips zipped and my hands to myself as I held out a chair for her.

She sat down to breakfast, sipping the tea I’d noticed she’d liked last weekend. “Why are you so quiet?”

“Are you sure you’re okay with me?”

“Cole, everyone makes mistakes. I wouldn’t wish what you’ve lived through on anyone, but
you changed
.”

I dug into the food, letting her answer swim over me. I didn’t feel absolved of blame. I never would. But I did feel accepted, in all honesty.

Later, as I rinsed the dishes and she loaded the dishwasher, I mentioned, “I still want to pierce you.”

She turned toward me, unbuttoning the shirt until it hung open, a sliver of her body bared to me. Only the sides of the black top clung to the creamy mounds of her tits and her spiked-up nipples.

“Where do you want me?” she asked.

Fuck. Right now? On the table. Or in a chair.

I towed her to my bedroom.

After drawing off the shirt, there was nothing but bare skin. I settled her on the bed.

Rubbing my hand over my mouth, I stood there with my eyes glued to her tits.

“There a problem?” She parted her thighs just enough to give me a peek of her pretty, pouty slit.

“No. I just really want to do this . . . and I don’t usually get a fucking uncontrollable hard-on when I’m piercing someone.”

Her eyes fell to the long roll of hard flesh in my shorts.

“My cock’s about to explode just from the thought of it.” I stroked over the stiff meat just once, hashing out a groan.

“Oh,
Jesus
.” Her back arched in that sinuous way she had, and she thrust her breasts up even more.

“Christ. You getting wet, too, thinking about it, Sin?” My voice rumbled, deep and gruff. “Promise to fuck you real good afterward.”

Might as well get started now.

I lowered my mouth to one of her nipples and suckled it hungrily inside.

“Is this the usual . . .
way
?” She whimpered.

“Fuck no. Just for you. Get ’em hot, juicy, and wet.” Licking a shiny spiral around the second nub, I slipped one finger deep inside her pussy. “I might come just doing it.”

“I’m gonna come right now!” She thrust onto my hand.

I added another finger and attacked both her nipples.

God, I laughed. It was a low, tense, tight sound as her thighs locked around my hand and she held me to her slippery breasts.

She was right. An orgasm flashed through her so fast she hardly had time to draw another breath and let it out with sexy moan.

Sin fell back in a shuddering heap. “I think I’m ready now.”

After plopping a quick kiss on her lips, I moved off toward the bathroom. “Back in a sec.”

I washed my hands, then gathered some gauze pads, Q-tips, alcohol wipes, the piercings and the rest of the tools I’d autoclaved at Inksanity. I pulled on some latex gloves, doing everything by the book including the sterilized needles. Except for the whole pre-prep-orgasm thing.

Like I could resist.

My little break had given time for her nipples to relax so the fit would be right.
Now
she was ready.

I disinfected both nipples and marked where I’d pierce her at the base.

Holding up the forceps, I said, “This is gonna pinch a little. Not as much as the clover clamps.”

Sin sat still, watching me get into place. I clamped her nipple, pulling it taut, and she gasped.

“Okay?”

She nodded.

“I want you to take a deep breath in and let it out slowly.”

She did as asked, and I quickly threaded the hollow needle through her first nipple.

She squeaked with the first piercing, and I kissed just above her tit. Before she had a chance to feel the pain, I placed the steel captive bead ring.

Fuck
. It looked pretty. My cock got even harder, and Sin looked down, her eyes hooded.

I swiped away the blood with the gauze, then the Q-tips.

“I know that hurt, precious.” I kissed her lips softly. “The next one will be a little worse, so I’m gonna do it real fast.” Clamping her with precision, I said, “Breathe in and breathe out.”

It was over in a few seconds. The second hoop in, I cleaned her carefully, then put little bandages over her nipples.

“We’ll wash those in a few hours, but right now . . .” I stood up.

Her eyes drifted to mine. “Right now?”

Leaning over, I spread her legs and palmed her cunt. My hand came away wet.

“I think that made you hot, Sin.”

She bit her bottom lip. She didn’t say anything as she tugged my shorts down my legs. She gasped as she bent forward to get them off my legs, her breasts pendulous and the tips more sensitive than ever.

I handed her a condom, my respiration hard and heavy, just like my cock.

Rolling the rubber to the base, she took a moment to glide her hands up and down as her lips traveled to my balls.

I was ready to blow one out, but that wasn’t gonna be happening until I was inside her.

Stepping back, I disengaged from her lips and her hands. She sat with her feet on the floor and her thighs spread wide.

“Have to be inside of you.” Kneeling in front of her, I guided my ultra-stiff rod to her silky flesh.

I roughly thrust inside, all the way, until my groin smacked her hips, my balls slammed her ass, and my pubes mashed against her clit.

Her breath skipped into a hot moan.

Her tits jarred and I tried to stay away from them, tried so hard. I cupped the outer mounds, never touching her just-pierced nipples.

I couldn’t wait to have them inside my mouth again.

“Vanilla sex? Again?” Her fingernails dug into my ass, pulling me deeper.

“Only until you heal. Then all bets are off. ’Sides, it doesn’t matter how I do you. I just like fucking you.” Gasping, lunging, tearing into her.

Then it was so slow. I held her thighs in my hands, took her lips with mine. I grinded my cock in and out, stilling every time I was deep-seated in her clasping warmth. When we came together it was with her panting against my lips and me pumping in short thrusts, never wanting to stop.

