Cousins (Cousins #2) (23 page)

When Elizabeth comes for me it's always thunderous and exquisite to watch. I love to see the torturous look of ecstasy spread across her face and the sated feeling that washes over me right afterwards.

But that fucking phone.
 

It's still ringing. And since she just got off this time she notices. Without as much as a glance towards me she climbs down off of my face and goes for her phone.

"Hey." She says casually to whoever is on the other end.

Then she walks her little naked ass right into my bathroom, shuts the door, and proceeds to have a full blown conversation with the last person on earth that she should be speaking to.

That motherfucker.

"Okay, Ethan. Just let me get dressed and I'll meet you there in like a half hour."

If I hadn't just finished giving Elizabeth one of the best orgasms of her life, I'd seriously believe that there were cameras on me right now? This just has to be one of the craziest fucking pranks ever, because I know that she did not just hop off my damn face and take a call from that little shit. She can't be that damn stupid.

"Elizabeth!" I bellow as I proceed to kick down my fucking bathroom door.

SPLASH.

"Roman, wake up. Wake the frack up!"

"Fuck." I slide my palm down my face. It's wet. In fact my whole face and pillow are wet. "What the fuck, Duchess?"

"You were having a nightmare. You were yelling my name like you wanted to kill me."

"Shit."

"What were you dreaming about?"

I scrub my hand across my face to help myself wake up. I drank a few too many lowballs yesterday and fucked my girl senseless for half the night. No wonder I'm out of it. I just don't know why I'm letting that fucker creep inside my head and into my sleep? Why the fuck am I letting this punk intimidate my subsconscious? I should kick my own ass.

"Well?" She asks.

"Nothing but fucking you baby."

"Really? Because I think you were trying to kill me when we were making love in that dream of yours. Should I be concerned, Neanderthal?"

"Is that what we do, Duchess? Make love." I ask holding back a chuckle and making her blush in embarrassment.

"Shut up, Masterson. You know what I mean."

"I wasn't literally killing you." I try to assure her with a lie. "I was killing the pussy."

"Humph." She crosses her arms and pouts. "You're lying."

"Come here."

"No I'm tired and dirty … and you're a liar and wet."

I slip my hand between her legs.

"No baby, you're the one who's wet. Now come here."

I think for a second about pulling Elizabeth on top of me and having her ride me for a while, but I realize that it will look entirely too much like the nightmare I just woke up from. So I decide to change up the scene, and pull her by the waist and up on all fours. Deciding that this will be a better way to fuck that jerk out of my system and hers.
 

Plus, she loves it like this.

"Masterson." She moans in that hypnotic voice of hers.

"Arch your back and turn your head so I can see you. Then I'll give you what you want."

Elizabeth does as she's told and as I slide hard and deep inside her from behind, I take a moment to relish in the feeling of complete rapture.
 

Total bliss.
 

In this moment, I'm not worried about shit except if I'm going to be able to hold off blowing my load before she does. When I'm inside her, I can almost forget about everything. And when I fix this little Ethan problem of mine, I will be able to
always
forget.

"Masterson!" She yelps after an especially deep stroke that hits her just where she likes.

"Don't you fucking come, Duchess." I order.
 

Although I have a lot of fucking nerve. I'm very damn close to coming myself, like I'm some sort of horny sixteen-year-old boy who's going for broke.
 

She lets out a few whimpers and slaps one of her palms on the headboard, that let's me know that she's concentrating really hard to follow the only rule I require in the bedroom. Of course it's the most difficult one for her to follow. Not to come unless I say so.

Actually I could probably stretch this whole scene out a bit longer on my end and have her break my rule, which is a whole other level of fun in and of itself. My orgasm punishments are my specialty. I've done them with plenty of women before I met Elizabeth, but there's something about carrying them out with her that's special.

I get in a zone when I'm in the middle of that shit with Elizabeth, and it becomes damn near a spiritual experience. She starts speaking in tongues, and I start thanking whatever higher being is up there for giving me her. For giving me
this
.

Oh shit.
 

Am I in love with her?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ETHAN

"Have a seat, Mr. Anderson."

Images of the movie The Matrix come to mind when the man in the cheap taupe suit says my name. He looks like one of the many special agents that I've met with over the last few months in the federal task force assembled to bring down the main syndicate running drugs in and out of Philadelphia. The Eighth Street Mafia. An organization that was born in the neighborhoods, grew in the jails, and has its reach spread wider than I ever imagined. The same crew I was selling drugs to college students for.

Unfortunately I'm not really interested in sitting with agent new guy for an hour in this sterile, cold room complete with metal table and hard chairs. Mainly because every agent I've met has had a hand in fucking up this case in a major way.
 

Vin was never ever supposed to be able to get close enough to me to do what he did. Following me to Elizabeth's apartment. Hurting her. Once he broke into Elizabeth's apartment I tried quickly texting Agent Suarez, the guy specifically assigned as my handler, but I didn't have enough time to give him any sort of concrete information. Just a quick text.

That's why I made sure to slide the phone under Elizabeth's bed before they got to us. If Vin had checked the phone he would have seen that Suarez had been calling me all night trying to check in with me, and that my only reply was a 911 text hours later.
 

If Vin had seen that, I would be dead, and so would Elizabeth.

"Who are you?" I ask more annoyed than anything else.
 

