Bolt: Bolt Saga: Volume One Read online

  “Oh, no.” She blinks wide doll eyes. “Not that, Mr. Richards.”

  “Well…” My stare dips down the length of her body. “Maybe I can accept your penance for it.”

  Her gaze flares. “My penance?”

  “Mmmhmmm.” I nod with lascivious languor. “I’ll take it out of you…in flesh.”

  “Oh. In that case.” She topples backward onto the seat, yanking me into the car after her. I barely drag the door closed before Z has the motor gunned and the car in motion, lurching my lips onto hers through the sheer magic of Newton’s first law.

  I keep letting my mouth fall over hers. I bite her and dominate her and sweep into her, roaring my tongue into the dark, hot cavity of her, plunging in a simulation of what my cock’s about to do to her pussy. She groans her acknowledgment, reaches her hands for my neck, and lets me continue to fill and possess her mouth.

  “Z.” I raise my voice at the guy but don’t look away from her. “Put up the barrier.”

  Emma’s mouth twitches. She lifts a leg, thunking one of her pumps against the sliding door between us and the front seat. She giggles again as her shoe falls off, clunking to the car’s floor. “Looks like he already did.”

  “Good man.”

  She shrugs, a good excuse for bringing her hands to the front of her button-up blouse. “He works for the coolest boss on the planet. Of course he’s a good man.”

  I watch her fingers, mesmerized with every new inch of alabaster skin she exposes, especially as the lace of her bra comes into view. But the recognition hits, hard and violent, that this will be the last time I’m with her like this. Gazing at her open and exposed like this. A spell only begun with her physical perfection…

  But what an amazing place to start.

  “I’m not a good man, Emma.”

  At this moment, despite all the internal resolve for gallantry through which I’ve just put myself, I mean it. I want to mean it. Need to embrace everything about me that’s wicked and wanton and nasty, symbolized in the low growl I unfurl while pushing my hands up her legs. I grip her black pantyhose, ready to rip the things off—only to learn the hose are actually thigh-high stockings secured to her legs with a sexy-as-fuck garter belt. At the center is a tiny triangle of black satin that, in some crazy alternate universe, can be called underwear.

  My breath snags. I snap my stare back toward her face. Her smile of impish seduction already awaits. “Well, what do you know?” She swings her other leg out, raising it over my shoulder. “I’m not good either, Mr. Richards.”

  Before I can help it, a laugh erupts from the depths of my belly—and the core of my soul. This woman. This incredible, unforgettable creature. The lightning in my blood might be responsible for how I met her, but the storm she’s left in my heart will never, ever subside—a secret confession that takes hold of my mind while I shove the panties away from her gorgeous cleft.

  “My sweet, shiny surprise.” I slide a finger in, trailing through her trembling folds from top to bottom.

  “Thought you’d like it.” She rests her head back against the car’s door while lifting her chin with sensual invitation. “I got them online. It was a little weird putting them on in the bathroom at work, but they made me think of you the rest of the day.”

  I stroke her again, zeroing in on her clit. “I’m glad you did.”

  Her hips buck. Her lips fall open. “Maybe I should get a few more.”

  And maybe I need to change the subject. Fast.

  A good man would.

  But I’m not a good man.

  Definitely not.

  At least not right now.

  And right now is all that matters. All that can matter.

  I push out her leg a little more, absorbing the heady sight of her pussy, wet and waiting and spread and slick. A tight groan leaves my lips as I whip at the fastenings of my leathers with primal urgency. Then a new growl, thick and harsh, as my dick surges out, hard and ready.

  Emma’s gaze, already lowered to my crotch, heats like a pair of blue flames. “Oh, I’m definitely getting a few more.”

  I position myself at her dark slit, working my rigid bulb between her waiting folds. “You should probably hold off on that promise.”

  Her brow knits. “Why?”

  I push in by another fraction, lubing her tight opening with my burning precome. “Until after.”

  “After…?”

  “After I fuck your cunt raw.”

