Chapter Twenty-Two

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Elizabeth

Islah was on her way with one of her cousins to get a second opinion from a neurologist. It was out of an abundance of caution, since Islah seemed mostly back to normal even after a night of being woken up periodically by Saff asking her name, the date, who the president was, just trying to make sure she wasn’t having any confusion.

Cinna had been with the very large entourage of people who’d gone with them, looking as badass as ever, even after having been knocked around and shot.

“You okay?” Elian asked, watching me as I watched them leave.

“How does one become as badass as Cinna and Saff?” I asked.

“Best guess?” he asked, looking a little sad, “A lot of trauma.”

That made sense, I guess.

We all had our share of trauma. But I was pretty sure my trauma was not the kind that would lead to wanting to be a mafia capo.

“When do you want to get going?” Elian asked as I put my morning coffee mug in the sink.

“I told Nathan I would meet him at one. So we need to be done with the police by then,” I said, sucking in a steadying breath, still worried that I might somehow get in trouble for something that, clearly, was not my fault.

Elian, Renzo, and a guy named Coal had coached me on to say and not to say to reveal to the police when I went in. And since they were clearly more experts on this topic than I was, I decided to stick with exactly what they said.

Which meant I wasn’t going to mention the attacks on my life. Not the guy breaking into my apartment, not the incident at the school, my belief that the bullet the senator took was for me, and definitely not the shooting at Elian’s condo.

Nor, for obvious reasons, anything about Elian or his family at all.

This was simply about a suspicious conversation I overheard one night, then my determination to figure out what the senator was up to, so I could tell the police.

Everything else, well, that was up to the police to figure out.

I was a whistleblower and nothing else.

My only concern with the plan was a possible eventual trial. But, I reminded myself, the senator didn’t know about any of the assassination attempts. In his mind, he was the target. So there was no reason to assume his defense team would question me about anything else either.

“I’m just gonna jump in the shower,” Elian said, still in his black sleep pants and a rumpled tee he’d pulled on before making breakfast. “We can head out right after.”

I quickly loaded the plates and cups into the dishwasher before heading into the guest room to grab myself an outfit.

But I found myself drifting into Elian’s room, listening to the splash of the shower for just a moment before I stripped out of my clothes, then headed into the bathroom.

We’d had company all night and morning. There’d been no privacy for us, so when we’d fallen into bed the night before, we’d done nothing but sleep.

That didn’t mean that the desire wasn’t there, though.

And while I knew our schedule was a little tight this morning, I didn’t want to waste the opportunity for us to be alone together.

“Hey,” Elian called as his head turned, finding me standing there, his gaze roaming over me, eyes going immediately hungry. “Get in here,” he said, reaching out a wet hand to grab my wrist, and pull me under the warm spray.

His arms went around me, pulling me flush against his body as his lips crashed down on mine.

The heat bloomed through me, sparking, catching, blazing a fire through me that started to consume us both.

My hands drifted up his arms, shoulders, then wrapped around his neck, pulling him more tightly against me, the brush of his chest hair over my sensitive breasts making me moan against his lips.

Elian’s hands slid down the slope of my back, sinking into my ass, and dragging me against his hard cock.

His lips swallowed my moan as he turned me, pressing my back against the wall, the cold of it making a shiver rack through my system.

His lips moved to my ear, his teeth and tongue teasing the shell of it, then moving downward. Over my neck, my chest, between my breasts.

My hand slapped down on the back of his neck, fingers sifting into his wet hair as he moved to the side, sucking my nipple into his mouth until I was arching into the sensation, letting out a throaty whimper.

His tongue worked little circles around the tightened bud before his teeth were grazing.

Elian’s hand moved down between us, fingers teasing up my slick cleft toward my clit, circling it with expert precision as he moved across my chest to continue the sweet torment.

My moans started to echo back to me in the shower niche as two of his fingers slid down, then slipped inside of me, thrusting lazily as he continued to work my clit.

“Elian,” I whimpered, rocking against his hand, needing relief from the clawing need building inside of me.

Reaching between us, I grabbed his cock, stroking him to the rhythm his fingers were fucking me, needing him as far gone as I was right then.

“Elizabeth,” he groaned against my neck.

“Elian, please,” I whimpered, stroking him harder still.

“I don’t have…” he said, trying to pull away from me to get the protection.

“It’s okay,” I said, rocking harder against his touch as I buried my face in his neck, kissing up the stubble I found there. “My tests are negative,” I told him as his fingers started to finger me faster.

“Mine too,” he said, voice rough with his need. “But…”

“That’s covered,” I said, stroking him harder. We could get into the specifics of that later. Right now, I needed him.

On that rumbling sound deep in his chest, his fingers slid out of me. Reaching down, he pulled my leg up, pressing it wide against the wall, opening me up for him as he moved between.

His cock stroked against my cleft until my moans got more and more desperate.

Then, finally, he slipped down and thrust, taking me to the base in one long, hard thrust.

His groan mingled with my moan.

And then we were moving together, my hips rocking as he thrust, both of us too far gone for exploration, for teasing and slow loving.

“Fuck,” Elian hissed, his lips near my ear. “You feel so good.”

The water cascaded down Elian’s back, making his back too slippery to wrap my legs around, so I was helpless but to stand there, letting him work me at his pace, unable to do anything but feel.

But it felt like it had been forever already.

I was close to the edge before I even knew I was climbing.

Then, just a second later, I was crashing down into the orgasm, my cries filling the bathroom as I clung to Elian, as he continued to fuck me through it, then came with me, the heat of him filling me, his whole body tensing, his voice hissing out my name.

We clung together for a while after before the shivers started to rack my body from being wet and out of the spray of water.

Elian shifted us under it, then we both rushed through washing, then drying and dressing.