I don't trust these dicks anymore, but I have to play nice. Especially because my father pulled every string he had to keep me out of prison. After Vin took me from the house, I took him to a location that had already been designated by the task force as my supposed stash house. They rigged it with cameras and audio equipment weeks before, anticipating that Vin would eventually come after me; so it didn't take long for them to rush in and arrest him. Unfortunately there are a lot of fuckers who work for Vin and the task force had to put me under protection for a while after his arrest. Just until things cooled down.

I was never in Arizona. I had always been in the Bahamas under a sweet protection arrangement my dad finagled for me. It was pure coincidence that I saw Elizabeth there. Or maybe fate.

"I'm your new handler, Special Agent Keen."

I doubt there's anything special about you.

"Where's Suarez?"

"He's been assigned to another case."

"Sick of me was he?"

Agent Keen chuckles at my Yoda like comment with very little genuine humor in his eyes. It's refreshing to see that he doesn't want to be here as much as I don't want to. Maybe I've turned into the case that agents get when they're being punished. Awesome.

"Vin is locked up. What else do you need me for?" I ask.

"Drug dealers have relationships with lots of people to get where they are in the food chain of their organization. There are still plenty of people in this city who know who you are and are probably curious as to why you went missing right after Vin was arrested. And of course why you're back."

"So you're saying I'm in danger here?"

"Basically that's what I'm saying."

"Why can't I put it out there that I was locked up for a while. Wouldn't that explain me being missing?"

Agent Keen scoffs. "Because they can easily check that out and discover that you weren't. They have plenty of friends in every local jail within a hundred mile radius. Maybe even two hundred miles."

He leans in closer to my face now with definite purpose.
 

"Listen, Mr. Anderson, I don't think it was smart of you to come back to Philadelphia, and it's definitely not a good idea for you to start any romantic connections with anyone."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying that you're here now, and I'm sure Vin's people already know that you're here. So there's no changing that. But what you can do is leave Elizabeth Hill alone. She already got hurt once because of you. Next time it could be worse."

"She's my girl. If I just leave her completely alone, that will look crazy suspicious too."

Plus I don't want to give that trader Jagger or that asshole cousin of hers the satisfaction.

"People break up all the time, Mr. Anderson. There's nothing suspicious about that. So let me be clearer. You are to have zero contact with Elizabeth Hill and all of her known friends and associates, or we will revisit all drug possession and intent to sell charges against you."

What the hell!

"Why do you care about Elizabeth? This makes no fucking sense."

"Your relationship with that girl almost compromised a case that we've been building for over thirteen months. All you need to do right now is keep your head low, swim for your country, and let us know if anyone else from Vin's old crew approaches you. That's it. That's your job. That will keep you out of jail Mr. Anderson and hopefully keep you alive."

I suck my teeth.
 

This is not what I want to hear on a Tuesday morning, but I guess I'm going to have to swallow my pride and deal with it. I moved back home to get my life back on track, and to be perfectly honest, all I really need to do is find a new piece of tail to get over the old. Preferably one already broken in.
 

Elizabeth was a cool girl, almost the perfect girl, but she was also a lot of fucking work.
 

She still is.

"I'll think about it."

"Wise decision, Mr. Anderson."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ROMAN

"Why are we meeting in this shit-hole diner?" Camden asks. "How'd you even find this dump?"

"Shut up, they've got great turkey burgers."

"Turkey burgers? Who the fuck eats those?"

"Quiet asshole. Did you handle shit with Agent Keen?"

"Done."

"I owe you one, Cam."

"There's never any outstanding debts between us, Rome. You know that."

I knew the only way to get Ethan out of my head was to make sure that I eliminated him from Elizabeth's life once and for all. If I had it my way, he'd be resting quietly in a nursing home for the rest of his life with a tube down his throat. But that's the old me. The new me? Had to ask Camden to find out what that little prick was hiding, so that we could make him go away in a white collar crime kind of way.
 

"Was he difficult?" I ask.

"Not really. He has a wife, two kids and a mistress. He didn't want to fuck that sweet deal up. Plus he was more than willing to do it. Said the little prick Ethan and his daddy were a pain in the department's ass anyway. Least they could do was to make sure that your girl was taken care of."
 

Camden snickers. "I'm not ever going to get used to calling her that you know. Your
girl
."

"Get used to it motherfucker."

"Has she gotten used to the idea yet?"

"I'm working on it."

"Every fucking night I bet."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ELIZABETH

I'm spitting mad.

That's why I've raided Sloan's closet and am wearing her super tight gold, cap-sleeved bandage dress and her gold fuck 'em girl pumps. I'm also permitting her to style my hair and make-up in whatever way she wants which is highly unusual for me, because I'm way more conservative than she is.
 

Tonight she's given me a sun-kissed, Miami-styled, makeover with a red lip. She's also washed my hair, worked product in it to smooth out the frizz, and then flat ironed it into a long, straight, glossy mane. It's not me, but I've got to admit, I look hot as hell.

After Sloan approves of her handiwork, she gets dressed, and we head out to a small lounge for a pre-birthday celebration. I'm turning twenty-four tomorrow, and a few of her co-workers are meeting us out for Friday night drinks. At a place that I'm pretty sure Roman knows nothing about. It's full of high-powered, high-strung, corporate types looking to unwind. Sloan is still on the hunt for her perfect corporate powerhouse husband and I'm … I just want to be anywhere that I know I won't run into anyone I know. I just want to be someone else tonight, because sometimes I think that who I currently am is not who I ultimately want to be.