Page 15

Chapter Fifteen

Elena

M y body is still tingling even after Aiden finds us a new place to stay. This time, it’s another apartment he rented for the month.

“As long as no one finds us here, we can stay the whole time. I’ll just have to make more money before the end of the month,” he tells me as we enter the apartment. It’s a simple, quaint place. Newly updated. Nothing luxurious but neither is it gross like the last apartment we stayed at.

This is a place I could call home, here in New Hampshire, far away from where I grew up.

“It’s nice,” I comment, sneaking a peek at Aiden. We haven’t spoken about what happened in the car since we left the woods. I know we both want to take things further but as a good Bratva girl, I shouldn’t. My father is looking down at me from Heaven and shaking his head in shame. Yet, I can’t deny that my body wants Aiden.

My heart might want him too.

“It is,” he agrees, setting his backpack down on the kitchen counter. “We should get settled in. I’ll blow up the air mattress. I’ll look into getting us real mattresses soon enough.”

“Can I take a shower?”

“You don’t need my permission.”

I used to need everyone’s permission to do anything. If my mother didn’t want me doing something, then she would make it very clear that I was not allowed to do that thing. Sometimes, she wouldn’t want me to take showers as it was ‘bad for my hair,’ she claimed. She said baths were more ladylike. I think it was just another way for her to control me.

The shower is nice and warm and helps relax my body after everything we’ve been through. My hands shake a little. I killed multiple men today. Even though it was in self-defense, I am technically a murderer. I did it to save Aiden – a hitman. He’s killed countless people before. I shouldn’t like a man like him. But then again, he did spare the senator’s life when he didn’t have to. He did it for me.

When my hands become a little pruny, I turn the shower off and stop when I see Aiden in the doorway, just watching me.

Neither of us says anything.

My full body is on display for him. He’s seen me naked before when Finn and him first kidnapped me – I was in a shower then too. But that situation was completely different. Then I was crying and afraid and curled into a ball. Now, I’m not crying and I’m not afraid and I stand up taller.

Aiden’s eyes darken but he doesn’t step into the room, only watches me from the doorway.

My body is desperate for his touch again. It has awakened something in me I’ve never felt before. I now know lust. I never thought that would be possible for me. I was always so shy and reserved but now that I’ve spent time with Aiden, I’ve flourished. It helps that I’ve gotten away from my mother.

Without even thinking about it, my hand slides over my stomach. Aiden’s eyes zero in on the movement. Between my legs, arousal stirs. I’ve never touched myself but in this moment, that’s exactly what I feel like doing.

My hand moves down to my pubic mound. The soft hair there covers my body from Aiden’s view. I’ve always trimmed my hair down below as my mother told me it was more ladylike than not. She had it instilled in me that no man would like a woman with a lot of hair on her body. So, I’m hairless everywhere else but I always leave a little on my pubic mound as a defiance to my mother.

My fingers find my sensitive folds. I gasp and my hips naturally buck forward at the sensation. My touch isn’t as good as Aiden’s but having him look at me helps make this moment better.

His eyes darken even more as he lets out a low sound in the back of his throat.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit.

“Then let me help you.” He finally walks into the bathroom and wraps his arms around my waist. I gasp as he lifts me up and carries me into the bedroom and lays me down on one of the air mattresses. A soft blanket is on top.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I whisper.

“I know. But I can’t seem to resist you.” He tugs on my hips, then opens my legs wide. I shiver under his gaze. My body is achy and desperate for more but I don’t know how to tell him that.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he says, making me turn warm. No one has ever called me that before. “I need a taste.” Without warning, he places his lips to my stomach. I suck in a breath at the sensation.

I can feel him smile against me as he kisses down my body. Aiden so rarely smiles – it’s a beautiful thing when he does it.

He reaches my outer thigh before running his lips and tongue down to my inner thigh, causing goosebumps to break out on my skin. I tremble. Aiden grips my thighs in his strong hands.

“What are you doing to me?” I whisper.

“Showing you pleasure. Showing you how good this can be. No man has ever touched you like this.”

“Yes.”

He looks right up at me. “I want to be the first to taste you. I want to be the only one to do it.”

“I want you to,” I admit, even though it’s the last thing I should say out loud.

Aiden brings his head between my legs where his lips finally touch my body. I let out an embarrassing moan. My hips buck up of their own accord as his lips find my sensitive nub. With his lips touching me, this act takes on another level of pleasure.

This makes me wild. It makes me feel desired.

It makes me feel loved, even though love should be the last thing on my mind with a hitman.