  Her whole frame shakes. Her lungs, pumping heavily, push her breasts into her waiting hands. She claws aside the edges of her bra from the middle out, baring herself in a wild rending, a la the most famous superhero move on earth—with a twist that’s uniquely, erotically hers.

  Sassy, gorgeous siren.

  Sexy, incredible superheroine.

  Mine. Mine. Mine.

  If only for this last, ill-gotten collection of moments…mine.

  The sight of her naked tits plucked by her own greedy hands drives my sanity past the edge of control. I surge forward, stretching her pussy with one push of my full erection. I fuck her so full and hard and deep, she sighs and shudders and screams with the force of me.

  “You want more, Velvet?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  Gladly, I give it to her. Over and over and over again.

  “More?”

  “Yes! More of your cock. Please, Reece!”

  “You want this cock to make you come?”

  “Fuck.” She whips her head from left to right and back again, consumed by erotic ecstasy.

  “I asked you a question, Emmalina.”

  “Y-Yes,” she manages. “Damn it, yes. I want your cock to make me come!”

  “Then do it.” I roll into her, scraping her exposed nub with the pressure of my abdomen. “Do it,” I order through locked teeth, even as I feel her thrumming around my dick, milking me with the force of her release.

  Pulling the orgasm out of me too. Taking it all from me. Taking all that is me.

  Until more astounding words form on my lips.

  “I love you, Emmalina Crist.”

  A song bleeds over from Z’s playlist in the front seat. The guy’s into every icon of classic rock, meaning David Bowie’s voice doesn’t come as a surprise—nor does the song. Perhaps it’s the rightness I feel about this moment. The recognition that this is the choice, at last, of a superhero—no matter how fucking hard it’s going to be, especially after just slapping my heart on my fucking sleeve.

  Especially as the song ramps up more. Bowie sings, in his Bowie way, about nothing but everything mattering. About forever and ever existing in one day.

  “I love you too, Reece Richards.”

  Her admission doesn’t shock me—but it doesn’t make me feel great. Not as great as I’d expected. Her voice is a sparse rasp on the words…as if they make her more sad than joyous. As if she agrees with the bittersweet ache of Bowie’s croon, blending its dystopian feel with the rumble of the wheels on the freeway. I pull my body from hers as the song talks of guns and kisses, of a king and a queen…and of becoming heroes…

  She turns so I’m embracing her from behind. I already hate feeling this detached from her but bitch-slap myself for the mush. Do I want to know that she’s close or safe? What would have happened if she’d been anywhere close to me in El Segundo? What would Angelique have done to take Emma out of the picture—out of my picture—in a remote location like that?

  I refuse to focus on the answer to that. I’ll accept tonight as the easier way to learn that lesson—and I’ll do it with gratitude.

  Our silence continues as downtown’s distinctive landscape looms closer. The circle-shaped tops of the US Bank and 777 towers. The proud obelisks of the Aon Center and Union Bank Plaza. The purple dome of the arena at LA Live and the City Hall building used in hundreds of films and TV shows.

  And tucked between them all, the stylized gold tower of the Brocade.

  The moment the hotel slides into view, the woman in my arms rele
ases a weighted breath. Again, she doesn’t sound happy. More like…resigned.

  And sorrowed.

  “You’re getting out there, aren’t you?” The same conflict crowds her soft challenge. “At the Brocade.” She presses a hand to my chest, as if the move will give her a temperature reading on my heart. As if that will work—or tell her that what my heart wants right now isn’t what I can give it.

  “Emma—”

  “Just answer me, damn it.” Her voice thickens as if tears are about to break through, though her eyes are dry as desert skies. “You’re going to get out, ride up to that penthouse, and shut out the world, me included, like you have for the last goddamned year, all because of your idiotic fear—”

  “Idiotic?” I push away. I stuff my cock back into my leathers and refasten them. If she wants fear, I’ll give it to her. “You were watching tonight, right?” I charge. “You said you were.”