We didn’t have time to linger after wasting a bit too much time in the shower. But there was no better way to waste some time, I decided, as we moved out of the condo with a guard before and behind us.

They were joined by two more guards as soon as we made it out of the building.

I was shuffled into the backseat with Elian on one side of me, and a guard on the other. As well as two more up front.

If I wasn’t completely mistaken, another car followed us as we drove across town toward the closest precinct.

This was the part I had to do alone, though.

The car dropped me off out front, and Elian gave me a quick squeeze before climbing back into the car, watching me walk into the building.

“Can I help you?” the woman at the front desk, situated by a thick wall of acrylic, asked.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded.

“I need to speak to a detective.”

In the end, though, I’d needed to speak to several as they first listened to my recording, then decided to bring a partner in. Then, finally, the commander himself needed to listen and hear my story.

As Renzo and Elian predicted, though, they had no reason to ask me questions about my own personal knowledge of the Bratva.

There’d been a few questions about the senator’s shooting, but, again, they were working under the assumption that he had been the target.

Still feeling a little shaky, I made my way back outside with barely ten minutes to spare before I had to meet with Nathan to share the information.

“You okay?” Elian asked, his arm going around me as I slid into the middle back seat.

“That was nerve-racking,” I admitted, leaning into him, borrowing some of his strength. “But I’m going to be really glad to have this all done.”

Luckily for me, things were much faster with Nathan, who agreed to keep his source anonymous, and was eager as hell to get back to his place to be the first to break the news to the public.

All said and done, by two in the afternoon, all of the stress, all of the fear, and uncertainty, was finally done.

Sure, there was still the issue of the Bratva wanting me dead.

But both Elian and his boss had assured me that the situation with them was going to be handled.

Having no reason to believe otherwise, I chose to put my faith to rest in that as we went back to the apartment to hang out with Islah and Cinna and, once word got out that food was being prepared, Serano.

He came in with a small box clutched to his chest, looking almost, I don’t know, sheepish, as he approached me.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the box toward me. “I found this. You want it?”

I reached for the box to see what he was offering me.

But the second I took it from his hands, he turned and disappeared.

“What is it?” Elian asked, coming closer.

Peering in, I saw a small tabby kitten.

“A kitten,” I said, reaching inside to lift it up, hearing its sweet attempts to hiss at me as I pulled it against my chest, half in love with it already.

Elian walked over, rubbing its head as it swatted at him with little needle nails. “It’s got a lot more sass than Kevin,” he declared. “Do you want to keep it?”

I mean… did anyone ever get handed a little kitten and not want it?

“I mean, that’s not really my dec—“

“Gonna cut you off right there,” he said, making my gaze shoot up. “I’m never gonna be one of those men who demands you ask for permission to do shit.”

“Never?” I asked. “Not even if I wanted a dozen of these?”

To that, he looked conflicted. “Okay. Maybe after five pets, we need to discuss it,” he decided.

“That seems fair,” I said. “I mean, we have to see if Kevin likes it. I don’t know if he’s ever been around other cats.”

“Did I hear there was going to be lasagne?” Saff asked as she walked in the condo door a few minutes later as I had the kitten eating some of Kevin’s wet food sitting inside his little box.

“You did,” Elian said, already back to work at layering the sauce, meat, cheese, and pasta for a third tray of it, since it seemed like we would be feeding half of the family.

“Look,” I said, waving toward the box. “Serano found a kitten,” I declared as she went to grab a soda out of the fridge.

“If by ‘found’ you mean he chased it around an alley for the better part of an hour, then sure,” Saff said as she popped the cap of the soda.

“Really?” I asked, looking over at her. “Why would he do that?”

“I think he saw it, thought of how you love Kevin, and thought you’d like this one too. That’s kind of how his mind works, I guess. He’s shit at actually talking about anything, but he’s a man of gestures. Are you keeping it?”

“We are going to see how Kev—“ I started as the cat in question followed his nose up onto the island, looking over the edge of the box, leaning in, grabbing the confused kitten by the scruff, pulling it out, and taking it down with him until he had it snuggled into one of his little beds. Where he proceeded to lick the kitten who sat there a little dazed at having been abandoned, stolen, and adopted by a foster cat dad in the course of a day.

“Well, that solves that,” Saff said nodding. “Do you have a name for him?”

“It’s a boy?” I asked.

“Yep. Are you going to go for another human name? Because I vote for Richard,” she said before grabbing another soda and bringing it over to Islah who was still nursing a bit of a headache, though her neurologist had agreed with the urgent care doctor about her prognosis.

Serano came back in just as the lasagne was being pulled out of the oven, trying hard to avoid mentioning the topic of the kitten he’d gone out of his way to bring to me.

The look of pure shock and horror on his face when I threw my arms around him and thanked him for the gift was enough to have Elian, Islah, Saff, and Cinna bursting out into a chorus of laughter.

“You’re gonna make a woman very happy one day,” I added for good measure.

“No,” Serano said, shaking his head. “That’s not gonna happen.”

“Famous last words,” Cinna said, patting him hard on the shoulder as she passed.

I had a feeling that Cinna was right on this one.

I mean, no, the stoic, silent sort weren’t the kind of men I personally liked, I decided as I looked over at Elian, who’d been nothing but clear and open with me.

But there was some girl out there someday who was going to love Serano’s personal brand of affection.

“You okay?” Elian asked, running a hand across my shoulders as I sat silently at the table, watching the men and women gathered around, eating the food that Elian had made, chatting, laughing, enjoying one another’s company, realizing how I’d never really had this before. And how much my soul had been craving it.

“I really like this,” I admitted, surprised by the rush of emotion I felt sitting there.

Elian’s hand slid up to the side of my neck, pulling me in to press a kiss to my temple.

“Me too.”