Aiden runs his lips around my nub and folds, drawing my pleasure from my body. I try not to blush knowing what he’s doing to me. My mother would claim this act was the epitome of a whore in a whorehouse. But the way Aiden is making me feel, there’s no way this could be wrong.

This desire and connection can only be a thing of beauty.

He hums against my folds. My hips jerk up for more – more friction, more pleasure, more release. I just need it.

Aiden seems to know exactly what I need as he places his lips right onto my nub and runs his tongue over it again and again.

“Aiden,” I gasp, gripping the back of his head, keeping him in place. That spurs him on to lick me harder. This feels so good, good, good…

I just have to give in to it. There’s no place for shame between us right now.

He growls, gripping my thighs tighter, and lapping at me like a man desperate for something to drink. My own hips thrust up gently to get closer to his face.

I squeeze my eyes shut to focus on the pleasure and nothing else. This is just between me and Aiden, exactly how I want it.

“Come for me,” he orders before placing his lips back onto my nub. His words make me tremble. They’re so powerful and commanding and sexy, I can’t hold back any longer.

I let myself moan as my orgasm washes over me. It’s a lot more intense than when he touched me in the car. I feel alive and awake and tired and spent all at the same time.

And then it’s over.

Aiden kisses along my inner thigh, sending more goosebumps over me, before he brings his lips over my stomach, then travels them upwards. He lingers over my breasts. I’m too spent to even move.

His lips finally find my own. I get a taste of myself and it’s a little musky and sweet at the same time.

“You taste so fucking good,” he says against my lips, before kissing me with so much passion, I can barely breathe.

When we finally break apart for air, I feel the sudden urge to cry because it’s all over now. I’m falling in love with Aiden and we can’t actually be together. I’m still a virgin technically speaking and it needs to stay that way or I’ll be ruined forever.

I slide out from under him. “Maybe we should stop for now.”

“You’re probably right.” He sits up, running his hand down his face. “I think I need to go take a shower of my own.” He leaves before I can say anything else.

After getting dressed, I move around the apartment with nothing else to do. It makes me wish I had a canvas and paint set with me. It would help pass the time.

Aiden finishes his shower and comes out of the bathroom fully dressed. I could have sneaked a peek at him but it’s for the best that I didn’t. I think seeing Aiden’s naked body might be something I can never come back from.

“Can we go shopping?” I ask. “We need food. And I wouldn’t mind getting a canvas and some paints.”

“Bored already?”

I avert my gaze as he gives me a wicked grin, making me blush. I can’t let this man distract me.

“We do need food,” I say.

“You’re right. We do. I think it’s best you stay here though. For your own safety.”

“Aiden, you’ve tried leaving me alone before and someone always finds me. It’s better I stay with you.”

He hesitates.

“Unless… you don’t want me to go with you?” I ask.

“It’s not that I don’t want you with me. But Elena, fuck. I want you so bad and I know I can’t have you. I just need some space to myself for the moment. If that’s all right.”

I try not to be hurt by his words but they still sting. “Ok,” I whisper.

“Ok. I’ll be back soon.” He leaves without saying goodbye.

Aiden

Fuck. What is Elena doing to me? I finally had a taste of her and it was the best thing I have ever experienced and I want more but I can’t want more and fuck, my mind is a mess. I can’t let myself get distracted by her. My entire focus needs to be on Finn. He’s still out there, searching for me and Elena. Dante would have gotten into contact with me if Finn was dead. I know it.

Which means Finn is still alive. I’m hopeful of seeing my brother again someday but only when I know he won’t try to kill Elena. I care for her now. It might be more than caring. It might be love, which is fucking crazy for how little I’ve known her and yet during this past week, we’ve been through more together than a lot of couples have in a lifetime.

I run to the nearest grocery store and grab simple food items to make easy meals. Bread and meat and cheese and eggs and some vegetables since Elena seems like she eats healthy and I want her to be happy with me.

Fuck. I really am whipped.

Elena is napping when I get back to the apartment. She’s so beautiful when she sleeps – so at peace. I know I can’t give her the life she deserves. My life is one of constant chaos and stress and I’m not sure if that will ever end. Finn will find me or Dante and Erik will. Either way, I’m probably not making it out of this alive.

But if there’s a chance for Elena, then I’m going to take it.

She wakes up when I’m assembling some sandwiches.

“Looks good,” she says. “Where did you learn how to cook?”

I chuckle. “Putting a sandwich together is not cooking.”