  “If I said I watched, I watched.” The syntax is defensive, but her tone goes far beyond. She’s clearly pissed. Good. Maybe pissed is where I need her to be so she’ll clear the love out of her ears and listen.

  “So you saw what Angelique tried to do to me?” I snarl. “What would have happened if you’d been there with me? What would have happened if we were just out on a date together instead? What’s going to happen if she ever finds out I’ve split the sidewalk falling this hard in love?”

  Her lips quirk, despite her obvious effort to control the knee-jerk at my metaphor. “You think I don’t know how to handle the sidewalk, even with Angelique on it?”

  I steel my jaw. “I think you don’t understand the Consortium. They’re not some fringe band of radicals with a weird scientific hair up their ass, Emma. They’re cold, they’re methodical, and they’re ruthless—and I’m the loose thread in their ugly orange sweater. They’re determined to sew me back into the thing or cut the thread loose, including any other threads that are now attached to it. It’s a no-win game, and I’ve been just fine with letting them come after me for that win—”

  “Until now,” she supplies dismally.

  “Yeah.” I finally unclench my teeth enough to talk again. “Until now.” I slide my grip back into her hair. I crush her brilliant strands with the intensity of my fist, gulping while imagining her sprawled on a sidewalk, killed in the name of the Consortium’s crazy quest. “It’s not going to happen,” I vow. “It’s not going to happen.”

  She lifts her head to fervently search my face. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m taking myself out of it. And you. Fuck. Especially you.”

  I enforce it by yanking her up and kissing her hard. Goddamn, she still tastes so good. And feels even better. She compels my mouth back to hers with an aching whimper, her fingers twining in my hair. She pulls to the point of pain, accelerating my blood from the heady rush. I can’t refuse the stab of her tongue any more than I can turn down air. We make out like that, hot and horny as teenagers at the beach, Bowie still crooning as Z exits the freeway and winds through the noisy avenues of downtown.

  When we part, taking in huge gulps of air, that sad sound flows from her again. She launches at me, clutching hard, begging in a whisper against my neck.

  “Don’t.” She claws ruthless half-moons into my nape with her nails. “Don’t, Reece…please.”

  I wrap my arms around her. Inhale her, all rain and honey and grief, and force out my answer. “I have to.”

  “You never have to hide.”

  I duck my head against her hair and shake it slowly. “Right now, hiding is beating them.”

  “Hiding is losing to them! Damn it, if—”

  She chokes into silence as soon as my fist rams the car’s window. The reinforced pane, now exploded into a thousand interlocked shards, resembles stained glass with its reflections of the city’s lights.

  And there’s the pretty way of looking at it.

  And maybe that’s for the best, considering the hard truth that fills the air in the car.

  A couple of minutes later, Z rolls the car to a stop beneath the lonely awning of my private entrance to the hotel. I suck in a huge breath. Shove it back out, trying to reconsider her words. Is there another way, or do I have to be that brand of douchebag too? Yeah, the one who just screwed his girl with the full intention of leaving her afterward. The one who told her he loved her somewhere in that mess.

  The one who’s now going to leave this car yearning to touch her once more in some small way but instead ordering myself to get out with barely a glance backward. Taking one more breath. Fighting through one more second, which will be like the other disgusting seconds, torturous minutes, agonizing hours, and miserable days of the lonely weeks and years to come.

  “Send me a bill for the window, Z.”

  “Of course, Mr. Richards.”

  “I love you, Emmalina.”

  “Fuck you, Mr. Richards.”

  Chapter Six

  Emma

  Damn him.

  Damn him, anyway.

  I’ve only heard of this kind of sorrow before. To be honest, I thought it didn’t exist. What kind of heartbreak dives so deep into a person they can’t even shed tears because of it? Anything a person spends life on is worth spending grief on too, right? And that means tears, right?

  But as Z drives me home, my senses are a desert.

  When I wake up the next morning, they’re just as barren and lifeless. I look inward, only to find all the rooms of myself charred and dark. Seared beyond recognition.