We did stop, eventually. My stomach grumbled, and Sin pushed me out of bed, saying she wasn’t used to being such a lazy bones even if it was the weekend.

I put on the turntable as we made lunch, and she selected the tracks. I approved of her choices: The Beatles,
Revolver
; PJ Harvey,
Rid of Me
; and some CCR. What could I say? I had eclectic taste. Apparently she did, too.

It was a comfortable
lazy
afternoon. Even Pincushion found a spot of bright white sunshine on the floor and curled into a contented fluff ball.

All chilled and relaxed until Sin casually threw an empty bottle of Kombucha tea into the trashcan under the sink.

I sat at the kitchen table, watching her. When she turned around, I merely raised an eyebrow and pointed to the blue recycling bin.

“You’re kidding me, right?” She scrunched her nose.

“That’s not very environmentally conscious of you, Sin.” I gave a low growl. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

She swallowed, her eyes dropping. “No.”

So fucking hot.

“Put the bottle where it belongs then come over here,” I ordered.

She approached with a sweet sway of her round hips.

Spreading my legs, I unzipped my jeans and took out my cock. Not surprisingly, I was stone-fucking-hard.

I stroked my fist to the bottom and gripped my dick in one hand. “Now put this where it belongs.”

Tossing a seat cushion on the floor, I kicked it into place between my feet.

Her hands on my thighs, she kneeled on the floor and slowly, oh-so-mind-blowingly, pursed her red, red lips around the head of my cock.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Sin was wrecking my head and steamrolling right through all my control.

I loved every single second of it.

****

Later, after we hit the bedroom again and I took Sin out to supper, we sat on the couch. Her head rested on my shoulder, my arm looped around her waist.

“How do your nipples feel?”

Her hand rubbed my chest then she quickly pinched one of the barbells in
my
nipple. “Probably like that.” She chuckled as my head knocked back and my hips kicked up. “A little sore. Swollen. I don’t know.” Kissing the straining cords of my neck, she murmured, “Hot. They make my breasts feel heavy, achy. In a good way.”

“Jesus, woman. You already up for more plain old sex?” My eyes slit open as I reveled in her mouth and tongue working the sensitive skin where my close cut stubble ended and my neck stretched taut.

“Maybe. But I want to ask you something first.” She pulled back.

“Hit me.” I lifted my head with a smile.

“The foundation, my parents and I, are hosting a charity gala in a couple weeks to raise money for a new wing at MUSC Children’s Hospital. Will you be my date?”

“Lemme think about that for a second.” I squinted at her while she scowled.

The woman had probably never been turned down in her life. No need to start now. Like it was even an option.

“Hell yeah, I’ll go with you. You’re gonna be wearing some fancy dress, right?”

She flipped her blonde curls back, her tourmaline green eyes glowing. “Yes.”

“I’ll have to wear a suit, huh?”

A sly grin spread her juicy lips.

“Oh, you like that idea, do you, precious?”

“
Uh huh
.”

“On one condition.” I snaked my arms around her body, towing her closer to me. “Better get a dress you don’t need a bra for.”

“Why?” She gasped.

“I want you walkin’ around all night while you politely talk and charmingly schmooze like I don’t doubt you can, knowing you have my mark on you. Your nipples against the fabric of the dress, popping out, pulsing, with the hoops pierced through them. Those sexy pink jewels of yours will tingle. They’ll be hard all night long just for me.” My voice deepened an octave and I set my lips at her ear. “The first time I touch them with my tongue, pull them between my lips, you’re gonna come so hard, precious.”

Fuck. It sounded like she was about to come right then—her breathing labored, her arms clutched around my neck—and I’d be right behind, but I wasn’t done yet.

I nipped at her earlobe, nibbled down her neck, made my way to her lips. “Actually, make that two conditions.”

“You don’t play fair, Cole.” Her fists hit me on the back.

“I want you to let me put a butt plug in you too. And I want you to wear it to the event.”

“What?” She reared back. “No. No way.”

“Okay,” I shrugged.

“Just like that? Okay?”

“Yeah.” I kissed her with heated, pent-up want. “This is a relationship. At least I think it is.”

A sweet blush transformed her once again from incredible executive to shy vixen.

Nuzzling her ear, I asked, “Is this a relationship?”

“
Yesss
,” she hissed.

“Exclusive. Right?”

“I don’t play around,” she agreed.

“Just with me.” I cupped her perfect ass, jiggling it in my palms. “And so. You said no. You don’t want me to kiss all over this lush ass. Ride you with my fingers.”

I wouldn’t tell her about the rimming action. That would just freak her out even more.

My voice rumbled as I stared into her widening green gaze. “Lube you up. Get you all nice, and shiny . . .
and wet
inside and out.”

The more I talked, the closer my fingertips moved toward what I knew to be a sweet little star of flesh that needed a cock driving deep inside.

My cock.

“Get you ready.” I licked her lips and pulled away when she greedily tried to attach her mouth to mine.

“Getting you ready to take my cock back here. A heavy silver plug snuggled inside your tight ass, rubbing your cunt from the inside—”

Sin moaned. “Damn you. I’ll do it.”

“Nah. I don’t think so.” I sat back, flashing a wicked grin.

Pouncing on me, she gripped my hair and lowered herself onto my lap. “After all that, damn right you’re going to do it.”