“My mother wouldn’t let me near the kitchen. She said it was a place for the help, not a place for her daughter to be. I don’t even know how to put together a sandwich.”

“I can show you. Here.” I have her stand in front of me and I use that as an excuse to wrap my arms around her. She feels so right in this position.

I show her how to put the sandwich together and Elena looks so happy, it makes me smile. Such a simple thing can bring her joy. That’s not the life I’m used to. In my life, the only way to find joy is through killing people to get to the top.

It’s why I became so numb.

I get started on a salad, since I figure we need all the healthy food we can get being on the run. As I cut up some veggies, Elena gasps, making me look at her.

She accidently dropped a piece of bread on the ground. I can’t take my eyes off her as she bends over to retrieve it.

And that’s a mistake.

Because my knife slices through my thumb, leaving behind a large gash. “Damn it,” I growl, quickly grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my thumb. It’s bleeding pretty bad.

“Aiden?”

I look at the wound. The knife didn’t go all the way through but it did leave a nasty open gash behind. It’s going to need stitches. The problem with finger wounds is that they need a doctor to fix it up with all of the intricate muscles and nerves in the hand compared to a wound somewhere else.

“Are you ok?” she gasps, grabbing my hand.

“Be careful.”

“Aiden. This is bad. How do we stop the bleeding?”

“By stitching it up. But I’m going to need the help of a doctor. I can’t do it and neither can you.”

“Ok.” She squares her shoulders. “So we go to a hospital.”

“No. No hospitals. That will leave a record of where we’ve been and anyone can use that against us. We might have killed Connor but that doesn’t mean more of Patrick’s men won’t be looking for us.”

“Then what do we do? It looks bad. You need help.”

I grit my teeth. This is the last thing I want to do but I have no choice. “There is a private doctor Finn and I would go to.”

“Great. So we go there.”

“But it’s back in New York. From where we are, that’s a five hour drive. And it would mean going back to New York where Erik is looking for me. If he finds me, he’ll kill me.”

A determination flashes in her eyes. “Not if I have anything to say about it. I’ll tell Erik how I feel about you.”

“I’m not sure that would go over well.”

“It worked for Dante and Nadia. She saved Dante’s life by telling Erik that she loved him. Why wouldn’t it work again?”

“Because I’m not sure Viktor would appreciate losing another fiancée.”

She goes quiet for a moment. “Well, I never said I wanted to marry Viktor.”

“You don’t really have a choice, Elena, and we both know it. We’re just playing at house right now but it’s not real. What we have can never be real.”

Tears well in her eyes as she turns away from me. “Don’t talk like that. It’s not fair. You’ve touched me, Aiden. You’ve touched me in a way no one ever has before. So you don’t get to say that we’re just playing pretend. If you really believe that, then don’t touch me again.”

She’s not wrong. It wasn’t right of me to go down on her. I just can’t help myself when it comes to Elena.

“We need to stop the bleeding for now,” I say. “I grabbed some bandages from the store in case I needed them. I’ll need you to help me put it on.” Already, my thumb feels weird. I hope I didn’t ruin it forever.

Elena nods and composes herself, and grabs a large white gauze to wrap my finger with. Neither of us says a word as she helps me. Once she’s done, she steps away and that little bit of distance fucking kills me.

“Let’s get back to New York,” she says. “I don’t want you to lose your finger.”

There’s so much I want to say to her but I guess we have a long five hour drive to talk – if we even talk. We have too much to say and not enough time.

Elena

I’m desperate to talk to Aiden on the drive but I stay silent. I don’t think I could take any more heartbreaking words from him right now. The focus is on fixing his finger and not getting killed.

Aiden drives, despite his injury, because I never learned. I’m a New Yorker at heart. If it wasn’t public transportation I took, then it was the private drivers my family employed who would drive me around the city.

The drive somehow goes by way too fast and yet takes achingly slow at the same time.

Once we reach New York, I’m mesmerized by it. This is the place I grew up; the place I called home. Now it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Home feels like wherever Aiden is and yet, that can’t be right since we don’t have any future together.

We don’t drive through the neighborhood I grew up in, for which I’m grateful. I’m not sure what I would do if I saw my house. Too many memories are attached to it – a lot of them good and many bad. The sudden urge to cry hits me. My father’s face invades my mind and with it, all the love we shared. All the happy memories of when we would share a secretive smile behind my mom’s back or when he’d take me out for ice cream after my mother was particularly mean that day.

“Elena?” Aiden asks in his warm voice.

“I’m fine.” I wipe at my tears. “Just thinking of my dad.”