  The kind of damage only possible from an electrical fire.

  Damn him.

  I climb into the shower, douse myself beneath the spray, and wait for the water to flush out the feelings. But even here, in the safest space for my emotions, my soul clings to the sorrow.

  Do I like being this numb? This huge hypocrite, hiding behind a mental wall right after yelling at Reece for doing the same damn thing? Okay, duh. Of course not. But my frustration about that is the beginning of my answer. I’m feeling something, meaning I’m not totally emotionally cauterized. It’s just one box that my heart refuses to open: the compartment bearing his name.

  Reece Richards.

  Who just a month ago was nothing to me but an enigmatic concept in a high, distant tower.

  Who has now ordered me to revert him to that same status in my heart.

  “Screw you, Richards.”

  My voice falters on the last of it, raising my hopes that the fissure of my composure is finally cracking open wide enough for the tears, but there’s still nothing behind it but an arid wasteland. A parched horizon, broken only by snakes that taunt with hisses of heartache and scorpions threatening with fury-driven pincers.

  So just make him part of it too.

  Toss him in. Let him burn. Make him wither.

  “You’d really like that, wouldn’t you?”

  I bite it out while climbing out of the shower and heading to check my phone—as if in the last five minutes the bastard will have suddenly come to his senses and figured out what I already know. What I’ve always known. That I’d rather be sewn into his ugly orange sweater, even by one measly thread, than to own an entire wardrobe of beautiful coats.

  The affirmation makes me stop. As in, completely. I’m frozen halfway through sliding on my pants, my gaze locked on my awkward position in the mirror, as realization stabs me like a knitting needle.

  I need his sweater. Even if it’s only in my mind, I need every last loop of that obnoxious orange thread to hold, to cherish, to remember.

  But giving in to the tears means tossing out the sweater.

  Never.

  Never.

  “Never.”

  The mantra spills from between my gritted teeth as I slam my bare leg into my pants and fasten the button of the high waist with angry twists. I welcome even more of the fury while getting into the cropped jacket and striped boat-neck shirt that complete the outfit before combing out my hair, yanking it into a side ponytail, and turning t
he strands into a long braid. After some basic foundation, blush, and lip gloss, I decide the “work look” for today must be declared complete. No way am I capable of the precision or concentration an eye ensemble will take.

  To be honest, I barely know if I’m qualified to be going into the hotel tonight.

  But what’s my alternative? Sitting around the apartment, checking my phone every three minutes and getting only notifications about pizza coupons and penis enhancements? Going to the gym, where I can also check my phone every three minutes, with the same damn interruptions? Or perhaps getting something accomplished—and getting paid for it, at that?

  Ding, ding, ding. Door number three it is.

  Yeah, even walking wounds can do the world some good, especially when they’re distracted by something other than their own pain—which, the gods of tourism be praised, come in the form of sixty rooms booked at the last minute for a group of Australians unable to get onto their temporarily disabled cruise ship. Diving into the room-preparation fray forces me to slap a Band-Aid on the wound—until around two a.m., when I finally stumble into the break room for some coffee and find Wade and Fershan already claiming a couple of spots, scrolling through their phones and trading the latest updates from their feeds.

  If they’re getting the same notifications I get, I do not want to know about it.

  “How the hell did I not know the suburban soccer mom meme chick is really a romance writer?” Wade mutters.

  “For truth?” Fershan returns.

  “You mean ‘for real’?”

  “No. You mean for real.”

  “Huh?”

  Fershan huffs. “Is the suburban soccer mom meme a romance writer or are you just turning me on?”

  “Dude.”

  “What?”

  Wade’s turn for the huff. “If I’m turning you on, we’d probably better talk.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, my God. Never mind.”

  “So she’s not a romance writer?”

  “And who’s on first?”

  My crack makes them sit up and spin around so fast, they bonk heads. While their enthusiasm doesn’t surprise me, the collision makes me grimace. Or maybe the expression is an advance payment to fate for the “chat” I’m anticipating with them now.