The air in the car becomes awkward as Aiden shifts in his seat. “Your dad?”

“Just how much I miss him. That’s all.”

“I can’t apologize enough for what Finn did.”

“Finn did it. Not you.”

“But I helped,” he says. That will always be something between us.

“You’re a changed man, Aiden.”

“I’m not sure I really am,” he murmurs.

We finally arrive at a private brownstone in a fairly nice neighborhood.

“Surprised?” Aiden says, looking at me. He must see the expression on my face.

“I was expecting a… not so nice area.”

“Well, this doctor is pretty corrupt. He’s accidently killed a few too many patients and Finn and I have blackmailed him into working with us. Not the nicest thing in life but it’s our life.”

“Finn goes to him too?”

“He does. So, let’s hope he isn’t here. I’ll go in first and -,”

“Aiden, no. We’re in this together. We’ve established that I’m better off with you and you know it.”

His eyes soften. “I just want to keep you safe.”

“And you will. You already have.”

“Well, you saved me the one time.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

He shakes his head but the smile on his face shows that he’s not upset with me for putting my life in danger to save him.

We go up to the brownstone and knock. After what feels like an incredibly long moment, the door opens and a man in a sweater vest stands before us. He’s middle aged with glasses. The most stark part of him is that he looks so similar to my dad, it almost makes me break down into tears again.

“Aiden? What are you doing here?”

“Hey, doc.” Aiden holds up his bloody hand. The gauze is covered in red. “I need you to stitch me up.”

“Who is this?”

“This is Elena. Now, let us in.”

“Quickly.” He motions us inside to a luxurious foyer with a glass chandelier overhead. “Do you know how many people are out looking for you? I’ve heard it through the private channels.”

“That doesn’t matter right now. Right now, just fix my fucking finger.”

The doc frowns. “I remember when you used to be the nice one.”

“I’m still nicer than my brother. Now fix me up.”

“It’ll cost you, Aiden.”

He sighs. “It always does. How much?”

“Five grand.”

I keep my face neutral. I know Aiden doesn’t have that kind of money after Finn stole it all.

“Ok,” Aiden says, not hesitating. “I’ll pay it. But not until you fix my finger.”

“What prevents you from leaving the second I’m done?”

Aiden steps right up to the doctor. “Because I’ve always been a loyal customer. And you’re facing a worse future if I tell anyone about the deaths you’ve caused. So get to work.”

He scowls. “Fine. Let’s go to the medical room.”

A few minutes later, we’re standing in a large room with an exam table in the middle and medical supplies on a tray.

“What’s your name?” I ask the doctor as he peels off the gauze from Aiden’s thumb.

“That’s private,” he mutters.

“I’m already in your home. You can tell me your name.”

“Billy,” Aiden says. “Billy Jameson. Dr. Jameson his patients call him. If it weren’t for me and Finn, you’d be out of a job.”

Jameson scowls even harder. “If it weren’t for you and your brother, I wouldn’t be getting blackmailed right now.”

“Potato, pa-tah-toe.”

It only takes the doctor a few minutes to look over the wound before injecting it with a numbing agent. Aiden winces. It takes everything in me to keep a cool face. Aiden doesn’t need to worry about me right now.

Jameson stitches up the wound within a half hour. “There. That will work. And here.” He hands Aiden a bottle of antibiotics. “To prevent any infection from forming. Hands get messy so make sure you keep it clean.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Now, the money.”

Aiden sighs. “Listen, I don’t have the money right now. My brother stole it all.”

“Then how are you going to pay me?”

“I’ll owe you one.” Aiden hops down from the exam table. “Now, me and my girl will be off.”

My girl . I know I’m not Aiden’s so I wish he wouldn’t call me that.

“Hold on. You can’t just leave. You owe me money. Maybe we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

“It’s only fair we pay him,” I say.

Jameson nods at me. “Listen to your girlfriend. You know what, I have an idea. I’ll be right back.” He rushes out of the room.

“He’s probably running for his life,” Aiden mutters, leaning back against the table.

“Then why don’t you go after him?”

“Because Jameson is no threat to us. He cares too much about his life to backstab me. Come on. Let’s go.”

We head downstairs and Jameson runs after us. “Wait. Just wait. I had an idea of how you can pay me. Just sit down and wait.”

Aiden narrows his eyes. “I don’t want to wait. We’re out of here.” He opens the front door and stops. I look to see what happened.

And what I see makes my blood run cold.

Finn, standing on the front steps, smiling back at us.